“The Story of Schools” 1900-1950

In the early 1900s, American public schools were considered by some to be inhospitable to students. This was most likely due to their being dark and cold, but also kids seemed to stand more of a chance of getting ill, as illness was quite prevalent and contagious at this time in schools.

While on the topic of lack of hospitality in schools, immigrants at this time were treated okay as long as they accepted the idea of being Americanized. There was at least one instance of students being spanked and slapped for using their first language, like Spanish, and teachers telling them they must only speak English in school. Schools were started in part to help out in places where a lot of immigrants had come in. The Gary Schools, which sprang up in cities everywhere in 1906, stayed open weekends and nights, so it would be more convenient for those that needed to work. This seemed to be a good idea, especially for the incoming immigrants, except they had to accept that it would be an English-only curriculum, which was really pushed in 1917. German textbooks were thrown out and children were forced to read the Bible and acknowledge holidays like Thanksgiving. They had to study and practice patriotism. The schools seemed quite centered on making every student be American first and foremost.

During this time I.Q. tests were developed to assess ability and capacity school efficiency in the country. These tests were to determine the quality of people by race and class, and unfortunately this made non-White people do especially poorly. For instance, two-thirds of Mexican students were labeled as mentally retarded and/or were held back a grade, and in high school they were shunted, like other immigrants, toward vocational programs. There was a lot of race prejudice, sadly.

Overall, schools did progress during this time, with progressive schools changing from those having classes like animal husbandry, swimming, nature, and art, to just having the standard subjects. Many people supported one type of school system over another, and a lot of progress still needed to occur for children to be treated fairly, despite their social class, race and ethnicity.