Since the mid-nineteenth century, education has served the many household gods of American society - citizenship, morality, mobility, assimilation. In the 20th century, those gods have sometimes changed their form and for many have become justice and equality, but the secular religion of education has remained both an arm of the state and a meaningful part of general culture. The demands that Americans have made of education and their faith in its efficacy render the religious analogy not at all farfetched or trivial. In the absence of a common or state-supported religion, the schools have taken the place of the church as a means of control and as institutions through which the population has sought its variously defined roads to salvation. Indeed, the emotional and even evangelical tone adopted by critics of school developments often makes the language of school reform far more volatile than that attached to other institutions and this lends credence to the analogy. As institutions with ecclesiastical roles in the society the schools have aimed to unify and integrate the nation and to direct the behavior and beliefs of its complex population in regular and socially acceptable ways. Since the late 19th century, few have questioned the logical consequence of the schools’ ecclesiastical functions - that all should be exposed to its teaching; and by the early 20th century, this view was enforced through laws requiring and enforcing attendance.
At
the same time, however, the American school has become a quintessentially
liberal institution, embodying the traditional belief in freely available
opportunity and the potential for individual self-realization within broad
social bounds. [265 words]
[And
the school represents the liberal confidence in the possibility of individual
improvement and social progress. Liberalism has always assumed as well that
individuals and the groups to which they belong would have differing interests
and needs that could-be accommodated, or at least negotiated, through
effectively operating institutions. The liberal tradition of American schooling
has organized its religious functions in very specific ways. For, if the church
attempts to prepare its worshippers for the glories of the next world an to
contemplate something larger than themselves, the liberal tradition of American
schooling has always maintained a steady gaze
on this world and on its human rewards. As a result, American schooling has
always been at the crossroads of potential conflict – conflict among groups,
conflict in aims, and the conflict between social reality and social ideals.]
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