nations adopted subsequent to the war, and the westward movement tended to rapidly shift capital and enterprise, particularly in New England, from commerce to manufacture. Canal and railroad building followed, immigration multiplied rapidly, the towns increased in size and importance, manufacture became an important economic interest. In 1790 Massachusetts had a population of 378,787 souls; fifty years later, in 1840, the number was 737,700, an increase of 94.75 per cent. During the same period the city of Boston increased in population 409.73 per cent. The number of people engaged in manufacture in Massachusetts increased from 33,464 in 1820, to 85,176 in 1840; in Rhode Island, from 6,091 to 21,271; in New York, from 60,038 to 173,193; or the numbers engaged in manufacture in the three states were approximately trebled in a score of years. In Massachusetts during the same period the number of persons engaged in commerce decreased from 13,301 to 8,063; and the number engaged in agriculture increased from 63,460 to 87,837. In New York, in 1840, only 28,468 persons were engaged in commercial pursuits. Such sweeping changes in social and industrial conditions is indicative of unrest and agitation. This was an intensely dynamic period; social ideals, home life, customs, are all subjected to new influences.

By 1830 imprisonment for debt was practically abolished, manhood suffrage was attained in nearly

1 See Tucker, Progress of the United States; and Chickering, On Population and Immigration.

all states, and the Congressional Caucus had disappeared. Following the hard times of 1819-1821, arose the great humanitarian movements of the epoch, including, among others, the development of labor organizations, the communistic settlement movement, and the demand for public tax-supported schools. Many of the humanitarian movements led directly to, or were finally overshadowed by, the anti-slavery agitation of the period immediately preceding the Civil War. At this time in the face of the westward migration and under normal conditions, the labor movement could not attain great strength. The demand for tax-supported schools, however, succeeded in the northern and western states. This period of educational awakening and social agitation established this principle in these sections of the United States so firmly that it has never been dislodged, and it is not now questioned. Education was transferred from a charity or rate basis to a free public system supported by taxation, and it was completely severed from religious control.

The arguments which were presented during this period of agitation in favor of free tax-supported schools may be summarized as follows: (1) Education increases production. (2) It diminishes crime. (3) It prevents poverty. (4) Education is a natural right of all men. (5) Universal education is necessary to preserve free republican institutions. (6) Free schools prevent class differentiation. The first three arguments are economic and appealed to practically all reputable

citizens; the fourth put the matter on an ethical basis and invoked the authority of the Declaration of Independence and of other Revolutionary literature. It received the support of the laboring classes and of the humanitarians of the period. The last two arguments were urged from a civic standpoint. The last three arguments, particularly the fourth and the sixth, did not receive the hearty support of the wealthy, large tax-paying class. In general, remembering that there are exceptions, we may characterize the opposing forces as follows: In favor of tax-supported public education for all children, the workingmen and non-taxpayers, the cities, and the Calvinists; opposed to this system of schools, the upper classes and the taxpayers, the rural districts, and the Lutherans, Quakers and similar sects. Such a statement, so contrary to many preconceived notions, is supported by a mass. of details. Only a portion of the evidence can be here presented.

The attention should first be called to the evident fact that the progress of the world for centuries has been toward the betterment of the working classes; therefore it seems reasonable to argue a priori that, if progress continues, the program of the working people and non-property owners of one generation will be partially, at least, adopted by all classes of society in the next. As long as progress is synonymous with the uplift of the workers and the downtrodden, so long will their program, rather than that of the business or professional men, represent progress. The latter classes.

in the community act as a flywheel which steadies progress and prevents disaster; but they always stand for controlling or modifying, not impelling, forces. This view is particularly illuminating when we take up the consideration of the present period of educational development.

During the 20's and 30's, labor union after labor union formally declared in favor of free universal education. Many periodicals sprang into existence to press these demands. In November, 1829, at a meeting of organized workers in New York, resolutions were adopted demanding for every child “a complete and systematic course of instruction,— at public expense." They urged "that the public funds should be appropriated (to a reasonable extent) to the progress of education upon a regular system that shall insure to every individual the opportunity of obtaining a competent education before he shall have arrived at maturity." As early as 1799 the Mechanic's Association of Providence demanded free public schools. The Equal Rights Party of New York City, among other things, pledged (1837) themselves "to procure a more extended, equal and convenient system of common school instruction." Stephen Simpson in his book entitled, A Manual for Workingmen, presents the following view of the situation in 1831: "The text of the friends of liberty was-to enlighten the people is to promote and cement the public virtue. The soundness of this text was never questioned anterior to the organization of a party [the Workingmen's Party], whose object it was to obtain it

from the legislature, as a right unjustly withheld. When public instruction was bestowed as a boon of charity, it found numerous advocates and met with no opponents; but now, when we justly demand it as a right and not as a charity—it is not only refused by some, but to our utter amazement, its consequences painted as baleful to the people and deprecated as having a fatal tendency upon the good order of government." It is needless further to enumerate the resolutions passed by workingmen and their representatives, but it seems appropriate to introduce the testimony of T. H. Green as to the forces which promoted public education in England. "If factory regulation had been attempted, though only in piece-meal way, some time before we had a democratic house of commons, the same can not be said of the educational law. It was the parliament elected by the more popular suffrage in 1868 that passed, as we know, the first great educational act. That act introduced compulsory schooling."

In the cities a large percentage of the people were workingmen and small taxpayers, and in the cities the need of educational facilities was clearly urgent. There were also better opportunities in the cities for carrying on an agitation on this, or any other subject. If we omit for the present Pennsylvania, where religious and national differences complicated the question, the antagonism is quite clearly marked between the cities and rural districts. In 1799, in Rhode Island, a local option school law was passed. Providence alone took advantage of this law. Four years later it was repealed by the