128 CHAPTER 5: Historical Development of American Education
5-2b Franklin: The Academy academy A type of private or semipublic
secondary school in the United States from 1830 to 1870 that was the high school’s institutional predecessor. Today, some secondary schools, often private institutions, are called academies.
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), a leading statesman, scientist, and publicist, founded an academy, that is, a private secondary school, and described its curriculum in his “Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania.”7 Franklin’s emphasis on useful knowledge and science differed notably from the traditional Latin grammar school. English grammar, composition, rhetoric, and public speaking replaced Latin and Greek as the principal language studies. Students could also elect a second language related to their future careers. For example, prospective clergy could choose Latin and Greek, and those planning on commercial careers could elect French, Spanish, or German. Mathematics was taught for its practical application to bookkeeping, surveying, and engineering rather than as an abstract subject. History and biography provided moral models for students to learn how famous people made their political and ethical decisions. Prophetically, Franklin recognized how important science, invention, and technology would be in America’s future. His curriculum featured the useful skills that schools had traditionally ignored, such as carpentry, shipbuilding, engraving, printing, and farming. By the mid-nineteenth century, the United States had many academies that resembled Franklin’s plan.
7 Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), pp. 146–147. Other biographies of Franklin are: James Srodes, Franklin: The Essential Founding Father (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2002); Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003); and Edmund S. Morgan, Benjamin Franklin (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002). For Franklin on education and his idea of an English school, see Gerald L. Gutek, An Historical Introduction to American Education (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2013), pp. 42–46 and 65–70.
TIMELINE
Benjamin Franklin 1728 Opens Printing Office in Philadelphia
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1729 Begins publishing Pennsylvania Gazette
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1731 Founds Philadelphia Circulating Library
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1732 Begins publishing Poor Richard: An Almanack
1700 1710 1720 1730 1740 1706 Birth
1718 Printer’s apprentice in brother’s press in Boston
1737 Appointed Postmaster of Philadelphia 1742 Proposes plan to establish University of Pennsylvania 1747 Conducts electrical experiments
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