84. Death Dies: The Underground History of American Education by John
Taylor Gatto from archive.org
Death
Dies
In 1932, John Dewey, now elevated to a
position as America's most prominent
educational voice, heralded the end of what he called "the old
individualism." Time had come, he
said, for a new individualism that recognized the radical transformation that
had come in American society:
Associations, tightly or loosely organized,
more and more define opportunities, choices,
and actions of individuals.
Death, a staple topic of children's books
for hundreds of years because it poses a central puzzle for all children, nearly vanished as
theme or event after 1916. Children were
instructed indirectly that there was no grief; indeed, an examination of
hundreds of those books from the
transitional period between 1900 and 1916 reveals that Evil no longer had any reality either. There was no Evil, only
bad attitudes, and those were correctable by
training and adjustment therapies.
To
see how goals of Utopian procedure are realized, consider further the sudden
change that fell upon the children's
book industry between 1890 and 1920. Without explanations or warning, timeless subjects disappeared
from the texts, to be replaced by what is best
regarded as a political agenda. The suddenness of this change was
signaled by many other indications of
powerful social forces at work: the phenomenal overnight growth of "research" hospitals where
professional hospital-ity replaced home-style sick care, was one of these, the equally phenomenal sudden
enforcement of compulsory schooling
another.
Through children's books, older generations
announce their values, declare their
aspirations, and make bids to socialize the young. Any sudden change in
the content of such books must
necessarily reflect changes in publisher consciousness, not in the general class of book-buyer whose market
preferences evolve slowly. What is prized as
human achievement can usually be measured by examining children's texts;
what is valued in human relationships
can be, too.
In the thirty- year period from 1890 to
1920, the children's book industry became a
creator, not a reflector, of values. In any freely competitive situation
this could hardly have happened because
the newly aggressive texts would have risked missing the market. The only way such a gamble could be safe was
for total change to occur simultaneously
among publishers. The insularity and collegiality of children's book publishing
allowed it this luxury.
One
aspect of children's publishing that has remained consistent all the way back
to 1721 is the zone where it is
produced; today, as nearly three hundred years ago, the Northeast is where children's literature happens —
inside the cities of Boston, New York, and
Philadelphia. No industry shift has ever disturbed this cozy
arrangement: over time, concentration
became even more intense. Philadelphia's role diminished in the twentieth century, leaving Boston and New York
co-regents at its end. In 1975, 87 percent of all titles available came from those two former
colonial capitals, while in 1 876 it had been
"only" 84 percent, a marvelous durability. For the past one
hundred years these two cities have
decided what books American children will read.
Until 1875, about 75 percent of all
children's titles dealt with some aspect of the future — usually salvation. Over the next forty years
this idea vanished completely. As Comte and
Saint-Simon had strongly advised, the child was to be relieved of
concerning itself with the future. The
future would be arranged /or children and for householders by a new expert class, and the need to do God's will
was now considered dangerous superstition by
men in charge.
Another dramatic switch in children's books
had to do with a character's dependence on
community to solve problems and to give life meaning. Across the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
strength, afforded by stable community life, was an important part of narrative action, but toward the end of
the nineteenth century a totally new note of
"self was sounded. Now protagonists became more competent, more in
control; their need for family and
communal affirmation disappeared, to be replaced by a new imperative — the quest for certification by
legitimate authority. Needs now suddenly
dominant among literary characters were so-called "expressive
needs": exploring, playing, joy,
loving, self-actualizing, intriguing against one's own parents. By the
early twentieth century, a solid
majority of all children's books focus on the individual child free from the web of family and
community.
This model had been established by the Horatio
Alger books in the second half of the
nineteenth century; now with some savage modern flourishes (like
encouraging active indifference to
family) it came to totally dominate the children's book business. Children were invited to divide their interests from
those of their families and to concentrate on
private concerns. A few alarmed critical voices saw this as a strategy
of "divide and conquer," a
means to separate children from family so they could be more easily molded into new social designs. In the words of Mary
Lystad, the biographer of children's literary
history from whom I have drawn heavily in this analysis:
As the twentieth century continued, book
characters were provided more and more
opportunities to pay attention to themselves. More and more characters
were allowed to look inward to their own
needs and desires.
This change of emphasis "was managed
at the expense of others in the family group," she adds.
From 1796 to 1855, 18 percent of all
children's books were constructed around the idea of conformity to some adult norm; but by 1
896 emphasis on conformity had tripled. This
took place in the thirty years following the Civil War. Did the
elimination of the Southern pole of our
national dialectic have anything to do with that? Yes, everything, I
think. With tension between Northern and
Southern ways of life and politics resolved
permanently in favor of the North, the way was clear for triumphant
American orthodoxy to seize the entire field.
The huge increase in conformist themes rose even more as we entered the twentieth century and has
remained at an elevated level through the decades since.
What is most deceptive in trying to fix this
characteristic conformity is the introduction of an apparently libertarian note of free choice
into the narrative equation. Modern
characters are encouraged to self-start and to proceed on what appears
to be an independent course. But upon
closer inspection, that course is always toward a centrally prescribed social goal, never toward personal
solutions to life's dilemmas. Freedom of
choice in this formulation arises from the feeling that you have
freedom, not from its actual possession.
Thus social planners get the best of both worlds: a large measure of control without any kicking at the traces. In
modern business circles, such a style of
oversight is known as management by objectives.
Another aspect of this particular brand of
regulation is that book characters are shown
being innovative, but innovative only in the way they arrive at the same
destination; their emotional needs for
self-expression are met harmlessly in this way without any risk to social machinery. Much evidence of
centralized tinkering within the factory of children's literature exists, pointing in the direction
of what might be called Unit-Man — people as
work units partially broken free of human community who can be moved
about efficiently in various social
experiments. William Rainey Harper, president of the University of Chicago, thought of such an end as
"laboratory research aimed at designing a rational Utopia."
To
mention just a few other radical changes in children's book content between
1890 and 1920: school credentials
replace experience as the goal book characters work toward, and child labor becomes a label of condemnation
in spite of its ancient function as the
quickest, most reliable way to human independence — the way taken in
fact by Carnegie, Rockefeller, and many
others who were now apparently quite anxious to put a stop to it.
Children are encouraged not to work at all
until their late teen years, sometimes not until their thirties. A case for the general
superiority of youth working instead of idly sitting around in school confinement is often made
prior to 1900, but never heard again in
children's books after 1916. The universality of this silence is the
notable thing, deafening in fact.
Protagonists' goals in the new literature,
while apparently individualistic, are almost
always found being pursued through social institutions — those
ubiquitous "associations" of
John Dewey — never through family efforts. Families are portrayed as
good-natured dormitory arrangements or
affectionate manager-employee relationships, but emotional commitment to family life is noticeably
ignored. Significant family undertakings like
starting a farm or teaching each other how to view life from a multi-age
perspective are so rare that the few
exceptions stand out like monadnocks above a broad, flat plain.
Three
Most Significant Books
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