Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860 (American Century Series)

by Carl Kaestle

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Pillars of the Republic is a pioneering study of common-school development in the years before the Civil War. Public acceptance of state school systems, Kaestle argues, was encouraged by the people's commitment to republican government, by their trust in Protestant values, and by the development of capitalism. The author also examines the opposition to the Founding Fathers' educational ideas and shows what effects these had on our school system.

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Average Customer Review: 4 out of 5 stars

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4 out of 5 stars

"Common Schools" Designed to Create American Identity, 2003-10-29
Kaestle's book is an excellent review of the first hundred years of public education in America. After an introduction that covers Colonial America's mostly private or charity school systems, he outlines the forces that created the move toward public education paid for with tax money. It was a long, slow process, that in some ways was still not complete well into the 20th century, and has not been endorsed universally even now.
I would classify Kaestle's writing style as "easily readable academic" - meaning that you would have to have a more than "magazine article" amount of interest in the subject, but wouldn't be buried in mounds of jargon or statistics. I found it very interesting for someone who wants to know why American public schools are so different from the public schools of England or other developed nations.

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