The Crucible of Consent: American Child Rearing and the Forging of Liberal Society 9780674062610

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The Crucible of Consent

The Crucible of Consent American Child Rearing and the Forging of Liberal Society

James E. Block

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England 2012

Copyright © 2012 by James E. Block All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Block, James E. The crucible of consent : American child rearing and the forging of liberal society / James E. Block. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978- 0- 674- 05194-2 1. Children and politics— United States— History. 2. Child rearing— Political aspects— United States— History. 3. Liberalism— United States. 4. Citizenship— United States. 5. Consensus (Social sciences) 6. Agent (Philosophy) I. Title. HQ784.P5B56 2011 649'.10973—dc23

2011022862

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Contents

Preface

1 I

3 4

1

The Hidden Dynamic of Childhood Consent

9

The Revolution against Patriarchy and the Crisis of Founding

41

Unencumbered Youth and the Postrevolutionary Vacuum of Authority

66

Divergent Childhoods, Different Republics: The Initial Turn to Socialization

91

Framing Liberal Child Rearing in the Early Republic 5

The Emerging Consensus on Agency Socialization

119

6

Toward a Child-Centered Family

153

7

Winning the Child’s Will

174

8

Socializing Society: Popular Education and the Diffusion of Agency

194

Educating the Agent as Liberal Citizen

216

9 III

Introduction: Is Consent Credible?

The Dream of Revolutionary Erasure 2

II

ix

Consolidating the Postwar Agency Republic 10 11

The “Self-Made” Citizen and the Erasure of Socialization

241

A Superfluous Socialization? Shaping the Self-Realizing Child

272

viii

Contents

12

Educating the Voluntary Citizen in an Organi zational Age

289

Coda: From Deweyan Consensus to the Crisis of Consent

323

Notes

355

Acknowledgments

421

Index

423

Preface

This is a story about how America came to be the first liberal nation. How did this political experiment, beginning with an unprecedented revolution whose implications Americans have always struggled to understand, come to produce a cohesive and coherent society? As every young adult eventually discovers, declaring independence is the easy part. Early Americans had themselves learned through a history of revolt and migration how to flee what was seemingly fi xed, forming a fatal attraction to the ritual of release. In the process, they had come to believe that by slamming the door as they left, both on presumptive authorities and on their own past, they could be liberated from the grasp of history. Once heeding the siren song of the new land to remake themselves, they were not inclined to plow forgotten fields or revisit abandoned ghost towns of the mind. The price for this release was steep. No aspect of the nation’s selfunderstanding suffered more acutely than the institutions associated with child rearing. The inescapable dependence of childhood represented the very type of disability that free and modern subjects wished to leave behind. In America, whether youth became free individuals in a free society as celebrated in the national narrative, and if so, how, was an inquiry better left alone. As a result, the ways Americans became specifically liberal subjects— hardly a matter of inadvertence— have remained inaccessible ever since. Instead Americans have looked to the idyll of an earlier Eden, a land where children form themselves out of their own ribs, becoming individuals self-conceived in the primordial land of the self-made. ix

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Over the past two generations, critical attention to the dynamics of child rearing—from concerns with the pressures on youth to meet the rigorous demands of organi zational society to the effects of domestic abuse and parental overreaching on the well-being of the young—have spelled an end to this childhood romance. The fierce debate over family values and parental roles, learning regimens and curriculum in education, and the right of youth to a culture and lifestyle of their own has further dispelled all doubt that nature’s infants must be turned, often at great cost, into Americans. But has this belated recognition taught us anything? Has not the extent to which our lives are socially constructed led many to replace naïve faith in a nation of self- creators with the darker certainty that this conditioning is all-powerful and inescapable? The antidote to liberal mythology and its Edenic forgetfulness is not further mythmaking. What is needed is to recover the process by which we came to embrace a common identity. To this end, the project of American child rearing must be retrieved. It is not merely the backstory, as celebrants of the American experience would have it, not the tail wagging the dog, but the dog itself. In the early American Republic, children had to be formed to the demands of a liberal, individualistic society. Neither Eden nor purgatory, childhood was for American liberalism the setting in which consent within and for society had to be formed. Socialization and education established the propensity in the young for voluntary engagement that was to be employed throughout liberal society: not only in representative politics, market economics, local religious institutions, and village norms, but at a later point in climbing the organi zational ladder, embracing the exercise of consumer choice, and affi rming the national mission to Americanize the world— all the forms that the ritualized behaviors and attitudes we believe we have created are in fact constituted in large and small ways. Given the nation’s ideals, the project of child rearing involved a paradox, for it required shaping the young to believe they were free. They were never to doubt that their personal autonomy could issue from anything but themselves, nor wonder how their free society had in fact been established. Validation through popular consent was the means by which institutions in the New World achieved legitimacy. If citizens were inadequately prepared to lend their consent, the national project would founder.

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Given the contradictions underlying the generation of consent in liberal society, the stakes involved in reassessing American child rearing are high. If embedded in this process are the secrets of liberal social(ized) individualism, what happens when we uncover them? When the voluntary acts of the “free individual” are found to be neither free nor submissive, but a more complicated combination of the two? How will we respond? Will we respond? These were the questions that first drew me to the Winslow Homer painting The Country School (1871) during a visit to the St. Louis Museum of Art. I was well into my present research on the constructions of childhood in American history, and I was struck by how these playful spirits of tender years were deeply engaged in their lessons on a warm and inviting day outdoors. It is impressive how each participates in his or her own way, alone or with others, face forward or back, apparently wholly absorbed and self-motivated, within or outside the gaze of an imposing but strangely unnoticed teacher. Wasn’t this an enactment of the very paradox shadowing my inquiry? Surely this scene represented the democratic spirit at its sharpest: young natures, including barefoot boys, in (mostly) rapt and unforced concentration, ordered liberty somehow welling up naturally from these nascent citizens in this first great popular experiment. Is there any wonder that a new and voluntarist citizenship became the admirable foundation of the American project? And yet it was too perfect. Thinking of Huckleberry Finn, Little Women, and Tom Aldrich, and recalling the recurring surprise of foreign visitors at the wildness of American children, I wondered what part of the story Homer had kept back. Something had occurred or was still operating to bring those young natures into not only civility but serious and sustained activity. What that activity is remains curiously and expertly veiled: no instructions on the blackboard or lists of do’s and don’ts in the room; a teacher apparently content that the schoolchildren carry on without her intervention. How is it that these youngsters are already so far on their way to a life of ordered liberty? Where are the controls, and how are they operating? Only during a much later viewing did a friend call my attention to the young boy at the far right, quietly but overtly distressed, seemingly sent to sit with the girls in this highly gendered classroom. The little girl next to him has gotten the message, as most likely has he, but how accessible does Homer render this disciplinary process to us?

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What has the young boy done to deserve this banishment? Whatever it was, it has certainly not disturbed the magical equilibrium of the classroom. That Homer understands the iconic role of his painting is evident from his contra-idyllic depiction of the same classroom in utter disarray in The Noon Recess (1873). If, when we look back on such primordial childhood scenes we recall not the imposition of controls but the presence of natural self-mastery and group harmony, what would lead Homer’s children to remember them? Will they not grow up to believe they were directing their own activity all along, and be offended by any inference that they were being prepared for how to act? These are the questions that resonated in the hidden magic of The Country School. The primal scene for the veiled construction of liberal order has in this work been relocated from popular culture, as I proposed in my previous book, A Nation of Agents, to the private world of child rearing. After years of work on American socialization, I have come to believe that such schoolrooms, together with the family, were—however unlikely— the sites of societal formation, the places where disparate peoples became in their morning years, bathed in Homer’s intense sunlight, participants in a collective project that they believed to be their own. In this room, the contradictory secrets of American voluntarism and social harmony abide, which it is the intention of this work to newly give voice.

To answer Crevecoeur’s haunting question—What then is the American, this new [individual]—we must know how Americans have set about making themselves into the kinds of persons that they have wanted to be. . . . One of the grand themes of American history is the formation of American character as a conscious work of art. —Richard J. Storr Philosophers . . . have not taken education with sufficient seriousness [to imagine] . . . education as the supreme human interest in which, moreover, other problems, cosmological, moral, logical, come to a head. At all events, this handle is offered to any subsequent critic who may wish to lay hold of it. —John Dewey

Introduction

Is Consent Credible? [Consent is] perhaps the most fundamental of all political questions. —Isaiah Berlin

Americans have always proclaimed consent to be the first principle of their political theology: free governments derive their just powers from, and individuals preserve their liberty through, the will of the governed. As the first to apply this modern ideal, Americans have needed little convincing that theirs was the first consensual nation. American citizens cherish the story of their country’s birth, a stirring account of a land settled by opponents of tyranny who incurred great risks in pursuit of liberty. They have found confirmation of this story in the rise of commoners to make their popular revolution. Hadn’t the Declaration of Independence proclaimed the nation’s founding as a social contract executed by popular consent? Wasn’t the Constitution yet another bold step in this account, setting the new society on its course with its annunciation “We, the People”? The daring proposition upon which the nation rose was that individual citizens could overcome their historically passive roles in society to determine their own fate, both in the public sphere and in their private lives. As traced in my earlier book, A Nation of Agents, and summarized in Chapter 1, the popular culture of dissenting Anglo-American Protestantism established that individuals could achieve maturation and selfreliance to a degree that would justify the responsibilities of consent and governance as well as self-determination. With the creation of a liberal republic, the inculcation of those capacities was no longer to be left to religious institutions. The public creation of a viable citizenship among 1

2

Introduction

all the nation’s members was to be the foundation for sustaining a new populist society. To demonstrate the success of this achievement, Americans point with justifiable pride to colonial and early republican America and to its institutions, founded, shaped, and sustained as voluntary organizations by its members. With religious fellowships, local communities, businesses and workplaces, families, and educational institutions unlike any in the world, America became a land of unprecedented individualism, opportunity, and institutional engagement. Americans have always known this, and visitors arriving on these shores repeatedly confirmed it. The narrative has won new admirers in the modern era, as consent galvanized movements in many societies seeking to reshape their political systems. Consensual democracy, with its “more accountable, participatory, and representative” government and vibrant civil society, has become the model for much of the world. Americans have been encouraged to assume that other societies either are “becoming or should become more like” the United States.1 Is the epic tale of American national formation an accurate account? For many Americans, there is a “persistent disjunction” between the national ideal of political access and popular leverage and the realities of American practice, leaving the health of its own democracy “clouded with doubt.”2 The attempts of the executive over the past decade to centralize power in one branch accentuate a trend that has characterized American politics since World War II. As Garry Wills recently noted, “Sixty-eight straight years (1941–2009) of war emergency powers have made the abnormal normal, and constitutional diminishment the settled order.”3 Throughout America citizens note a diminishing of the popular role before the spread of aggregated political and economic power. This subtle process of disenfranchisement tends to foster a more quiescent and disengaged citizenry, evidenced by low electoral participation and, tellingly, by George W. Bush’s exhortation after September 11, 2001, to affi rm one’s citizenship not by public engagement but by “shopping.” Does consent retain a significant role in the American polity? It might surprise American citizens to learn that scholars of modern government now openly question consent as the basis of the modern American system. More shocking might be their underlying question: whether consent remains a viable basis for political order. What if popular com-

Introduction

3

pliance arises not from free individuals but from pressures applied by entrenched interests? The growing dominance of political and economic elites disturbs progressives, who find it unsettling that presumably free citizens so routinely, uniformly, and uncritically obey social norms and cultural expectations. A steady diet of freedom talk and individual rights rhetoric, systematically applied economic anxiety, and the relentless merchandising of personal solutions to public ills have left the citizenry poorly equipped to play a role in the political life of the country. Conservatives, meanwhile, have sounded the alarm at the unraveling of traditional social and cultural norms. Declining respect for authority, institutional processes and rules, the work ethic, sexual restraint, and generational authority has in their view left American society adrift. Liberal elites have relieved an impressionable public of its capacity to choose properly, and consent can no longer be relied upon to provide an adequate basis for a moral regime. Clearly frustrated, many conservatives have turned to religion and the law to preserve social discipline. Liberal theorists maintain that consent is “perhaps the most fundamental of all political questions” for liberal society. Yet a satisfactory answer regarding the origin and role of consent has eluded democratic theory, which has found it impossible to demonstrate “who has, and when, and how, actually and explicitly consented.” 4 The traditional source— a social contract among the founders— does not answer because of its failure to bind later generations, leading many to dispense with it as a useless “fiction.” Electoral participation, the primary manifestation of consent, is an “occasional” and “largely passive” exercise in the United States, and in any case its exercise in the most undemocratic places suggests its weakness as a mea sure of consent.5 Political analysts assert fi nally that all who do “not actively protest” or “try to leave the country” can be “assumed to acquiesce.” But since “no practical alternatives to state membership” exist, leaving the underlying commitment in liberal society “built upon the inertia of men,” what is left of consent?6 Eventually the unthinkable has surfaced: perhaps consent was not necessary. Reflective conservatives, chastened by the hubris and excess of Bush neoconservatives, have slid toward a tragic Niebuhrian vision of the futility of democratic ideals. Progressives, owing to a declining faith in political change, frequently concede that in this imperfect world liberal American society will have to serve as is. With “illiberal or notliberal values” spreading in many places, consent now appears to be a

4

Introduction

systemic weakness of democratic society easily exploited by organized political opponents.7 Moreover given the systematic use of coercion by liberal regimes, perhaps consent has never been more than a rhetorical fig leaf used to cover the naked exercise of power.8 The only comfort seems to be the noble lie of “hypothetical voluntarism,” the reassuring yet indefensible illusion of being a majoritarian society.9 The political scientist Theodore Lowi suggested recently that legitimacy had become little more than the determination to “make illegitimacy a taboo word.”10 Contemporary liberal theory has tried to dignify this approach by emphasizing the moral duty that citizens owe to liberal states because they are liberal, with the question of what makes states liberal deferred to another day.11 How might this crisis of national identity be addressed? It is unsettling that Americans cannot specify what their claim of a free society is based upon. It is painful to acknowledge that consent, even if poorly understood, may be declining in importance. The problem is that American citizens have never talked openly, independent of idealizations, about their complex national project, its achievement and its flaws. The nation’s confidence has always seemed at stake, the systemic fragilities too close to the surface, to ask how this popular society came to be. The result has been a distorted picture of the meaning of freedom, which has generated unrealistic expectations and blinded Americans to their own achievement. The rhetoric of an individualism unhampered by institutional intrusion has created a serious misunderstanding about the nature of liberal society. The founders of America enjoyed no such luxury. The heirs of the expansive Declaration were also charged with establishing and maintaining order. Naïve assumptions about their national ideals have inhibited Americans from grasping how liberal society and the liberal individual were hewn in the struggles of earlier generations. The daunting political and intellectual challenge today is to reclaim this history. The goal is to look beyond privileged explanations of liberal society to comprehend how consent was established and the consensual society achieved. The evidence from the early republic suggests that the source of consent is to be found in perhaps the least likely of places: its youngest citizens. The cultivation of compliance in the young, as David Hume noted long ago, is nothing new: the “tender minds of the children,” he writes, have by

Introduction

5

“their early education” to be made “sensible of the infinite advantages” of society, and their “rough corners and untoward affections” smoothed down so that the “new brood should conform themselves” to the path of their parents.12 For those who study American national formation, the institutions responsible for shaping future citizens would presumably be the most visible and open to scrutiny. After all, it is they who set the broader agenda for the future, give prospective New World citizens their marching orders, and warn of the dangers that failure and defiance can unleash. And yet these institutions are virtually ignored by historians of the American project. The reasons for this neglect lie deep within the challenge of creating a voluntary society out of fleeing European commoners. While our times may involve social dislocations unknown to the founders, their complex task awakened uncertainties as pervasive as any today. Shaping these emigrants into adults who believed they were free, and preparing them to forge their own lives through activity at once selfinitiating and containable within the channels afforded by the new society, was a great historical achievement. As a result, in ways Hume never considered, the shapers of American nationhood were led to recast the cultural role of the young. An actively consenting citizenry could not be achieved by simply demanding the traditional compliance. Producing individuals convinced of their role as free individuals in a free society with its novel powers and limits depended on instilling early— and later inaccessible—patterns of preconscious adaptation and belief. The institutional mechanisms needed to generate a sustainable and yet ordered free individual and free society were discussed most openly during the era of national formation, and primarily within those sectors concerned with child rearing. Gradually replaced by an insistence that the liberal will is autonomous and the choices of the liberal citizen rational, the entire realm of citizen formation and its role in national formation has been long since shrouded in mystery. How American society achieved adult voluntarism through the shaping of the liberal citizen (as well as the nature of that voluntarism) remains the Gordian knot at the center of American liberalism. This work untangles the complex project of shaping the young for a willing commitment to ordered freedom, tracing the project of liberal socialization from its origins in the early nineteenth century. Unlike a social history of families and schools in that century, which would consider

6

Introduction

early republican socialization and education in all of their localism and diversity, this work, a contribution to the formation of American political culture, focuses on the middle-class Protestant creators of a mainstream agency society. It was among this cohort of cultural innovators and consolidators, largely but not exclusively in New England, that the conviction abided most strongly that the new society had a distinctive role to play in history on the basis of its innovative beliefs. So it was its descendants who set forth most convincingly to expound and promulgate this narrative among those who came driven by necessity or by other visions of the social good, in the process coming to identify, define, and institutionalize the shaping of the young as agents to carry forth that narrative. This focus presumes neither that this cohort commanded a consensus during the period nor that it spoke for society as a whole. The formation of an agency nation was a highly contested process. As I discussed in A Nation of Agents, cultural conflict surrounded the gradual emergence of mainstream agency culture and institutions in nineteenth-century America. Despite the resistance of early opponents of agency, both traditionalists and radicals, more liberal dissenting Protestants succeeded in developing the most viable and persuasive set of norms and practices for the new society. Similarly this book explains how the mainstream agency vision of socialization and education coalesced by incorporating the precursor agency traditions, the Jeffersonian-Jacksonians, FederalistWhigs, and religious sectarians, within a broader synthesis. The creation over time of a consenting citizenry occurred in several stages, and the process was by no means completed during its first century. The opponents of agency and proponents of these precursor traditions, reinforced by the continual flow of immigrants from more traditional societies, did not join in creating the agency settlement. Cleavages reflecting divergent values and practices regarding not only child rearing but the ideal of the nation and its institutions persisted. Many people did not adapt, and far more adapted only in part, with the result that the consolidation of support did not reach far beyond the literate middle class, who would take the lead in social formation. By the end of the nineteenth century, despite the consolidation of a mainstream model of child rearing (along with broader agency cultural values and public institutional processes), it was clear that the ambitious project of shaping the nation’s young into agency citizens would

Introduction

7

lag behind. The promotion of mainstream child-rearing ideals and practices to the many regions of the country, among former slaves, Native Americans, immigrants, and the poor, became a priority in the new century. Cultural dissemination of the model child would no longer remain under the purview of local institutions but was now to be promoted by psychologists and family experts as well as in advertising and merchandising, movies and textbooks, newspaper and magazine articles and advice columns. The turn to socialization and the coalescence of cultural factions behind a common child-rearing process in the early republic, as we shall see, provide the keys to understanding the unprecedented challenges posed by a modern individualistic society. The discourse on socialization toward the end of the nineteenth century in turn reveals the process by which liberal character development and citizen formation came to be regarded as inevitable. By the end of that century, the cultural consensus was that the United States, as a result of its own intrinsic virtue, had achieved its ultimate shape as a free society of free individuals. This belief reflected confidence, despite the many young still needing access to socialization, that through an increasingly effective socialization process the young would regard their lives as liberal citizens to be self-created and self-directed. The successes and failures of this resolution, as discussed in the Coda, form the ambiguous legacy for ensuing generations. The contemporary breakdown of consensus over liberal citizen formation has equipped us to perceive once again the intricacies of American socialization and its process of citizen formation. This makes it possible for the first time to examine how the young were systematically raised to regard themselves as free citizens of a free society. What did establishing a consensual society— as distinct from a free society— actually entail? What new institutions and processes were necessary, and how fully have they realized our original priorities? To what extent does consent today involve challenges different from earlier periods? And if renovation is required to preserve the consensual framework, how is this renovation to be achieved? Adding an urgent dimension to this discussion is the dynamic of globalism. As modernizing societies suffer “massive disruptions” in their social networks, they seek solutions from developed societies, notably the United States, and turn as Americans did to the child as a “pivotal

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figure” through the “export” of “modern constructions” of individuality and the family.13 And yet, to the extent that liberal socialization has exposed its reliance on mechanisms for inducing early compliance inconsistent with a free society, how compelling, or secure, is consent and its promise of democracy? The questions raised here are difficult ones, further complicated as the tensions long thought to be resolved have resurfaced over the previous half-century. We surely cannot hope to answer them without grasping the bold assertion of the human power to remake history through the American constitution of a consenting nation and liberal society. A candid discussion regarding this legacy is the place to begin.

1

The Hidden Dynamic of Childhood Consent Any political speculation . . . into the nature of obedience to government [is] an enquiry which no political philosopher may yet dare to answer. One day, we may hope, the social psychologist will give us insight enough. —Harold Laski To what extent is the American the fruit of happenstance, and to what extent is he a product of design? —Richard J. Storr

Americans consider themselves free members of a free society, yet over the course of two centuries, they have engaged in a relentless process of social formation, creating the most complex and organized nation in history. Pursuing integration and a common identity, they have created institutions at every level, from village society to the global colossus of our time. In so doing, they have created the dominant political model of the modern era. Why has such a diverse and self-regarding populace embraced American social formation as its own? The answer, liberalism asserts, can be found in a single concept: consent. Through its transformative power, institutions become extensions of voluntary relations, organi zational behavior merely choices made by self-determining individuals. This ritual claim of a freely tendered personal commitment, increasingly questionable given the vast structures of power and persuasion dominating contemporary society, has generated abundant skepticism whether Americans still possess any common agreement holding their political experiment together. These reservations have pushed liberalism to its 9

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ultimate challenge: to identify how this willing commitment has come about. To uncover the roots of this commitment for the first time is the goal of this book. Examining the formation of the new nation as a quintessentially liberal society, I trace the American response to the overriding political problem of modernity: how to construct an enduring political order and cohesive society within a voluntarist and individualist culture. Once popular consent was identified as the solution at the nation’s beginning, its rise and enduring power have been in the safekeeping of the sacred narrative of national founding. The problem as it is typically put—How could this free people not have established the freely consenting society?—has thus remained a rhetorical question. Recognizing the difficulties of serious reflection on the foundations of liberalism, the English liberal theorist Harold Laski called for the “insight” that “the social psychologist” could alone muster.1 Only by delving into this hidden world can we determine whether Americans, raised to regard themselves as free, are freely obligated or merely conditioned to believe it so. Without such scrutiny, Americans will continue to profess more faith in freedom rhetoric than in freedom itself. They risk, like the overmatched citizens of mythical Chelm, capturing the reflection of the moon in a rain barrel rather than the moon itself.

The Liberal Myth of the Unconditioned Will The liberal narrative of American history imagines the founding as an immaculate political conception, in which Americans were released from history by the revolution to make the world anew. In Jefferson’s classic statement in the Declaration, the American Republic arose not from colonial social and cultural conditions but from an ahistorical “state of nature,” as recently freed colonists overturned tradition by instituting their new government on novel consensual principles. Going back to its English roots, liberal theory has tried to derive the legitimacy of its institutions from a willingly tendered covenant entered into by its members. American society has followed social contract theory in presuming the citizen capable of independent choice and institutional commitments without reference to any prior moral or social conditioning. This “autonomous self” was, in the words of Daniel Walker Howe, not only

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“compatible with American institutions, not only logically required by them, but was in historical fact practiced by Americans” through the “practice of self-construction.”2 The burden of explaining why individuals in liberal society obey government despite the capacity, and often the inclination, to do otherwise has never “in any sense” received “an adequate response.”3 Confronting the claim in the early republic that freedom was unrestrained and each individual operated as “a law unto himself,” Alexis de Tocqueville wondered how not merely social regulation but the pervasive social regularity of American life could be accounted for. Surely there must be a “mover” of such effective and imposing order; yet, he writes, “the hand that directs the social machine is invisible.” 4 Americans have pointed to this seeming absence of systemic coordination throughout the process of national formation to make the case for the free society. Though accounting for their vast institutional web as the actions of free individuals has a certain grandeur, such an immaculate maturation is as improbable as the immaculate birth story. The American presumption of the “sovereign” role for individual choice in liberal society is clearly insupportable. Liberalism’s greatest thinkers rejected the very idea of endowing “flawed men” with “extensive individual rights” or inviting them to “vent their passions and indulge their interests.”5 James Madison identified his great object in designing the Constitution as the protection of popular government from the “turbulence and contention” of an unconstrained populace. Even earlier, Thomas Hobbes, the founder of social contract theory, realized any express promise of compliance had to be reinforced by the fear of death and a desire for “commodious living.”6 In the nineteenth century Tocqueville identified the omnipotence of the majority as a force operating less to generate consent than to constrain its exercise. In short, Americans have refused to acknowledge any systematic conditioning of the will, and this refusal has left a vacuum at the center of the national narrative. Unconditioned consent provides an insufficient basis for enduring commitment, and faith in its cohesive power provides no lasting foundation for institutional stability. At the same time, there has been little interest in understanding the ways in which American society had subdued individual willfulness “in ways consistent [with] popular consent” through a coordinated “effort to make individualism conditional and therefore compatible with social order.”7 Such an exploration

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entails risks, for it challenges the notion of the free individual upon whom the free society is based. The uncomfortable resolution of this dilemma has been to relegate the shaping of the will to institutions distant from public scrutiny. What was lost is how, beginning with the earliest colonial experience, the consenting liberal will has been systematically— and invisibly— conditioned in ways not even Jefferson’s expansive rhetoric in the Declaration could obscure forever.

Conditioning the Liberal Will I: The Place of Dissenting Protestantism The American experiment is a case study of the liberal path to modernity, in particular how liberalism adapted its abstract ideals to social realities and political exigencies. The physical wilderness of the New World, combined with the institutional vacuum following independence, suggested the original condition of nature presumed by Jefferson and the English liberal tradition. But in a departure from liberal theory, the past could not be erased. Indeed American liberalism did not seek its erasure. Recognizing that the adult voluntarism being promised would have to be managed, the process of national formation turned to two systems of social control already embedded in the world from which liberal society emerged: Anglo-American religion and the socialization of the young. Dissenting Protestantism, which infused colonial life with its innovative ideals of self and society, provided the social norms and practices that would anchor a popular polity in the United States. Child rearing served as the institutional setting for promoting this cultural framework, forming individuals adapted to the new expectations and demands. Recovery of the missing religious dimension was the goal of my earlier book, A Nation of Agents. Examining the dissenting Protestant roots of American society, it traced the evolution of modern liberalism from its origins in the religious insurgency leading to the English Civil War to the consolidation of national institutions at the end of the nineteenth century. As evolved within this tradition, adult citizens and adult institutions in the New World were animated by a commitment not to personal autonomy but to a posttraditional vision of the self conditioned for collective life in an individualist society. In the earlier book I defined this new vision of self as the agent.

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The ideal of the citizen as agent emerged in Reformation England, as the rising economic classes challenged traditional hierarchies embodied in the monarchy, the established Church, and caste society. They refused to tender the deferential obedience and submission hitherto required of commoners, embraced both Puritanism and the more radical sects preaching the priesthood of all believers, and demanded the structural reform of English society. At the center of the oppositional culture was the demand for a new role encompassing greater religious and political power. This demand reflected the increasing prominence of these rising groups in social and economic life and their greater liberty of conscience and expression in religious matters. Occupying a more trusting and collaborative relation with the personal God of dissenting religion, believers were called to make society more inclusive and to assume responsibility over their individual lives. Thus, individuals, while released from traditional constraints and empowered to exercise their capacities according to their own judgment and discretion, were at the same time specifically directed to act as agents of the common good within a framework of common ends and obligations. In this way, membership in the dissenting community, recast as a matter of willing commitment, bound the individual within the chosen structures of theological and communal authority. What liberalism would define as the free individual in a free society was in fact a dissenting agent obligated to fulfill a willingly undertaken role within a consensual institutional order. Agency ideals of self and society spread throughout the colonies and early republic through sectarian outreach and the great popular religious awakenings. Establishing voluntary religious fellowships on the basis of personal conviction, New World citizens learned to shape participatory institutions and to responsibly manage their own lives within them. The lessons of self and social formation were in turn applied to create novel social, political, and economic networks. In every sector of the new society, individuals pursued not unconstrained self-interest or self-direction but activities contributing to the creation of their transformed social order. As these new values and practices spread, the citizenry of late colonial society was prepared to challenge not only traditional British controls and hierarchy in the revolution but even those indigenous colonial elites and religious establishments intent on replacing the empire’s control with their own in the internal insurgency.

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By conditioning individual choice, this ethic of religious responsibility and collective obligation enabled the young nation to surmount the fragmenting implications of the freedom narrative. Thus, even as Americans professed Jeffersonian ideals, they were animated by a commitment to social integration through which they established modern consensual institutions providing space for citizen initiative, selfreliance, and participation. With the coalescence of these institutions by the end of the nineteenth century, the United States had matured into what I have called a nation of agents.

The Free and Self-Containing Citizen of Liberal Theory The colonial and early republican experience provided a dramatic test of the social contract. More than a century before the birth of the American Republic, liberal theory rose from the ashes of traditional society during the English Revolution. Hobbes, himself a traditionalist, reluctantly acknowledged in the religious insurgency the dissolution of traditional hierarchy. The bold and uncompromising demands for citizen initiative and empowerment were recasting the very nature of society. At the same time, Hobbes recognized in the dissenting model of the agent a new basis for obligation that could be appropriated to create a modern political order. If those freed from rigid traditional demands by religious individualism would now acknowledge only those institutions they willingly entered, liberalism had to anchor itself in consent. The stubborn challenge, given the proliferating rhetoric of religious freedom, was how to employ individual choice to establish a political consent as enduring as the freely tendered Protestant commitment to God. Hobbes’s genius was to turn this potentially uncontrollable reliance on the individual’s will to the advantage of a new political order. His radical notion of a social contract offered citizens a central role in the formation of liberal society. But assumption of this new power at the same time ingeniously carried with it the expectation of compliance with liberal political structures and limits. By framing the social contract as the citizen’s only protection from the nightmare world of civil disorder and normative chaos produced by unrestrained freedom, Hobbes believed individuals would willingly reaffirm their continued commitment to institutional safeguards. Among the casualties of such consent, however, would be the right to determine their own actions and beliefs. The

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very religious and political individualism that had mobilized the opposition to traditional society, now associated with the wish to dissolve social order, was precluded as a threat to the liberal consensus. The problem for liberalism, however, was not merely to control the emergent individualism, for it proposed the modern ideal of a society based in individual initiative and self-reliance. Coercive methods of social discipline exercised in traditional communities to suppress individualism were inconsistent with liberalism’s commitment to dynamic economic and social activity. The daring innovation, initiated by the formative English theorists, was to introduce self-regulated activism as the price of social membership. Hobbes calculated that individuals, when offered the opportunity to direct their own lives, would willingly assent to self-containment as the precondition for social stability. As Locke later explained, one great advantage of self-regulation was that obedience now appeared as a prudent calculation for advancing one’s own interests. Since “every one,” he wrote, “can more easily bear a denial from himself, than from any body else,” liberalism enabled individuals to imagine themselves in control rather than the institutions of compliance.8 Having appropriated the spirit of willing self-regulation from religious dissent (with the added advantage of enforceability), liberalism would proclaim itself a society based on consent. Institutions were now legitimate only if established by popular mandate and sustained by public conviction. Moreover, citizens were now accorded wide initiative in economic, social, and personal matters consistent with their emerging capacities as agents. But they could also be held accountable for pursuing social ends or goals and for using the appropriate institutional procedures or means to achieve them. These were, after all, the product of their own agreement to sustain the social compact. Consent would thus at once empower citizens and carefully direct them not to autonomy but to collectively circumscribed and regulated choices.

The American Bind: The Limit of Adult Constraints The early American Republic appeared to provide an optimal setting for the liberal experiment. British withdrawal and the attacks on political and religious elites left few viable institutions. The nearly unlimited geographical mobility afforded by a vast and sparsely populated continent offered adults release from the reach of social discipline. Hector St.

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John de Crèvecoeur spoke of vast regions “remote from the power of example and the check of shame,” where communities live “in a perfect state of war.”9 If Hobbes had been right, pervasive insecurity about social dissolution within a widespread popular religious culture of agency commitment should have generated a collective determination to rescue society from the state of nature. Yet Americans found themselves descending further into social disarray. Rather than offering a path out of disorder, the American liberal discourse of the free society emerging from the revolution only exacerbated the problem. Cultural and ethnic diversity complicated any expectation of consensus on national values or governmental structures. Thomas Paine, who had stirred the quest for national separation in his great essay Common Sense, sensed that the “only BOND” available to “tye and keep” the nation together was the quixotic power of independence itself.10 The freedom narrative, moreover, emphasized precisely those empowering capacities for individual judgment, institutional choice, and initiative that rendered adults less willing to write a blank check payable to the order of community cohesion. Paine himself had proclaimed “a new method of thinking” for politics in revolutionary times, centered in the decision-making power adults were to acquire upon coming of age.11 As popular rhetoric promoted economic self-sufficiency and cultural self-reliance, Americans were exhorted to set out, like Ben Franklin, to make lives of their own choosing. To outsiders, Americans appeared a fluid and rootless populace, moving frequently, repeatedly changing livelihoods and identities, and defying community norms where expedient. Such individualism challenged the viability of already tenuous New World institutions. Whenever a “church censured and threatened to excommunicate one of its members” in the early republic for acts of conscience, Emerson observed, “the threatened individual immediately excommunicated the church, in a public and formal process.”12 As individualism appeared to win converts everywhere, the specter of an anarchic world beset by institutional breakdown and social fragmentation loomed in the popular imagination. Beginning with Jefferson’s own presidential campaign, defenders of order railed against limitless “modern sentiments” that were “designed to inflame the corrupt and dissocial passions of the human heart, to exhibit the restraints of social order,

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law, and religion, as unjust and tyrannical, and to render men hostile to every thing which opposes their inclinations.”13 The literature of the early republic—the writings of Poe and Melville, among others—revealed a popular culture haunted by fears of frontier and urban disorder. Symbolized by untamed wilderness and unregulated city spaces whose inhabitants lacked any past or tradition, the vision of “a society uncompromised by culture” or constraint gave rise to images of nightmare worlds ruled by “darkness and the grotesque.”14 Hawthorne’s portrayal of the populace as a mob consumed by a hatred of all authority and restraints exposed the fragility of social order. The image of an independent youth emerging as the new cultural ideal reinforced the sense of normlessness. In the narratives of Robinson Crusoe and Benjamin Franklin, disseminated as cultural exemplars in children’s stories and popular literature, adolescents were lauded for overcoming the confinement of their childhood to pursue their individual fate. The dissenting Protestant culture, with its many sects and denominations, did little to ameliorate these dangers. Despite a shared belief in religious agency, the emphasis on individual conviction and local fellowship provided no institutional mechanisms to forge agreement on the institutional application of agency values. The commitment to liberty of conscience that produced denominational separatism and radical sectarian experimentation throughout the colonies in the First Awakening continued to produce religious divisions. The “voluntary principle” of American religious organization grounded on personal belief, now the watchword of American religion, generated a marketplace composed of endless doctrinal and institutional variants bidding for allegiance. Individuals charged forth in every direction, encouraged by popular preachers spreading the spirit of godly conviction and hopes for religious transformation. The result, in the words of the historian Perry Miller, was an “internal convulsion” of national revival often “blazing into flame,” a “uniquely American ritual” of revolutionary religious populism.15 Religious voluntarism encouraged individuals to change fellowships and beliefs at will, to participate in the manner they chose, or to forgo religious involvement entirely. As a result, popular religion fostered insistent tendencies to disorder: pervasive sectarianism fueling doctrinal controversy and institutional fragmentation; withdrawal by many beyond the reach of organized religion; above all, heightened anxieties about one’s salvation prolonged to draw people to revival and conversion.

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Those who sought to condition adult citizens for agency through religion were ultimately unable to build the common foundation needed for a liberal agency society. The liberal republic, having proclaimed as its goal a free society won by the people, was in a bind. Adult citizens were tutored in religious agency and attentive to the fears of disorder, but they could not be counted on to embrace a social contract and establish popular institutional authority. If a secure initial social contractual framework was not forthcoming, how could a continuing obligation be sustained once the immediate dangers of the founding receded from experience and even memory? The tenuousness of adults’ commitment to the liberal social order and their easy avoidance of institutional discipline suggest why adulthood was not the place in the life cycle to which Americans would turn to anchor the order on which the national experiment depended.

Conditioning the Liberal Will II: Shaping the Modern Citizen from Birth A Nation of Agents described how the liberal culture of agency emerged from religion in the early republic; the remaining task was to address how these values came to be embedded in character formation, citizen roles, and institutional practice. As it followed English theory in framing mandatory membership in society as an act of individual decision making, so too did American liberalism retrace earlier thought in its effort to anchor continuing social obligation. As Hobbes realized and Locke made central to liberalism, once society was established, voluntary adult compliance had to be based on something other than consent extracted from the fear of disorder at the time of the founding. Because liberal society faced the continuing need for citizens to renounce their right to define and pursue their own ends, adult contractual obligation had to be supplemented, and eventually replaced, by other mechanisms of compliance. Hobbes recognized that the expectation of voluntary obedience for later generations had to be generated by public socialization and political education. Though this solution, given the exigencies of the English Revolution, remained tangential to his thought, it became a priority for subsequent liberalism. Americans cast adrift in the political wilderness after the founding similarly needed something more than the social contract to generate

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security and regularity. The problem, ironically, was how to moderate the centrifugal forces intensified by their very narrative of a revolution in the name of freedom. With adult contractual compliance largely unobtainable, how was the investment in common institutional practices and boundaries to be forged? Allegiance had to be drawn away from the deep religious and community commitments formed in local experience. Membership in religious communities through a personal, and often heartrending, act of will in conversion established a bond that secular society would be hard-pressed to replace. To be sure, the larger society afforded greater opportunities for individual success, but such invitations to unfettered individualism only compounded the problem of social discipline. Patriotic sentiments, though deeply affective, offered little certainty of the stable practices an enduring society demanded. Writing a half-century after Hobbes, Locke understood that the decline of fear following the crisis of political founding, particularly in England, would dramatically diminish the impetus for willing social compliance. In Some Thoughts Concerning Education, Locke redefi ned the path to voluntary adult membership in society by locating it in the controllable confines of childhood. The progression from natural freedom to contractual obedience was reframed as the shift each child makes under the pressures of socialization from potentially anarchic impulses to conformable social practice. Transforming liberal theory into a pedagogy, he hoped to spare society the trauma of having to continually begin anew. In relocating the site of liberal agency formation, Locke would in critical ways anticipate American practice. American liberalism after the revolution placed the future of its national project in the hands of the institutions of childhood socialization. This turn to socialization to surmount the crisis of its founding thus confirms the United States as it has always believed itself to be: the land quintessentially of Locke—not of his Second Treatise, with its political idyll of adults who live peacefully and contract rationally, but of his original Education, with its systematic shaping of children into citizens who would be able to engage in the adult liberal behavior demanded in the Treatise. But the American path to social order was not simply a matter of applying Locke’s educational strategy, for very few read that work and far fewer explicitly utilized it. Rather, the imposing challenge for the new nation, as for early liberal theory, was to establish a stable modern civil and domestic authority. In the early United States, as in Locke’s work,

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this meant incorporating the individualism of dissenting Protestantism without the requirement of religious consensus that would compromise the radical liberal claim of a free society of free individuals. Those challenges were party solved by (and partly merely redirected to) the shaping of the young. On one hand, the barriers to establishing adult compliance on a voluntary basis magnified the urgency of childhood compliance. On the other hand, to be convinced that they were entering a free society, the young in postrevolutionary America would need to believe that their impulsion toward social integration was their own doing. The success Americans achieved in forming a cohesive society of consensual agents— even as they insisted on the discourse of freedom—resulted from a deliberate and explicit project of rearing the young to be voluntary agents. Within this laboratory of modern social formation, early Americans discovered how the young could be turned into liberal citizens. By inculcating—without appearing to demand— a faith in personal freedom and voluntary consent, in ways that provided fi rm institutional structures and common direction, citizens would achieve belief in the self-determination the national project demanded. This resolution of the enduring tension between voluntarism and compliance was thus to be achieved not by eliciting verities, truths comprehensible to all, but by inculcating virtues. That is, to ground the complex synthesis of ordered self-reliance, liberal society would be driven, despite its protestations of rationality, to instill citizenship and its obligations at the level of internal adaptation. The hidden springs of ordered freedom were located deep within a regimen of citizen formation, in forging common prerational adaptive behaviors and values beginning with domestic child rearing and reinforced by educational institutions. The challenge is to open up this hitherto hidden world. How did socialization emerge as the crucial institution? What enabled socialization to meet the challenges placed upon it? Above all, how was this project of social construction framed so that its products imagined themselves as free individuals within a consensual society? These were the fundamental questions the new nation had to address, and in response to which its originative constitution of liberal self and society historically evolved.

Winning the Child’s Will In postrevolutionary society, where subservience of all forms became suspect, obedience could not simply be demanded of the young. Chil-

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dren were, after all, being prepared for freedom, and early submission produced patterns of behavior preventing individuals from achieving self-reliance or utilizing independence in later life. In fact, given the focus on individual liberty, the young could not even be encouraged to strike a more permissive balance between deference and independence. Rather, they had to be persuaded that a life of freedom was being nurtured from the outset. Americans thus demanded of child rearing a seemingly paradoxical outcome: an individual both convinced that he was entirely self-determining and yet fully adaptive in his conduct. How was this accomplished? The method evolved in the first half of the nineteenth century: to win the will of the child to responsibility for his own social integration. By encouraging the child to develop his capacities for competence and independence and to direct those capacities toward the project of successful adaptation, the child would come to regard social accommodation as his personal triumph rather than a compromise of his freedom. The circle of ordered freedom would thus be squared. In retrospect, childhood was the inescapable locus of citizen formation. In an established society, the presocialized child was the sole, unerasable reminder of liberalism’s problematic origin in the state of nature. It further highlighted, regardless of efforts at normalization, the dependence of agency society on personal and social transformation. That is, producing individuals committed to socially acceptable selfdirection required decisive intervention from the beginning of the life cycle and represented the highest achievement of political art. In his seminal article “The Role of Education in American History,” Richard J. Storr concludes that becoming an American has always been “an act of learning.” Unwilling to “leave the formation of mind and character to chance,” New World citizens turned the “new modeling of men” into a highly organized and deliberate activity.16 The malleability of childhood rendered it the optimal time for generating consent. Voluntary compliance in adulthood was increasingly understood to emerge in childhood, particularly during the period of greatest suggestibility from infancy to early childhood. During this period, moreover, receptivity to encouragement and suggestion would render more harsh measure unnecessary. Adult interventions claiming to rescue the young from the instinctual wilderness of infantile drives and assisting them to secure responsible self-regulation would presumably be welcomed. Moreover, once they had achieved self-regulation, socially promoted as individual freedom rather than accommodation, Americans

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would embrace new roles as willing social actors and consenting liberal citizens without the shadow of a compromised selfhood. Thus, as the child in American practice was gradually won to his own regulation, the coercive dimensions of liberal citizen formation were deftly and strategically folded within the growing individuals’ efforts to establish and enforce limits on themselves. To a degree unimagined by Locke, whose class-based socialization was intended for modern social elites, self-containment became the rite of passage, the mark of full democratic membership. The focus was now on establishing and refining one’s internal monitor, generating for oneself the adherence to social standards. The internalization of responsible self-regulation, heralded variously as the triumph of virtue, reason, merit, and above all character, was idealized as the fulfillment of one’s true nature. Once the pressures to become a mature agency citizen were in place, both within the socialized individual and in time within American society, external regulation receded from visibility to the realm of informal pressures, cues, and expectations. On the surface, society and socializing figures were simply assisting the young on their ascent to mature citizenship. Producing this dramatic alteration in child maturation required unprecedented shifts in relations between adults and children, amounting to a veritable domestic revolution. Recasting itself as a process directed not toward compliance but in preparation for liberty, liberal socialization had to redefine the role of its implementers. Now tutors for liberty, their function was not merely to elicit proper behavior but to foster the child’s internal mastery. The methods of traditional, largely male authority figures, predisposed to break the young will by coercion and fear and often provoking resistance and flight, were rejected. A new affective family rooted in mutuality and reciprocity, utilizing a nurturing, typically maternal approach, was adopted, creating roles of unprecedented importance for women in designing and implementing the new institutional practices. The goal was now to facilitate the child’s development toward higher levels of responsible and conformable conduct through approval and affirmation. Nurturing parents, eliciting willing commitment through positive identification, could induce the child’s willing, active, and enthusiastic participation in the maturation process. The result of such encouragement would be sharply increased capacities for self-governance and social effectiveness.

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The Conundrum of Self-Development This new dynamic of guided self-evolution emerged through trial and error in the early republic. Practices providing appropriate incentives, including more complex responsibilities and rewards, were developed to facilitate increasing competence. The young, prompted at each age level to greater responsibility and initiative, were promised increased levels of discretion and power as their reward for greater self-regulation. Selfgovernance thus paradoxically brought with it forms of bounded initiative understood by the individual as the freedom to pursue available opportunities. In this way, the young moved easily beyond the confines of family and community to make their own lives. Society for its part gained members prepared to go forth to establish the dynamic institutions of the early American Republic. As budding citizens were guided toward the belief that they directed their own socialization, the expectations and obligations of liberal individualism were merged within a dynamic of self-realization. In this apotheosis of self-creation, by the later part of the century the liberal citizen was elevated into a self-made individual. The capacity for “free agency” emerging from birth unhindered by either external forces or serious internal disabilities was now axiomatic. Shaped by early demands that were submerged over time within their own will, the young had little chance of grasping the limitations to their freedom. They would not be encouraged to recognize the tensions between autonomy and their own ser vice to socially designed ends, or to question whether the regimen of self-regulation and its rewards attending were self-chosen. Such concerns could only weaken their sense of selfmastery by interjecting the importance of adult influence in their assumption of self-directed lives. Nor would individuals directed toward agency in childhood wish to be reminded that an agency character was neither natural nor assured. In failing to remember their own emergence as liberal citizens, adults would insulate themselves from both earlier personal compromises with freedom as well as the distinctive role of agency selfhood upon which American society depended. They had become willing sustainers of liberal order, motivated by the culture’s impassioned assertions that its members were unquestioned masters of their lives and life choices. As a result, they would find the source of their consent forever out of reach.

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Recovering the Conditioned Past Scholars have lent credibility to the liberal culture of freedom by minimizing the role of social engineering and treating child rearing as an apolitical process. Citizens are encouraged to regard the critical work of shaping the young as unsullied by the instrumental demands of programmatic agendas and designs. Socializing institutions are continuously impacted by social and cultural agendas, yet childhood is draped in an aura of innocence, and child development is systematically cloaked in the rhetoric of inevitability. Child rearing has been the first priority of the liberal polity and in times of crisis the object of sharp contention, but few have noted how “the making of Americans had been systematized.”17 In this way, the ambitious liberal project has been screened from controversy. Defenders simply maintain that its institutions confirm the invariable truths of nature and society, what Tocqueville called the “constitution of man, which is everywhere the same.”18 For the historian Michael Zuckerman, sustaining this illusion of the natural child arising independent of the “morality of [the] cultural milieu” or the influence of “prevailing political and social winds” allows not only those studying childhood development but the larger society as well the illusion that they have avoided any subjective “quagmires of cultural construction.”19 This cloud of forgetfulness challenges those investigating liberal child rearing and its engendering of consent. In Leviathan, his great work of political founding, Hobbes warned that no nation ought to permit the examination of its origins, such narratives, including consent, being largely myth and therefore unjustifiable. Locke, as the founder of liberal socialization, recognized the danger of explaining how freedom and consent arose, and regarded the limited access individuals have to their early shaping— simply put, children forget— one of its great strengths. To assist the lapse of memory, Locke advises adults to shroud their early exercise of authority with increasing permissiveness and independence over time. Locke, the presumed rationalist, counsels that explanation can and should be employed to meliorate adult dominance, but only after firm liberal attitudes and behaviors have been effectively cultivated. Counting on the ingenuousness of the young, he insists that once these later accommodations to the process of maturation are in place early strictures will recede in the haze of childhood amnesia. As the tensions

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over compliance and independence are defused within the obscured and largely unexamined stages of early character formation, citizens may go forth secure in the voluntarist account of themselves and their society. This systemic inattention has been exploited to construct a liberal socializing dynamic to generate individualistic beliefs and practices. This ignorance has also insulated child rearing from any responsibility for the public obsession with social cohesion, conformity, and loyalty in American history. If citizens have been raised to be free, then the pressures toward uniformity and the fears generated by difference have no basis in demands and expectations for uniformity imposed on the young. Removing child rearing from the historical process has come at a great cost. The broader influence of child shaping on public institutions and social history goes unexplored. Relegated by scholars to a secondary arena of inquiry framed by conventional “categories taken over from other fields,” its social function offers only “unimpeachable and also uninteresting platitudes” rather than “great hypotheses” capable of explaining the past.20 The systematic deflection of scrutiny has also made it impossible to understand who we are, that is, what a consensual society requires and to what extent American society fulfills the criteria. Most important, the very preconditions of a truly free society, including the optimal treatment of the young and what should be asked of them, remain immune to insight and alteration.

New Light in the Darkness In recent decades the web of silence surrounding the role of socialization has begun to dissolve. Facing the erosion of child rearing in our time and the specter once again of unconditioned release, we are led to reconsider the makers of the early republic and their belief that the nation stood or fell on conditioning the child’s will for voluntarism. Gender studies scholars in particular have rejected the marginalization of the family and socialization to the realm of “private” and “idiosyncratic local experience.”21 Neglecting “those social forms that mediate between the public sphere and the private sphere, those institutions and relationships such as the family,” they argue, has obscured the ways in which shaping a citizen’s political education in the domestic sphere was “crucial to the success of the nation.”22 These historians, however, have tended to focus on gender issues rather than on the young.

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The central role of child rearing in American social formation began to gain serious attention in the 1960s with Bernard Bailyn’s seminal Education in the Forming of American Society. Bailyn identified the “whole range of education,” including the family (the institution of early value dissemination), as a key “instrument of deliberate social purpose” and innovation shaping the “typical American individualism” of the New World citizenry from the colonial period onward.23 Emphasizing the dynamic role of youth in modern society, Kenneth Keniston, among others, called for attention to the “emergence on a mass scale” of this “previously unrecognized stage of life” influencing not only domestic shifts but broader patterns of historical change and social change.24 More recent studies such as Huck’s Raft by Stephen Mintz and Raising America by Ann Hulbert view child rearing as a series of institutional processes with a distinctive history. At the same time, however, the impact of these institutions is limited by their mostly passive role reacting to larger tensions endemic to an individualistic society.25 One scholar for whom generational relations lies at the center of efforts to form the first individualistic society is the historian Jay Fliegelman. A telling response to Keniston’s call, Fliegelman’s breakthrough work Prodigals and Pilgrims recast the American Revolution and founding. Expanding upon an important monograph by Edwin Burrows and Michael Wallace, “Ideology and the Psychology of National Liberation,” Fliegelman traced how late colonial Americans increasingly conceptualized their struggle for independence in generational terms.26 Their discourses, influenced by the less repressive eighteenth-century child rearing, dramatically framed the struggle of the young colonies as one of maturing individuals demanding a restructuring of generational relations. Philip Greven’s major work on early American child rearing, The Protestant Temperament, made an even stronger case for the impact of childhood socialization on the American experience. Examining the “theological and religious doctrines and beliefs” of early Americans, Greven noted their direct correspondence to “life experiences that most historians ignore: the earliest and most formative experiences of childhood.” Finding that different early family patterns produced distinctive cultural and social values, Greven encouraged historians to use modern “psychological insights” to illuminate the many ways the child is father to the man.27 Building on Fliegelman and Greven, this work treats the vast discourse on child-rearing ideals and practices in the nineteenth century as a

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privileged window through which to view the project of American social formation. Because early advocates, theorists, and institutional planners understood that liberal society was rooted not in freedom but in agency, and that childhood socialization provided the necessary place for implementing it, they addressed the complexities presented by the narrative of the free society with singular clarity and urgency. From the voluminous records of their expression and exchange of ideas and practices, rarely if ever examined before, it is possible to recover the agendas, challenges, and accommodations detailing how liberal individualism and agency society were to be constituted.

The American Turn to Socialization In a significant sense the history of the United States has been the story of its socialization project. From the very beginning, the perpetual fear that individualism was tantamount to political anarchy was focused on the young. Newly proclaimed Americans, finding little clarity in Jefferson’s call to freedom, quickly directed their anxieties about the institutional and cultural vacuum to the prospect of younger generations set free from all restraint. In sermons, political pamphlets, and literature, the new society in effect recast Hobbes’s state of unregulated nature as the specter of an unregulated childhood. Redefining the search for order as a crisis of childhood socialization had important advantages. Establishing social discipline in the young actually appeared likely to succeed. As other institutional structures unraveled, domestic authority in the nuclear family continued to function. Moreover, though liberalism rejected hierarchy within public institutions, it explicitly excepted institutions charged with raising the young, whose incapacity for mature self-reliance fully justified the imposition of social demands and expectations. As the historian George B. Forgie noted, “In a society that valued progress and equality, and in which authority of any kind, no matter how mild, was on the defensive, the family was the one archaic, hierarchical institution compatible with modernity and with democracy.”28 As such, the task of social reconstruction fell to it. Unlike the proponents of the other major process of agency formation, religious fellowship, the proponents of universal child socialization treated national cohesion as a priority. For the culture of dissenting religious individualism, personal conviction and adult choice, though

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directed toward institutional membership, stressed entry into the specific denomination or sect to which the believer was called. Such flexibility was ideally suited for a decentralized opposition movement operating under great external pressures in England and the colonies. It also mobilized citizens of the fledgling republic to embark in the face of great risk and uncertainty as agents in the formation of new institutions. In the subsequent drive toward common values and comprehensive institutions, however, the limits of dissenting Protestantism were strikingly evident. Given its multiple agendas and beliefs, social and ideological cleavages were inevitable. By contrast, child-rearing institutions, focused on generating an early commitment to the larger society, could counter sectarian influences on the young. And as the next two centuries would illustrate, they could also disseminate liberal beliefs and practices to the large numbers not reached by religion. The informal and decentralized way child rearing was implemented was also a major strength. Its distance from the contentious political struggles over republican institutions rendered it seemingly apolitical, even private. This insularity boosted its validity as a repository of values in a society suspicious of government, and in turn allowed the conditioning and winning the will of the young to be kept from the public record. In the backwaters of domestic reform and educational planning the importance of authority and obligation in society could be considered openly, without drawing charges of heresy from the vocal proponents of liberty. Of equal importance, child rearing, though remote from the public arena, was by no means insulated from social pressure. Parents and educators have been perpetually anxious about the prospects facing the young under their charge. While they were—and are to this day— flattered about their power in the family and schools, they are easily swayed by the recurrent political agendas mobilized to influence child rearing. At the same time, by shrouding their own demands on the young and the social pressures on them in the rhetoric of liberal child rearing, these institutions pass on the values of the national culture. The greatest advantage of child socialization over other liberal institutions was its early implementation. In a regimen initiated at birth, children were systematically led to internalize collective norms to the point that social values and practices became an internal compass directing their behavior. Further encouraged to monitor their own deviance, this capacity—regarded as evidence of their maturity—indicated

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that they were properly equipped for self-management upon departure from their families and communities of origin. The willing and self-reliant pursuit of social integration into the new moral order in turn enabled the emerging institutions of American society to assume their liberal character as voluntary associations.

A New Story of American National Formation Part I of this book addresses the shifting assumptions about domestic relations leading up to the challenge to imperial parentage in the American Revolution and the impact of the revolution on family and social stability in the age that followed. It begins with the challenge of the revolutionary generation to the framework of political paternalism within the imperial-colonial dynamic. Rooted in an implicit but strident critique of early modern family hierarchy, this new perspective arose from shifts occurring in family relations and child rearing in colonial America. The struggle for independence identified the independence of the New World with the rights entitling maturing youth to greater equality with traditional elders. As the revolution eliminated colonial institutions and transferred power to the popular republic, the lack of significant resources for social regulation made the creation of a new foundation for civic— and ultimately domestic— order the paramount concern. In this crisis of founding, the fears of social fragmentation and political chaos, accentuated by the rhetoric of freedom and individual rights, fed literary and popular images of urban disorder and frontier wilderness. Americans, seeking in the first two generations a solution to the intractable problem of adult discipline, were not long in recognizing the effectiveness of reaching the young in the liberal project of social integration. At the same time, the growing emphasis on child rearing was fraught with difficulties. The revolutionary critique of generational authority, along with the mobility of youth and the stresses on the family in the new society, made traditional discipline impossible to sustain. The task of child rearing, increasingly understood as preparing the young to pursue the opportunities of an open society, was further hampered by confusion over what socializing role, new character, and modes of implementation would best facilitate this preparation. Adding to the complexity was the contest among the cultural factions of the early republic

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seeking to implement a child-rearing regimen consistent with their own partisan model for the new republican society. These difficulties threatened the very project of producing citizens adapted to the new society. Adults had become merely temporary guardians of their mobile young and could no longer expect unquestioned authority. The young for their part insisted on increasing power and responsibility as they confronted their upcoming independence. Anxieties escalated: youth, realizing that “the past no longer held the key to the present or future,” viewed parents as ill-equipped to respond to their needs; adults, while struggling to cope with diminishing authority, faced their own heightened insecurities of adapting to novel conditions; adolescents now faced a major new crisis of transition, the period during which individuals, regardless of their preparation, had to assume responsibility for self-regulation.29 Part II traces the growing response in the antebellum period to the crisis of founding a novel citizenry. Beginning in the 1820s, cultural leaders, both women and men, focusing on child rearing realized that the intense partisanship of the political culture composed of Jeffersonians, Federalist-Whigs, and sectarians had to be surmounted. If the nation was to achieve an enduring unity, citizens while in childhood had to be rendered the agents of a common, theologically neutral, and politically inclusive authority, in this case the nation. A new model of socialization incorporated ideals from each party’s perspective—integrating selfreliance and institutional deference, equal opportunity and differential outcomes, religious virtue and civic loyalty—to generate the character of a distinctive New World citizen. This synthesis was the work of religiously and politically informed activists from the major republican factions. Far from declining in the face of an emerging liberal consensus, as often thought, they came together to produce that consensus, recasting the dissenting Protestant values to be developed in the young in the secular language of agency character and liberal virtue. At the center was a vast socialization campaign featuring a proliferating literature instructing citizens on how to prepare the young for the new society: child-rearing manuals, advice and self-help books for youth and young adults, professional and popular writings of educational innovation and institutional development, and didactic works of children’s fiction. In these writings, child-rearing advocates from across the political spectrum recommended innovative practices and methods employing

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mutuality and reciprocity, positive reinforcement, and opportunities for decision making. Struggling to hone a clear model of liberal citizenship, advocates were forced to continually reconfigure—without precedents or prototypes—the classic patterns of childhood, adult socializers, and child rearing itself. In defining the liberal character and the processes for internalizing it without overt coercion, this outreach found a diverse audience: adults confused about the emerging social parameters, children learning to respond to unprecedented demands for responsibility and initiative, and youth coming of age who needed guidance on their future to fill the absence of adequate models of successful adult adaptation. Even as debates raged about the feasibility and wisdom of extending republican citizenship, the proponents of agency socialization understood that a liberal society required, and furthermore could support, universal access. To expand the reach of agency socialization, this broad campaign took the first steps to extend the lessons of disciplined selfreliance to middle-class families in need of help and to those sectors of the society unreached by domestic reform. The common school movement was the result, carried forth by teachers instructed in the innovative methods developed in family socialization. In place of traditional rote learning and quiescent obedience, students were to be engaged and their wills won through the cultivation of individual interests, skills, and capacities in a more participatory environment. As in the family, teachers were redefined in this “preparation for liberty” as enablers of student self-development, channeling the young toward institutional adaptation within a process framed as facilitating individual growth. In this way, public schooling joined the reconstituted family as the crucible of a consenting citizenry. The inevitable by-product of a child-rearing approach claiming to generate free citizens was that its own shaping and channeling role became progressively obscured. As I discuss in Part III, in the period after the Civil War, with parents and educators increasingly conceived as mere enablers incidental to the child’s internal self-development, the child’s nature was now presumed to determine maturation independent of the impact of child-rearing impositions. The culmination of this logic was the self-made individual, the cultural icon long recognized as a staple of post– Civil War culture. But its emergence can now be seen as an outgrowth of the increasing success of liberal socialization and education. As a standard of child rearing was institutionalized, the predictability of adaptation promoted the assumption that no

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coercion or direction from external forces, that is, no socialization, was required. Late nineteenth-century society was thus enabled to proclaim liberal citizenship as the fulfillment of intrinsic biological and psychological forces. The psychological and pedagogical literature of the era reinforced self-maturing agency as a scientific and evolutionary truism. In the work of G. Stanley Hall and other early psychologists, in the new wave of child-rearing literature written by parental advisors and pedagogical specialists, and in the popular literature for the young, the adult agent represented the full unfolding of one’s essential self independent of social institutions or agendas. This erasure of socialization from the picture of liberal society, a product ironically of its increasing efficiency, enabled liberal adaptation to be taken for granted. By the end of the nineteenth century, American society overcame the crisis of the founding by naturalizing the process of citizen development. The discourse of individual liberty was reconciled with the underlying agency values, as natural agents willingly pursued self-reliant activity in furtherance of collectively designated ends and means. At the same time, with the emergence of late-century industrialism and the organi zational society, socializing institutions were confronted with the need to shape citizens for more structured, hierarchical institutional demands. The educational system specifically was forced to answer how a more rigorous schooling was consistent with preparation for the free society. With the development of new discourses of institutional socialization for voluntary liberal citizenship, Americans at the beginning of the twentieth century were sustained in the belief that their nation was the ultimate embodiment of liberal truths about human individuality. In the Coda, we will consider how these new discourses emerged in the work of John Dewey, the most influential liberal thinker in American history, as a comprehensive reconstruction of freedom as the pursuit of agency initiatives within organi zational systems. Once again reassured that institutions were the product of their voluntary will, Americans were able to make their peace with bureaucratic and corporate society as simply the setting within which citizens naturally evolved as free agents. The final sections will consider the challenges to this liberal consensus beginning in the 1960s, and suggest how the longer trajectory of American child rearing offers a framework for assessing the contemporary crisis of consent.

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The Challenge to the Freedom Narrative Shaping citizens to be agents had never before been undertaken, and ensuring that young agents believed themselves free and empowered dramatically increased the challenge facing the young republic. Meeting this challenge would set in motion vast social and cultural dislocations that could hardly be anticipated. Not only the institutions of modern socialization but American society as a whole were set on a course that would result in the great cultural upheavals of the twentieth century. Two such dislocations with profound long-term consequences will be taken up in detail at the point they explicitly appear after the revolution. One was the strenuous developmental requirement that in order to become agents the young had to mature as a cohort beyond the passivity and deference of traditional adulthood. This produced continual uncertainties—for the individual and for society—from the pressure to achieve more extensive forms of maturity and independence. The second was the generational tensions unleashed as in the process many young people achieved levels of maturity unavailable to older cohorts reared under more developmentally confining conditions. These dislocations became apparent after the mid-twentieth century, but their seeds lie in the early dynamic of American child rearing, although this was rarely admitted in nineteenth-century public discourse. Their pervasive implications are nonetheless a distinct part of the story. Lurking beneath these specific dislocations was the problem at the root of American nationhood: that the society being formed was an agency society and not a free one. The notion of a self-made citizenry could not be sustained within the spreading institutionalism of organization al society, and to their shock and dismay Americans found the illusion of a free society unraveling. The smooth accommodation to its structures and hierarchies, documented by the sociologist David Riesman and others, confirmed patterns of authority and deference in the very structure of the national character. The conclusion was inescapable: American society required commitments to the collective that were inconsistent with openly tendered consent. The fact that American young believed themselves naturally free even as they embraced organi zational adaptation was no longer a cause for celebration, but rather a contradiction that required explanation, which led in turn to gradual exposure of the role of socialization in shaping fi xed attitudes and practices.

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In the face of these confusions about the relation between freedom and agency, Americans have found both slipping away. Holding on to an unquestioned presumption of freedom despite the evident constraints of a highly organized culture and society has left freedom a concept with little substance and the commitment of citizens to a free society at best uncertain. Of equal importance has been the loss of a robust understanding of agency. The concession to compliance as a requirement of organi zational integration has left little space for classic American agency initiative and participation. Confronted now with the corrosive impact of mass conformity and ever more distant and unresponsive institutions, liberal subjects are finding their consent taken for granted. Unable to sort out the nature of the society they have had or the society they believe worth having, they cannot discern what it is they have lost with their submission to institutional demands. The troubling liberal response to these concerns has been to retreat further behind claims of natural inevitability. In an effort to preserve the agency framework, liberal thinkers beginning with Dewey expanded the presumption of a citizen both agent and free. Adding to the previous excision of socialization (given the capacity for self-creation as agents), now individuals were defined as agents from their very birth, obviating any need for internal development as agency characters. In this more extreme version, the young needed only time for their inherent capacities, including a willingness to adopt institutional roles, to flourish. This presumption, that the young were virtually complete from the outset, magically eliminated the developmental and accompanying generational tensions kindled by the struggle for self-mastery. And yet because the young were no more natural agents than they were capable of achieving agency without an organized process of child rearing, socialization was, as always, called upon behind the scenes. It would be delegated to ensure an early, willing, and unquestioning adaptation to the pathways of organi zational society and to promote it as the intrinsic expression of the child’s free agent nature. The fact that American individualism was unachievable without the conditioned development of the young helps to explain the intense national commitment to and anxieties about child rearing. By refusing to acknowledge this reliance, the new society in effect covertly imposed the burden of shaping the young on every parent and child. As the institution of last resort, families were conscripted to ensure the creation

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of agents. This responsibility accounts for the unyielding pressures faced by those raising the young to produce, without appearing to falter, the citizens upon whose functioning liberal society depends. It further explains how, in times of national conflict and transition, when social disorganization is at its most intense, the crisis is typically attributed to the failure of liberal socializing institutions. Attributing the dislocations to an adaptive failure in the young leaves unscrutinized and unnoticed the endemic tensions of producing a capable modern citizen. Such pressures to accept without question the ideal account of liberal citizen formation even upon those who examine this dynamic creates the inference that the conception of the nation hangs in the balance. So long as the illusion of inevitability remained undisturbed, Americans would continue to perform as highly circumscribed agents, secure in their membership in a free society of free individuals. Surrounded by the rhetoric of individualism, free markets, and democracy, few citizens even recognized their complicity in the decline of agency society. The unquestioned assumptions about freedom had obvious advantages for social stability: citizens who accepted their commitment to the path laid out for them; who were not prone to life cycle crises of personal calling, of rebellion, or of deviation from societal expectations; who simply took responsibility (and blame) for their integration without need for a more authentic individualism. Even when generational and developmental antagonisms are noticed, they at first appear to be peripheral, at most episodic. In periods of relative stability (the 1950s being a recent example), defiance or revolt is scarcely visible. Such periods assure Americans that generational harmony is the norm and liberal child shaping at base uncontested and unproblematic— allowing us, hand in generational hand, to approach a “more perfect society.” Given the preoccupation with social cohesion, Americans are in turn relieved that no “group cleavage” such as the class, ethnic, or religious divisions of other nations threatens this country’s exceptional “degree of consensus.”30 But once the failures of this framing became apparent, the conviction of a liberal society of individuals smoothly maturing into free agents quickly crumbled. Times of social turmoil, when contention has surfaced from a “hiatus between one generation and the next,” producing “endemic filial friction,” have created the unsettling prospect that these divisions operate as class does elsewhere.31 Efforts are quickly taken to restore

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order and reassert the inevitability of generational harmony. This dynamic masks a central function of American socializing institutions: to absorb and dampen generational tension. Closer examination reveals the troubling conclusion that such conflict is endemic; it is merely contained more effectively and thus more difficult to spot during periods of youthful compliance. Without a willingness to address these realities or the differences between freedom and agency, it has been difficult to ascertain and assess the formation either of the nation or its constituents. The increasingly structured and routinized society has thus left a dual, and divided, legacy for contemporary Americans. A culture of marketing, mass consumption, and conformity makes compliance harder than ever to resist, while the ubiquity of these pressures renders recognition of this compliance harder to ignore. Once the younger generations began asserting objections to their process of formation after the 1950s, and systematic agency constraints long submerged began to surface, the central conundrum of liberal society arose for all to examine: if America was not an experiment in freedom, then what was its contribution to modernity? If in underlying design and implementation it was an agency society, did freedom continue to be an aspiration, and if so what role should it play in society? Finally, most unsettling, was there any substance to the classic American rhetoric of a free society of free individuals calling us to its realization? Surveying the full scope of the American project reveals its immense ambition. The creation of a society of agents capable of navigating its novel institutions brought to the forefront the ever contingent project of developing mature agency citizens. To transform this dream into reality, the unceasing socialization campaigns of the nineteenth century produced both a conception of the liberal citizen and the institutional prototypes for generating a social character for the nation. Forming a citizenry possessing the will and capacities to take on the profound challenges of the first individualist society, Americans achieved consolidation of their popular society and global preeminence in the century to come. Americans have been lulled into believing that their successful achievement of a liberal society would dissipate the tensions arising from the mobilization of the young to a new way of life. Generational dislocations would be resolved once adults had universally traversed the process of liberal socialization, and developmental difficulties would be set to rest

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by predictable and easily accessible markers of maturation. The confusion of freedom and agency would recede in the common embrace of free agency, the consensual participation by all in the set patterns of institutional integration. In this they were mistaken. Apprehensions about the viability of the republic and the capacity of its citizenry for freedom and democracy now expose the unaddressed contradictions of liberal society and its strategy of citizen formation. Faced with a fragmenting moral order, Americans turn once again to socialization, asking it to function in its historic role as the institution of last resort in providing cohesion. Will the classic American model of agency child rearing and character formation be capable of addressing the new challenges of the organi zational age? Or are new priorities and social forces reshaping how and to what ends the young will be raised in the future? For many, earlier child-rearing patterns promise to restore the sense of individual direction and common purpose needed for social cohesiveness. Others sense that postindustrial shifts have altered the conditions for the flourishing of individualism, requiring shifts in the structures of authority and character formation that will lead to new forms of selfhood and socialization, childhood and social integration. As this hidden world is illuminated, we will be better able to answer concerns that, perhaps more than any other, affect the future of the nation.

I The Dream of Revolutionary Erasure

2

The Revolution against Patriarchy and the Crisis of Founding When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to advance from that subordination in which they have hitherto remained [to an] equal & independent station . . . —Thomas Jefferson, draft Declaration My subject [is] the American revolution against patriarchal authority— a revolution in the understanding of the nature of authority that affected all aspects of eighteenth-century culture. —Jay Fliegelman

Thomas Paine’s proclamation at the outset of the revolution that Americans “have it in [their] power to begin the world over again” has resounded throughout his age and down through American history.1 Colonists arriving from traditional Europe had long imagined they were shedding the oppressive burdens of hierarchy. In the unstructured setting of the New World, their experience of release was palpable. The French immigrant Crèvecoeur in his Letters from an American Farmer spoke for many when he celebrated the “new man.” In America, far from “former servitude and dependence,” one could, through “resurrection,” act upon “new principles . . . entertain new ideas, and form new opinions.”2 In their enthusiasm to redeem an “old world” everywhere “overrun with oppression,” new Americans hearkened to the mission of establishing an “asylum” of freedom for all of humankind.3 The revolutionary vision of a release from history energized them to create the first modern society. But this release came at a price: the expectations of a new beginning stirred by this vision obscured the actual dynamic leading to 41

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independence from Britain and the resources colonists possessed to address the challenge of social formation. Lost in the euphoria of transformation and the rhetoric claiming that authority had been undone were the agency principles nurtured by two centuries of religious dissent for which the revolution was being waged and which would direct institutional formation in the new society. Also missing in most accounts of the dynamic of independence, and the more immediate concern here, is the colonists’ insistence on their struggle for liberation from not only political but generational dominance. By locating their demand for separation in the “late rapid progress of the continent to maturity,” colonists raised questions about the relation among generations that permeated national formation and endures to this day.4

The Cultural Revolution in the Colonies The seventeenth-century colonization of North America is best understood in light of the revolutionary upheavals in traditional English society. As dissenting Protestants challenged the deeply embedded servitude of English commoners, their increasingly uncompromising opposition to theological and institutional authority led insurgents to undertake both rebellion at home, in what became the English Revolution, and emigration to the colonies. While the former initiated the structural changes that enabled England to become the first great modern nation, the latter produced in the New World an even more radical cultural dynamic. In the colonies, dissenters breathing the “free air of the New World” were emboldened to organize entirely new lives and communities. Many “self-declared (or scarcely disguised) separatists, antinomians, familists, Seekers, anabaptists, Ranters, Adamites, and Quakers” brought with them the conviction that their personal religious experience shaped their public roles and commitments,5 and subordination to institutional authorities was a habit they were learning to shed. As Helena M. Wall has written in Fierce Communion: Family and Community in Early America, colonial society “began by deferring to the needs of the community and ended by deferring to the rights of the individual.”6 Efforts to establish local communities and religious fellowships on agency principles bore fruit in the latter phase of the First Great Awakening, when more radical dissenters across the colonies rejected Jonathan Edwards’s campaign to revitalize existing ecclesiastical hierarchies. In

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the insurgents’ view, their intimate relation with a loving and attentive God marked them as “regenerate souls” who would receive divine grace. Kindled by the “Divine Light” within, they possessed a new “power of choice” and “free agency.”7 Coming together in popular revivals, churches separating from the ecclesiastical establishment, and sectarian fellowships, believers felt empowered to set the terms for religious practices, membership policies, and their personal and collective relation to God. Colonial society was in the throes of a social and cultural earthquake. Impacting communities throughout the colonies, the greatest ferment was in New England, where the formulation of radical agency principles and practices would reach its greatest elaboration and influence on the larger society. Common citizens and elites reborn to jointly further God’s work in the world identified themselves as “moral agents” capable of “gently Co-operating, assisting, striving together” with God to transform community life.8 Yet as radical dissenters disseminated this powerful message of God’s authorization, they lacked the institutional power and cultural leverage to seriously threaten colonial arrangements. Only in their own fellowships could the strenuous responsibility of their divine mandate be assured. Of necessity, reformers turned to those within reach, their own young, to sustain the mission. Despite strong reservations about enhancing the role of minors, the nascent agency culture placed its hopes on a new way of raising children.

The Dependence on Generational Order The central role that socialization would come to play in reshaping American society was unimaginable to these colonists. In an oppositional movement struggling for survival in England, Protestant dissenters expected parents to vigorously sow the “seeds of godliness” in their offspring.9 But in New England they lacked the leverage to enforce adult social discipline, and religious communities grappling with the forces of individual mobility and self-reliance had no choice but to organize their churches and social networks on an implicitly voluntary basis. Yet freely tendered religious commitment proved inadequate, for members’ “inner acceptance” of social regulations offered “scarcely” any basis for “order at all.”10 Unquestioned engagement in the religious mission, the basis of early community cohesion, would require habits of compliance that would need to be taught in childhood.

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To obtain absolute domestic governance, colonists sought refuge in the traditional family, fueled by the hope to “reproduce, even to freeze in time, patterns of family . . . already beginning to erode in Europe.”11 As “the root whence church and Commonwealth Cometh,” for Cotton Mather “well-ordered Families naturally produce Good Order in Other Societies. Where Families are under an Ill Discipline, all other Societies being therefore Ill Disciplined, will feel that Error in the First Concoction.”12 Richard Bushman has noted the importance given to family structure in that era: Weakness in the family endangered the entire social order, for the Puritans knew that the pattern of submission set in the home fi xed the attitude toward authority throughout life and that strong family government prevented disorder in the state. The father was the model for all authority—magistrates were called fathers of their people— and the biblical commandment to honor parents was expanded to include all rulers.13

Full submission to the will of one’s parents mirrored and modeled for the young the relationship of total obedience demanded to an absolute divine magistrate.14 Puritan theology confirmed the role of strict discipline. Because humans naturally fester in “Sin, and wickedness,” rigid submission enforced from an early age was necessary to break the child’s willful nature. This would produce “a just Deference to Superiours,” making children “tractable or manageable” so that they would know “what it is to be under Government.”15 Given the limited reach of external constraints in the New World, strict socialization would facilitate the internalized obedience necessary to carry out lifelong performance of parental and communal priorities: The continuous pressure exerted by parents upon their children for perfect compliance with parental standards was . . . most successful when it was least dependent on external commands and oversight. What made most evangelical children behave properly—whether or not any adult was around to notice—was their continuously active conscience, the inescapable inner disciplinarian, which governed their lives from early childhood through adulthood. . . . Conscience served as the inner voice for external authority—the expectations and commands of both parents and God.16

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Even in the later trials of adolescent separation, individuals having been early “struck as with an arrow from the Lord” with a sense of sinfulness, inability, and dependence would resist deviation from the authoritative web of the community.17

The Collapse of Generational Control As English Puritanism collapsed and the colonies became increasingly secularized, the fate of the dissenting religious mission fell upon that outpost City on the Hill and upon its young raised in the faith: “The main errand which brought your Fathers into this Wilderness, was not only that they might themselves enjoy, but that they might settle for their Children, and leave them in full possession of the free, pure, and uncorrupted libertyes of the Covenant of Grace.”18 Thus was “the Generation risen and rising up” told to come forth and “solemnly to receive the charge,” to “Hearken to the Demands which the former Generation [made] upon [them]” for the “Great Work . . . incumbent on [them].”19 With the older generation in time “Dead & Gone,” the younger generation would clearly soon take control and “ere long themselves be Teachers of others.”20 In sum, as reflected in Jonathan Edwards’s turn to the young in the revivals of the 1730s, whether the project “must stand or fall” depended on the “present Generation.”21 Yet the very efforts to use the traditional family structure to maintain “a strict performance” would, in Cotton Mather’s fearful words, “Come to Nothing.”22 To begin with, the very plenitude of choices regarding religious and community affiliation, marriage, domicile, and livelihood open to adults exerted “irresistible pressure against traditional bounds.”23 The ready availability of open land and commercial opportunity fueled resistance to local restrictions that shattered both political elites and community economic controls, and Old World castes quickly fell away. The power of ecclesiastical hierarchies and the solidarity of theological communities were likewise eroded by spreading waves of popular religion and cultural individualism. The absence of “older hierarchies” and “traditional paternalistic ties” left no institutions “powerful enough to compel compliance” and social discipline.24 Citizens released from the constraints of traditional deference and subordination looked after their own economic and religious interests and challenged institutional authority and its abuses of power.

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Ongoing factional controversies demonstrated that individual choice and broad participation could not be preempted by the classical ideal of the virtuous ruler governing for the public good. The options opening up for individuals reaching adulthood cast a long backward shadow onto the earlier child-rearing process. As the young looked ahead to independence, and the pressures and responsibilities it entailed, they were forced to mature more quickly. Once propelled to the early exercise of self-reliance and initiative, youth could not be expected to submit to adult demands. Parental control over vocation, marriage, and residence quickly became insupportable. At the same time, parents sensed the new challenges their children would face. Regardless of theological strictures, the young had to be provided with the skills, education, initiative, and emotional resources necessary to succeed. Gradually, a “new conception of parental duty and authority” emerged. Parents were now cast as “benefactors responsible for the future well-being and prosperity of their offspring.”25 Governing the young by instilling fear as the “only impression,” the fear of “GOD” and “Father & Mother,” of all “Superiors” and “Elders,” was in turn less effective, less capable of enabling individuals to arrive at the “years of Reason,” their own reason.26 As the role and responsibilities of the young expanded in the “leveling ambience” of colonial life, generational authority was gradually transformed. Working side by side fostered a more personal relationship between parents and their children, leading “even to the point of reversing the roles” at times. In ways completely unexpected, the young began quietly to assume a “strange, anomalous authority” inconsistent with the “ancient structure of family life.” Lamenting the shocking independence of the young, William Bradford famously concluded that the Puritan commonwealth had become a “widow,” a “poor church left, like an ancient mother grown old and forsaken of her children.”27 The collapse of these communities “built to last” invited a search for scapegoats. Challengers to authority of all kinds were labeled rebellious spirits sunk in “degeneracy and Apostasy.” To shore up declining generational hierarchies in particular, communities demanded a “more Effectual Course” of instruction to “restore [their] primitive practice for the training up [of] [their] youth.”28 Towns and states passed laws requiring religious education by parents and churches, bolstering parental authority over adolescents and apprentices, initiating mandatory community

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education, and threatening harsh punishments for “STUBBORNE or REBELLIOUS” behavior.29 Yet parental authority and church controls continued to weaken, enabling children to gain exposure to “new ideas, new occupations, and new life styles.”30 The harsh enforcement of adult prerogative, increasingly ineffective, encouraged youth to rebel and make “headlong dashes for freedom.” Elders spoke of “young persons shakeing of[f] the government of parents and masters” and “getting from under the[ir] government . . . before they are able to govern themselves.”31 As Daniel Lewes noted in 1725, “They can’t bear to be under the Government of their Parents, nor even to be so much as check’d by them when they have done amiss.”32 In mid-eighteenth-century revivals, elders exhorted youth to lead the renewal of piety and compliance, and the vulnerability of the old generational order became apparent. By making “visible Reformation among the young People” the “Means of stirring up many middle-aged and elder Persons to think more seriously about their Souls,” they had been effectively recognized as a distinct social force in colonial life. Youth took quickly to the role of initiator, becoming those “first and most visibly touched by the religious quickening.”33 At the same time, this generational cohort quickly surged beyond the retaining walls of establishment hierarchy and discipline, redirecting the Great Awakening from traditional communal order toward a new individualized faith. Destined to animate American culture thereafter, this radical religious sensibility emphasized the role of personal initiative, the experience of freedom, and the importance of “egalitarian mass participation.”34 The conventional image of colonial society anchored by ordered Puritan communities has obscured the unsettling impact of continuous social dislocations. As the colonial family frayed, increasingly apparent was the “freedom of American children,” noted with surprise by foreign visitors in the early nineteenth century but manifest long before then. With the young seemingly unrestrained by parental authority and “absolute masters of their fates,”35 the traditional family would be a casualty of New World practices. As Axtell has trenchantly suggested, “when values become unstable, confused, or contradictory,” the socializing institutions are “the first to sense the change because it is their task to digest and abstract the culture’s values into forms intelligible to the young.” The issue was no longer whether the young would make their own way, but how prepared they would be.36

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Transitional Reforms The search for new models of authority was an endemic feature of dissenting culture. From the beginning of the seventeenth century, sectarian dissenters had rejected both the monarchic God of Anglicanism and the harsh, punitive God of Calvinism. They offered instead a divinity personally supportive of their quest for spiritual reform. Many adults drew upon this ideal of divine intimacy and empowerment, as Greven has explored, particularly in New England. In the South as well, as noted by Jan Lewis in The Pursuit of Happiness: Family and Values in Jeffersonian Virginia, adults developed a more affective model of family relations, believing that “the Love of Parents to their Children” is “so intense and influential” that “God himself is pleased to resemble His Love to His Children” using this model.37 Realizing that increasingly “the Authority of Parents over their Children is Limited,” these reformers recast generational relations as enabling and reciprocal. Utilizing the “gentle Reins of Love and Tenderness,” they believed, would better nurture the child’s mind and spirit. The child’s “natural ambition” was to be encouraged rather than stifled by lessening constraints and allowing for the greater exercise of discretion and judgment. For the first time, child rearing was to provide children with the ability to act as self-reliant agents of worldly and spiritual ends.38 Although those who self-consciously articulated and documented this shift were few in number, their testimony points to the evolution of a broader family system. One seventeenth-century observer noted, “How over familiar do too many children make themselves with their parents? as if hail-fellow well met (as they say) and no difference twixt parent and child.”39 Evidence of a widespread shift can be gleaned as well from the vast dissemination of children’s versions of Robinson Crusoe and other stories of young adult moral growth and worldly progress. As one South Carolinian put it, the colonial resistance to authority was nurtured “through the honest impressions of education, and notions derived from old story-books, whipt into them when they were boys.” 40 A serious rift was opening up in late colonial society, with the explicit expectations of obedience from imperial and patriarchal institutions on one hand and the popular emergence of individualism and independence on the other. Few recognized how vulnerable this gradual erosion of traditional authority was rendering societal hierarchies. The impact on domestic hierarchies was still harder to grasp. The revolu-

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tion, we now know, would remake not only the institutions of society but also family authority, the role of the young, and the very nature of generational relations. Was the reverse also true? Did the growing power of youth and young adults and their attitudes toward authority also play a role in precipitating the revolution? Political discourse during the prerevolutionary debates often employed the rhetoric of family relations, and it is clear that these issues were very deep in people’s thoughts and actions.

The Puzzle of the Revolutionary Insurgency The historical evidence suggests that we have not yet found a full explanation of the path to the American Revolution. One clue is a surprising disjunction noted by scholars between the colonists’ claims of ever greater British oppression after 1767 and growing evidence that the sense of urgency was greatly overstated. As Bailyn has noted, the close colonial relation during the French and Indian Wars gave way in the period before independence to a sweeping “contagion of liberty,” an explosive ferment within the radicalizing colonial culture that “swept past boundaries few had set out to cross, into regions few had wished to enter.” In short order, normalcy in the colonies was shattered and the fuse of social transformation “detonated.” 41 Growing fears of “a deliberate assault launched surreptitiously by plotters against liberty both in England and in America” ripened into extravagant colonial rhetoric of a comprehensive and insidious British conspiracy to enslave colonial society.42 Yet evident to many even at the time (though driven from the collective memory of all but historians), little in England’s conduct was inconsistent with its imperial responsibilities. As Gordon Wood writes, there was scant justification for the colonists’ attitude: There was none of the legendary tyranny that had so often driven desperate peoples into revolution. The Americans were not an oppressed people; they had no crushing imperial shackles to throw off. In fact, the Americans knew they were probably freer and less burdened with cumbersome feudal and monarchical restraints than any part of mankind in the eighteenth century.43

Indeed Bailyn wondered why “establishments of such irregularity and weakness should have come under fire at all.” The conservative Daniel Leonard believed the mounting insurrection had “little real cause,” and

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the radical Paine himself intimated that it was less the press of events than the colonists’ entirely new understanding of political events that spurred the rebellion.44 If the abrupt shift, whereby “Americans accepted colonial dependency for so long then threw it off so suddenly,” was not a reaction to escalating oppression, what explains it? Wood acknowledges an often “patent absurdity and implausibility” infusing the colonists’ conscious intent and suggests this points to “sources lying deep” within developments in colonial culture. But he limits his discussion to tensions emerging within the revolutionary period itself, offering no deeper historical process to explain the revolutionary framing of discourse independence.45 The discourse of personal freedom (as a cause distinct from independence), despite the later construction of a national narrative, was not central to the colonial insurgency prior to the Declaration, and even the Declaration’s radical expression arose from the pragmatic need to establish common cause in a society severely rent by internal tensions.46 The extremes of “fanatical and millennial thinking,” of “enthusiastic extravagance” and “paranoid obsession,” triggered by the cause of separation generated with speed and force a revolutionary fervor that “leaped like a spark from one flammable area to another, growing in heat as it went.” Perceptions and experiences of unjustified subservience incubated in colonial life were clearly being inflamed, yet participants were at a loss to explain what they but “dimly perceived” and “nowhere . . . articulated or justified.” 47 If the goal is to iron out complications in the national narrative, we would perhaps agree with scholars claiming the “unpredictability” of this seismic event, which so clearly “transcended the intentions and desires of any of the historical participants” that it is “practically impossible to grasp.”48 Despite the confusion at the time, however, evidence accumulates regarding social forces at work that challenge the national myth of origin.

The Revolution against Patriarchy The clues to a fundamental change in attitude toward authority are evident everywhere—in sermons and political writings, works of fiction, the first draft of the Declaration, and, above all, the galvanizing statement of the American cause, Common Sense. Yet the tendency to downplay

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revolutionary extremism both at the time and thereafter is understandable, for such a challenge to traditional hierarchy in societal and familial relations was without historical precedent. In the imperial union, as in the traditional family, dependents were ruled by “lawful Mother England,” who was an “indulgent parent” to whom obedience was of course “due from the children.” The “epithets of parent and child” thus framed the colonial relation as “a family in which England enjoyed the rights and duties of parental authority over the colonies while the colonies enjoyed the corresponding rights and duties of children.” 49 The intimation of a dramatic and unprecedented change in political and familial expectations surfaced slowly. As violations of the natural order, demands made by political children would be dismissed as mere insubordination. They were chastised as merely “undutiful and rebellious children” whose “petulance” toward legitimate authority was traceable to their “long indulgence,” which made them feel entitled to be “impatient of the smallest restraint.”50 Moreover, since colonial leaders could put forward no coherent narrative of recent events, it was not clear to any of the political actors what changes warranted the fierce criticism of the imperial relationship. Even as attacks on the imperial relation grew in intensity, no one dared ask what this criticism suggested about the familial model of civic and domestic institutions. Indeed, the moderate elites who led the revolution struggled fiercely to limit the generational challenge to colonial oppression. Their efforts marked a crucial attempt to prevent any seepage into internal class and family relations and drove the dynamic of generational upheaval from politics into the backwaters of child rearing and literary expression. Given the assumptions of youthful inferiority and imperial legitimacy in the traditional discourse, it is surprising how deeply the rebellion drew upon familial rhetoric. Opponents of revolution could speak convincingly of the subordination required of “less[er] parts,” the “respect . . . always due from inferiors,” children in particular. In their view, it was presumptuous to consider the colonies having arrived at maturity, as they were not yet “capable of digesting other food” besides the “milk of the mothers.”51 Nevertheless, a new discourse of generational relations virtually became the “very lingua franca of the Revolution.” Emerging along with a “new parental ideal characterized by a more affectionate and egalitarian relationship with children” was a larger “revolution against patriarchal

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authority,” which was to generate in time a “new cultural orthodoxy.”52 Expressing their newfound belief in reciprocal care and obligation, the rebels first tapped simmering popular anger at Britain as parents who betrayed their responsibility to their charges. The “resentment of dutiful children who have received unmerited blows from a beloved parent” was now justifiably expressed when a “haughty Parent Country,” suffering “slumbering Delusions,” determined to “provoke [her] children to wrath”— despite the children’s “[tender] love”—and sought the “Ruin of her legitimate Offspring, and hitherto dutiful Children.”53 Stirring moral indignation at unprovoked violations, colonial sermons and broadsheets turned resistance into “a categorical imperative.”54 The prerogatives of patriarchy, imperial and otherwise, dissolved in stages. Assuming the role of indigenous parents, the insurgents began in the mid-1760s to insist on the need for greater autonomy. The traditional bond with “the mother country” and “the King, as Father of his People” as a “birthright” connection establishing “an unshaken Attachment” as dependents continued to be acknowledged, but colonial rhetoric began to chip away at the notion that childhood represented for the colonies “a permanent relationship to external authority.”55 At the same time, the growth and prosperity of the colonies was subtly escalating colonists’ expectations about what they should “reasonably expect from the mother-country.” Early assertions of colonial discretion in the Stamp Act controversy challenged the scope of British ascendancy, and the standard of “mutual advantage” and the possession of “reason and right on the part of the inferior” was increasingly articulated.56 Leading colonists boldly began to formulate new “rights of youth.” Relying on the image of the affectionate family, they sharply distinguished the political father who “tenderly love[s]” and desires the good of his children even if guilty of mistakes through “human frailty” from tyrants and masters seeking “slaves, or even servants.”57 John Adams defiantly asserted the responsibilities and limits of parenthood: “Have not children a right to complain when their parents are attempting to break their limbs, to administer poison, or to sell them to enemies for slaves? . . . Will the mother be pleased when you represent her as deaf to the cries of her children?”58 Above all, political childhood itself was being recast. No longer a permanent disability, it was a temporary condition leading in time to greater parity. The “period of growth, education, and preparation” for adult life, once “the nurturing season” was

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over and the young were on their own, rendered them no longer “subject to the controul of age.” As maturity ensued, the dependent relation that had hitherto left a whole people, as the individual, “confined in its operations,” was to be terminated.59 In the period leading up to the revolution, the colonial insurgents expressed a more powerful and self-confident sense of maturation. They returned repeatedly to the family metaphor, insisting that youth in time grow up and assume mastery over their own lives. Rather than being cast as rebels and usurpers tampering with a fi xed generational order, they now regarded themselves as rising from a weak but “temporary . . . state of minority” into “independent manhood.”60 John Adams spoke of the colonies as “nearer manhood” than ever dreamed of, the minister Jacob Duche of children who have “arrived at years of discretion” expecting to take possession of what is theirs. The minister Moses Mather from the prominent New England family wrote in 1775, “Is a man so bound by accident and necessity, as to the place of his birth, that when he arrives to the age of discretion, he cannot remove into another kingdom and country? . . . Doth not the obligation of subjection and obedience to parents, cease with our childhood and state of dependance?”61 Between 1765 and 1772, under the guise of clarifying the traditional division of responsibilities, colonists continued to expand their economic, political, religious, and legal claims. Although infringements were inevitable by a crown unaware of the shifting terrain, violations were no longer excused. Increasingly they were treated as deliberate encroachments arising from the “selfishness and servility” of one mistaking himself as “proprietor, not the father of his people.” The offer of “cheerful obedience” and support was now conditional on being “justly and kindly treated.” The proposition was advanced that to be valid the obeisance paid even “to a wise and benevolent father” must be “free,— a matter of choice, and not force.”62 This sense of colonial entitlement systematically cut away the ground under patriarchal authority.

The Unraveling Colonial Relationship As colonial self-confidence grew, the framework of imperial dependence became harder to tolerate. For some, like Stephen Hopkins, the governor of Rhode Island, the parallel between colonial membership and British citizenship meant that colonists “should have and enjoy all the freedom

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and liberty that the subjects of England enjoy.” Jonathan Mayhew celebrated the Stamp Act’s repeal as confirmation that the colonies were “re-instated in the enjoyment of their ancient rights and privileges” as British subjects.63 By the early 1770s, however, stronger claims of entitlement were directed at imperial rule, though rather than confronting the viability of the familial relation, colonists blamed the fraying ties on British malfeasance. Colonial leaders warned that the king’s indifference to mutual responsibilities would “alienate the affections of His Majesty’s American sons” and forfeit the “family alliance.” Claiming “inhuman pa[t]ricide” by one whose “guilty head” runs “red with uncommon wrath” and “absolute tyranny,” colonists concluded that the “doctrine of the maternal authority of one country over another” was “the greatest absurdity that ever entered the head of a politician.”64 The leadership of John Adams and Jefferson arose in part from their early willingness to abandon not only the domestic metaphor but the imperial family itself. The power to govern, they argued beginning in 1773, arose not from above but, as in Locke’s Second Treatise, from the populace being governed. In his “Summary View” of 1774, Jefferson rejected the British conception of the relation as a recent figment of imperial hubris: “Nor was ever any claim of superiority or dependence asserted over them by that mother country from which they had migrated.” Moreover, “were such a claim made,” subjects remaining in England would never swallow “such visionary pretentions.” Adams, more temperately discerning “something extremely fallacious in the commonplace images of mother country and children colonies,” asked, “Are we the children of Great Britain any more than the cities of London, Exeter, and Bath?”65 In his watershed essay Common Sense, Paine skillfully integrated the discourses of a Lockean America and filial maturation. The colonies’ political right to independence as a distinct society was the product of the “late rapid rise of the continent to maturity.” Sensing deep rage at the protracted and increasingly incomprehensible subordination of a whole nation to a monarch who might himself be virtually a minor, Paine dissolved the remaining metaphorical links. Facing the imperial “monster,” a pretended father whose “barbarity” had left the stain of “blood upon his soul,” the colonists must relinquish the “violated unmeaning names of parent and child.” All that remains is Britain’s duplicity: “The phrase parent or mother country hath been jesuitically adopted by the king and

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his parasites, with a papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds.”66 Paine recast the language of political subordination in developmental terms, profoundly altering the framework of generational relations. In this “new aera for politics,” communities, like youth, mature and in time inevitably “come of age.” Those ruling over them thus possess only the temporary authority to govern as a form of provisional “guardianship.” To dismiss the claim of ultimate parity by noting that one was once a child is as absurd as believing that the “first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty.” More prophetically, children have the right to insist on the opportunity for full development. Childhood is no longer a time of mere inability and passivity but a “seed time of good habits, as well in nations as in individuals,” a time to accumulate the capacities that enabled one to move from dependence to independence.67 Common Sense laid the groundwork for Jefferson, not only by calling explicitly for an “open and determined declaration for independance,”68 but by preparing colonists for Jefferson’s unflinching denunciation of the British tyrant as “unfit to be the ruler of a people who mean to be free.” The assumption of responsibility and power attendant upon coming of age underlies the principles annunciated in the final Declaration. It now suffices for a mature people to assert by “the laws of nature and of nature’s god” that they “dissolve the political bands” and assume their “separate and equal station.” In Jefferson’s draft, however, the developmental reasoning is explicit: “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to advance from that subordination in which they have hitherto remained, and to assume . . . [an] equal & independent station . . .”69 In the final document, the murky and controversial discourse of maturation is rejected in favor of timeless abstractions. To be sure, by tapping the undercurrents of generational resentment, Paine had prepared the way for Jefferson’s claims of parity. Yet with the final Declaration’s rhetorical shift away from a developmental narrative, the “new-born child of liberty” would be rescued from the complications and dislocations attending the rejection of traditional hierarchies. Locke’s ahistorical social contract offered its myth of origins as an escape from the uncertain future of institutional and domestic authority.70

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The Allure of Lockean Liberalism Or so it seemed. The revolutionary discourse proposed to begin history again with a novus ordo saeclorum. Prompted by Paine’s call to exert “power to begin the world over again” as an “asylum for mankind,” the logic of a new beginning took wing in the rhetoric of the Declaration. Crèvecoeur announced “a new race of men.” Richard Price “a new project in human affairs” initiating a “new a-era in the history of mankind,” and David Ramsay a vast new empire beaming its light as “the chosen seat of truth, justice, freedom, learning and religion.”71 As Sheldon Wolin has argued, America’s formation from a Lockean social contract rather than from traditional patterns of authority created the image of a society without a past: An identity that has been established by revolution is typically one that renounces the past and seeks liberation from it. A revolution, we might say, wants to begin history, not to continue it. And so the Declaration of Independence appealed to “self-evident truths” rather than to historical principles. The past was a reminder of their status as dependent colonials.

Lockean liberalism, in Michael Lienesch’s terms, allowed the revolutionaries to substitute rational for traditional categories, leaving them with the discretion to “adopt or cut off” elements of the past on the basis of utility without regard for embedded cultural values.72 The unstated claim, and indeed the attraction, of a new social contract founding was that once-dependent subjects were all of a sudden presumed to be mature liberal agents, transformed into the members of a modern polity without the lingering burden of subordination. A revolutionary parable of liberal origins represented this new political logic: Suppose a man to remove to a desert island and take a peaceable possession of it. . . . So long as he is alone he is the absolute monarch of the place, and his own will is his law, which law is as often altered or repealed as his will changes. In process of time from this man’s loins ten sons are grown to manhood and possess property. So long as they are all good men each one can be absolute, free, and sovereign as his father; but one of the ten turns vagrant, by robbing the rest. . . . [Then] reason and safety both dictate to the nine the necessity of a confederation

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to unite their strength together. . . . Some compact or agreement would be stipulated by which each would be bound to do his equal part in fatigue and expense; it would be necessary for these nine to meet at stated times to consult means of safely and happiness . . . and in case of disagreement four must give up to five.

The new political order sustained not by patriarchal obligation but filial agreement now involved the rule of the mature “brethren” in a “new voluntaristic adopted family,” eliminating the father as a political presence along with his criminal son. Yet this simple story, as Freud later explained in Totem and Taboo, was no modest revision of the story of political founding. The origin narrative of a society now sustained not by generational obligation but by filial affection enacted a modernist— patricidal—revolt of the progeny, a symbolic removal of patriarchy from the political world.73 As the familial model of politics was replaced with formal constitutional arrangements, after the Declaration the insurgents asserted the universal entitlement of mature citizens to “natural rights” and the “free use and exercise” of their “powers and faculties.” Using Lockean terms, liberal equality, rights of property, and political participation were now at least in theory vested in individuals regardless of status. Thus did the rhetorical legacy of the revolution in its universal dispensation provide reassurance that the new society had escaped the entanglements of generational obligation. In this telling, America “miraculously becomes capable of its own nurturing; independence transforms the son into his own parent, a child into an adult.” Doubts about one’s preparation for independence were to be cast aside. “[Though] in every department we are dwindled, and more disposed to act like children than men,” Stanley Griswold resolutely wrote in the face of political turmoil in 1801, “[let us] Be men.” That Americans ever since have embraced this presumption of a timeless founding and the power of the will to overcome the past only reinforces the seductive power of instant maturity— and its denials.74

The Lockean Agony The rise of the Lockean narrative was one of the early nation’s great self-deceptions. The supposed deliverance it brought from political immaturity is belied by the revolutionaries’ preoccupation with develop-

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mental ambitions and the anxieties and generational tensions they created. As Peter Shaw has observed, for the insurgents the “importance of children both physically and symbolically, was all pervasive.” The struggle from the 1760s onward was rhetorically framed as the cause of a “vigorous youth” now coming of age and mobilizing to resist perceived generational incursions. Organizing as the Sons of Liberty, the Sons of Freedom, and the Liberty Boys, they expressed outrage at their symbolic fathers. Even older patriots were cast as “adults who had adopted the spirit of youth initiation,” joining in a generational movement “against a common foe perceived as a parent.”75 The generational dynamic driving the “rituals of overthrow” was observed at the time.76 The Tory Peter Oliver explained how the “Stubbornness of the Child” was being manipulated into a “popular Rage” to incite the people with guilt and revenge. The resulting “State of Anarchy” was in fact “open Rebellion against that Parent, who protected them.”77 John Adams noted that since “children and apprentices were disobedient—that schools and colleges were grown turbulent—that Indians slighted their guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their masters,” the colonial “struggle has loosened the bands of government everywhere.” How then, he asked, was a viable public authority to be constituted: “Is there a possibility that the government of nations may fall into the hands of men who teach the most disconsolate of all creeds, that men are but fireflies and that this all is without a father?”78 Intertwined with the bravado of youthful rebellion were anxieties about the capacity to consummate this daring step. Perhaps newly emergent republican citizens were only “soft clay,” still immature and thus too susceptible to “bad example and indulgence.” Likened to a newborn traversing a “season of danger,” perhaps the young country had “embarked too early in life, and taken the helm before his prudence was sufficient to guide him.” The radical leveling of hierarchy left many fearing that those trained to rule were being “trampled down to the level of common mechanics in an instant,” that is, of those completely unprepared to govern.79 Moderates sensed that a dynamic of generational upheaval was surging out of control, and they longed for a return of paternal structures, to be “political children” again so long as the fathers were “good parents.” Seeking to reestablish generational hierarchy on a modern foundation, they promoted the revolutionary leaders as the “fathers of America,”

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and Washington himself as “Father, friend and guardian of his country.” The early religious settlers were recast as fathers who “were led out of the house of bondage in Britain.” The legacy of paternal heroism in turn imposed an obligation on the children who followed to reconstitute generational fealty, in part by “spread[ing] a veil of filial piety over their imperfections.”80 But the rhetoric of generational equality, so recently used by the elites to stoke revolutionary fervor, could not be easily retracted. In colonial society, where generations had lived under informally equal social relations, the revolutionary challenge to paternal authority stirred ongoing debates about the rights of political children. What if public fathers were not “examples of goodness to their children”? What if, like kings, the “rulers of the land are children; whether in understanding, or in firmness and stability of mind”? As populist forces rose up against the governing elites to establish local democracy, universal suffrage, and religious freedom, forming what Gary Nash calls the later “unknown” or “people’s revolution,” they rejected the elite appeal for a return of political parentage.81 Ordinary citizens led the attack on familial claims, asserting the right of all “usefull and Faithfull Men” to preach “against all the Powers of the Earth.”82 Assumptions of an immature public by the “wealthy and ambitious, who in every community” believe they have been given a “right to lord it over their fellow creatures,” were unacceptable. Society, no longer “resembling a family,” was henceforth to be treated as a collective of “free people, of men who think for themselves.” The elite attack on the imperial household was swiftly transferred to the constitutional drafters, as a cabal of elders using legalisms to keep “many young men neither profligate nor idle” from voting and turn them into domestics and servants.83 The Whig leaders were appalled. Having “so lavishly used the vocabulary of freedom before 1776,” they had been given no warning that “anyone besides Tories could question their right to represent the whole people.”84 By the late eighteenth century, with the mobilization of Jeffersonian commoners, Federalists such as William Cooper of Upstate New York, who had long claimed a “benevolent and paternal” role as father of the common people, were being relentlessly attacked for elitism and political usurpation. Populist defenders, self-identified “Friends of the People,” rejected these presumed “guardians of order and religion,” and

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called for the people to take their rightful place by supplanting the “pretended Father[s].”85 The result is what the eminent Harvard historian John Fiske called the most critical point in American history. People feared that the chaos created by separation from England would produce the unceasing anarchy of a “disunited people till the end of time.” The multiplying divisions into “so many . . . prejudices and interests,” stirring in turn the “venom of party” ripping this “bleeding country” into antagonistic factions, led many to “prophesy the speedy dissolution and downfall of the halfformed American Union.”86 Lockeans were facing the collapse of their contractual fantasy. If the rebellion was in fact a generational uprising by “weak and impotent mortal[s]” driven by dark and irresolvable motives of “the parricide,” then “all [was] lost.”87

The Specter of Domestic Upheaval The challenge to political hierarchy, though vexing, was at least amenable to resolution. Beginning in the Jeffersonian period, the elite status of political and religious officeholders was dissolved and barriers to political participation lowered. The generational challenges, however, were less easily contained. In tapping the deeper springs of revolutionary sentiment, the rhetoric of the revolution affirmed not only the maturity of the young colonies but the increasing competence of individual youths. By linking national and personal coming of age, referring to youth as the critical period both “in nations and in individuals,” Paine and others opened the way to correlating national and personal independence. Mayhew in fact suggested the roots of the commitment to liberal transformation in youthful aspirations: “Having . . . from my childhood up, by the kind providence of my God, and the tender care of a good parent . . . been educated to the love of liberty . . . which chaste and virtuous passion was still increased in me, as I advanced towards, and into manhood; I would not, as I cannot now, tho’ past middle age, relinquish the fair object of my youthful affections.”88 However moderates temporized, the very structure of intimate generational relations was being shaken to the core. When Rip Van Winkle returns home after the revolution from a sleep of twenty years, this onetime village patriarch is confronted by a “busy, bustling, disputatious” new society dominated by “the rising generation.” The forces of genera-

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tional transformation, so “strange and incomprehensible” to Rip, would also perplex those coming after. Panic ensued. The “wild and savage” ways of a younger generation lacking “early and continual cultivation” was producing “ignorant people” wallowing in superstition. Generational turmoil was for the moderate elites in large part responsible for the larger social disarray: “Never can there be peace,” wrote John Smalley in 1800, “while children are allowed to rise up against their parents” or “subjects against their civil masters,” for “this turning of things upside down, generally proves fatal in the end.”89 The call went out for restoration: “Where are our Fathers?” Yet recognizing that “many of them are gone,” newly empowered youths and young adults were not inclined to return to their subordinate status. As Edwin Burrows and Michael Wallace have noted, there was a cultural link between the national cause of independence and individual psychocultural shifts: The decline of patriarchalism in both colonial society and the colonial family—brought about by the same social and economic changes that were remaking the collective image of the colonies—tended to produce less authoritarian and more autonomous personalities. For them the arbitrary exercise of imperial authority was likely to be extremely objectionable.90

It was even suggested at the time that as “private subjects” must “resist the rage and tyranny of kings,” so “children may, in case of necessity, resist the fury and mad rage of their father.”91 In this way, the antipatriarchal energies that so quickly dissolved the Puritan and imperial worlds dominating colonial society seemed poised to demand new forms of family relations, including new demands on parents and rights of the young. Would the Lockean resolution hold back the waters of generational change?

The Contested Triumph of the Lockean Story Despite the expanding and increasingly radical use of the familial discourse, the Lockean conception of the founding became the central national narrative. As the common people appropriated the generational rhetoric, propelling liberation “far beyond what even the participants themselves thought possible,” the so recently radical Lockean framework

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was ironically employed to stem the dynamic of generational rebellion. From the Lockean perspective colonial liberation had culminated in legitimate authority in both civil and domestic institutions. Once the citizenry agreed that the social contract had been executed, the challenge for popularly reconstituted authority was precisely to prevent that unbounded “state of nature” in which “all ideas of civil government would be exploded.”92 Liberalism, now the dominant political rhetoric, no longer had a place for the dynamic of generational challenge. Those seeking to undo institutionalized popular authority were no longer youthful reformers but deviants and rebels seeking to undermine political stability, returning society to that state of natural disorder that the liberal compact was designed to preclude. The official rhetoric now assumed a completed liberal transformation: the earlier “lawful rebellion against tyrants” was to be sharply distinguished from the “most damnable sin” of an “unlawful one against lawful authority.” Now that the “rigors of servitude” were ended and all were realized as “moral agents,” a clear line was restored between actual children, who in their immaturity “often imagine they are abused” when restrained or “corrected,” and the republican adult who, having “arrived to mature age” in a just society, no longer sees the need for rebellion.93 The nation, now in Lockean hands, was no longer to be regarded as a youth. It had been “freed from the restraints of tutors and governors” and was ready to take control of its own affairs. Adult citizens of this free republic, having successfully traversed the “unknown . . . difficult and dangerous path” leading “from slavery to freedom,” were naturally prepared to actualize the “most rational, equitable, and liberal principles.” Above all, with reason and conscience as their guide, citizens would willingly bind themselves to public authority and individual duty, employing “consent” as their “sole obligatory principle.”94 This system, arising from the “free exercise of rational, accountable creatures,” was the free society of free individuals, achieving internal happiness, order, and morality while promoting the spread of “liberty, through the globe.”95 The new discourse posited a dominant commitment to “sober and rational liberty.”96 From its colonial beginnings, the “venerable fathers” of prerevolutionary America were imbued with an “unquenchable love of liberty,” which made obedience entirely contingent on “voluntary assent,” enabling them to instill the light of an “ardent love of liberty”

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which eternally “glows in the American breast.”97 Thus had the colonists, “with little interruption, from the days of our fathers,” been continually “nurtured in the bosom of liberty,” which explained why they were so “unused to slavish restraints.”98 The revolution in this retelling seemed almost superfluous, initiated by leaders “born and raised under a free government,” who had imbibed its “sacred principles” and enacted them in the great conflict.99 In George Bancroft’s grand Lockean narrative, a timeless creedal status is given to the American rejection of the “family” model of the state for the principle of “perfect individuality.” From the first colonies, being republican in principle, Americans drew upon this modern culture and their own novel experience to bring forth the new nation spontaneously from a “choice from within herself.” The natural exercise of this “inner law” rather than any legacy of dependence or need for transcendent order established American society as the willing conjunction of eternally “separate, free, and constantly moving atoms, ever in reciprocal action.”100

Rethinking the Revolutionary Legacy In embracing the struggle for independence in Lockean terms, liberals hoped to separate the cause of popular institutions from the generational challenge to the legitimacy of authority itself. Even as the “bonds holding together the older monarchical society” collapsed, leading to a “dispersion of authority” that the “world had never before seen,” generational questions could be put to rest. In their place, the narrative of ascendant freedom and self-interest, narrowing the focus to challenges posed by the release of “entrepreneurial energy . . . religious passion, and . . . pecuniary desire,” was, as Gordon Wood argues, to provide a secure foundation for a “new social order” and “the public good”: “This image of a social contract formed by isolated and hostile individuals was now the only contractual metaphor that comprehended American social reality.”101 Drawing on Tocqueville, among others, Wood insists that although each individual was now able to “pursue his own good in his own way,” a new liberal order did emerge. To be sure, escalating competitiveness and factionalism at first suggested that “everything seemed to be coming apart.” Yet self-interest in this view finally enabled this society of “discordant atoms, jumbled together by chance, and tossed by inconstancy

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in an immense vacuum” to find the equilibrium that Tocqueville had discovered underneath the apparent disorder.102 This Lockean narrative was deeply problematic. Even as it shunted to the margins the challenge posed by youth’s radical “turning of things upside down,” it opened the door to an even greater challenge with the language of universal rights and consensual citizenship. Grounding political legitimacy in consent undercut all claims of natural political— and, by extension, institutional— authority. The new compact of equal agents now “forbid[s] us to call, or to acknowledge, any one master upon earth,” and in the view of some even a “Master in heaven.” How was a “band of brethren” to govern, to “preside over equals and friends”? By “exalting the people” over government and making public officers into “servants of the people,” the consequence would be to “degrade all authority” and potentially excise it as the basis of social life.103 As Wood acknowledges, a “desperate sense of crisis” regarding the “success of the republican experiment” pervaded the colonies.104 Liberal partisans were unwilling to reclaim the dissenting culture of agency and its deep-rooted respect for obedience to legitimate authority since these were inconsistent with the national narrative. But this left the problem of forming a stable society among a populace encouraged to pursue the heights of self-interest. Criticized at the time as a “superstructure” without “support,” allowing the “narrower interest[s]” of society to prevail over the “more extensive” social good, the liberal model failed to address the means for reestablishing a “submission to authority.” Had the emphasis on freedom made a mere afterthought of the citizen’s capacity for “restraining and curbing” of his “own agency” and without warrant presumed consent to entail a predictable obligation toward lawful authority both civil and divine? Perhaps no process was in place to “unite all [citizens’] endeavors.”105 More subtly, sacrifice of the discourse of agency development by the new polity left the younger generations in an ambiguous position. American liberalism recognized that adult equality excluded the young from full citizenship at the outset and excepted socializing institutions from its contractual framework. And yet its narrative of natural freedom was now inconsistent with the preparation of the young with a socialized nature, enabling them to act as citizens subject to common ends. Possessing, if not yet manifesting, a birthright liberty, they were now merely to be facilitated in assuming that birthright. The process of shaping

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agency citizens, the very bulwark of authority in the new society, was isolated in the dark corners of child rearing. In refusing to face its preagency history as a society and the pre-agency origins of each child, the United States abandoned the collective discourse to comprehend its own national formation. The story of an instant nation composed by adults who freely achieved mature agency virtue through Lockean consensus involved magical thinking on a vast scale. The image of a “natural harmony of economic interests” emerging out of chaos, so “awesome to behold,” especially given that “no one was really in charge,” has never been credible.106 The improbable claim that citizens simply “did not have to worry about society or government anymore; they would take care of themselves” while they pursued their “personal happiness here and now,” simply adds to the implausibility. Notwithstanding subsequent images of an early national community progressing bravely toward its common destiny, this polyglot jumble was in no sense a nation. What is surprising is that the predictions of societal collapse did not come true. The Jeffersonian distrust of institutions for “crush[ing]” rather than “express[ing] human aspirations” did not prevent the nation’s social formation.107 Somehow the nation would thrive without a citizenry that had already achieved mature agency characters. That success, idealized in the rhetoric of the “free society of free individuals,” has been celebrated but never explained. A citizenry brought up in the innovative religious culture and community structures of dissenting Protestantism soon recognized that personal agency virtue was the key to agency social cohesion. Turning to the organi zation of that virtue, they would move the early republic to the national project of child rearing for a consensual society.

3

Unencumbered Youth and the Postrevolutionary Vacuum of Authority It is the country of the Future . . . of beginnings, of projects, of designs, and expectations. . . . I call upon you, young men, to . . . be the nobility of this land. . . . Who should lead the leaders, but the Young American? —Ralph Waldo Emerson —Amazing the endless variety of rascality in human nature of the juvenile sort. —Why . . . you seem to have not the slightest confidence in boys. — Sir, “the child is father of the man,” hence, as all boys are rascals, so are all men. —Herman Melville

Liberated from traditional authority, the early republic was celebrated as the true and final “home of man.” Likened to a rising adolescent, this “youthful Genius” was setting forth to chart a new course that would redeem the failings of the past. As a young and growing nation, its goal was perpetual increase, to ascend beyond any nation that had “passed her prime.”1 This “country of the Future” had indeed become a country of youths. Its abundant “beginnings, of projects, of designs, and expectations” were generated and shaped by young men and women who were the “nobility of this land.” Where an intrinsic human potential rather than the misshapen past was to provide the wisdom to create the future, who were less “crushed under the weight of privilege and pride,” of established patterns of “disguise and deception,” than the young? Foreseeing 66

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that release from restraints would set in motion the continual “improvement of human nature,” the new nation insisted that “all her children” mobilize their talents and capacities for innovation.2 “Who,” Emerson intoned, “should lead the leaders, but the Young American?,” who was most alive to a situation “infinitely diversified and infinitely new”?3 Lincoln himself identified the Young America movement, those “most current youth” of his time who rejected “all that is old,” as the “inventor and owner of the present and sole hope of the future.” Philip Hone wrote in 1845 that the maxim of his generation was to “overturn, overturn, overturn!,” leading it in the process to “remove all relics of those which preceded them.” It seemed that youthfulness rather than a narrower national identity had become the unifying banner. Only in the struggle to create a society “settled down quietly” and move past the complex generational and developmental dynamics that had been unleashed would Americans discover the deeper generational and developmental revolution they had wrought.4

An Unfettered Republican Youth Historians have sought to downplay the generational tensions in social and domestic relations after the revolution. Even Fliegelman mutes the impact of the “antipatriarchal revolution” at the center of his story of the nation’s origin, suggesting the postwar period put behind it the revolutionary-era cultural dislocations. Yet by his own account youth remained “laden not only with hopes and dreams, but also with anger, frustration, and guilt,” amounting to the seeds of “yet another antipatriarchal revolt.”5 Most Americans for the longest time weren’t sure what had happened to them in the revolution, and awareness of the challenges they faced emerged slowly. The initial view of citizens of the early republic provided by the novelists of the age and Tocqueville’s observations was that they had been released into a world without limits. Gradually these writers, well in advance of most citizens, recognized that Americans were undertaking “narratives of reversal,” that is, journeys that would culminate in the creation of new popular communities.6 This slow emergence of popular comprehension, while confusing as a matter of strict dating, allows us to reflect on antebellum culture generally for clues to the deeper process at work.

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This focus on cultural processes does not diminish the importance of modernizing economic forces accelerated by the revolution. The rise of market society with its innovative individualistic economy provided a crucial setting for the unfolding of agency values and practices. Moreover the tailoring of the new character to novel material conditions was, as we shall see, central to the character-shaping project. But the larger agenda here is to identify the broad framework guiding national formation. The agency value complex permeated every aspect of the New World society, and prospective citizens had to be socialized and readied not for any specific set of institutional practices but for the more encompassing individual responsibility and initiative that would now define their modern lives. In a sense, the challenges presented by the material setting and the opportunities it provided were framed in terms of the new cultural forces that had been unleashed. Mobility was now cast as a release of citizens from social containment in largely generational terms. Michael Chevalier noted in the 1830s that in this land of emancipated youth males and females were separated from families of origin at an early age. Expecting to “quit their parents, never to return, as naturally and with little emotion as young birds desert forever their native nest as soon as they are fledged,” they embraced the challenge, demonstrating a unique capacity to “conform so easily to new situations and circumstances.” The American boy, in Tocqueville’s observation, regarded becoming “master of his conduct” as an “incontestable right,” while the American girl “already thinks for herself, speaks from freedom, and acts on her own impulse.”7 Moving beyond their communities of origin and the agricultural family economy, young adults in great numbers joined communities of liberated peers in the cities. Many were drawn to the revivals of the Second Great Awakening, as they hearkened to populist preachers praising “youth, free expression, and religious ecstasy.” Embracing the “contagious new democratic vocabularies and impulses” sweeping popular culture, they participated in the dismantling of hierarchical social, religious, and family structures.8 Elders were terrified that these youth and young adults were entering a boundless and unorganized world, a “perpetual human flux.” In newly created communities of strangers, whether bustling urban centers or distant frontiers, individuals had ventured beyond traditional social

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networks to rely on their own devices. Fledgling political and social institutions, possessing a control “not unlike that of weak and vacillating parents over their children,” could be easily ignored or outrun. Established churches were being cast into the fragmenting whirlwind of the Great Awakening. The market economy, appearing to many to be “an orgy of selfishness,” relentlessly pushed individuals to “aim at that which they cannot reach, to strive for more than they can grasp.” In the process the constraints held in place by patriarchal authority and civic obligation were steadily undermined.9 The “feverish” and “restless temper” pervading the society led disparate individuals with little seeming to draw them together to continually remake their lives. Unable to settle into any designated social place or role, each individual imagined being “a law unto himself,” able to fashion the universe to his own will. For the young, absorbing the culture of industriousness from the time of “their mother’s milk,” the prospect was by fifteen either to be engaged in business or to migrate. With the control of parents and community in precipitous decline, the spreading “cultural marketplace” presented endless new choices and encouraged the “growing freedom for youth vis-à-vis adults.” For “masterless men in a structureless society,” release from the “paternal yoke” signified the “moment one may choose” one’s path. Following that path opened a liminal stage of temptation for which virtue, as yet unequipped, seemed no match. A sense that “everything seemed to be coming apart . . . as if all restraints were falling away” captured the national imagination.10

The Specter of Uncontainable Youth A society overrun with liberated youth was seen as ever more prone to endemic lawlessness and theft, family decomposition and individual isolation, excesses of drinking and gambling, prolific violence, immorality and Sabbath breaking, lack of industry, cultural backwardness, popular factionalism, and political anarchy. This is not to suggest that all youth were actually running amuck. Rather, the consequences of manifold opportunities for release, compounded by the revolutionary dislocations facing institutions and identities, dominated the thinking of the era. As the keenest observers of the era noted at the time, the continuing erosion of the traditional understanding of individual role

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and social organi zation and the continuing wish to escape existing demands among a restless population in a fluid setting produced pervasive flux and disorientation. New social and economic forms were of course taking shape. Yet within a population so recently from Europe, the multiple novelties of the situation produced intense anxiety about social stability and the formula for success in the new society. The unstructured places of danger characterizing the new society were in turn identified as the domain of youth. Cities, with their unprecedented opportunities, were a magnet drawing the younger generations into their chaotic midst. Similarly, the frontier was what Frederick Jackson Turner called a “magic fountain of youth” where social development could perpetually “begin over again,” a place for Emerson of “perpetual youth” where a “man casts off his years, as the snake his slough.”11 On one hand, youth were now regarded as vulnerable, unable to be insulated from pervasive disorientation in the new settings. Leaving the “orbits of their ancestors” for “new influences” so quickly rendered youths vulnerable to the “imminent danger of ruin.”12 Young migrants were usually unworldly, often the products of a limited and episodic rural education, and as such they were “destitute of experience, money, friends” and bereft of moral or religious training. Susceptible to the ever-present “contagion of bad examples,” they were easy prey for such predators as floating seducers, false companions, charismatic dominators, guides to vice, and female temptresses. At the same time, with religious campaigns extending promises without limit, it was a high time for religious “imposters and counterfeiters.”13 On the other hand, despite the faith in youth and progress, the naïveté and impetuousness of the younger generation made them the greatest threat to social stability. “Unprincipled and idle boys,” whether from disadvantaged or affluent backgrounds, offered the specter of “the crooked in disposition” unable to “be made straight.” Everywhere “restless and wandering” youth, often impatient with the family setting, became the visible manifestation of rebellion, worldliness, and vice.14 In the cities it was “the ignorant, destitute, untrained, and abandoned youth” who most flaunted their “resistance to authority, and contempt for the law.” They had become the “busiest instigators, the most active abettors, and the most daring perpetrators of offenses against the peace and good order of society.”15

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Moreover, having come of age in the republican setting, highly adaptive youth and young adults disproportionately chose to pursue high-stakes opportunities. It was increasingly presumed that the younger generation would challenge existing authority, including the right of “every institution, every organi zation, every individual” to demand obedience. Writers added fuel to the fire by exhorting youth to shape new ways of life and embrace nonconformity, to “shun father and mother and wife and brother” when so inspired, to relinquish dead institutions and let “teachers, texts, temples” and all “old things pass away.”16 Where each generation bears within it the power to make the world anew, society was duty-bound to make way for “young blood, young ideas, and young hearts,” investing them with responsibility for carry ing out the ideals of the society. Margaret Fuller spoke of a new time approaching when the young would surmount present limits to achieve the “perfect Man.” By what right, it was therefore asked, “is the parent better than the child?” As Theodore Parker wrote, “ ‘Our fathers did so,’ says some one. ‘What of that?’ say we.”17 Both the subtle resistance to and outright rejection of coercive adult practices and authoritarian upbringing signaled an unprecedented “inversion” of “authority” in society. The United States had become in its own sights the “nation of [the] young.” Out of this new cohort, Joseph Kett insists, grew the modern conception of adolescence in the 1830s, well before the late nineteenth-century origin of the term. This society of inverted generational relations, committed to the “boundless potential of each individual” but lacking clear social positions or identities, posed a seemingly insurmountable challenge: “how was the young man [and woman] to escape ruin in a society swarming with marginal men who threatened to contaminate and destroy” them?18 How was that individual also to avoid ruining others?

A Literature of Foreboding The wish that this turbulent age would soon pass drove a dream of national domestication, Ishmael’s yearning upon the vast troubled sea for the safety of port. The literature of the early republic, however, exposed the deeper and less admissible dimensions of the release into a new generational and developmental dynamic. Writers were obsessed with liberated protagonists, whom they identified as “representative of many

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compeers” and “almost all men in their degree.” Their fate came to symbolize that of the national project,19 and their release complicated and finally gave the lie to idyllic narratives of natural social harmony. The subject of this new literature is the imagined New World, an open and undefined space where a “nation of rootless men confronts not the vestiges of older cultures, but the wilderness.” Here a new cultural attitude surfaces, what Melville calls the “Western spirit [which] is, or will yet be (for no other is or can be), the true American one.” Characterized by scorn for “boundaries and claims” and yearning for the “free desert,” this sensibility was identified with youthful experimentation and rebellion.20 Adolescents and young adults were the protagonists of virtually this entire literature, experiencing and responding to the perceived vacuum firsthand as “young candidates for the pains and penalties” of exploration. Refusing subordination or confinement, unwilling to be “tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks,” they were in search of “green fields” released from generational ties to brave the dizzying world of “Youth . . . gone down” and “Youth . . . come up.”21 Many of these protagonists had been left to their own guidance early on. Discovering the capacity to be “self-dependent while yet a boy,” they set forth alone without hesitation into a world “where everything is free to the hand that can grasp it.” Those subjected to unreasonable parental controls, like Melville’s Israel Potter, simply determined to leave the domestic scene and pursue wanderings from early in life. Easily breaking “constraint and confinement” to embrace a life of “youth and freedom,” each accepted without question the “necessity of doing something for [himself].”22 Little resistance was confronted, for release was to a world that lacked not only parents but even markers laid by generations past or conventions of hierarchy. Adults, typically set in their ways and unequipped to address the strenuous demands of liberty, had little to offer. Advising star-crossed young lovers struggling with their newfound freedom in the first postrevolutionary novel, The Power of Sympathy (1787), the adults offer irrelevancies, the “chaste principles of true friendship, rational life, and connubial duty,” as they themselves retreated from modernity to retire quietly from the “tumult of the town.”23 Adults were not only unable to adapt but untrustworthy. Having been set loose in the new society with its lack of social norms, those raised under repressive conditions were easily tempted by the opportunities

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for deception and violations of morality. In stories such as Arthur Mervyn and The Lawyer, adults are portrayed in law, religion, business, and intimate relations engaging in “every practice . . . however mean and contemptible, that would, in the smallest degree, contribute to the accomplishment” of their interests. The young protagonist in The Lawyer in fact blames his “horrible abyss of iniquity” on the moral villainy of his father and the legal tutor he employed. Young Goodman Brown inadvertently discovers that the town’s “grave, reputable, and pious . . . elders” are consumed by “dissolute lives” and “filthy vice.”24 Even for those seeking to hold on to at least the “father’s sacred memory” as a guide, the parental legacy was unresponsive to the new conditions, at best irrelevant, at worst a laughingstock. Like “cobwebbed and dingy” Salem having given way to the new cities of the nation, what remained of the old ways was “so shallow, so delusive, so impalpable, such an absolute nonentity.” Redburn Wellington, hoping to rely on his father’s guide to Liverpool, finds it “next to useless” and “so behind the age!” It had quickly become, like all previous forms of counsel, “no more fit to guide [him]” than the “map of Pompeii.” There were simply “no judges” to rely on, for as “in those days there was no King of Israel; and every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”25 Alone and on their own, who would better represent the free individual in the free society?

The Idyll Unmasked Unguided and inexperienced youth were most prone to take the exhortations to independence at face value. Hoping to bypass the forests of human motives, disposed to look “but little into [their] own heart,” they initially sought to “begin anew” by recasting the open space into a paradise and dwelling for the first time in Eden, in the process rejecting the “moss-grown and rotten Past” and its “lifeless institutions.” Yet all evidence suggested these youths were unprepared to stand on their own, either being really “lost children, babes in the wood,” or indulging in a “second childhood” by seeking to enact an entirely “untried life.”26 Identifying themselves as often real, sometimes imagined “orphans without fathers or mothers,” as homeless outcasts whom “fortune has left . . . nothing to regret,” they had escaped from parental control to the “free disposal” of themselves and to the “control and regulation” of their “own will only,” with little sense of the consequences.27

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The incompatibility of this literature with the promises being offered has been deftly examined by Toni Morrison. “It is difficult,” she writes, “to read the literature of young America without being struck by how antithetical” it is to “the American Dream.” Where one expects to find “freedom and possibility,” optimism and progress, the reader is shocked by “how dour, how troubled, how frightened and haunted” this work is. The initial exuberance of release is soon replaced by an avalanche of fears, of “being outcast, of failing, of powerlessness . . . of boundarylessness,” of “aggression both internal and external”: “in short, the terror of human freedom—the thing they coveted most of all.” Giving vent to the “anxieties attendant upon consent” as the basis of the new political project, this literature defies the assertion of stable subjects capable of willingly forming a social compact. While Americans would not retract the postrevolutionary liberal narrative, the message Edward Watts finds in the early fiction is the “absurdity, then the danger and finally the self-destructive nature” of its claims.28 What happened? These youthful protagonists, so eager to dispense with social markers, found themselves thrust into a virtually unreadable space. This was a “moving world,” a “puzzling and confounding” and “barbarous” place, in which there were an “infinite number of totally new . . . things to learn” and “wholly strange . . . new revelation[s]” occurring continually. The details of this vast and mysterious setting, described variously as “deepest thickets” and “darkest cavities,” an “inextricable maze” or labyrinth of “dark and untried paths,” revealed “scenes” to which one had “been hitherto a stranger.” As a result, the characters are lost in the dense forests and entangling urban “succession of crooked and narrow streets.”29 Being prone, given their “inexperience,” to rely on appearances, youths “wander[ing] in the dark” would either “rush into snares or drop into pits,” unaware of the dangers around. There were no warnings against the plethora of “erroneous perceptions,” and one might “wander till [one] perished” without “knowing what way to extricate [one]self.” Even the physical improvements to the land offered no spatial orientation, designed as they were to be quickly replaced so that each generation could “build its own.”30 More corrosively, the new social world of equals, what Melville cannily elided as “brother stranger,” offered no indicators to distinguish individuals. This was, as Henry James later noted of Hawthorne’s time,

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a world where nearly “everything is left out” that marked social class or origin, making one “wonder to know what was left.” This vague world of floating individuals ever migrating toward “regions nearer to the setting sun” rendered even the settled areas incomprehensible: a “hubbub, men, women, and children running about” in a “confusion of characters, propensities and associations.”31 How perplexing was such a world of strangers? One was a “stranger to its modes and dangers,” facing novelty at every turn, finally unable to tell if another were “a man, and not a woman.” In The Confidence Man, Melville described his ship plowing “strange waters” as “always full of strangers” and “strangers still more strange.” Because no characteristics could be fixed or settled upon, identities could be quickly cast off and presentations swiftly altered, allowing the lead confidence man to adopt several distinctive roles over the course of Melville’s novel. For Hawthorne and Melville alike, this world “show[ed] like an illusion, a masquerade, a pastoral,” a Protean reality where all perform and “one must take a part, assume a character,” a theater space where “All the world’s a stage” and each “plays many parts.”32 In Sheppard Lee, Richard Bird’s eponymous satire on fluctuating and confused identities, the protagonist inhabits multiple bodies and identities, constantly finding himself “invested with new feelings, passions, and propensities,” not merely other humans but a “coffee pot,” an “icicle,” then “a chicken, now a loaded cannon, now a clock, now a hamper of crockery-ware, and a thousand other things besides.” For Charles Brockden Brown, the “passage into new forms, overleaping the bars of time and space, reversal of the laws of inanimate and intelligent existence” was a commonplace. The inescapable conclusion was “how little cognizance have men over the actions and motives of each other!”33 What was to prevent this journey from degenerating into anarchy and dissolution, turning Franklin’s city of opportunity into Arthur Mervyn’s treacherous Philadelphia, Thoreau’s transcendental pond into the horror of Billy Budd’s or Ishmael’s or Arthur Gordon Pym’s watery sphere, the abundant fields of Jefferson’s yeomen into Wieland’s or Bird’s psychotic woods? As Brockden Brown noted, if all that remains is immediate experience, individuals must rely on “what was exposed to their view” and “within their reach.” To reject “appearances” and “judge from what they know not” would lead to “decision[s] of no worth.” Yet what if experience itself, Melville’s barber asserts, is not only erroneous but fraudulent: “can

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one be for ever dealing in macassar oil, hair dyes, cosmetics, false moustaches, wigs, and toupees, and still believe that men are wholly what they look to be.”34 As the city and frontier become nightmare worlds of release from paternal structure, the literature displays the precipitous dissolving of mutual trust and connection between individuals: the collapse of a betrayed faith and distrustful withdrawal from community life by Goodman Brown; the surfacing of sibling incest in The Power of Sympathy and paternal incest in The Monks of Monks Hall. Posted by the barber in The Confidence Man above his shop for all to see was the warning “NO TRUST,” an inscription which did not provoke either “derision or surprise, much less indignation.” Everywhere loomed the potential “duplicity and perfidy” of new friends, “conjectures” of schemes that could not be interpreted amid the “vicissitude and uncertainty” of a “deceitful and flagitious world.” Efforts to decipher a mysterious stranger revealing “no signs” and “no marks” of motive lead only to “perplexing mazes of ineffectual thought.”35 Adrift as a “flock of fools, under this captain of fools, in this ship of fools,” the revolution itself and its promises of a renewed human nature are very nearly capsized. Hawthorne in The Scarlet Letter and Melville in The Confidence Man ridicule the claim of millennial progress. As Melville puts it, if “the child is father of the man,” and all men are rascals, then all boys are rascals as well. Hawthorne’s isolated girl Pearl lacks either morality or “reference and adaptation to the world.”36 Too bitter an insight for a society whose hopes rested upon the young, however, the deficiencies in Pearl’s character are finally blamed on her mother. Even Melville in his last work, Billy Budd, apologizes for his earlier lack of confidence in youthful goodness, holding the world at fault for being unworthy of Billy’s innocence. Yet the message had been delivered. In the end the loss of a stable system of meanings and references claims the literary project itself. Narrators and characters continually insist on the veracity of their accounts and the “purity” of individual motives. But their questionable grasp of reality and morality, their recurrent delusions arising from mental shakiness, fear, and self-aggrandizement, result in the “trust between the author and the reader [being] violently undermined.” Admitting their bias and fault from “evident partiality,” the “mists of prejudice” and their own defects, narrators caution that their stories will “no doubt, appear to [readers] as a fable,” as “chimeras” of a

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“subverted reason”: “What but ambiguities, abruptness and transitions can be expected from the historian who is, at the same time, the sufferer of these disasters?”37 And so the reader of that era, Edward Watts suggests, was placed in a deliberate bind: “Seemingly reliable texts intrinsically duped rather than informed, and discouraged rather than catalyzed critical reading. . . . The line between legitimate, reliable texts and selfish, manipulative ones blurred,” thus “reveal[ing] the deeper American chaos beneath the facade of order, both political and linguistic.” The readers’ conundrum of course mirrored the protagonists’ own dilemma: how to find a way out of the wilderness. Beneath the superficial self-confidence was a hunger for stability and clarity. But more questions kept pressing: “[Am I] an outcast among mankind? Where am I going? What can I do with myself?” There was a growing fear that the very innovators bold enough to pursue new arrangements were “wrong in the upper story,” perhaps “incapable of judging what was wise and what foolish.”38 Such confusion would intensify before it abated.

A World of Projections and Self-Exposure In this entropic setting in which a “natural law which ordains dissolution” to combinations and connections seemed to be at work, even the notion of the collective began to fragment. With each individual “floating about at the mercy of every wind and wave on the merest wreck in the world” having “his own fate entrusted to himself,” one finally recognized only one’s own “lonely footsteps.” Thus forced inward, relegated to “observing and thinking for [one]self,” personal certainty was only to be found “entirely within [one]self.” The ultimate solitary account is Ishmael’s tale. Quoting Job, “AND I ONLY AM ESCAPED ALONE TO TELL THEE,” he narrates the journey in which the world gradually spins into the “closing vortex” of the narrator survivor’s “inmost soul.”39 In this way the subject of early republican literature is ultimately the confrontation with one’s self. Being stripped of identifiable spatial and social realities, all experience is self-referential, based not on the actual world but on the “hidden world” of psychological productions, including internal dramas and psychic dream states. The result is a literature of projection and self-exposure, of powerful and forceful images that prevent “distinguishing between sleep and wakefulness,” between real

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experience and “phantoms of [one’s] own creation.” 40 An unexpected benefit is candid and uncensored evidence of the extent to which the New World citizens are psychologically prepared for the challenges they face. The novels reveal what lies behind the naïve infatuation with the “golden dreams” of new promises. The authors speak of being “deluded by visionary projects,” of characters’ abandonment to the “magic mirror of futurity” in dream-like redoubts. As these intoxications subside, darker projections emerge. The external world becomes a projective screen for “construction[s]” of “disease” and “dissolution,” of marauding savages and “incub[i], that [oppress] every faculty and energy of spirit” with a “fury bordering almost upon phrenzy,” a series of “prophetic glimpses” into “every species of calamity and horror” in limitless and uninhabited deserts.41 One’s senses become the “sport of dreams,” a “dark world” of mystery and mysticism. Ishmael’s journey beyond the “great flood-gates” of the soul to the “open independence of her sea,” pushed by the “wildest winds of heaven and earth,” reveals the “Terrors of the Terrible,” those “more terrific because more spiritual terrors” than the “ordinary irrational horrors of the world.” 42 The liberal Age of Reason had vanished without a trace. As the journey under the novelists’ guidance spirals downward through endless caves, bowers, dungeons, pits, basements, closets, hidden places of every kind, downward where truth is not “verifiable in any external landscape or sociological observation,” the “most reasonable” merges with the “most preposterous of conceptions.” One is beset by “wild dream[s]” released, “overgrown village[s] in cloudland,” and “wild conceits” of “forbidden seas.” Here, caught in a pseudo-logic of groundless rationalizations, enthusiasms, and speculative obsessions with “little external to constrain us,” it is impossible to distinguish the “good . . . from the wicked,” the saint from sinner.43 In the “heart of the dark wilderness” hitherto “unvisited by human footsteps,” where the road finally disappears, one has arrived finally at the “innermost recesses” of one’s soul. Exposed despite every hesitancy as never before is the “unknown power within,” the “innermost necessities in our being . . . [that] drive us on.” As one in these “subterranean apartments” comes face-to-face with a “living mirror,” a “pool, so smooth and quiet that it reflected a perfect image,” one finally glimpses one’s unvarnished individuality. This is the elusive, beckoning call of Narcissus,

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that “same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.” 44

The Turn against Authority The key to what? The key to what lay inviolately within, to be discovered about oneself. Americans believed that without the deformations to their inner lives imposed by authority to mislead them, they would encounter the compelling directives of nature. This belief explains the ingenuous “spirit of infancy” and “perpetual youth” they initially exhibit like the virginal Ishmael, who begins his fateful voyage dreaming of finding a “pleasant haven in store; and meads and glades so eternally vernal.”45 Yet release from authoritarianism was not liberation from its legacy. The dream of becoming mature citizens in the new setting made tangible by the revolution, the hope that “childish folly” should simply vanish in the Jeffersonian idyll of authority’s disappearance, was for many a naïve denial of their experienced “pollution of innocence.” The fresh start purportedly enjoyed by republican citizens was a fantasy held by “helpless innocents” lacking a basic preparation for modern adult functioning. Overwhelmed by fears of inadequacy, protagonists find themselves immersed in a roiling generational dynamic of frustrations against real and imagined perpetrators of great potency symbolized by the Pequod’s mad journey.46 The “infinitely purer and greater” elders who one was raised to believe “could not by any possibility do wrong” appear to be not merely inconsequential but ludicrous “old humdrum curmudgeons.” Those “wearisome old souls, who had gathered nothing worth preservation from their varied experience of life,” are “next to useless.” Pathetic in their lack of adaptability, adults become the “supplicant,” the needy one, in an upside-down world. Where a “modern child could teach old Hepzibah more than old Hepzibah could teach the child,” adults are themselves driven to seek from the young the motivation, practical assistance, and moral guidance to carry on in the new setting, what Brockden Brown called the “motives to courage and activity.” 47 The rage against generational authority haunts the literature: in “Earth’s Holocaust,” where the “general bonfire” is set to consume all the world’s achievements in a blaze reaching skyward set by the multitudes demanding retaliation on the past in the name of an unconfined “Nature”;

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in Modern Chivalry, in which people resent any limits to their power to select a leader who will “suit their own purposes”; in “My Kinsman, Major Molineux,” where the surging mob unleashes a tidal wave of fury against the helpless father figure; and in Young Goodman Brown, with his revelation of the lurid depravity of village leaders. The most compelling expression is the whaling voyage to find Moby-Dick, during which Ishmael in his utter ingenuousness is undone by a ship awash in the crew’s rage. The simmering dream of total release had become under Ahab’s prodding a “monomaniac” journey consumed by “unachieved revengeful desire” against all restraints and every restrainer, culminating in Melville’s own dark revenge against the captain.48 The generational dynamic played out against England had come home, challenging not empire this time but local authority. Released to forge their own destinies in an ideal republic, the young found their desires implicated instead in the urge to reject all constraints, even in the wish to commit a “successful patricide.” Perhaps the new American was like Israel Potter, a “plebian . . . Oedipus,” seeking to bury the “corpse of the old giant, his grandfather,” to cast off the “dead man’s icy hand,” which has constrained the doing of “whatever we seek to do, of our own free motion.” Was this psychic rebellion to be understood as a lingering residue from past domination that would likely fade with progress toward generational equity? Or was it, as many alleged, the eternal infantile wish to gain revenge like “fiends that throng in mockery round some dead potentate” that authority and hierarchy were installed in the human condition to subdue?49 Regardless of the answer, unclear to many even in our time, this wrenching ambivalence about authority did not mark the republican citizen the Founders had bargained for.

The Imagined Return of Authority The vacuum left by the fantasized erasure of authority was unsustainable, but the sudden release from traditional patterns of authoritarian subordination was unlikely to produce a mature liberal subject. The unexpected collapse of traditional hierarchy kindled intense yearnings for its imagined return, either in the reestablishment of a comforting subservience or in the wish to become the authority through the fantasy of self-apotheosis. These imagined acts of reinstatement provide a cautionary measure of the great distance yet to travel to a liberal society freed of the internal bonds of hierarchy.

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The wish that recurred most often in the literature was for the return of social hierarchy, indicating a deep-seated yearning for dependency and domination even after the revolution. The world of the early republican literary imagination is filled, whether in primitive forests, North Africa, the South Seas, or at home, by those demanding subordination, to which young protagonists all too willingly “succumb.”50 Rather than reaching for a liberty they had never experienced, the young came to perceive the condition of bondage as a tempting escape from the chaos of an unmanageable responsibility. Its challenges would recede in the comforting retreat from the strenuousness of agency. So characters ruminated nostalgically, imagining that “when the slave is ground by no oppression [or] cruelty, he is not apt to repine or moralize upon his condition . . . in the abstract.” As Hester submitted without complaint to public judgment, and Ishmael “clove to Queequeg like a barnacle” till his “own individuality was now merged,” protagonists overcome by feelings of weakness yearned for strong figures who could dispel the “mist of confusion and doubt” within.51 Particularly vulnerable were young women, whose trusting natures, as repeatedly depicted in such novels and popular fiction as The Scarlet Letter, The Coquette, and The Power of Sympathy, made them easy marks— even when forewarned—for seduction and emotional dependency. The darker corollary of victimization was the victimizer, typically adults but increasingly youth who exploited the vacuum of authority by manipulating the prevalent desire for submission. Not only deceivers but ambitious individuals such as Franklin trying to capitalize on a “good appearance” continually reinvented themselves as they played to needs for certainty and security. In Memoirs of the Notorious Stephen Burroughs, Wieland, The Lawyer, or Man as He Ought Not to Be, The Coquette, and The Scarlet Letter, among many others, individuals are misled by dissemblers posing as ministers, devoted lovers, confidants, leaders, even God. The extreme case is Melville’s savage novel The Confidence Man, wherein the breakdown of social expectations and internal constraints provide an open field for the purely manipulative uses of identity. In this world of “faithless memory where nobody knows who anybody is, all are by definition “imposter[s],” “decoy[s],” and “hunters.”52 The almost unbearable irony for Melville is that lurking confidence artists primarily employ the mask of innocence, feeding the public’s hunger to be relieved of their troubling premonitions that darker motives or confusions lurk behind the presentations.

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One chilling by-product of this adaptive hypocrisy was the advocacy of its social utility. Those eager to “embrace the new age of deception and invention” claimed that stealth and misdirection were not only instruments necessary for survival but ideal tools for success in an individualistic setting. Thus, after posing as a minister, Stephen Burroughs defends the practice of having “counterfeited a name, a character, a calling” as consistent with “the cause of liberty” and even the “natural rights” for which Americans fought. In The Lawyer, Watterston ironically but tellingly finds in the protagonist’s early “strong propensity for cunning and dissimulation” the source of his capacity to exploit the fluid legal, economic, and relational opportunities of early republican society. Newly arrived in Philadelphia, a place where all are “mutually deceived,” Arthur Mervyn also finds it both possible and necessary to make his way through “dissimulation and falsehood,” using equivocations that were “easily invented” and easier to pull off.53 At its most extreme, the appropriation of authority led to a stripping of all limits, uncovering a wish to imagine oneself as possessing a “supernatural character” or as a “destined prophetess” or prophet on a “mission of divine and mysterious truth.” The more daring sought to rise, like Pearl, “out of the sphere” of mundane relations into the realm of a “new truth.” Innocents such as Redburn, Ishmael, and Billy Budd as well as monarchic souls such as Wieland and Ahab projected themselves forward “without father or mother” to become the father and mother. On the “world’s jubilee morning,” when the “curse of Babel” is revoked, they will signal the arrival of a “new Pentecost” in which the “estranged children of Adam [are] restored.” With heaven “flow[ing] around,” one will soar toward the “luminous and glowing” source.54 The deepest investigations of the psychological patterns shaped by traditional hierarchy suggested a dynamic relation between the need for servitude and the yearning for self-authority. Hawthorne in The Scarlet Letter portrays Pearl’s “uncontrollable will” and “pride” arising from her mother’s limitless “faith and trust” as the mother’s compensation for her own broken will. Mobilizing the crew in Moby-Dick to the quest for the White Whale, Ahab announces that the classic masterservant relations aboard the Pequod are to be superseded by a contractual bond: “I do not order ye; ye will it.” But as Melville fully realizes, this pledge (the liberal social contract) is a mere formality: as each crew member swears a revivalist oath of allegiance, he embraces both

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Ahab’s quest for omnipotence and the enslavement of his own will to Ahab’s absolute control.55 Ahab’s power flows from his recognition, uncannily confirmed by Tocqueville, that release from hierarchical authority to the promise of ultimate individuality only heightens the psychological need for dependence. By seeming to join the crew in a repudiation of masters, thereby casting the voyage as shattering the burdens of cosmic, and implicitly generational, servitude, Ahab taps the underlying rage against traditional dependency. At the same time, he understands that fantasies of release will issue in a new, if voluntary, dependence. So he exploits the drive for retribution upon and replacement of the whale-god to gain control of the collective wish for resubmission. The crew, “as parties to this indissoluble league,” will by drinking together from “murderous chalices” commence their common patricidal quest for “Death to Moby Dick!”56 Liberation from the master-servant cycle is not offered as an option. Even for Ahab, “thrusting through the wall” that is the white whale only brings him face-to-face with the seeming inescapability of hierarchy and the question he cannot answer: “Who’s over me?” For Melville, the answer, whether “the white whale [be] agent, or be the white whale principal,” leaves humans either gods or supplicants. Either way a mad god—human or preternatural—in the end achieves retribution and vindication for the misguided fantasy of release.57 Ishmael’s detachment from the patricidal project enables him to survive by retreating from direct complicity in the hunt for the whale and subsequent destruction of the father-captain, but only as a psychological victim shorn of any wish to take his place. Upon his rescue he is beset by the legacy of his own temptations toward both self-abnegation and a wish to be elevated in collective apotheosis, and thus he embodies the internal difficulties confronting the creation of New World citizens.

The Unanticipated Consequences Propelling the young into a culture-bearing role, magnified by their enhanced capacity to effectively manage the challenges of a dynamic republican society, tested every assumption regarding the relations between generations. In the short and medium term, the fallout would be containable as younger generations directed their energies and ambitions into the pressing tasks of institutional formation. As the pressures of a

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common mission slackened during the next century, however, cracks in the structure of generational relations from the altered cultural place of the young finally became visible. Though many assumed that this domestic revolution was of recent origin, it is important to identify the early emergence of shifts that would send tremors throughout American society.

The Challenge of Developmentalism As a project depending on the psychological development of the young, the American Republic faced unprecedented pressures. In both its Protestant and liberal variants, the agency role necessitated a level of maturity far beyond the passive compliance demanded by authoritarian societies. Locating that advance in childhood required that the young overcome the limitations of early dependence. That is, the realization of an agency society hinged on how effectively citizens moved from the subaltern status of infancy and early childhood into self-reliant membership in a participatory society. The burden of fostering this maturation arose anew with each child, leaving liberal society perpetually unsure of its citizens’ capacity for self-governance and continually tempted by the short-cut of rigid social discipline. The challenges of development emerged with the dissenting Protestant model. Internal religious growth marked the movement from traditional inability or servitude to agency. Revivalism, by pressing individuals to transform themselves, turned development as an agent into a New World rite of passage. Liberalism from the very beginning appropriated this sequential framework. The unshaped subject was by nature dangerous and uncontrollable, and voluntary obligation was a choice that citizens must make on their own. Through the wrenching experience of disorder, individuals would grasp the urgency of assenting to common ends and means, the willing containment of impulses, and social integration. American liberalism expanded this developmental process into a model for citizen formation. Providing a more inclusive, secular framework, the realization of mature agency was understood as the growth of internal capacities that, unlike religious sanctification, was easily achievable by all. Framed as either “reason’s powers” or a distinct “moral sense,” the growing internal resources to fulfill one’s own commitments and

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responsibilities were now the birthright of every “moral agent.” The popular literature of the age, such as Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe—whose titular hero has been called a “secularized, middle-class version of Bunyan’s Christian”—and later Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, praised the development of this internal capacity. Charting the movement from childhood subservience through disobedience and separation from home to “self-government under God,” the personal journey to self-reliance became the pattern for American individualism.58 In Paine’s narrative and Jefferson’s drafts of the Declaration as well as in the popular imagination, the revolution appropriated this developmental framework to boldly proclaim New World independence as a new stage in human development. Accepted even by the revolutionary moderates, this developmental framework replaced the narratives of imperial servitude and Puritan decline. Yet it eventually receded from the national story. Its place was taken by the liberal narrative of a new contractual beginning, which assumed that American adults had achieved irreversible agency status by dint of the revolution. In other words, consenting agency was presumed upon entrance to adulthood. This substitution was a response to perpetual anxieties about failure and decline. Reliance on a process of maturation that was neither clearly ascertainable nor predictable in any par ticular case, let alone in the populace as a whole, made American society too vulnerable. There was little assurance that new members would overcome the dependency of childhood or of life in authoritarian societies of origin to become fully developed citizens; there was little confidence that those achieving agency would not hearken to divine injunctions or personal visions inconsistent with liberal practice; and there was little certainty that the exuberant rhetoric of independence and autonomy would not stimulate the further evolution of hyperindividualism or self-validation. As every American parent realizes, no child’s maturation can ever be taken for granted.

The Specter of Generational Conflict The most unsettling issue that has informed American child rearing is the pervasiveness of generational conflict, what Joseph Kett calls the “fragility” of the family and its “vulnerability to disruption,” including

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the basic differences and antagonisms marking the relationship between the generations. The prevalence of tensions between elders and the young should hardly be surprising in a society that has rejected tradition. The colonists at their most radical disputed the logic of all generational claims to unquestioned power and prerogative. As they reasoned, a society and its members evolving into mature and selfreliant adults ought not to be subjected to political and social hierarchies. By the same token, if compliance is appropriate only to the extent that one is as yet undeveloped, then authority should progressively diminish with maturation.59 As Americans gradually recognized, their young were adapting quickly to New World realities and maturing more effectively than their socializers. Although hesitant to acknowledge it, early American society was becoming dependent on the young as never before. Being “less bound by prescriptive memories, more adaptable, more vigorous,” they were demonstrating a greater capacity to forge new social patterns in unstructured situations. More willing than parents to relinquish outmoded ways, letting go of “dead institutions” that “pass away,” youth were more easily giving up their “former servitude and dependence” to become free as they “ought to be.”60 Becoming “the effective guide to a new world,” they were accumulating formidable power.61 This power is evident in the obsession with developing youth throughout early republican literature, in which the national voice, D. H. Lawrence noted, emerged as a voice written not to the young but by those identifying with the young.62 The fate of new generations, lionized by Emerson and many others as the “Young American,” had become the fate of the New World experiment. Although the younger generation was invested with unprecedented power and responsibility, adults remained ambivalent about whether youth should assume leadership roles in society and culture. This “strange, anomalous authority [that was] difficult to accommodate within the ancient structure of family life” posed two threats: on one hand, the continuing displacement of guardians and cultural superiors, and the fear that such displacement would upend the generational hierarchy, and on the other hand, the possibility that an empowered young would refuse to enlist in the nation-building project. In a society whose primordial shared experience was rejection of the cultural traditions and authorities of origin, youth always had the option of pursuing new paths. Such

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discretion left American adults “inconsistent and confused” about their authority and enmeshed in a continuing struggle for control.63 Adults occupied an unenviable position. Being responsible for the psychosocial development of the young without having attained a similar level of maturation themselves produced anxieties about being surpassed and augured protracted generational tensions. Moreover, the very capacities that the young were being encouraged to develop to carry forth the nation’s social formation also equipped them to chart their own course. The iconic Crusoe, who discovers his Protestant and liberal nature while marooned on a desert island, undertakes the journey leading to independence only by acting “strongly against the will, nay, the commands” of his father, in breach of his “duty to God,” and “against all the entreaties” of his mother and friends.64 Franklin’s path to selfreliant success similarly involved a primal act of rebellion and escape, and his narrative is strewn with youth who have failed, cautionary tales of self-reliance gone awry. The threat of youthful rebellion thus hung, overt and implicit, over American history. In his 1780 sermon celebrating the Massachusetts constitution, the Rev. Samuel Cooper commemorated the (patricidal?) rebellion against “imposed authority,” yet warned his listeners that any act to “oppose or weaken” the new government would reveal “the hand of a parricide.”65 In later periods of cultural upheaval—including the early twentieth century and the 1960s—when youth movements directly challenged the nation’s cultural and child-rearing assumptions, the fear and rage directed against youth made palpable the panic unleashed by generational challenges. The early republic was a comparable period of acute generational tension, though the dependence on its youth made that threat impossible to admit directly. The specter of resistance, refusal, and usurpation was displaced onto groups with seemingly little connection to generational relations. As Toni Morrison has observed, the collapse of the revolutionary “promise” to be “born again in new clothes” of “freedom” under “God’s law,” the inability of new republicans to realize dreams presumed to be so accessible is explained by the obstruction of marginalized outsiders. Instead of considering the burdens of their own psychological legacy of “oppression,” Americans interpose a “dark and abiding” force of negation between the settlers and their dreams into the “hearts and texts of American literature.” The very muteness of these scapegoats,

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typically “violently silenced,” lends weight to the accusation that the worm in the apple of innocence lies out there, in mute conspirators hostile to the national project who would “destroy the master narrative,” rather than in its own proponents.66 Most telling for our purposes, early republican literature projected the dependence and fears that undermine the quest for freedom onto groups identified with the primitive helplessness and servitude of childhood. Blacks and Native Americans were depicted as natural dependents “embodying a lost childhood world,” who needed to be mastered by those more suited to freedom, thus bolstering a shaky “paternal authority.”67 In deflecting attention away from overt parent-child antagonisms, the threats posed by youthful independence, empowerment, and defiance were forced into deeper recesses of cultural expression. More buried yet were the telltale confessions in Wieland, Moby-Dick, and The Scarlet Letter that the origins of such fears of youthful innovation lay within the projections of the cultural framers themselves. The effort to minimize and when possible deny the existence of generational tensions has been central to liberal society and to its project of character development. The very success at containment, the historian David J. Rothman has argued, is what makes these tensions difficult to appreciate. A gradual shift from overt coercion to seemingly more benign processes of generational control has fueled the assumption of a “neat fit” between “the family, the community, and the young.” In reality the coercive elements of the “war between the community and the young” had simply become nearly invisible, absorbed into a naturalistic account of child maturation.68 When these tensions surfaced in the twentieth century, the surprise was genuine.

Beyond Submission and Domination? The erasure of the authoritative father opened the way to a sibling republic. But where was the balance between the social good and one’s own wishes that would propel the “soul’s development” to a mature individualism beyond submission and domination? Though Ishmael finally backed off from the delusion of collective omnipotence and the cultic wish to serve that delusion, he offers no basis upon which to erect a new agency republic. And yet the intense struggle to come to terms with servitude and domination is, like Ishmael’s voyage and later reflections, a chasten-

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ing experience. The cautionary message of this literature is that one could no longer remain a Hester broken on “the cross,” the will-less crew of the Pequod’s demise.69 The burden of achieving higher adaptive levels of individuality and responsibility in the absence of institutional dictates to point the way could not be avoided. In this society of equals, one had to “lay aside the idea of being any longer a child, and become a man.” But what kind of maturation was called for? How might Ishmael be helped through his depression from having survived—if barely—the collapse of patriarchy and submission? One could bitterly conclude with Goodman Brown that all was now a matter of roles and appearances, or flaunt Melville’s cynical determination in The Confidence Man to “hear nothing of that fine babble about development and its laws.”70 But too much had been staked on social transformation, and too many had begun to experiment with new pathways to turn back. Bird’s Sheppard Lee (1836) explores this quandary. As a man who can adopt the body and spirit of others, Lee has the full range of antebellum characters at his disposal. He takes on several parts, including a slave and a master, but unlike the ultimate chameleon in The Confidence Man, his aim is not to exploit but to successfully navigate the tribulations and uncertainties of the time. When the slave he becomes is hanged in an uprising, he realizes that the “state of servitude” to which he had been attracted is no longer feasible. Similarly his experimentations with selfauthority in various forms of social privilege lead him to discover how shaky that authority is. Under attack from slave revolts, his “offensive pride and arrogance” provoking rage and rebellion on the part of demanding wives, jealous children, and envious employees, he realizes that all pretensions to “feudal aristocracy” will be rejected in a “purely democratic society.”71 Where there are infinite possibilities for identity, from every form of servitude to any claim of self-authorizer, how was one to determine an acceptable, functional developmental path? With the issue of liberal authority far from resolved, order for this individualistic society seemed ever more distant. The novels had in one voice rejected the liberal claim that human nature as promised by the freedom narrative would light the way forward to modern society. To prevail in the face of such inner and outer chaos, agency would first have to be recognized as the purpose of the revolution and then socially

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and institutionally constructed. Moving individuals from the condition of unformed nature to common ends and means, and overcoming the initial vulnerability to dependence and a subsequent wish to take authority for oneself, could not be either presumed or informally undertaken without markers and guides. A case for effective institutions and processes would have to be persuasively argued to a public immersed in freedom talk. The concept of a free and natural agency society was a conceit, indeed a distraction. Individuals would have to be formed to pursue collective ends beyond themselves with sufficient uniformity to constitute a common national project. Given that political unity requires a single authority, what was to serve as author absent a consensual transcendent divinity? How could demands for compliance be presented to individual agency citizens as voluntary without fostering endless diversity and choice of ends (self-authority)? By what mechanisms could a nation of liberated citizens be induced to participate in a narrative framed by the community without fearing that they were merely complying (servitude)? Above all, where among the early options presented to the republic would that shaping process be centered? As the early republic increasingly conceived the state of nature into which it had descended as the specter of a liberated and unsocialized young, the choices narrowed. In the process, the institutions of socialization and education moved into the central place they were to occupy thereafter in American history.

4

Divergent Childhoods, Different Republics: The Initial Turn to Socialization In its grand and steady progress . . . the fortune of our country . . . will be run by all its children. —Edward Everett The time is full of good signs [including] . . . the swelling cry of voices for the education of the people. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the glow of revolutionary triumph, praise spread for “the values and blessings of union.” Federalists and Jeffersonians spoke out against “party-spirit,” seeking a national “cement” that would bond individual happiness to collective welfare to “add strength to the foundations” and “beauty to the walls.” Jefferson himself reassured the public, “We are all republicans—we are all federalists” with a common attachment to representative government.1 Religious rifts produced by the “phrensy of fanaticism” were similarly to be avoided. Americans were cautioned to “listen to no enthusiasts,” for they confound reason with “folly, nonsense, and hypocritical grimace.” The growing sects also downplayed those “great political, and other worldly excitements that agitate Christendom, and divert the mind from the interests of the soul.”2 Such hopes were dashed by the “Babel of the revolution” and its “pure unadulterated logocracy” of political and cultural contentiousness. Before long, rampant experimentation had “already disturb[ed] this happy equilibrium,” as inexperienced “converts to liberty, after having recently 91

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smarted under the leash of tyranny,” were easily swayed by “feeling rather than reason” to “believe what they wish to be true.” The resulting patterns of excess reinforced the literary findings. Some, rejecting “with obstinacy, all improvements in society,” sought a return to “accustomed . . . dependence.”3 Others, embracing a “wild way of thinking” in this “age of innovation,” would “shipwreck” society by “venturing on the uncertainty of untried hypotheses.” Jefferson perceived these twin dangers as either unthinking deference to values citizens had “imbibed in their early youth” or, for those “able to throw them off,” an “unbounded licentiousness.” 4 To prevent the young republic fluctuating from “one extreme to another,” between submission and hubris,5 this new order for the ages, not automatically forthcoming from the revolution, would have to be created. The history of the early republic has often been framed in terms of innovative public institutions, but there was little agreement on their shape or function. Even in the disputatious environment of the early republic, however, there was widespread agreement that a society with novel expectations depended on a new form of citizenship for which individuals would have to be prepared. Thus, ineluctably, focus shifted to the young. The attraction was not simply to defuse the dangers they presented, but to make use of their unique capacities for adjustment to new situations. The “rapid pace of socioeconomic change” created a “dissociation of present from past” and made each generation in effect “a new people.” Moreover, charging itself with realizing the “Old World’s dreams, fantasies, imaginings” and “yearnings” of “things hoped for,” American society would establish a special role for youth. In a society imagining itself “so much younger in the annals of civilization,” determined to transform the past by relentlessly destroying “the new in favor of the newer,”6 new generations played a nearly sacred role. The young were thrust forward not simply because they were more adaptive but because they were capable of realizing a new world. If the early factions dominating republican society were to achieve the society for which the revolution had been won, they would, despite an attachment to traditional child rearing, have to elevate the role of society’s youngest members.

Early Political Divisions and Republican Dissensus The violence of faction that Madison so feared, the “zeal for different opinions, concerning religion, concerning government, and many other

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points,” including “the verious and unequal distribution of property,” was already fomenting what one revival leader called a furious “spirit of controversy.” The “universal solvent” of “anarchical spirit” was making “all ties, all bonds, snap with the slightest strain.”7 While there is understandable resistance, particularly among historians engaged in local, regional, and sectional histories, to the neat distinction among antebellum factions, the two recent magisterial histories of the early republic, Sean Wilentz’s Jacksonian The Rise of American Democracy and Daniel Walker Howe’s Whig What Hath God Wrought, embrace these political divisions to discuss the alignments of the period.8 To these admittedly ideal categories, which refer less to the complex views of specific individuals than to clearly distinguishable positions on social organization and child rearing, I add a third, religion, and in particular dissenting religion, whose “influence” is, according to a recent commentator, “only begrudgingly acknowledge[d]” in American history.9 Regarding the Federalists, later the Whigs, and the sectarians and the Jeffersonians, later Jacksonians, despite the pleas for reconciliation each “told fundamentally different stories about the American Revolution.” These distinct visions of society, marked by theological and class differences, shaped the contentiousness of the early republic. Each group had played an important role in the revolution and presumed ultimate vindication for its version of national formation. A culture war over the legacy of independence was unavoidable.10 The earliest division, originating during the English Civil War and the source of much of the underlying societal tension in the colonial period, involved the long-standing antagonism between the Federalists and their sectarian opponents. Both groups, being Protestant dissenters, shared a commitment to creating an agency society and rejected imperial institutions in favor of colonial political and religious self-rule regulated by local religious communities. They differed, however, over the specific institutions, the importance of leadership, and the role played by common citizens in this new social order. The Federalists, deriving from the earlier Puritans, were the most conservative of Protestant dissenters. They represented the indigenous social and religious elites who believed that political merit, leadership capacities, and religious virtue were unequally distributed, producing unavoidable political distinctions, social divisions, and religious hierarchies even among the faithful. As leaders of colonial society and the War for Independence, they anticipated a smooth transition to a virtuous republic of

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differential stations replicating the ordered communities of the eastern seaboard. The Protestant sectarians and revivalists, by contrast, had resisted not only traditional hierarchies but the Puritans’ own New World establishment. Organizing in diverse churches of dispersed, socially marginal members, they believed the revolution was only the first step in the millennial realization of a spiritual and social “vision of how the continent and its various communities were to be reformed” to “spread holiness over the land.” Committed to a transformed Protestant, rather than inclusive, society, these early religious fellowships gathered themselves into egalitarian communities of believers—“a visible community of saints that testified of a heavenly world”11—pointing the way to a sanctified body politic. The growing practice of itinerant and spontaneous revivals reinforced the focus on spiritual development and equality in the spirit: “All distinctions of names were laid aside, and it was no matter what any one had been called before, if he now stood in the present light, and felt his heart glow with love to the souls of men. . . . Neither was there any distinction as to age, sex, color, or any thing of a temporary nature: old and young, male and female, black and white, had equal privilege to minister the light which they received.”12 Perceiving a lack of religious conviction and moral discipline in the new society, sectarians worked to maintain tight communal bonds through common purpose and a sense of belonging based on “authentic religious feeling, intimate sharing, unity of sentiments, and orderly, selfdisciplined living.” Utilizing strict rules of conduct, fierce pressure to participate, and communal oversight, the sects, unlike the other parties, insisted on a strict separation from worldly ways to maintain collective practices and a sense of mission. To these ends, they rejected the elitism, class structure, and worldliness of the Federalists as well as the secular individualism of the Jeffersonians, regarding both as unacceptable violations of their principles of religious community. The unchurched society, a profane and selfish world of the flesh and the dev il, was to be initially challenged by establishing enclosures to protect their communities from “intruders” lest they “should soon be a desolate waste.” Once secure in their operation, they sent forth members to bring the broader public to a religious calling through camp meetings and outreach. As these groups gradually evangelized the nation, hopes were stirred that all would be led by example to “see and feel God working to bring the entire world under the reign of Christ.”13

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The third major faction, the Jeffersonian-Jacksonians, arose only with the revolution. Though given inflated prominence with the success of Jefferson’s account of independence, they were the least developed as a social movement. As suggested by Crèvecoeur’s Letters, many settlers intuitively grasped the unique self-sufficiency inherent in late colonial society. Yet it was only with the revolutionary articulation of a vision of a nation of independent proprietors and self-reliant citizens that the Jeffersonian idyll of a free society of free individuals took hold. Jeffersonian-Jacksonians differed fundamentally from the more traditional groups. They, with the Federalists, insisted on an inclusive society, not one whose membership was circumscribed by conversion. Yet like the sects they argued that society should reject class hierarchy in the name of democratic politics and equal opportunity. Jeffersonians such as Joel Barlow imagined the revolution giving rise to the “natural state of society,” organized according to human reason and sustained by voluntary responsibility.14 Not only would leadership come from the people, but it would play a less visible role in self-regulating local communities. Each of these major forces found confirmation for its own dreams in the new republic. Emboldened by the growing influence of Jeffersonian rhetoric and the Declaration as well as by the evident prosperity and self-sufficiency of the citizenry, Jeffersonian-Jacksonians foresaw the success of their decentralized yeoman republic of self-sufficient proprietors. Sectarians, in turn, experiencing unprecedented success in limiting the control of colonial elites, believed themselves on the threshold of a new society. Pious communities in “perfect harmony” would emerge dedicated to a “sinless life” of the saved, who “plainly see” without any “preconcerted plan” or “visible commander.” Federalists like John Adams foresaw a virtuous society led by a “natural aristocracy” that possessed the “greatest collection of virtues and abilities in a free government.”15 For each party, the dream of America burned, but with a flame of its own.

The Early Search for Republican Attachment While fervor about the new nation buoyed those who lived through the revolution, a solid principle upon which to build a cohesive society was lacking. The architecture of the constitutional system, with its legalistic institutions and “mechanical process of association,” provided an

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inadequate foundation for citizen investment in the new republic. Nor would a reliance on individuals “wholly engrossed by the pursuit of wealth” succeed in establishing a “uniform direction of the public will.” An even less promising basis was the call to maintain the state of nature with its “right to be exempted” from “restraint, or control.” Societies, it was becoming apparent, depended on the binding power of influences that “operate more silently, but far more powerfully.” Even Benjamin Rush, who called for society to “convert men into republican machines,” insisted on cultivating patriotism so that attachment was not a mere rational conclusion but a deeply engrained and affective “prejudice.”16 The “problem of emotion” was the inescapable “problem of the Union.” The widespread effort to identify a “sentimental language” of connection produced a diffusion of public festivals and recreations, including celebrations of the Constitution, the Fourth of July, Washington’s birthday, and Jefferson’s inaugural. These rituals, what David Waldstreicher has called the “rites of nationhood,” were ostensibly organized to coalesce popular affections “beyond political division.” Yet examining their use, Waldstreicher concludes that rather than promoting consensus as claimed, these rites were partisan ventures contributing to the “very partisan subcultures” of the early republic.17 The need for binding interests to overcome the proliferating individualism led to renewed attempts to imagine the nation as a family. Perhaps only the “reciprocal affection” originating in intimate bonds would regenerate the prior “natural and irresistible cohesion.” As with the “Founder fashion” idolizing the revolutionary fathers in our own time, Americans turned in the 1820s to the founding patriarchs as a source of unity, constructing a new “myth of the ideal family” with Washington as the nation’s father. The cult of the national family, with its revolutionary head and band of patriarchs, was broadly disseminated in pamphlets, biographies, sermons, and political orations as well as schoolbooks.18 This message was a deeply problematic one. To begin with, the rhetoric suggested little more than a “sentimental flight” from popular political controversy and divisions, increasingly regarded as inescapable, to the nostalgic yearning for a lost community. More important, the very concept of a “postpatriarchal family,” whose leaders were driven by an antipatriarchal ideal to revolt for independence in an act of political patricide, was no brief for unity. Recasting Washington as first among

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equals rather than patriarch—“WASHINGTON our model,” he was called— addressed this concern, but the ambiguous role of Washington and others as slave owners and freedom fighters, transformers as well as institution builders, hampered the coalescence of a single compelling image.19 A well of common “national sentiment,” a common picture of the nation, would not be easily established. For many, the mere creation of unprecedented “free political institutions” and “new form of civil society” was foundation enough. Yet without a more sweeping “revolution” in “principles, opinions, and manners” to initiate citizens into postrevolutionary society, new institutions were seen as likely to fail. The first popular nation would succeed only to the extent that ordinary citizens in “every village” absorbed “acquired habits, principles, and opinions” linking them to a common enterprise.20 The daunting task that surfaced was nothing less than the reaching and reshaping of each and every member of society.

The Turn to Socialization In the heady aftermath of the revolution, Americans believed that the foundation of the new society in the “order of nature” would inevitably generate citizens with transformed characters: “We cannot look on the freedom of this country, in connection with its youth, without a presentiment that here shall laws and institutions exist on some scale of proportion to the majesty of nature. . . . It [thus] seems so easy for Americans to inspire and express the most expansive and humane spirit.” This uncorrupted nature, “vibrat[ing] with electric rapidity through the whole,” would turn any future difficulty into a “self-correcting evil” healed in the course of republican life.21 It took a half-century to admit openly that the New World would not naturally spawn republican citizens, to concede that “a virtuous citizenry was made not born.” Yet concern formed quickly. As the scope of the assault on traditional authority became clearer, anxiety arose that the revolution had imbued in Americans a spirit of defiance, and more specifically generational defiance. The republic would have spawned a “rising generation” emboldened by the rhetoric of youthful revolt seeking to “fill the places of the fathers.”22 What was to stop them from becoming “degenerate sons of free parents” that “tyrannize over the rest,” consumed by “principles of disorder”

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and the “training” of “anarchists” in the “right of resistance”? Had not the revolutionaries collectively provided a model of licentious youth, each eager to become an “undutiful and cursed Ham” gleefully “exposing [parental] nakedness”? What else could be expected of a generation lacking “foresight” and “judgment,” consumed by the enthusiasms and “illusions” of “greatness,” and above all lacking a “strong attachment to the place where men are born”?23 This frightening scenario led many to yearn for a renewed sense of filial piety. Imagining that citizens could again regard themselves as “children of the same common Father,”24 they solemnly praised “aged fathers” and their “father’s suffering,” speaking of “our venerable ancestors” and “honored fathers.”25 The turn to child shaping represented a wish common to the different factions that older regimens, once successful at creating compliance, could be restored. Though such a return was never to be realized, the thrust it gave to an ultimately decisive focus on socialization dates from the time independence was imminent. As the historian George B. Forgie has written, “post-heroic Americans unsure of the capacity of their constitutional machinery to withstand the onslaught of modernity” came to embrace the role of socialization. National character and national destiny could be formed by a careful molding of the characters of the rising generation. The nurturing of the infant nation and the infant generation would proceed in tandem. . . . The connection between child rearing and the future of the Republic elevated child rearing to a concern of the highest order. . . . To make the Union real and children virtuous— and thereby secure the Union— was [the] . . . goal.26

Crafting a new system for preparing the young occupied the greatest minds of the age. Jefferson and Franklin, among others, sought to employ this “most obvious republican instrument,” absent which neither “piety, virtue, [n]or liberty can long flourish,” nor could “diversity of sentiment” congeal into a common sensibility. In 1778 David Ramsay called for Americans to begin building educational institutions to fully realize the “American editions of the human mind” by diffusing “religion, learning, and liberty” throughout the land. The same year, Jefferson argued that to prevent tyranny the new republic must “illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large” by a school system for all children. In 1779 Charles Lee warned that without “proper education

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of the rising generation,” creating “a new way of thinking and new principles,” republican society would not endure.27 The call for socialization went out from all quarters. The Federalist Elizur Goodrich maintained in 1787 that since a well-governed polity required that “subjects be trained up and educated” for “living conformable” to its norms, it must ensure the “pious and virtuous education” of the young. In that year, a moderate Massachusetts writer opined, “If America would flourish as a republick, she need only attend to the education of her youth.” Americans neglecting this “palladium of her rights” would be “at [their] peril.” The Federalist Samuel Langdon asked in 1788, “Can you leave the youth uninstructed in any thing which may prepare them to act their part well in the world?” Would that not be, he reasoned, to “suffer ignorance to spread its horrific gloom over the land?”28 In his prize-winning essay of 1797, the Jeffersonian Samuel Harrison Smith argued for a republican system of education that would provide all children the knowledge and virtue crucial to a “duly constructed” republic. The radical Jeffersonian Robert Coram in 1791 approvingly cited the Federalist Noah Webster’s plan for a system of education through universal public schools as “the rock on which you must build your political salvation!” The moderate Israel Evans cautioned Americans in the future, “Above all, watch carefully over the education of your children.” In 1801 the moderate Jeremiah Atwater praised early social intervention because, when it operates effectively, “little is left for the magistrate.”29 Mainstream Calvinism identified youth as “prime targets” to whom were “entrusted the future prospects of the church and nation.” Evangelizing sectarians also employed both revivalist campaigns and family outreach to connect with the young. The sects, as mainstream revivalists, understood that conversion had to be accomplished early in the citizen’s life since so often “children left home for the West, where parental influence was nonexistent and worldly influence rife.” Religious outreach sought to engage whole families in an effort to influence domestic socialization. Parents were in turn directed to bring their children to camp meetings and church services to expedite their conversion.30 The Second Great Awakening also possessed “an essentially educational character,” and the reward was the large proportion of youth, often a majority, who participated in and were converted by revivals. Religious campaigns to evangelize and reform urban life quickly turned to youth as the most accessible and receptive constituency, communicating their

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messages further through tracts and Sunday schools. Alternative systems of primary, secondary, Sunday, and advanced schooling were offered in place of secular education, the hope being to create “generations of pious offspring” through the family’s close engagement with the church.31 The great revival leader Charles G. Finney looked forward to a time  when revivals could be replaced by the more stable process of socialization: As the millennium advances, it is probable that these periodic excitements will be unknown. Then the church will be enlightened, and the counteracting causes removed, and the entire church will be in a state of habitual and steady obedience to God. The entire church will stand and take the infant mind, and cultivate it for God. Children will be trained up in the way they should go, and there will be no such torrents of worldliness, and fashion, and covetousness . . . as soon as the excitement of a revival is withdrawn.

In religious communities across the land, education became the “first order of business.” Setting loose a “torrent of sermons, tracts, learned disquisitions, and utopian proposals,” preachers from all denominations and sects worked to “devise the educational arrangements that would prepare a responsible citizenry.” The evangelical Congregational leader Lyman Beecher, highlighting the central choice of “superstition, or evangelical light; of despotism, or liberty,” encouraged the growing nation to establish “institutions for the education of her sons.”32 Perhaps the most famous early statement was Benjamin Rush’s 1786 Plan for the Establishment of Public Schools and the Diffusion of Knowledge in Pennsylvania; to Which are added, Thoughts upon the Mode of Education, Proper in a Republic. Rush insisted on a national and uniform system of education as a priority. Because the “first impressions on the mind are the most durable,” he wrote, shaping citizens early would alone ensure attachment to the country and its institutions. In giving its citizens’ characters a “uniform bias” in “nurseries of virtue and knowledge,” society would render them “more homogeneous and thereby fit” for a stable and uniform government.33

Early Socialization Paradigms The great attraction of child shaping was its potential for redirecting society quickly. Each party recognized the competitive advantage that

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instituting its own model of socialization would provide for its social agenda. Given the strong differences among the parties, however, this strategy simply relocated partisan controversy over the nation’s future to the educational domain. Apart from the limited agreement of socialization as the crucial site of republican social formation, the result was what Linda Kerber has called an “extensive and often heated public discussion of educational values.”34 In part, the limited political success of the early factions stemmed from their inability to grasp the complex project before them. The prevailing assumption, aside from a few bold Jeffersonian-Jacksonians, was that constraining the new individualism was the overriding issue. The fear that popular leaders would focus on “winning the favor” of, even “pandering” to an unformed citizenry heightened this concern. A minority recognized that Americans, lacking the experience of having lived under a free government, were as fearful of the challenges of liberty as they were of the demands of order. The lesson of Europe was that the “untutored herd,” being “accustomed to dependence” and in complete ignorance of its natural rights and their exercise, would be predisposed to passivity and deference. Rather than embracing the liberty celebrated in the national rhetoric, they would quickly succumb to the “tyrant’s yoke,” either “prey to individual usurpers” or to “some foreign power,” creating in turn a culture of “national slavery” and “idolatry.”35 The project ultimately facing the new society, then, was a bold and unprecedented reimagining of the nature of citizenship. Individuals historically dependent and newly released had to be prepared for both freedom and modern attachment, self-reliant behavior and obedience to common ends, “individualism and civic virtue” as “complementary aspects of a single-minded effort to make individualism conditional and therefore compatible with social order.” Only training and educating citizens with a “virtuous and uniform bias” and “steady practice” in “rational liberty,” as both champions and defenders of republican principles, would prevent a relapse into anarchy or “dependence,” with its “slavish sensibility.”36 The challenge of reconciling such apparent contradictions—how could individuals be at once free and rigorously contained?—was scarcely recognized in the early years after the revolution. Citizens, all agreed, needed to be reached long before they had made errant ways a habit, but of what the appropriate learning consisted was by no means evident. As partisans nevertheless pressed on with their own priorities, it at first

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appeared that the same unyielding divisions that plagued their disputes over more political matters would paralyze the socialization initiative. Only in facing the demands for both freedom and social cohesion (the essential agency synthesis) and elaborating new strategies to prepare the young effectively did it emerge how deeply these parties drew from a common ideal of citizenship and social obligation. Despite variant understandings of their dissenting Protestant lineage, reflected in Federalist hierarchical meritocracy, dissenting populist millennialism, and Jeffersonian proprietary individualism, the republican parties had common origins in the agency culture underlying the revolution. As these values became increasingly explicit under stress, infusing their child-rearing initiatives to a degree reached nowhere else in early republican social discourse, the possibility of consensus emerged. Even as these antagonists pursued their distinctive doctrines in the heated policy controversies of the day, the fear that protracted divisions would cripple the republic and handicap the emerging generations impelled them toward a common strategy for the future.

The Federalists Fearing the turbulent influence of popular “jacobins” and “revolutionary demagogues” among “children of disobedience,” the Federalists reaffirmed their commitment to civil rulers and ecclesiastical superiors. The model was a government of “the best men” as “wise and good rulers.” Although every member of society possessed the potential to become a godly agent, institutional roles required “different talents and qualifications” and reflected “great differences and inequalities of men.” For agency society to function, the best had to be established as religious, political, and social elites, and others reconciled to serve within the station they were fit to occupy.37 To establish social solidarity and political order amid such differentiation, education was necessary. Its role was to instill trust in good rulers and those of superior character as well as the “duty of submission” that subjects naturally owed: citizens were to “obey the laws . . . give tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, and honor to whom honor.” While Federalists agreed that popular government, despite a limited franchise, meant individuals and nations could not be “bound without their consent,” the equally basic obligation to

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behave as “good subjects” distinguished the Federalists’ ideal of social responsibility from what they called the “mere empty sounds” of Jeffersonians and sectarians, those “disorganizers” seeking to “corrupt the minds of the young” with leveling sentiments.38 Given their institutional paternalism and intolerance of deviance, the Federalists counted on child rearing to secure lifelong subordination to social authorities. With the united power of church and state, the established clergy and teachers could forge a common Christian and republican education to ensure that habits of deference and responsibility were “early taught and imbibed.” To counteract the values of their opponents, instructors would emphasize that social distinctions were established by nature and the work of Providence. Any effort to alter this hierarchical system was to “wage war with Heaven,” to weaken society with a mobility that would “fill all the grades of society with an unreasonable jealousy of each other.” The less elevated were to be content that “the poorest in his humble condition may be as useful, contented and happy as the richest and most elevated.”39 Both traditional Calvinists and religious moderates supported Federalist notions of society and education. For the former, to subdue the perversity of human nature resulting in “vile and wicked practices,” early socialization had to focus on breaking children’s willfulness until they “contract those habits of obedience and submission.” Guardians had to train children early to fear God, backed by an “awful controlling impression of a future retribution.” By establishing that “subordination . . . is the very essence of civil liberty,” personal judgment and initiative would be tempered throughout one’s life by the judgment and guidance of superiors.40 Moderate child-rearers were more realistic. They favored more easily attainable forms of social discipline rather than a strenuous control over personal and worldly ambition. They wanted to develop in the young a capacity for worldly achievement and community leadership by encouraging personal judgment, initiative, and independence. Believing children to be socially adaptive rather than intrinsically resistant to approved conduct, they intended education not to break children’s will but to bend and direct their capacities and judgment, enabling them to pursue the path of community rectitude. By using strong affective bonds, positive examples, and early parental instruction to establish discipline, skills, and self-regulation as well as identify appropriate conduct, the young

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would “accept the authority and the wishes of the parents” and willingly lead lives of virtue and propriety.41 While differing on the means, the common Federalist anxiety about the absence of adult constraints led Federalists to value uniform social behavior. This is evident equally in the “regularity and unison” demanded of Rush’s “republican machines” and in the conservative Noah Webster’s project to establish a culture of “perfect uniformity” through a national language whose “universal undisputed practice” deriving from a common education would produce the “band of national union.” 42 For this constituency, freedom was narrowly conceived as voluntary integration within the existing social hierarchy. In the face of seemingly unlimited social options, individuals coming of age would hopefully focus on becoming active and orderly members of the newly established social and political institutions and, where appropriate, their leaders.

The Jeffersonians Jeffersonians’ educational ideals derived from their model of a proprietary society. Local self-governance involved limited government with a tenacious commitment to individuals’ right to be “free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement.” While suspicious of traditional institutions, the party was ingenuous regarding republican order. Unlike Federalists, Jeffersonians believed the socialization of the young would henceforth be relatively uncomplicated, reaching its extreme in Franklin’s often cited and imitated best-seller in the following century, his Autobiography. The great statement of a self-directed education, the Autobiography offers an uncompromising view of the failure of traditional institutions to adequately prepare modern individuals. Incorporating a letter from Benjamin Vaughn into the text, Franklin believed that “schools and other education constantly proceed upon false principles” by failing to identify the “just means of estimating and becoming prepared for a reasonable course of life.” 43 Because “men are virtuous without laws” and the individual as a “self-dependent being” arises “self-instructed” to be “a complete moral agent,” a republican education would simply involve the cultivation of natural virtue. Franklin sees no need for details, for “very little instruction is necessary to teach a man his rights. . . . Engrave it on the heart

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of a man, that all men are equal in rights, and that the government is their own,” and “you have made him a good citizen.” Justifying his own flight from family control in Part 1, Franklin offers himself as “a noble rule and example” for the claim that the project of “self-education” is in the “private powers” of most individuals. Because adults provide no model for success in the new society, individuals must each identify a pattern for “improving their minds and character” and use it to frame a life plan.44 In Part 2 Franklin describes the successful execution of such a plan, including lessons in knowing what is and is not achievable. At the same time, Jeffersonians acknowledged that some education was more broadly necessary for the average citizen of a democracy, providing the “birth-right” for assuming one’s full and equal place in modern society. Its primary charge of making men happy involved cultivating the capacities “to make them independent.” Public virtue, understood as the agency commitment to function as self-regulating and self-governing members of a community with a “common duty,” was principally established through early economic independence and self-reliance. Nevertheless, assisting the citizen’s “gradual and large improvement” would allow innate virtues to be “vigorously expressed, extended, and strengthened.” By undoing the effect of traditional government and cultural norms that made humans either slaves or “wolves” with “distorted characters” and “warped” morals, education, beginning in the family, would teach citizens to appreciate the “reciprocity” required in society. This would in turn enable them to balance their rights with their political duties and the rights of others.45 The key to the democratic order was equal access to universal schooling and the opportunity for advanced education where appropriate: An equal representation is absolutely necessary to the preservation of liberty. But there can never be an equal repre sentation until there is an equal mode of education for all citizens. For although a rich farmer may, by the credit of his possessions, help himself into the legislature, yet if through a deficiency of his education he is unable to speak with propriety, he may see the dearest interest of his country basely bartered away.

To ensure full and equal participation, Jeffersonians insisted that education be public rather than private and rooted in common civil values rather than the narrow confines of religious faith.46

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Formal learning would supplement experience by providing lessons in democracy and independence and by diffusing useful knowledge. Access to economic skills would foster the ability to “prosecute a particular branch of agriculture or mechanics,” the capacity to support oneself being the guarantee that one would “be his own master.” Similarly, the political knowledge of one’s rights and the rights of others would equip one for freedom, even for places of responsibility in the new society. As the “vulnerability of freedom” became more apparent with growing institutional hierarchies, Jacksonians placed increasing weight on a universal and general education, hoping that broadly instilling those “beliefs and habits and preferences appropriate to free men” would mobilize the less fortunate to rise.47 Jeffersonians were committed to social equality. Some believed that universal education would eliminate “artificial inequality,” enabling a “striking equality” to emerge. This view did not deny the “evident gradation” of natural talents and abilities, but trusted that education, by emphasizing the capacities of each, would narrow these differences. Others less convinced of universal equality nevertheless believed that education could mitigate inequalities by liberating the vast popular energies hitherto dormant: “fan the sparks of genius in every breast, and kindle them into flame,” and society would release the talents of greater numbers than ever before imagined. Such an active and vigorous society would enable the “poorest school boy” to contribute great things to collective productivity and glory. In this view, shared by Jefferson, a “natural aristocracy” composed of individuals rather than classes would rise to leadership positions, but its influence would be contained by institutions of political self-government and a diffusion of economic power.48

The Sectarians From the time of the English Revolution, Protestant sectarians had defended the right of individuals to “step out of their assigned place in the patriarchal order” and challenged class limitations with ever greater effectiveness in the colonies before independence.49 Individuals with ability and vision could, and should be called to, arise from any sector of society to carry out God’s will as they and their religious community understood it. Because larger social bodies were inherently elitist and

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stratified, corrupting and constraining the redemptive mission, the appropriate locus of governance was the local community of equal agents in fellowship. Such communities were to nourish the “spiritual liberty” of each individual to assume responsibility for his or her religious destiny and identity. At the same time, as proselytes, they hoped to convert the nation. Republican freedom was to be used not to promote an earthly republic of secular virtue but to raise up individuals who used their “independent initiative in promoting the cause of one’s heavenly Father” as “part of God’s action in the world.”50 Individual initiative and worldly activity were a necessary part of building the good society, but secular accommodations were to be resisted or, in the case of economic activity, carefully contained to protect the godly community. In the early communities, the socialization of the young was necessarily secondary to the project of establishing adult conformance. The very goal of tightly organized fellowships was to “resocialize adults” to build the new order after their departure from traditional denominations and the secularization that often resulted. Children were at first inducted into the religious life as part of the larger project of family recruitment, the “conversion of a family as a family,” to ensure a seamless transmission of values. Other youth were singled out and encouraged to join during revivals, for “the Spirit of God” inhabits them “more frequently than at any other period, exert[ing] gracious influence.” For those born in the community, life was centered in the fellowship of church society—which typically excluded the unconverted, having been separated from the saved in a “terrible war” between “home religion’s influence and the worldly spirit”— as well as in the “true communion” of the family. For all the young, ensuring full participation in the community and in worldly outreach required a rigorous “religious education of our Youth,” which, sectarians expressed among themselves, “is, under God, our only hope.”51 In spite of their sheltered early lives, these young people faced unusually independent lives. They were at once minorities in the larger society and wayfarers pressing forth to spread the “wide diffusion of sound knowledge and religious principles among all classes of the people.” Sectarian communities realized that, for youth to undertake these roles under such difficult circumstances, they had to be reached early. It was at the moment when the “habits of thought, and feeling, and action” were

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first formed that they demonstrated a “general susceptibility of character” that was “favorable to the cultivation of religion.”52 To this end, ecclesiastical organizations established networks of schools and colleges, universities and seminaries, Sunday schools and Bible classes, maternal societies and education societies, orphanages and community educational outreach. Some historians have claimed that the rigors of sectarian discipline required the will of the young to be broken, as with the Federalists.53 But sectarian obedience was different from traditional Calvinist subordination. The life of devout activism represented perhaps the ultimate expression of empowered godly agents, requiring not just a “passive letting go of one’s worldly self-will” but the “active, willful propagation of the evangelical gospel” in “true selfhood.” To be sure, untutored personal desires were to be rigorously contained, surrendered to a full dependence on God without regard for autonomy in the modern sense. Yet from the perspective of the time, evangelical activism involved extreme forms of empowerment and responsibility. That individuals, including women and the young, could with the “enlivening power” they felt as “the presence of God” express, engage, and fulfill divine ends beyond mere “patronym, clan, and local community” was a decisive break from tradition. This lifelong sense of new capacity in the ser vice of common ends to which the evangelical young were shaped would in time permeate modern American society.54 Reliance on the family to prepare the young in the setting of the young republic challenged classic parent-child relations. Traditional paternalistic submission was recognized as both crippling to spiritual self-sufficiency and a provocation to rebellion and flight. Modeling themselves on the caring and responsive Father who anchored the voluntary churches, sectarians began to employ affective bonds in the family as the “sphere of morally and spiritually pure affection” modeled on “heaven as the eternal perpetuation of right affection.” Addressing parents, writers advised that reaching children and converts with emotionally nurturing methods would “win their confidence, and attach[ment],” making it easier to “mold them into finished Christians.” At the same time, the firm and consistent exercise of parental responsibility as the “epitome of all rule, authority, and power,” along with early obedience, would ensure the proper religious practices and values.55 With this balance, and by gradually assuming greater responsibility in the com-

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munity, children would mature as self-reliant actors in the larger sacred narrative.

The Shock of Republican Realities While each child-rearing model intended to produce adults capable of functioning as voluntary agents, none initially made adequate allowance for the emerging social realities. Each faction was too absorbed in its own struggle for political and cultural control to acknowledge the limits of its ideals in the face of social demands being made on the young. As the pressures to adjust child rearing became more urgent, the initial response was defensiveness. The seemingly irreversible social dynamic of individualism and social mobility produced a disheartening sense of miscalculation, of assumptions about social regularity continually outpaced and undone by conditions. The mainstream minister A. D. Eddy introduced his Address on the Duties, Dangers and Securities of Youth (1836) by emphasizing the “fruits of fanaticism” at work in an increasingly unmanageable populace. The “leveling principle” was fomenting “restless, radical, and ultra movements,” reminiscent of the situation that “preceded the Reign of Terror, and the horrors of the French Revolution.” The great Jeffersonian philosopher and educator Frances Wright contrarily spoke out in her Course of Popular Lectures (1829) against the powerful “conflicting interests and sinister influences” plotting to enslave the people. Promoting deceptive and self-aggrandizing values and national practices in law, religion, and education, these “relic[s] of dark ages” were undermining popular control and the principles of “equal liberties, equal duties, and equal enjoyments of all” set forth in the Declaration of Independence. Peter Cartwright, a central organizer of American Methodism, the greatest of the popular religions, found antebellum Christians succumbing to an increasing worldliness that served only to “corrupt and curse the Church.” The result was a religion “defeated, the obligations of the Gospel loosened, the rules of the Church not exacted,” and the imminent “deathknell” for the role of spiritual inwardness.56 Partisans gradually acknowledged that insecurities of wealth and social place were inevitable. In The Father’s Book; Suggestions for the Government and Instruction of Young Children (1834), Theodore Dwight noted the ruinous effects of “those changes of fortune to which all are

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liable in our country, and of which we have so many examples.” In Education of Children (1836), the educator John Hall confirmed from experience and observation the widely held view that “family estates are never transmitted beyond the third generation; that they seldom remain unimpaired in the hands of the second—and are commonly lost even by the first.”57 For Federalist-Whigs like Catherine E. Beecher (1842), the impact on social hierarchy was devastating: Reverses of fortune, in this land, are so frequent and unexpected, and the habits of the people are so migratory, that there are very many in every part of the Country, who, having seen all their temporal plans and hopes crushed, are now pining among strangers, bereft of wanted comforts, without friends, and without the sympathy and society, so needful to wounded spirits.

For Jeffersonians and Jacksonians such as John Taylor, the rise of industry, a virtual “manufacturing mania,” was “impoverishing, discouraging and annihilating nine-tenths of our sound yeomanry.” They were becoming serfs to what William Leggett called “our aristocracy, our scrip nobility, our privileged order of charter-mongers and money-changers!” For sectarians and revivalists, the growing plague of parishioners obsessed with achieving wealth, to “run themselves into such a press of worldly business and cares,” was destabilizing religious communities.58 Ideologies aside, the dispersion of wealth and status also meant that success was unpredictable. As Dwight explained, “There are no fixed artificial classes or ranks. . . . All professions and trades also are open and free; and knowledge is easily accessible by persons of every class.” The emerging ethos that “a person shall rise,—if he rise at all,—by his own merit” rendered class advantages or caste privileges secondary to the ambition to succeed. The wish to “be a great man” was on every “prattler’s lips,” along with endless “dreams of profit and honour.” This “wish for distinction” had become an incontrovertible force that could no longer be subdued. With individuals now able to stand on their own, absent the protection of authority, and act as they wished, “uncontrolled by anyone,” there was no longer a ceiling beyond which “men may not rise.”59 The most striking result of social fluidity was the level of success attained more often by those from poor and humble backgrounds than from wealth. In this new world where “men live faster, move faster,

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think faster than in former times,” one’s fortune, according to Daniel Eddy, could be “made in a single day.” Often a poor man achieved unexpected wealth and rose from scarcity to affluence, while those with “high prospects” were left bankrupt, without credit or character.60 A. D. Eddy warned that the “excessive desire of becoming rich” and entering the elite was the dominant “error of our country,” responsible for wild schemes and speculation with their train of “ruined estates, prostrate health, wasted lives, and blasted characters.”61

The Rising Child The breakdown of all previous models of adult integration was transforming childhood as well. Increasingly there was little choice between idleness and industry: the former was a “fetter” that would “retard [a child’s] prosperity through the whole of his life,” while activity, assertiveness, and ambition enabled one “successfully to grasp all the great concerns of the business world.” If the one “who aims at little, will accomplish but little,” then the one willing to “expect great things, and attempt great things” will in turn “fly higher.”62 The world, it appeared, would select those who proved capable of such enterprise. Called upon to bring their enthusiasm, dedication, and vision to the realization of a new world, the new generations were in effect charged by the community to surpass those preceding them. Recognition dawned in the 1820s that social mobility was preventing the formation of stable communities in which the moral order was buttressed by lifelong certainties of class, station, or religion. Neither fixed social hierarchy, religious fellowship, nor yeoman township could any longer be counted on, as the young would eventually leave home to make their own way. A young man, it was expected, “all at once . . . comes of age” and “assumes something like a character of his own, takes his place among men.”63 One “starting out from his father’s home” whether in rural or urban area, with ultimate “respect for parental authority,” will still go off to “build a home of his own.”64 The view of childhood as a more dynamic condition was putting pressure on parent-child relations. The problem for parents, recognized even before independence, was how to nurture the child’s “active principle . . . so vigorous and overflowing” with “perpetual motion.” As emphasis was put on cultivating the “latent powers and qualities” that would generate

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socially valuable intellectual and psychological capacities, native impulses were increasingly valued as “innocent inclinations,” even “latent sparks of genius.” In order to encourage them to “continual enlargement” and effectiveness rather than repress them as sinful, these capacities were to be “drawn forth and improved” by “gratify[ing]” and even “indulg[ing]” their possessor to an unprecedented extent.65 Childhood preparation now had to involve improving and developing those individual resources with which the child learned to “stand alone.” Pastor Joel Hawes told young adults: Those invaluable interests, social, civil, and religious, which have come down to us, a most precious inheritance from our fathers, [are] soon to be transferred to your hands and your keeping. . . . The venerable fathers . . . soon . . . will all be gone. . . . Who are to rise and fill their places? To whom are to be committed the invaluable interests of this community? Who are to sustain its responsibilities and discharge its duties? You anticipate the answer. It is to you.

Parental advisors were now more aware than ever of the delicate and lengthy process needed to “fit young persons” to be “useful and desirable members of society.” Achieving the “full maturity of their powers” in an advanced society would involve cultivation of the child’s nature as never before. Those adults willing to “watch for their development, and not to force it—not even to hasten it,” were promised they would begin to see the flowering of independent faculties designed for “high earthly destinies” and “noble purposes.”66

Eroding Parental Authority This more nurturing attitude toward the young was threatening the viability of socializing authority. Under the new conditions, older punitive methods were ineffective at both inducing compliance and generating self-reliance. The usual mode of domestic discipline, to punish rather than prevent crimes, had to be inverted: the “passion, fear, which is commonly the first, [had to] become the last passion addressed by parental authority.” The use of “roughness and severity” undermined domestic governance by inducing “dissimulation” and “disaffection.” It even “depressed” some children to the point that “they could not gain their proper rank in society, nor hold up their heads in the face of the

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world.” While strict obedience and “absolute submission” were not yet seriously questioned, the danger of “impotent rage” by a “parent who has no authority” from a “defect of government at home” was to be avoided by focusing on the cultivation of positive virtues. Thomas Pickering wrote in 1783, “It is doubtless far better to apply to the natural ambition than to the fears of the child: the latter will only make hardened rogues of the bold, and confound the tender hearted: while nothing is more animating than just applause.”67 Steps had to be taken to “improve [the] means of instruction.” Familial affection was demonstrating a unique power to both establish enduring bonds of respect and encourage the emergence of self-assertion and self-reliance: a “seasonable and diligent cultivation, as the tender plant is nourished and reared up,” would draw children gently toward proper behavior on their own. Parents needed to realize that their power lay in “the affections and not over the person.” If children believed that their parents shared a real “union of hearts” with them, they would undertake the behavior expected of them; if adults “regard[ed] a child’s interest in preference to their own,” they would produce loyal citizens with characters “unbroken by exercise and unimpaired by time.” Anticipating the later emphasis on reciprocation, Rev. Clark Brown addressed his “Young Friends” in a 1795 sermon: hearken to all such “faithful and benevolent admonitions, precepts and instructions” with which “your PARENTS in love may favor you.”68 Women played an increasingly important role in child rearing as more men found employment outside the home, an important shift in the ultimate ascendancy of the affectionate family. Mary Watkins noted this new role in Maternal Solicitude (1809): “There are no ties in nature to compare with those which unite an affectionate Mother to her children.” Mothers knew “best how to govern” and make children “attentive to what they should learn,” for the “principles of sympathy and compassion” were more pronounced in women. The more confrontational style of family governance shown by men was explained by their being “ruffled with the busy cares and scenes of the world.” But their role was declining, as “nothing can equal the advantage of maternal love; nor any substitute be found.” Praise for women, though reinforcing the cage of female domesticity, was unstinting: from the “natural genius” of these “noble, exalted, glorious,” virtually “heavenly beings” was issuing a power that would transform and purify society.69

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Despite the bold insistence on new attitudes toward the young and new methods of socialization, the particulars remained unclear. If the existing socialization of the young, hitherto taken for granted in society, could not hold, how were sons and daughters just liberated from traditional parenting by the revolution to bring up modern children of their own? What child-rearing regimen could produce a free individual? Could adults accept their contracting authority and eventual displacement by the younger generation, and would less disciplined youth accept the demand for compliance and lifelong self-containment during adolescence? What if the growing emphasis on child rearing as midwife of the new order was misplaced?

To the Drawing Board The failure of the early factions to shape the republic in their image forced them to adapt. Federalists witnessed the remarkably swift collapse of stable social hierarchies and inherited political elites, including their own model of family government. Portraying domestic authority as “absolute” and the father as “the viceregent of God” was now likely “any where, within the protection of our stars and stripes . . . to stir up the spirit of seventy-six from ocean to ocean.” Those “hard, stern, and unfeeling” fathers who ruled with a “chain of bondage” were warned to be “very cautious in their discipline,” even to “change [their] method at once,” so that children could be “insensibly drawn to love the way pointed out” for them.70 Sectarians and revivalists were similarly shaken, finding that their members could not be contained within tight communities or—in a worldly era of social and economic growth—within the strict pietism demanded by religious purists.71 In fact their call to expand the religious polity by taking to “the field” of the larger society to “do good unto all men” had a paradoxical effect.72 The members’ engagement with a society resistant to an overarching religious framework only weakened the lessons of parental piety and the influence of the local fellowship, exposing young adults to powerful and pervasive worldly influences. As the infrastructure of the new society took shape, Jeffersonians and Jacksonians had to acknowledge that the dream of rudimentary institutions and informal education was unrealistic. Their enthusiasm for the promise of naturally “enlightened liberty” had colored their

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view of reality with “a Claude Lorraine tint” of rose-colored myopia. Dreams of virtuous self-sufficiency dimmed when examined “under the sober light of truth.” As institutional complications were eroding this “home of liberty, and American brethren in equality,” creating conditions where Jeffersonians had “never trod,” the danger was rising that the age-old “law of force” would again triumph over the populous advocating of the “law of reason.”73 Yet while the revolutionary promises were eroding, there was no way to turn back, no way back to turn to. In more hopeful moments, the “changing world” offered immense prospects if matched by an equivalent “advancement in knowledge” for “public improvement.” For Wright, though it had been a mistake to confuse “for the fulness of light what was but its harbinger,” at the same time 1776 “commenced a new era” for Americans, when the “sun of promise then rose upon the world.” Cartwright continued despite himself to experience “Christian rapture” at the prospects for this “happy republic,” this “land of the free and home of the brave” spreading glad tidings of “liberty, civil and religious, to unnumbered millions” at home and abroad.74 The challenge for Americans was to create new ways to fulfill the promises they had made to themselves. The leaders in the socialization project were beginning to define a common national model of republican citizenship without which no complementary republican child-rearing preparation could be forthcoming to cultivate it. So long as divergent conceptions of agency prevailed— secular and religious, universal and local, egalitarian and hierarchical, independent and institutional—no single pattern for reconciling individual voluntarism with social order could emerge. With the fate not only of the young but of society resting in the balance, answers would unexpectedly arise in the socialization discourses beginning in the 1820s. For even as disputes raged in adult institutions, families and communities across the ideological spectrum were helping their young adapt to republican realities. With rigid ideological differences slowly yielding and socialization advocates willing to acknowledge the liberal dependence on older dissenting ideals, a national model of agency citizenship— and of the rearing of the young to realize it— was taking shape.

II Framing Liberal Child Rearing in the Early Republic

5

The Emerging Consensus on Agency Socialization Ideally, therefore, child-rearing [should take] the chance out of choice. . . . Remove the margin for error in childhood, the popular advisers told [parents], and guarantee a future of respectability and success. —Robert H. Wiebe Our children . . . are so often told how glorious it is to be “born free and equal,” that it is hard work to make them understand for what good reason their liberties are abridged in the family. —H. H. Humphrey

It is a truism of antebellum American history that the Federalists, sectarians, and Jeffersonians were all losers in the process of cultural formation. Although their ideals were understood to retain lasting influence, their political effectiveness and relevance was presumed to wane as society adopted a spirit of Yankee pragmatism to adjust to commercial development, geographic expansion, population explosion, and institutional growth. The rise of mainstream culture has thus been long shrouded in obscurity, appearing—most emblematically in the work of Louis Hartz— as if a foreordained, timeless, in a sense unfashioned cultural synthesis “bound to be democratic” and “capitalistic.” In this telling, the transition period of “formlessness” left the early national parties stranded in a “scene curiously devoid of winners.”1 Yet to the extent the three parties receded, it was not to any supervening ideological movement but to the impact of reality upon their ideals. As it became clear that the fate of the rapidly evolving republic would be defined not by traditional concepts but by new adaptive models of 119

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citizenship and selfhood, influential proponents of these cultural factions turned away from rigid political and religious formulations. In large measure, these partisans realized that the success of their offspring depended less on ideological purity than on the ability to adapt to the myriad opportunities and pressures of republican life. In that age of growing sectional controversy, what has been obscured is how these factions began to modify their long-standing views regarding citizenship, authority, social order, freedom, equality, and individualism. Gradually, a new socialization and education evolved, balancing initiative and constraint, structure and flexibility. Discovering the common threads binding a modern agency republic, these parties wove together the mainstream consensus that eventually assimilated their nation-building energies and ironically superseded their own initial frameworks. By reinserting this initial creation of a common socialization process, the swift consolidation of public institutions and common Protestantized liberal values (now identified as American civil religion) that followed need no longer be treated as the mystical welling up of a deep untapped spring of national sentiment. Even the collective investiture of civil religion’s greatest figure, Abraham Lincoln, was a symbolic recognition of the deeper process of common value formation. Not only did Lincoln’s life story as canonized after the war become the symbolic synthesis of Whig, Jacksonian, and dissenting ideals in a single moral perspective, but this was identified as the result of early republican education. It was his hunger for broad learning that raised him above narrow partisanship to harmoniously embody the multiple cultural sources forming the emerging nation.

The Emergence of a National Campaign As S. G. Goodrich, a prolific writer of advice books and children’s fiction, observed of his era, “The opinion has gone abroad, that education is the only lever which can lift a community from the degradation to which the tendencies of human nature would drag mankind.” Though still in heavy demand, foreign advice books, lacking a focus on the unique conditions of postrevolutionary society, were “not suited to the genius of [American] government.”2 Goodrich’s injunction was “Study childhood” by crafting “American books” for the American young.3

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Legions of authors answered the call. A “wave of child training literature,” in the form of child-rearing manuals, guides, tales, juvenile literature, etiquette books, advice books for young men and women, and endless “shelves” of popular treatises, issued forth daily. From this veritable “flood of advice” on this already “most hackneyed subject in the world,” a cultural movement arose at the center of American life. As Goodrich put it at the time, “The press is teeming with books, papers, and pamphlets on this great subject; while the pulpit presses it upon the attention of the people; while the lecturer before the lyceum and the orator in our legislative halls are pouring forth eloquent appeals on behalf of education.” The worry was that “parents have heard so much on the subject” that they would weary and “turn away in disgust.” 4 What began informally and long remained the product of individuals working on their own—as with many incipient republican institutions— amounted nevertheless to a national campaign for shaping the young. For a broad group of activists the injunction was “Become independent in our maxims, principles of education, dress, and manners, as we are in our laws and government.” Moreover, with the future of a common republic at stake, cultural leaders “examined every aspect of childhood and child nurture to ensure that the rising generation would be equal to the challenge.” Child development was far “too important to be left to the vagaries of the teaching and examples of parents.” Society needed to address and supplement the “deficiencies of parental governance.”5

Transition to a Socializing Republic Few in the highly decentralized early republic regarded the inclusive society as more than a distant and abstract concept. But as local communities were integrated into larger institutional networks and destabilized by mobility, citizens found themselves having to construct institutions with neighbors who possessed very different convictions. Despite the wish to sustain older social norms and practices, the unprecedented diversity and activism in society threatened the ability of ideological partisans to carry out their agendas. Frustrated by political conflict and the waning of their distinctive visions of the republic, this transitional generation acknowledged a conspicuous “want of success” in building a society from a “shifting and transient” populace composed of so many backgrounds and beliefs.6

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The various factions took comfort in the remaining leverage they could exercise over children through socialization. Yet here too the older models often seemed to produce parents as fit to meet the emerging realities of education as the “reader of novels is prepared to encounter the actual occurrences of life.”7 More flexibility was needed. The result, all the more powerful and persuasive for being unintended, was that by the 1840s and 1850s major figures with roots in each of the earlier factions, such as the Congregational minister Horace Bushnell and the Presbyterian Catherine E. Beecher, the Methodist minister Daniel Wise and the latterday Jeffersonian John M. Austin, began to narrow their conceptual and normative differences. Federalists conceded that the basis of social consolidation, the “formation of the moral men and submission to rightful authority,” must be acquired, for “men are, what they are trained up to be.” Thus, “those who control the education of the young, have the future destiny of the country in their hands.” Heman Humphrey wrote: Upon the well ordering of [families] the most momentous interests of the church and the state . . . are suspended. The relations between parents and children, and the obligation growing out of it, are elementary and fundamental. They lie at the foundation of all virtue, of all social happiness, and of all good government. Were some great convulsion suddenly to subvert the political institutions of a state, without breaking up its families, those institutions might . . . soon be re-established; but let the sacred ties of husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister, once be severed . . . and it would be impossible . . . ever to re-construct any tolerable form of civil government.

The collapse of families, he concluded, “would be like dissolving the attraction of cohesion in every substance upon the face of the earth.” By child shaping, wrote Theodore Dwight, “children are rendered, by different systems, Hottentots, Brahmins, European princes, and citizens of America, with all the traits respectively belonging to their various situations.” For national consolidation, family discipline and instruction were now indispensable. Far more than other institutions, the family ensured the “preservation of manners, the maintenance of religion, and the perpetuity of national freedom.”8 Religious populists were becoming similarly convinced of the unprecedented power of early influences: “In the great majority of instances, it will appear that the direction which the character received in youth,

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is retained in every succeeding period of life.” It is then that “the Spirit of God . . . more frequently than at other periods, exerts his gracious influences.” Even in community fellowships, A. Gregory Schneider has shown, as the contrast grew between “the warm family of God and the cold evil world,” the domestic sanctuary within the Christian home would cultivate the religious self. According to the Methodist C. R. Lovell, “The family circle is of divine origin and is stamped with signal holiness and beauty.” As the “crucible of identity,” the pious family prepared the young with that public virtue upon which the religious fate of the republic rested.9 Jacksonians too came to place immense faith in child rearing: “Equality! where is it, if not in education? Equal rights! they cannot exist without equality of instruction,” for there could be no republic “while the public mind is unequally enlightened.” Increasingly, “the education of the whole” became “the first interest,” with the right to universal education the precondition for the “reign of equality.” Locating the education of the young in “nurseries of a free nation” would perfect its free institutions.10

Federalists in Transition Federalist reservations arose from deep-seated fears that the popular overturning of elites signaled inevitable moral decline. Individualism undermined social cohesion and introduced a “pestilence” of “domestic degeneracy, popular insubordination and licentiousness.” A pervasive “freedom from restraint” infecting society with the claim that every man is “the sole arbiter of his own conduct, the sole executor of his own decisions” sapped moral rectitude. With so many “loving the world” and ambitious for success, society was becoming a lottery in which “one draws a prize” but “ten thousand draw blanks.”11 Yet where “interest solely governs,” individualism would predominate. Even when parents were allowed sufficient time to exert their direct influence, early separation without parallel was common: “Our boys all expect to leave their home and go out as soon as possible.”12 Sent forth to sail upon a turbulent sea lacking “line, or compass, or chart,” youth needed “inde pendence of character” and a due sense of individual responsibility to avoid shipwreck on the shoals of ambition and pleasure. Achievement was now unavoidably the “fruit of personal exertion. It is not inherited from parents; it is not created by external advantages; it is no necessary appendage of birth, or wealth, or talents, or station; but

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the result of one’s own endeavors” and capacity for self-possession. Since personal choice led each onto the “best course,” freedom from “shackles that fetter the energies of the mind” was necessary to stimulate advancement and success.13 The Federalist commitment to a hierarchy of the virtuous as determined by wealth and station seemed increasingly out of touch. With all professions and trades now open and free, and knowledge easily accessible to all, those in low estates saw no “impassible barrier separat[ing] the classes” and no arbitrary limits on “what station, or rank in society” was within reach. The trend toward equality opposed since Winthrop was inescapable. The “declaration of our independence” as a nation driven by those “unaided by fortune” and “unpatronized by favor” had by instituting the universal rights of man and liberating popular abilities made “this wilderness a garden.” As political and religious freedom made personal industry the key to prosperity for all, citizens from “merchants or mechanics, professional men, farmers, citizens of wealth or daylaborers,” including those in “humble life,” increasingly took their advancement for granted.14 At the same time, the “bold demand of leveling authority” was “reduc[ing] alike the dignity of intellect, the security of virtue, and the right of possession.” Promoting a “false standard of excellence and influence,” the “excessive worldliness” encouraged by the competition for riches was resulting in a degraded “aristocracy of wealth” in which individuals were classified by material standards alone. This overdependence on material well-being, which “rarely fails of bringing with it sudden ruin” and a “debased soul,” led transitional Federalists to stress the value of personal effort. Industry, they claimed, was more efficient in determining one’s ultimate success and thus better reflected personal worth than “birth, or wealth, or talents, or station.” An abiding commitment to doing good and to intellectual and moral improvement, though not “always the shortest way to success,” surely facilitated the “rise in respectability, in influence and honor,” and opened doors otherwise “bolted and barred.”15 This link between meaningful success and virtue represented the effort to sustain legitimate social distinctions and the moral basis of the republic. “Particular height, or fame, or situation” was unequally distributed, so “eminence [could] not be the lot of all.” Moreover, because the best rewards were often nonmaterial, “whatever be the actual rank, or specific station, he who is qualified to fill it well, and who exerts himself accordingly, will be highly esteemed.” By this calculated logic, eco-

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nomic differences were to be downplayed as “invidious distinctions” of little consequence among the many intellectual and moral capacities possessed by those in “stations of commanding and honorable influence.”16 Only so long as “fitted by education and moral character” were those in possession of wealth entitled to the “safe and wise direction” of the republic. In the Federalist halfway house, power was to be exercised, as in the past, by the “good and virtuous, to be wielded for the common benefit,” while those below were to find “contentedness and respectability” in their own lot.17

Socialization for a Virtuous Populace The rapid decline of community vigilance over adult behavior threatened the Federalist republic of virtue. Individualism, previously a profound danger, had to be made an ally, for the individual would have to “be his own chief disciplinarian through life.” Rectitude now rested entirely on the “fulcrum” of character, the acquisition of “a new heart” for which each must strive. Referencing modern business practice, one Federalist wrote, “Character is like stock in trade; the more of it a man possesses, the greater are his facilities for making additions to it. Or, it is like an accumulating fund,— constantly increasing in value.” Most important, because “character is acquired,” Federalists had to focus on the internalization of values.18 This path led directly to socialization, since experience made clear that “formation of the human character commences in childhood.” Despite their emphasis on community socialization, Federalists had to acknowledge that the “freer the form of government is, the more necessary is it that parents should fit their children” for independence. Thus “domestic education, including all suitable restraints and discipline,” must become the preoccupation of parents everywhere.19 Uniquely positioned to demand the obedience necessary for virtuous self-discipline, the parent was to apply “coercion of the proper kind, and in the appropriate measure,” beginning early in life: The sooner he brings his child to submit to [his authority], the more easily the work is accomplished. The natural obstinacy of his child continually increases with his age, as well as by indulgence. . . . The younger the child, the more flexible are his passions and appetites; and the more easily is he made sensible of his own weakness, and of his parent’s strength.

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Well-governed children, in Humphrey’s view, were “brought into complete subjection in the nursery,” beginning nearly at birth, well before they remembered the surging of “their stubborn wills” against parental mastery.20 Despite “the corruptions of our fallen nature,” all but the strictest disciplinarians accepted the limits of “mere will and force.” Given that “affectionate persuasion, addressed to the understanding, the conscience and the heart,” was the “grand instrument” to “enlist the consciences” of the young and internally “bind [the] child to his duty,” applying the “law of love” emerged as the necessary approach. Its gentle powers encouraged the child to respect, anticipate, and fulfill adult desires rather than simply submit to authority: “The love of his parent and his Maker should be the leading strings of a child, and the fear of losing it a sufficient motive to deter them from evil.” By engaging the child’s own moral will or sense of moral obligation, “incomparably the sweetest control,” one gained a hold that adults had not previously possessed. Producing a child who could not disobey without a “feeling of self-condemnation” provided a “more powerful restraint, than the most positive requirements and prohibitions.”21 This shift, however unavoidable, was unsettling to defenders of traditional domestic authority. Adults were admittedly no longer clear about their prerogatives, it being “infinitely more difficult” to raise the young than in the past. What was now required was “just the reverse” of what parents had been taught. A parent who insisted on “play[ing] the tyrant in his own house” only hurt and hardened the child who was in need of guidance.22 Unequipped for the new dynamic, left to “grope unassisted and unenlightened,” parents were likely to produce children who ended up where “so many have strayed and fallen.” In confusion and frustration over their collapsing power, many parents were neglecting their responsibilities, exhibiting an extreme “inattention to the formation” of their children’s characters. The “lax discipline, and lax views of duty, fashionable with many fathers of the present day,” also produced a less functional and adaptive child.23 Federalists were still convinced of the “intrinsic value” of older ways, and they disliked the current “rage for new thoughts and new plans.” Yet the painful reality of parental failure and the limited reach of community reform organizations (which were dependent on other adults)

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left Federalist-Whigs with a most unappealing alternative: to treat youth as a separate and, indeed, independent constituency, and thereby engage them at the cost of permanently expanding their role in their own moral reform. With the “patriarchal circle” broken, the burden of public virtue would fall to youth who were “just rising, to assume control”: “A nation, long proud . . . now trembles. . . . And where is there hope? In our YOUTH alone?”24 Advice books undertook to directly address the young man “led on by his elders in iniquity” as the “rising hope” and to kindle his “virtue and intelligence.” This concession only confirmed, and in turn reinforced, the demise of traditional authority: “This duty, this honour, devolves on you.”25 Youth were directed to reconsider the source of personal reputation and character. Regardless of past social privilege, success was now “in all cases the fruit of personal exertion” and “not inherited from parents.” A youth could neither “shelter himself” under parental status nor point the finger at his “unpropitious beginnings,” even if “fixed by parents and guardians.” Given that the individual, not his community or family, was now “himself responsible for all his actions,” there was no one “else on whom to lay the blame.” Every youth must be “on his guard” to assess “his own best interests” using the “best lights that [he] can command,” even if necessary to “form a character” for himself. Young women were specifically counseled in the new virtues of self-knowledge, self-communion, and self-government. Individualism was nonnegotiable, for “resolution is omnipotent”: “You may be whatever you resolve to be.”26 The liberal culture of individual responsibility was transforming the Calvinist theology of human inability. Some writers of parenting manuals continued to insist on the subjugation of “adverse . . . propensities” and the need to “subdue their self-will” through “counteraction and repression.” Yet writers increasingly promoted self-reliance from an early age, finding it more effective to frame personal efforts at maturation as worthy of positive reinforcement. The “self-cultivation” enabling one to become “master” of oneself was now accessible to any wishing to choose a “course for eternity” by embracing a “high standard” and an “elevated aim.”27 As a result of this major shift, the child’s character was now viewed as capable of improvement and reformation. Children had greater internal adaptability for “being moulded and formed to right or wrong action,” given that their initial inclinations were amenable to alteration if reached before they hardened and “not yet warped or deadened” by

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worldly corruptions or personal irresponsibility. While theologically “no power on earth can conquer the stubborn will of the sinner,” the “evil consequences” that result are primarily because of early parental “negligence or failure.” The early application of moral training would surely produce “a virtuous and good” individual, such that even a selfwilled and disobedient child with the “old heart” could have his character remade in God’s image.28

The Limits of the Discourse of Virtue Once the goal of child rearing was redefined as forming independent citizens, moral realism set in. The language of virtue and moral improvement, though still useful when appealing to youths directly, placed unrealizable expectations on a popular society. More attentive to the danger than to the promise of a free society, Federalists focused on gaining the willing obedience of the young. Though individuals had to be given the power to pursue “wise ends” on their own, their evident “imperfect[ions]” and weakness required “submissiveness to rightful authority,” and they needed to learn that “obedience to rightful command” was “unavoidable.”29 Sustainable patterns of ordered behavior within “safe channels” under “proper control” were necessary to secure the “regularity” of “things as they should be.” Internalized controls that function “more efficient[ly] when [parents] are absent than when [they] are present” were the prerequisite for self-reliance. Acquired early enough, habits would “ever be applied to [their] proper uses” with a socially beneficial bias that was “indelibly stamped”: “ ‘Habit is second nature.’ . . . By accustoming ourselves to any indulgence, self-denial, or employment—any bodily or mental training, we acquire an aptitude for it, which gradually becomes a fixed and spontaneous propensity, almost as hard to be eradicated, changed, or resisted, as the cravings of the natural appetites.” This self-control was not the old submission, for discipline had to be structured “conformably to nature.” Only if impulses were enabled to “circulate freely” would the young acquire the capacity for adaptation and initiative.30 The project of the transitional Federalists was a conflicted one. To lay the foundation for his future life, a young person had to become the one “who guides himself” by “mak[ing] up his own mind, and choos[ing].” Yet this independence was to occur within a rigid structure of public

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and domestic authors. Following an admittedly “narrow way,” the youth was to determine for himself what he thought parents would “like to have [him] do” while “endeavoring to regulate every thought, and word, and action, by God’s holy law.” By adopting the “means necessary” to “advance . . . proper ends” as his “second nature,” the youth would be guided from within to “take the right road instantly.” Like a planet fixing on the sun “to retain and regulate its motions” in a perfect orbit, each would become “accountable as stewards” to maintain “that circle in which he was appointed to move.”31 Gentler methods of discipline were to be used so that obedience could be regarded as voluntary and of one’s “own accord.” Deviation would be prevented by strictly monitoring one’s compliance, imitating the vigilance of the most observant elder. To that end, youth were continually told, “Consider and re-examine your character, your conduct, your employment, your influence.” In the time of “greatest peril,” adolescence, the individual facing declining “restraints of parental council and authority” would have to “think and act for [him]self.” So long as direction was firmly fixed from the earliest period, and the consequence of venturing outside the “prescribed bounds” was clearly identified as being “wrecked and ruined,” young adults would exercise their “proper and laudable freedom” by pursuing fixed principles and, surmounting many trials, would willingly “enter the strait and narrow path.”32 Transitional Federalist citizens would need to accept their role as “moral and accountable agents” elected to perform without question the fixed ends of the two overarching authorities: to bind themselves theologically “to love, obey and trust [the] Heavenly Father, with constancy and cheerfulness,” and to perform their societal function as a citizen loyal to this “free and Christian country.” Federalists at this point remained confident of their own conception of the good society, believing that youth would perform what God and nation as vigilant “patrons” demanded.33 That their young were being asked to walk an untenable path of independent submission was only beginning to dawn.

Populist Religion in Transition Local communities of religious fellowship flourished in the antebellum period, expanding as a movement through continual revivals and outreach. A significant sector unreached by economic prosperity resisted

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pulls toward national integration, pursuing the sectarian dream of religious separation at the cost of social exclusion. The more powerful wing, however, led by the Methodists and ecumenical popular revivalists such as Charles Grandison Finney, accepted that local fellowships were now only one segment of growing economic and social networks. The threat posed by social development was not to social hierarchy, as for Federalists, but to religious preeminence. By the 1830s the revivalist “quest to be a holy people, a people set apart,” which had initially led to “dissent from the basic patterns” of early republican society and a “refus[al] to participate,” was difficult to maintain. Adding to the disruptions from social and geographical mobility ironically was national and local electoral success. For religious populists, the growing power of the popular voice and the spread of the franchise demonstrated the receptivity of society to the awakened “intelligence and virtue of the people.” Evidence of America as “THIS FAVORED COUNTRY” ripe beyond narrow “sect or party” for their message was making the borders of onceclosed communities increasingly porous.34 The evangelical church was thus being incorporated in and bound to the “prospects of the nation.”35 Participation in the church community was only one aspect of an active religious life: “The true Christian is a christian in the closet” but must be so as well in “the family . . . the church” and “in the world.” Believers were exhorted to “a life of great activity” in the broader “field which [they were] called to occupy,” which was “literally the world.” So long as they were committed to set the nation upon the righteous path, members had to be “ready to lend a helping hand to the various institutions which promise to meliorate the condition of man.” They were to “do all their duty” without faltering, seeking to “win souls to Christ” with “singleness of motive.” While one’s commitment to a particular branch of the church remained the center of religious life, a preoccupation with one’s own arena was now cast as one of the “sectarian peculiarities” characteristic of a “heretic” or “errorist.”36 The collapsing boundaries of local fellowship provided an unparalleled opportunity to frame national formation as a popular religious movement. Overtaking mainstream denominations, the more expansive insurgent groups merged religion and democratic politics to form a “Christian republicanism” that would “melt down the artificial distinctions of wealth, status, and learning” and unify people within “the family of God.” People would come together with a bold spirit of initiative

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to actualize the “great moral machinery by which the world [was] to be evangelized,” and the resulting “diffusion of Christian light” would usher in an era of great spiritual progress. Reaching out to convert the nation was for this transitional generation a way to serve the collective by providing it with moral and spiritual ballast. Religion thus continued in their view to represent the public good more fully than other republican arenas or values.37 At the same time, the new society clearly threatened religious cohesion. The multiplication of sects, shifts of membership, and rising competition for adherents accentuated religious choice and fragmented communities and denominations in the process. The drift from religion in the period between revivals and the failure of urban ministry, given the lure of worldly success, further highlighted organi zational difficulties and threatened the priority of religious ends. Some tried to recast rising social inequalities from the pursuit of wealth as a measure of spiritual contribution. Different social stations and forms of employment were justified as social locations where, if properly utilized, individuals could perform the religious work for which they were most suited, while social advantage and fortune provided each with the means for “the accomplishment of [God’s] purposes.” For many, however, the “humiliating corruption and degradation” of “gross self-indulgence” represented the very worldliness that the religious project sought to overcome. The successful were in this view less capable of “VITAL RELIGION (the only kind of religion that deserves the name)” than “the most indigent and uneducated” who gave their lives in religious community. Something would have to give.38

Socialization for Christian Nationalism Pursuing a religious vocation in a secularizing world was not an easy task. The believer immersed in a society of wicked and vicious temptations had to be armed with “a good conscience and a good character,” which would form “a broad shield” and keep him “contented and fearless.” As I developed in A Nation of Agents, the great preoccupation of the popular antebellum movement was to disseminate a “methodical, self-controlled, hard-working, and aspiring” agency character. Possessing the requisite “personal independence, rationality, and aspiration” to carry out “a variety of enterprises: religious, benevolent, economic or

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even political,” would enable engaged citizens to maintain a “clear conviction of duty . . . at all times.”39 Pursuit of a regenerate American society, initially focused on the transformation of adult character, in time shifted to the socialization and education of children. The vulnerability of youth venturing beyond the supportive nexus of community religious life had long been a major concern. Having “but limited experience of the world,” they were “very inadequate judges of its true character,” and this ignorance gave the world they were entering a “powerful advantage over them.” Because “the way of the cross that had once led home was now tending to leave home,” the character of the young had to be prepared for going forth.40 In the 1840s, though the formation of youthful character was not yet the “object of earnest and general attention” that it was to become, some already regarded religious education as the only way to sustain both the group and the “continued progress of [America’s] national greatness.” Unlike the revivalist emphasis on adult individual choice, socialization was conceded to have the advantage of sustained conditioning. Occurring at an age—“you cannot begin too early”—when the “whole character assumes a definite complexion,” proper socialization gave “a complexion to [one’s] whole future existence.” 41 The result was an emerging “evangelical ideology of the family,” focused on the power of the “domestic hearth” to cultivate the spirit of Christian piety. Though at times referred to as the path of “perfect freedom,” the goal toward which “every means within [parents’] power” was clearly directed was cultivation of the “powers of a moral agent.” By internalizing a right direction along the “happy course” that “keeps a man on good terms with his own conscience,” one achieves “self-dedication to God” and divine ends and ultimately a life “like God” by approaching God’s “standard of infinite perfection” through persevering activism in the “image of God.” 42 While the key to spiritual development remained the early “conquest of the child’s self-will,” the absolute authority of parents as “God’s appropriate vicars on earth” to enforce these restraints was diminishing. Family discipline, increasingly mirroring a regenerate heaven, was through “conjugal, parental, and filial affection” to emphasize precept and example and to use force only as a last resort. Enabling the young as part of the post-Calvinist Second Awakening to become sanctified as godly instruments required pious and attentive involvement in the home.

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Though the influence of parents was “not to be relied on; it would not last,” their efforts would establish both “persevering obedience” to a “dependent course” and dedicated social activity. A young adult at once prepared to receive the authority of the Gospel and capable of managing independence could successfully navigate society’s dangers to “accomplish the design” initiated by “early conversion.” 43 While these youth would become “remarkably energetic and willful people who were remarkably effective” in the world and took joy in their higher usefulness, the resolution demanded of them was an unstable combination. They were exhorted to remain steady in “severe self-denial” fostered by “diligent self-examination” and to rejoice in the “power of God’s grace.” Dedication to “the plan” by undertaking purposive engagement would form “a habit of systematic action,” despite temptation from “the splendor of parlors, the honors of office, the glories of power, or the delusions of wealth.” 44 Some in the face of the worldly call would continue to seek national spiritual purification just as they were striving to remake themselves, but many more would adopt a religious life that accommodated rather than transformed the broader society.

Jeffersonians in Transition Perhaps earlier than the other parties, Jeffersonians were compelled to acknowledge the infeasibility of their republican ideal. The dream of national harmony was upended by “revolutionary errour and phrenzy” by which liberty descended to the “bacchanalian” excesses of “vaunting innovators” during the French Revolution. Moreover, though Jeffersonians believed the spirit of egalitarian society and local democracy continued to “animate [popular] thoughts and exertions,” commitment to the decentralized agricultural society was appearing increasingly unrealistic. The social and economic disparities generated by organized classes and interests, business combinations, and the mercantile sector and demands for “universal prosperity” were eroding revolutionary democracy.45 If ordered liberty was to be provided for the country as a whole, it clearly required, as the Whigs argued, both an organized and regular federal administration to secure uniform law and order and a national culture facilitating “a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to [the] national union.” It also required some accommodation of religious

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populism, a compromise involving what Leggett called “no hostility whatever to religion.” Not only did charges of animosity, including Jefferson’s earlier “infidelity,” have to be rebutted, but support had to be offered for the “preservation of the christian . . . institutions of [our] fathers.” 46 Jeffersonians were also forced to admit that natural equality was no longer defensible, there being “in nature no equality of industry, skill, strength, talent, wit, or any of the assets essential to production.” Thus a demand for an “equality of possessions” was “an infraction of the rights of others . . . [as] we now accuse capital. Equality of rights to what we produce is not equality of possession, for some will produce more than others.” Insofar as social disparities “bore any relation to those of nature,” that is, to the “comparative degrees of men’s wisdom and strength, or of their providence and frugality,” Jeffersonians no longer had “cause for complain[t].” 47 In fact distribution reflecting natural differences in capacity was to be preferred to the biased measures of human worth set by self-interested elites. The progressive thrust of the Jeffersonians was not to improve on nature but to eliminate those unnatural inequalities arising from the present “artificial condition.” By liberating the individual’s innate powers rather than politically imposing a just allocation of rewards, society would produce the most functional and socially beneficial agent. To be sure, minimizing artificial distinctions in furtherance of popular equity would still leave possessors of knowledge and talent with a greater role, even “privilege,” and justify differential outcomes as “the reward of industry.” But the pursuit of more radical equalization would, they feared, only “bring odium and opposition upon our cause.” 48 To empower ordinary citizens meant freeing them from mental bondage and subordination to privileges of wealth and power held over from English class society and demanded by the elite professions.49 Citizens needed to see how the well-to-do not only received the best education but used this “sole possession of the requisite intelligence” in order to monopolize the public business. They also had to be made aware of the “worth of labor” as “the source of wealth and industry” and the “neglected state” of the role of women in productive work. Little did people realize that they produced “all the wealth of society without sharing a thousandth part of it,” that they did all the work, elected all the public functionaries, fought all the battles, and gained all the victories.50

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Socialization for Egalitarian Democracy This telling “want of education” on the part of the populace was the critical “impediment to the correction” of social inequities. Eliminate these inequities, “let the wrong be removed, and the danger will cease.” Developing the natural abilities of each would benefit the whole community: “Snap the chain, and [each] springs forward.” Popular empowerment and opportunity were thus increasingly linked to development and cultivation begun in the “virgin soil” of the young child.51 Broader public education of the young would fulfill the duty and interest parents had—but could not always carry out—to prepare the rising generation. Prescient Jeffersonians of the transitional age were thus forced to support the very growth of public institutions they feared. Universal instruction to make the people into “enlightened judges of their own interests” would reverse the decline of direct democracy into a “purely representative” government and passive citizenry. As “friends to mental enfranchisement,” Jeffersonians hoped to bring together the “child of your Governor” and of “your farmer,” of “your President” and “your mechanic,” in a common socialization. This would overcome both advantages provided for children of wealth and the “caprice or negligence” of other parents: Raised in the exercise of common duties, in the acquirement of the same knowledge and practice of the same industry . . . in the exercise of the same verities, in the enjoyment of the same pleasures . . . in pursuit of the same object—their own and each other’s happiness— say! would not such a race, when arrived at manhood and womanhood, work out the reform of society—perfect the free institutions of America.

The result would be a democratic people, “fellow playmates, fellow learners, fellow labourers,” who become “equals throughout life.”52 Not only did Jeffersonians have no answer to institutional growth, but they were unable to resist the rising individualism. Because the power of developing any particular talent was often beyond parents, who “cannot know, and need not know what that talent is,” each youth had to acquire the capacity to mobilize himself “from within,” referred to at times, borrowing the religious language of the age, as “the light within, the spirit of truth, or God within the breast.” As family self-sufficiency declined,

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youth needed to “direct their course,” even by gaining “the means of educating themselves.” 53 For this generation, however, a republic of local communities was still the solution to “work the radical cure of every disease which now afflicts the body politic.” Improved instruction would trigger mental and moral advance, producing citizens possessed of “well-regulated, self-possessed minds, well-grounded, well-reasoned, conscientious opinions, and selfapproved consistent practice.” Each individual would naturally evolve into an agent, both “independent in his and her own thoughts, actions, rights, person, and possessions” and a member of “one class” and “one family,” fully “co-operating, according to [his] individual taste and ability, to the promotion of the commonweal.” Some identified this merging of civic commitment with liberty in religious terms, suggesting that by shaping the people as “free agent[s]” God intended to use them as the “instrument with which He works out his great designs in creation.” If national development could somehow be forestalled, Americans would remain “really free.” 54

The Convergence of Agendas Greater realism about the new social institutions was eroding the hope of gaining political advantage from holding on to traditional child rearing. The Federalist attempt to reestablish hierarchical communities using socialization only hastened their decline. The direct appeal to youth signaled the collapse of traditional domestic relations, not only a “striking inversion of the traditional order” but, ironically, an admission of the youth’s capacity to “have a transforming influence on his elders.”55 But expecting young adults to exercise self-constraint without adequate preparation for the challenges and temptations of independence would lead to “half-formed” characters either “perverted, biased, warped” or governed by “no fixed principles.”56 For religious populists, continuing demands to bring the nation to religion only sharpened social tensions. The inevitable failure to achieve universal conversion exacerbated the rifts between believers and nonbelievers, among different denominations and sects even in the same family, and within a constituency now more concerned with social development, status, and respectability. Outreach, long the answer, seemed to

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make the situation worse. Insisting on the “painful . . . process” of a “sinner’s conversion” encouraged backsliding. Those demanding unwavering piety were increasingly dismissed as “gloomy christians” haunted by “a deep and settled melancholy.”57 Even preparing the young to evangelize for a Christian republic further hastened its decline. Those best equipped to reach beyond the community led the flow of the most able into society, becoming prime examples of success within it. Parents pressured to adjust to the worldliness and increasing power of youth were unable to enforce the religious mission on their children. Transitional religious populists were unwilling to concede that dissenting values were but one dimension of a broader national society. They held to the dream of the coming religious commonwealth, in effect deferring solutions to sectarian conflict to the next generation, where ultimately liberal society would be compelled to devise a more feasible alternative to religious consensus. For Jeffersonians, the values of labor and agriculture that anchored local democracy were alien to a propertied, commercial society. Universal education, their answer for sustaining democratic culture, relied on the power of an enlightened public. But such enlightenment, even if achievable, could not reverse the loss of economic independence and local political autonomy. No socialization or education could produce republican youth capable of reestablishing the conditions for the flourishing of Jeffersonian localism. Like the religious populists, they left the final accommodation to the generation that followed. Little light has been shed on how pragmatic idealists adjusted with the times to form a republican mainstream. Conciliatory wings of the major parties, recognizing the stalemate while wishing to minimize their own accommodation, emerged to moderate their ideological purity in the context of child rearing. To trace the emergence of an agency consensus in socialization and education, we shall consider key figures who confronted the realities facing citizen character formation. Their adaptations, couched as extensions of earlier principles, reveal the forces and trade-offs necessary to support the growing commitment to a national project. The result was a national civil religion that was vastly more reflective of popular values than in any previous society. Its shared creation promoted a sense of common ownership in the American project that persists to this day.

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The Federalist-Whig Shift The Federalists’ explicit turn from community-controlled socialization to families (and later to local popular schools) indicated a dramatic recognition of new individualist and democratic realities. Indeed several of the greatest proponents of the new synthesis, including Catherine E. Beecher and Horace Bushnell, the author of Christian Nurture, the most influential tract on socialization of the early republic, had Federalist backgrounds. Also important were two very successful writers of youth self-help books, Rev. Joel Hawes (Lectures to Young Men on the Formation of Character) and Daniel C. Eddy (The Young Man’s Friend), whose revised editions make clear the rejection of the “old Puritan view” of depravity requiring “Hope for the Fallen.”58 The logic of Federalist reconstitution will be apparent when the early and later versions of these texts are compared. The principles of the Declaration establishing “this land of freedom” and the “great maxim” that “all men are created equal” were now incontrovertible as “principles of democracy” that are “identical with the principles of Christianity.” Liberty did not guarantee a stable order, for citizens are “so differently endowed with discretion, education, taste and experience” that only a miracle could prevent there being “any thing about which men do not differ.” At the same time, the emergence of functioning democratic institutions moderated Federalist concerns regarding popular control. Power in the new society had “passed into the hands of the people” peacefully, without “the Reign of Terror” whose “horrors . . . desolated France.”59 While market competition was to the relief of this party making short work of claims of radical equality, it was also dispatching their ideal of preordained place: there were “no privileged orders, no hereditary honors, no power of caste to depress those who are determined to rise and do well.” In this age of “surprises,” when individuals were expected to “make precedents instead of following them,” society was likened to a wheel that was “constantly in motion.” As Eddy warned, restless youth were no longer “content to live at home and practice life’s stern duties,” dreaming rather of California, of the future, willing to “move onward, whatever may be before them.”60 Where “property and character rarely remain long in the same family” and wealth and influence flow to “those who have sprung from the humble classes,”

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those on the highest part retain their elevation but a moment. They quickly change places with those below, while these rise to the top and in turn are succeeded by others; and the main force that keeps the wheel in motion and produces these changes . . . is the continual effort made by those at the bottom to rise, while those at the top, satisfied by their elevation, cease their exertions and at once begin to sink.

This Darwinist world open to all, the “poorest and most obscure” as well as “the richest and most elevated,” had undercut all expectations of privilege.61 With little to fall back on, individuals were clearly on their own: “Ever bear it in mind that your success depends . . . on yourselves.” What was previously a tendency was now an axiom: “FORCE, or energy of character,” is the “steam which puts all its wheels in motion.” To rely on outward circumstances, to be “flattered by the distinctions of birth and wealth and position” is to fall behind, for the law now running through society is that “no man shall be happy or useful, honored or esteemed, but in connection with his own agency, and his own personal efforts and deservings.”62 Character was also within one’s own purview; “under God, every man makes himself” and must therefore “be his own architect.” The “gifts of Providence” were only “the raw material, out of which [they were] to manufacture [their] own character and fortunes.” Others could help with “self-development,” not as authority but as friend, yet finally the “will will ever make for itself” its own way as individuals “choose.” Federalists could not let go of social hierarchy, but, almost as radically, they proposed that a true democracy enabled each individual to choose “his superior.” Even the “weakest, the poorest, the most illiterate” had power and opportunity equal to every other person to “identify” with a particular “master or principal” in pursuit of prosperity and success.63 The outline of the new institutional principles, even if not those preferred by Federalists, made the work of those framing maturation easier: market society with broad participation replacing class entitlement; virtue as the pursuit of self-interest rather than deferential acceptance of social station; equal opportunity with new social distinctions arising from different levels of achievement. In place of denominational preeminence, a broader understanding of the “great principles of religious truth and moral duty in which all agree” would bind the many now equivalent groups in civic consensus. Politically, party differences

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reflecting distinct social interests and highly contested electoral mobilizations, rather than as initially treated to be a corruption of political unity, would be subsumed within the overarching “moral enterprise” that bound “democratic institutions” with the “beneficent influences of Christianity.” To serve as a bulwark against localism and populism, an inclusive moral culture would construct a common language of civic agency to be learned early in life: “true freedom consists, not in an unfettered license, but in a voluntary subordination to law” and to civil government with its “divine commission” from the authority of God.64 As confidence grew in the efficacy of structured channels and the rewards they offered, fear of the (depraved) adult will was replaced with a qualified trust in adult voluntarism. Addressing youth directly, Federalist and Whig cultural “advisers” could now praise the pursuit of opportunities so abundant that “no young man, whatever his present condition, need despair of rising in the world.” Indeed, the “innate, spontaneous desire” for happiness was now lauded so long as directed toward proper social ends and accompanied by “a right selection of the means in view, and using them in the right manner.” With “sublime illustrations” of the faithful and persevering pursuit of stable income and competent reputation now plentiful, the new path to success could be fully “marked out for all to follow.”65

Toward a Republican Child Republican social regularity now arose for Federalist-Whigs in the “wholesome restraints of the fireside.” 66 With the “instability and uncertainty of human character” making adults unpredictable, the stability of a democratic society, resting as it did upon the “intellectual and moral character of the mass of the people,” depended wholly on assiduous formation of the young.67 To properly form the new character, child shapers needed to grasp its agency foundations and the failure of more traditional models. Of “all [the] modern notions” Horace Bushnell found infusing the “mischievous individualism” of Jeffersonian liberalism, the most misleading was the claim that the unconditioned free will could provide the foundation for personal responsibility. Virtue arising in this view from the “separate and absolutely independent choice” of a “pure, separate, individual man, living wholly within, and from himself,” was nothing

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but a “pure assumption,” a “mere fiction.” The revivalist emphasis on extreme religious individualism was similarly illusory: It takes every man as if he had existed alone, presumes that he is unreconciled to God until he has undergone some sudden and explosive experience, in adult years, or after the age of reason; demands that experience. . . . The Spirit of God [becomes] an epiphany . . . a miraculous epidemic, a fire-ball shot from the moon . . . so extraordinary, so out of place, that it cannot suffer any vital connexion with the ties and causes and forms and habits, which constitute the frame of our history.

Such capriciousness ignored how God actually acted on people “socially, as well as individually.”68 Of course, the will was undoubtedly the basis of the individual’s character, but it was far from independent, being molded by “causes prior.” Implicit in the reliance on immediate conversion was an assumption that piety arose “late in life,” and so it failed to recognize and thus to marshal the vast influences that shape the individual over time. For its part, formal religion in the churches, casting aside the logic of “internal growth” for a rationalist doctrinal emphasis, never reached deeply enough. For Bushnell, virtue arose from “domestic conversion,” formed not by choice but nurture as spiritual influences “stream[ed] into [one’s] being” from the nursery on a daily basis. This “absolute force,” exerted by parents over children for many years, exemplified the “inevitable law” of gradual moral development,69 shaping the child’s will and character as an organic extension of the parents. Given the impact of early training, the existence of original sin was no longer dispositive. Infants’ passive nature and receptivity to direction made their “delicate, tender souls” highly “pliant to good” as to evil. Given the power of external influences, everything depended on cultivation. Fostering a “domestic Spirit of grace” in place of coercion, parents were to turn the household into “the church of childhood”: “They should rather seek to teach a feeling than a doctrine, to bathe the child in their own feeling of love to God, and dependence on him . . . to make what is good, happy and attractive; what is wrong, odious and hateful. . . . He may thus receive, before he can receive it intellectually, the principle of all piety and holy obedience.” With such treatment, the love and trust children have for their parents would enable a new dimension of their

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character to emerge; beginning with their “first moral act” toward “what is good and right,” the previously unrecognized “holy principle” would blossom from within.70 Bushnell’s radically new understanding of development was reflected in Beecher’s maxim: “Try to keep children in a happy frame of mind.” Federalists were acknowledging that “it is easier to do right, and submit to rule, when cheerful and happy.” Applying the power of love and hope, focused on appreciating their “enjoyments and pursuits,” their “feelings and interests,” parents will establish an early commitment to the child’s future desires and aspirations well before language emerges. Unable to remember “when they began to be religious,” they will experience the “happy sweetness of manner and a ready delight in authority” as innate.71 The continuous application of this conditioning proper to age and capacity would generate organic “development from within” through “internal assimilation.” This progressive “self-enlargement” would set in motion the “self-active power” or “vital force within,” similar to a flower opening or a tree that “send[s] out extensions.” With virtuous habit woven throughout daily life, socialized conduct of “submission, selfdenial, and benevolence” would become ever more comfortable for the child. Embracing parents who “always live Christ in the house” as the best example to “mirror” and thereafter replicating them to become a “perfect product,” the child would easily assimilate to culture and responsibility. As the child rose gradually to “an angelic nature” that was “modeled after Christ,” an internal “divine agency” would lead him to become “united to the right” as his “final end and law.”72 Despite their hesitancy about affirming individualism, FederalistWhigs had to concede that liberal citizenship had solved the riddle of self-interest. Acting resolutely for one’s “own good” had been identified with socially acceptable conduct. Once directed in the proper way, the untold energies emerging from within— exceeding “a great army”— could be embraced as the “mighty and persuasive . . . power” of character. This indispensible “voluntary power,” directed now to appropriate self-government, while often misunderstood as license, was the gradual “subordination of the soul” to its own law of “moral agency.”73 The transition to agency individuality no longer presumed a crisis of separation or rebellion. Adolescence and young adulthood were characterized not by the struggle for independence but by the orderly assump-

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tion of maturity. Though carefully constructed over time, this higher republican self would be experienced as “nearly natural,” an abiding presence arising not through an act of will but imbibed “just as the air [individuals] breathe.”74 Parents now carried an immense burden for the child’s outcome: ruin shadowed “every look and smile, every reproof and care,” “every speck” or “mote” that may produce “deformity.” Holding the fate of the republic in their daily demeanor, parents were cautioned against the “ruin” caused by earlier assumptions of parental “infallibility” in “little popedoms,” and even instructed about the virtue of “delivering” children when necessary “from yourselves!” At the same time, appropriate parental influence was necessary to create a society permeated with Christian virtue whose members were “agents” in “the regeneration of the Earth.” Having “swung [the] anchor” and left “the narrow quiet bay” of “original sin and divine efficiency” long ago, this party accepted the need for “new types of feeling” and “new combinations of thought.”75 By emphasizing selfdiscipline and instruction rather than condemnation, Bushnell joined the party of tradition to the innovative American project.

Sectarian Conciliation With the failure of a sectarian commonwealth, religious populists began to direct their aspirations to the nation as a whole. The promise of society adhering to the moral framework of agency values presented the opportunity to live out religious values and expectations in larger institutional settings. This new perspective is illustrated in the work of Rev. Daniel Wise, a leading Methodist antislavery writer, editor, and minister, and in particular his shifting views regarding social integration. In The Path of Life: Or, Sketches of the Way to Glory and Immortality. A Help for Young Christians, Wise retained the sectarian view of the world as “a veil of tears,” a “grand test” of religious faith. Complete subjection to religious principles was asking “will it please God” in “little things—in all things,” despite the inevitable privations demanded of the believer in a sinful world. Individuals were to strive for inward religious purification “free from all sinful feeling and desire” within the community of the church, though many never advanced beyond the “middle ground” of “defective . . . characters.”76

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Only three years later, in The Young Man’s Counsellor: Or, Sketches and Illustrations of the Duties and Dangers of Young Men, labeled a guide to “Success in this Life,” inward piety had given way to worldly virtue, those “innocent delights” revealed by Wise to provide the enviable “secrets of success and of eminence in this life.” Even religion itself and “an early religious life” were now to be treated in terms of their “temporal advantages.”77 Wise conceded that the individual dwelt in and had to construct his character for “two worlds.” While sacred and profane were still valued as greater and lesser, respectively, youth were now specifically encouraged to regard “eminen[ce]” and success as “the grand aims” and the “end of [their] existence.” Wise rejected as false and contrary to experience the view that “devotion to God” requires “the surrender of all advantages.” The new governing maxim instructed one “to reasonably expect that, if you ‘seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all these (worldly) things shall be added to you.’”78 The larger society, with its institutions and citizens increasingly influenced “by the teachings of Jesus,” was now to be regarded as a suitable environment for moral achievement. The dissipation of a fixed social hierarchy made success and merit attainable by every youth, particularly the “children of poverty.” Wise recognized that hierarchy would persist, but “rising above one’s peers” was achievable by those “determined to be . . . fully developed.” For the “first time” individuals were “in command,” with the full power and opportunity to “turn the scale for weal or for woe” by their choice and conduct.79 Mobilizing their worldly passions and appetites, no longer “necessarily debasing and imbruting [making brute-like],” but containing “propensities” for “high and holy purposes,” was now admirable. It provided “an energy alike irresistible and unconquerable” of inward power or force of character. The possessor of such energy would be “a man of power” who experienced only success: “It imparts such a concentration of the will . . . as enables the individual to march unawed over the most gigantic barriers or to crush every opposing force that stands in the way of his triumph.”80 Despite the self-actualizing rhetoric suggesting religion as self-help, the will was not unconditioned. All impulsive or rash behavior was to be contained by the moral character operating to “control [the] appetites, subdue [the] passions, firmly adopt and rigidly practice right principles.” This “restraining and transforming power” resided in an internal

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monitor, cast as both the traditional revivalist “indwelling spirit” and a modern “tribunal” alternately of reason, the authority of conscience, and the moral sense. The task of this monitor was to establish one’s dependence as an instrument in subordination to “the law of God.” Through a “high moral reign” over oneself, one achieved both the freedom to be virtuous and the full “conscious power” of being “His moral likeness,” enabling one to “exclaim, ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!’ ”81 Preparation for release into the larger society, now seen as a “turningpoint” in one’s life, was manageable only with early conditioning, likened to that “mighty steam engine [in] a ship” that “gives her power.” Monitors provided early in life would ensure the steady flow of energy regulated and directed through “habits of purity, propriety, sobriety and diligence.” Channeled into a “useful pursuit and a worthy aim,” the self-governing individual “must rise to social superiority” and “must win a commanding influence” in this new world.82

The Jeffersonian Accommodation The Jeffersonian case is perhaps the most misunderstood. The close association with its founder made doctrinal purity easier to measure, and this purity—though complicated by Jefferson’s multifaceted legacy— centered on an Enlightenment individualism suspicious of both religion and institutional development. Because the Jeffersonian-Jacksonian party clearly lost the struggle for minimal institutions, its continuing rhetorical dominance is commonly treated as what Reinhold Niebuhr called “the irony of American history,” in which a persisting “Messianic consciousness” shields the reality that has “slipped away.”83 In fact if we examine a representative late antebellum Jeffersonian such as John M. Austin, a Universalist minister and writer of self-help books, we see how Jeffersonians, finding their claims of a natural individualism no longer self-evident, shifted toward a more realistic approach. A confirmed Jeffersonian, Austin praised Jefferson effusively in his biography Life and Public Ser vice of John Quincy Adams (1849), which he ghostwrote for the New York political leader William H. Seward, an anti-Federalist Jeffersonian and later populist progressive Whig. Ostensibly providing a Whig account of a late Federalist, Austin took the opportunity to proclaim the author of “the immortal Declaration of

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Independence” one who “toiled to build up a great and prosperous people.”84 The Whig John Quincy Adams is also lauded for his impartial support of Jefferson and his principled stands in the antislavery controversies. And yet Austin’s remarkable lecture pamphlet, The Source and Perpetuity of Republicanism (1844), contains no mention of the proprietary republic. In this transformed Jeffersonianism, the evolving republic, with its political and economic development, is embraced not as the failure but as the “genuine” triumph of “our cherished Declaration.” Early party differences were being subsumed by “pure Republicanism.” As “institutions and laws established for the common welfare of the people” were anchored in growing suffrage and participation, the new system was becoming a model of popular empowerment. Populist republicans could take heart, as all Americans were now “firm and noble-minded advocates of the rights of man.” Leaving “no monarchies, long rooted,” to overthrow, “no nobility, no aristocracy, no privileged classes, to contend with,” an “open field and a congenial soil” lay ahead for “full enjoyment of the rights of man.”85 Moreover, Austin’s optimistic Jeffersonianism no longer finds inspiration in the Enlightenment. Popular religion, the anathema of early Jeffersonians, had become indispensable both to ground and disseminate national democratic values as well as to counter the moral rhetoric of other parties. Jefferson’s equality of rights and freedom in their “highest perfection and purity” now stood firmly upon the “country’s altar”: “What truth . . . gives freedom to the world? . . . I answer, it is a great Truth revealed by Christ.”86 Austin blends together the secular and the sacred: How is it self-evident that all men are created equal? Only in the light of the truth, that all men are equal in origin, equal in birthright, equal in parentage! Without the light of this equality of parentage, the equality of their creation cannot be seen. . . . How is it self-evident that all men have been endowed with an inalienable right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?” Only in the light of the same truth—that God is equally the Father of all men!— And . . . [as] Father of all, he would, with the impartiality and justice of a pure and good parent, endow all his offspring with the same equality, and bestow upon them the same rights, privileges and immunities.

While reaching a broader audience, “political creeds” were to be understood as a “fac simile of their religious” creeds. Primarily secular popu-

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lar movements like temperance thus extended the religious aims of democracy that “the last of the lost, shall be found, and shall return.” By recognizing the Declaration as a statement of “great gospel principles,” citizens would treat the “heavenly government” as the “pattern for human government” and work to make this unified vision “a great REALITY” for all.87 At the same time the “national voice and national character” embraced Jeffersonian principles, this party made its peace with the emerging institutional society. The universal stake in landed property was disappearing, but as “social being[s]” individuals need no longer be limited to the pursuit of rudimentary self-sufficiency. Nor, given the abundant opportunities, should they doubt that success remained possible for all. Even if one began life like Franklin, the “poor printer-boy,” one could “hardly fail” to rise to the extent of one’s aspirations. Depending on one’s powers and exertions rather than on “expected wealth or influential friends,” the individual would achieve “respectability, enjoyment,” and “prosperity.” Despite persisting inequalities of station and outcome due to natural disparities, including the new relation of “employers and employees,” “all honest and useful employments” were equally honorable, as befit a “land of republican equality.”88 The greatest attribute, the “grand starting-point!—the chief cornerstone!” of the revised democratic agenda was no longer fixed property but the portable “establishment of a GOOD CHARACTER.” As local communities eroded, leaving one on one’s own, worldly desires for mobility and success were fully natural and proper, so long as gratified “in the proper manner!” Such independence required the capacity to assess “the character of [one’s] wants, and the proper manner of supplying them,” especially during the crucial period of adolescence, a “favorable time” for asserting self-mastery. Individuality now consisted in acquiring “whatever character [one] resolve[s]” to have, where necessary by surmounting deficiencies “formed in childhood.” To this end the young were to be instructed, “Ask yourselves what character you would like . . . and act in accordance with your decision.”89 The shaping of such younger generations “upon whom depends the preservation and perpetuity of . . . free institutions” was the primary challenge for the young republic. To bring their powers and faculties for self-reliant adulthood and passions “under proper restraint” and “govern them through life” required training in diligent “self-government.” Only the “due cultivation and exercise” of inner monitoring “faculties”

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would enable those “high umpires” of “reason and judgment, to preside over the emotions.” With cultivation these natural controls would enable the citizen in this more complex Jeffersonian society to fulfill the “deep, abiding, important claims” of society and the moral laws. Ironically for the conciliating Jeffersonian, though individuals were still to “let reason and conscience be [their] guide,” a commitment to social responsibility was now the touchstone of a man’s capacity for “governing himself” and for “enjoying liberty, without licentiousness and anarchy.”90 Within an ever more extensive social network, training was now to “profitably be commenced even in childhood.” Trusting that a “safe path” to social integration was finally “open for all to pursue,” adults were expected to help the young “prepare for it early in life.” Providing “the first bias and direction to its tender mind,” individual families would early “sow the seeds of virtue, and morality, and correct religious views.” Given the pliability of children’s characters, a tender regard for their feelings would enable parents to “mould and fashion” them to internalize a “firm purpose on the basis of things as they are.” Manifesting in turn the “steady application” of that purpose within the emerging institutions, youth would realize achievable Jeffersonian ideals—not fantasy or nostalgia—in the new order.91

The Birth of American Civil Religion Historians in pursuit of the elusive American unity are tempted to read the ascendancy of a mainstream national value system back to the origins of the nation itself. But due account must be made for the cultural lag in the formation of American identity. The full sacralization of the overarching nation as the “primary community for fulfilling historic purposes and realizing personal identity” and its republican mission were the result of the Civil War, what Sidney Mead called “the center of American history.” It was shortly after the war, as Lloyd Warner has written, that Memorial Day originated as a northern ceremony to commemorate and ritually celebrate the sacrifices that “orga nize[d] and integrate[d] the various faiths and national and class groups into a sacred unity.”92 In his major national address on the centenary of the Declaration, the prominent citizen William M. Evarts explained how the successful

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prosecution of the war had enabled Americans to put behind them the “dread debate” that stirred the “passions and interests” of “parties, divided sects, agitated and invigorated the popular mind.” Rather than suffering the expected “dissolution,” Americans had been “released . . . from the tasks and burdens of the formative period,” to pass “from preparatory growth to responsible development of character and the steady perfor mance of duty.”93 Looking ahead, Evarts skillfully drew on the various party rhetorics to “blend the hues and virtues of the manifold rays” into a “sunlight of public spirit and fervid patriotism.” The national experience was the joint achievement of the “profound radicalism” of the “people’s sovereignty,” respect for the “props and buttresses of order and authority in government,” and the “power and purity of the religious element which pervade and elevate our society.” Hereafter the propounders of common sentiments could conjoin “liberty” and “faith,” the “principles of equal society” and “the pillars of the State,” appealing to ideals no more specific than the spirit of the nation itself.94

Lincoln: The First American as Self-Educator The birth of American civil religion cannot be separated from the figure of Abraham Lincoln, the “most profound and representative theologian of the religion of the Republic,” the one who, in Robert Bellah’s terms, “not only formulated but in his own person embodied” the “national meaning.” That is, not only in his historical role as Unifier did he give voice to the interconnected themes of historical mission, prophetic responsibility, and democratic inclusion for which the nation was conceived and had to be sustained. It was also his function as the “symbolic culmination of America,” the center of a sacred “myth more real than the man himself,” a myth by which his life became through his martyrdom “the sanctification of American nationalism.”95 The quintessentially American image that the nation bestowed on Lincoln derived, as Warner explained, from the three great antebellum discourses. Lincoln was living proof that national— as individual— greatness drew upon three powerful springs: the new eminence of the “common man,” who, like the rail-splitter, was liberated by the “equalitarian ideals of a new democracy”; the individual of superior ability whose precedence and right to preeminence was wholly his own achievement

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as he rose “from log cabin to the White House”; and the sanctified “mangod” who died so that a Christian republic might be permanently etched in history. Representing this bundling of the nation’s disparate strands, he was elevated into “the greatest American” in the century following his death.96 After the Civil War the torrent of books for young readers and schoolchildren on Lincoln’s life, an emblematic tale Henry Ward Beecher urged be “gathered” for “your children and your children’s children,” defined him as an amalgam of Jacksonian, Whig, and popular religious values. Seamlessly integrated into the story of his life, these merging discourses suggest the hunger for a more unified model of citizenship absent earlier divisions. Late-century schoolbooks thus turned his life into a “moral lesson,” both a “true hero” like Washington and “the ideal American like Franklin.”97 It is in the biographies for children and youth, of which Horatio Alger’s Abraham Lincoln, the Backwoods Boy; or, How a Young Rail-Splitter Became President (1883) is perhaps the most notable, that we learn the details of this emblematic American life. He was a frontier boy of poor family with a shiftless father, but despite his “unpromising beginnings” nothing could “keep him down, because he was determined to raise himself and become somebody.” An “unaffected plain man,” yet one of the “chosen instruments” that God was saving for “His work,” Lincoln was at home with the humble and the important, children and ministers, people from all parties and regions, living by a broad ecumenical religion of “love to man, love to God, love to country.” With views “all his own” and free from “any cabals or cliques,” he was portrayed as standing above narrow interests and agendas, able to see and act upon the greater good, whether regarding slavery or the fate of the republic. For many it was as an “incarnation of power” used for the greater good of the people as “one of themselves” that a single nation was born.98 What produced this breadth and inclusiveness from such a marginal and undistinguished background? The answer provided time and again is education. Notwithstanding the deficits of his early family and social condition, Lincoln became who he was by a uniquely American education. The message was that education could overcome— or rather, help you overcome—all barriers and limits in the ascent of the individual and the nation. Not a hint of narrow sectarian or partisan thinking came between Lincoln and his lifelong obsession with learning, from bits of

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schooling at the local log schoolhouse and from reading (encouraged by a stepmother who told him, “You will never amount to much unless you get an education”) a wide range of materials, including early fables, Bible stories, and law books, in his pursuit of self-education. By “patient and persistent” application, he proceeded through “regular stages of growth” in the process of “educating himself, in spite of the difficulties and discouragements.”99 Education thus becomes the means not only for surmounting partisan divisiveness and provincialism but for making oneself a good agency citizen. In the end this “cultivation” of “mind” enabled young Abe to educate his neighbors by reading and speaking on the issues of the day to “scores of folks” who “could not read for them-selves” and in time to evolve into the Great Emancipator. In essence the great educator of his people on nationhood and freedom, he was able to call on “more knowledge of the masses of man kind, than any public speaker” to reach everyone, even “persons who were opposed to him.”100 This man for all people, designated “the American” in the early biographies, retains that honor to this day. As an early Whig, Lincoln is claimed by Daniel Walker Howe, yet Sean Wilentz identifies him as the heroic president of his sweeping antebellum narrative, who transformed himself from a “Henry Clay Whig to a Republican” to a believer in the “idea and figure of Thomas Jefferson.” For postsectarian American religion, his “symbolic equation with Jesus” has bound generations of believers to the national cause.101 Lincoln remains the potent embodiment of a nation emerging from the dire struggles of national formation, a nation led by education that grounded that unity by inculcating in its young the common lessons and values of that achievement. One of the lessons, of course, was the primacy of education itself, through which future generations were to be spared further rents in the national fabric. Acknowledging the new measures of success, the revolutionary-era parties quietly transformed despair over their public agendas into support for American society as the realization of their visions. The result of this unintended collaboration was a society now framed as both egalitarian and legitimately inegalitarian, free and disciplined, pious and worldly, individualist and communal, opportunity-based and institutionally structured. In effect different names for the same complex social reality,

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these different framings belied the evolving consensus on childhood preparation and individual development as well as the common society the transitional generations foresaw their children inhabiting. The commitment to promote a common socialization and educational system brought the formation of agency society within reach. Through the process of accommodation, reservations and resistance would give way to a consensus on Protestantized liberal values and institutions directing how the young were to live once they reached adulthood. We have come to regard that set of mainstream ideals alternately as the liberal creed and American Protestant civil religion, without realizing their common origins and, beneath the ideological distinctions, common meanings. The next step in this convergence would involve the detailed design and implementation of a new socialization at whose necessity they had jointly arrived.

6

Toward a Child-Centered Family Truest kindness . . . is like the silken thread, by which the plant is drawn toward its prop. —Lydia Sigourney

While in retrospect the shaping of citizens for liberal society seems inevitable, its advocates faced enormous risks at the time. Venerable institutions were being replaced by new and untested ones, and those on the front line— the parents— understood neither the magnitude of their charge nor what it meant to be a parent or child in the new order. They were being asked to loosen the reins of traditional authority on the young in order to facilitate the very independence and mobility that appeared so threatening. There was little choice to harnessing and directing one’s own fulfi llment of divine and social ends. As the three parties, with their common cultural origins, recognized, a willingly consenting and thus selfobligating citizen was the precondition for achieving the free society they envisioned. Regardless of the naïve rhetoric of natural sociability infusing the new society, a noncoercive social order depended on the development of the will—that is, willingness—to consent. Formation of such consent, inevitably directed to the young, placed them at the center of the republican experiment. Cultivating voluntary consent in children was an immense project, akin to remaking human nature. Yet liberal society, whose social structures were justified as arising from the will of its members, could not leave that will to untutored decisions regarding the validity of its institutions. Predictable allegiance on the part of the young would cure the deficiency in a theory presuming consent. An ingenious bootstrap 153

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process, the creation of early consent would eliminate the problem of gaining it from adult citizens. Precisely in conditioning the will not, as in traditional societies, in visible and dominant public institutions so much as in more modest institutions, Americans would in turn claim a miraculous welling of nationhood from within. American society could now generate the very individual authorization it claimed to be the product of. Those calling for the full mobilization of social resources to this end, what Emerson called “the swelling cry of voices for the education of the people,”1 grasped this deep— and continuing—truth of agency society: from the crucible of childhood socialization alone could the selfhood and citizenship emerge that were necessary to create the moral foundation of liberalism.

The Emerging Agency Mainstream The catalysts in the campaign to construct a broadly acceptable socialization were primarily liberalizing Protestants, ministers such as the Unitarians William G. Eliot, A. B. Muzzey, and Sylvester Judd; the Universalist E. H. Chapin; and Henry Ward Beecher, John Todd, Harvey Newcomb, and others from religious backgrounds. Many others, such as Lydia Sigourney, T. S. Arthur, William M. Thayer, Lydia Maria Child, Jacob Abbott, and S. G. Goodrich, were self-appointed cultural spokespersons, prolific authors of instructional literature and didactic children’s fiction. While many contributors were also involved in antebellum reform movements such as antislavery and temperance, their focus on child rearing and the common school initiative is evidence of how important the project of childhood socialization was to the viability of agency society. There is a vast array of child-rearing and educational literature within this movement, amounting to hundreds of books and many times more articles and essays. While slight variations in perspective are identifiable (and, where important, are discussed below), the literature reveals the sharpening sense of a common project with a clear approach and set of values underlying the often technical details of elaboration and implementation. As we generously sample the common threads from this broad range of voices and emphases in the primary sources, we will discover the extent and intricacy of this cultural project and its unfolding power and acuity.

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The determination by the new generation of socialization reformers to establish an orderly development and integration for the young challenged the cultural idyll of natural freedom. Individualism, even though presumed, had to be mediated. Through “control of the human will” it could be “restrained within certain limits,” lest the temptations of “irrational self-will” and “self-aggrandizement” spread “chaos and confusion.” At the same time, the new society expected individuals to “stand alone.” One could no longer “go through life a weak, a vacillating, and a despised man,—perhaps a tool and a stepping-stone for others.” Such incapacity, whether from sin or indolence, left one entirely unfit for agency, in “a bondage servile and degrading . . . worse than that imposed by the tyrants of Egypt.”2 For this emerging mainstream, incorporating both social restraint and unprecedented self-reliance within a new character and set of institutions required the explicit appropriation of the dissenting Protestant moral order. This first modern society was not merely an “aggregate of individual men” demanding personal opportunity, choice, initiative, and success. It was also committed to sustaining social cohesion as “one great family” bound by a single chain of “mutual dependence,” a “great copartnership” so inseparably bound together as to make “the happiness of one so dependent on the happiness of another”: The bare fact of society [is] that humanity is corporate, bound up in an indissoluble unity, and that no group or member is unaffected by the general good or evil, any more than the public weal can escape the influence of a specific disease, or a local benefit. . . . It is absurd for any man to style himself “Independent.” He may have unlimited pecuniary resources at his command, but what are these without the ministrations of other men.

Individuals had to be facilitated to “love the good of the whole” through their actions and “seek it as an end, rather than [their] own good, as separate.”3 The project of child rearing, then, was to establish on a secular foundation the path toward common collective ends for the modern agent: “Each individual is an agency in the moral universe of God, that, for aught we can tell, is indispensable to the carry ing forward of his plans, and the accomplishment of his highest purposes.” Each individual needed to discover the capacities that would enable him to “do the work

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which the Creator has assigned to him.” Individual abilities were to be regarded as collective resources one should “industriously cultivate and exert” in order to carry out one’s common responsibilities in the “true spirit of religion.” 4 Bringing the agency perspective to early republican social formation enabled child-rearing advocates to identify sources of liberal republican stability. The broad assumption that all “must carve their own fortune and shape their own destiny” did not translate necessarily into either an anti-institutional scorn for “all restraint and order” or “reckless self-will, and freedom from all guidance and control.” In “conforming” to the rules set forth for social conduct in “the Bible and the Book of Nature,” the agent was acting fully consistently with the “large liberty” he was not only empowered but required to utilize for “properly discharging his duties for this world.”5 The spread of equality was also easily reconciled with agency. Now that the “ladder is knocked down” and individuals “[stood] on nature’s level,” all had it in their own power to fit themselves for the “thousands of opportunities constantly occurring.” Though each begins “on an equal footing” and can pursue any endeavor “with confidence of success,” including moving from “log cabin to the highest office” in a “single step,” differences in success now represented the distinctive “materials of which [each is] composed.” That which has been “planted” within by the laws of nature and the “great design of its Creator” will serve individuals to “answer the ends for which they were created.” Given the equal field of competition in which impediments arise only from “in [one]self,” any “permanent distinctions” in social condition reflect each individual nature “rising to its proper height.” Distinctions of character were thus to be accepted as the result of this sorting process.6 Now that the institutional frameworks for directing individualism toward socially mandated goals were emerging with greater efficiency, the agency project of child rearing could be openly expressed. The “great end” for citizens of this “free and self-governing” republic was not to be liberty for its own sake but responsibility as “God’s steward” to “the whole earth.” Higher obedience to the national mission required members to be “good and loyal subjects” of representative (rather than democratic) government. A secularized creed of agency was fashioned to unite all denominations and each Christian as “brother” in a national culture. Rising above the “variant and opposing doctrines” of sects as

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“mere canting and blind enthusiasm,” this popular faith would guide the practice of daily virtue and define one’s larger duties. While individuals would choose their specific affiliation, a common language would identify the divine ends emanating from the “unchanging law of God” in the world: “The new heavens are what we may have in our families, our towns, our nation” which will be “realized in the heart and life, and to be fulfilled in the amelioration of society and progress of the race.”7 The common commitment to agency provided direction for the promoters of a national project of child rearing. This feature has been surprisingly obscured; the thin academic literature on this movement suggests that modern scholars have not grasped the leading role of agency in societal formation, as did the original writers. In particular, a presumption that the campaign arose within a dominant cultural narrative of freedom already in place has limited receptivity to evidence that overt constraints were a critical ingredient in the early institutional mix. The agency framework being constructed has thus been far less reconcilable with national ideals than socialization as preparation for independence and autonomy.8 Its emphasis on new forms of consensual authority involving significant restrictions on framing ends and choosing means not only for the young but for adults as well represents a direct challenge to the national story. At the time, advocates were reluctant to boldly announce to the broader public the extent of the innovations entailed in creating an agency republic. Any attempt at “elucidat[ing] family life [not] as it was, but as it should be,” or as David Magie put it, “what we have a right . . . to expect,” would invite controversy. Thus, the socialization project was cast as an outgrowth of “the teachings of the past,” offering citizens the “beaten path” following “what their mothers and fathers taught them.”9 Under the banner of continuity and compatibility, the stage was set for the socializing processes necessary to realize the new agency character.

Character: The Inward Foundation of the Republic In a dynamic society of “unharnessed” citizens designed by their “Maker to be constantly in action,” driven by a “propelling-power” at every moment in the “vigorous determination to make the most” of themselves, individuals were increasingly separated from supportive influences and connections. As the “church, magistracy, palpable tradition or respected

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elders” became more “marginal, if accessible at all,” society was becoming an increasingly dangerous “Dominion of Fashion,” that prizes the “External over the Personal,” and exerts pressure that “seduces, or forces a man from . . . himself.”10 Those influences now clearly had to be overcome by the organi zation of the inner life, for one was only as strong as one’s “inward rectitude and self-sustaining power.” One’s foundation and the armor against temptation was thus “having something within you that will move and guide you.” As Lydia Maria Child wrote, “Nothing can be real that has not its home within us. The only sure way . . . to appear good, is to be good.”11 That something, providing fortitude and “Inner Worth” for the “inner man,” was character. As a “mark or impression made by cutting or engraving on any substance,” so man’s being is etched with a “combination of dispositions, sentiments, and habits of action, which either fit, or unfit a man for the relations, the duties, the trials, the enjoyments, and the business of life.”12 The safeguard that provided enduring qualities throughout life, not “like impulse, evanescent and uncertain, but fixed, permanent, abiding,” was the “fixed pillars” of a “consistent and just moral character.” To form a character that was not “imperfect and unstable—liable to be changed by every wind, broken by every wave,” was not the work of days or years but required a proper foundation set by “beginning the whole as we ought.”13 Given that humans require the “care and toil” of cultivation, only the family, since “all are graduates of the hearth,” provided the sustained nurturing power to instruct the “untutored” on “how to obey.” What differentiated the “savage and civilized man” was “a single word— EDUCATION,” the “fashioner of the great human family, including every individual.” As a society dependent on all its members, from poor to rich, the broadest diffusion of instruction was the very “cause of liberty.” With the “preparatory stage” for an independent adulthood “guided by the star of home,” parents held in national trust the best interests of the community and republic as “God-commissioned guardians.”14 The question now was what they were to do.

The Ideal of the Voluntary Child Constructing voluntarism in the child had been established by Locke as the fulcrum of the liberal project. While socialization had of course

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always shaped citizens, modern child rearing, in his view, faced an unprecedented dilemma. On one hand absolute authority had to be employed to make children “obedient to Discipline, and pliant to Reason.” Locke, like Hobbes, realized that the natural condition of childhood had to be tamed. From the time children are born, they are “so wilfil and proud . . . so desirous to be Masters of themselves and others,” driven by “Self-love” and the wish to “have their Wills in all things.” On the other hand, the traditional model was too strict, rendering the mind “curbed, and humbled” and the spirit “abased and broken.” The resulting loss of “all their Vigor and Industry” was inconsistent with the needs of the new independent commercial society, in which “every Man must some Time or other be Trusted to himself.”15 This high degree of self-reliance and discretion required an individual who could fully mobilize “his own Industry, to carry him as far, as his Fancy will prompt, or his Parts enable him to go.” A new synthesis was needed “to keep up a Child’s Spirit, easy, active, and free; and yet, at the same time, to restrain him from many things he has a Mind to, and draw him to things that are uneasy to him.” The delicate, almost impossible effort to “reconcile these seeming Contradictions” between self-reliance and an acceptance of common ends and means, individual initiative and respect for limits, was, Locke admitted, “the true Secret of Education” for a modern society, and thus the ultimate challenge for the first new nation.16 Even in the face of this conundrum, Locke had great confidence in education to produce “vertuous, useful, and able” individuals: given that “Nine Parts of Ten are what they are, Good or Evil, useful or not, by their Education,” the “Great Difference” in the final product, “the Manners and Abilities of Men, is owing more to their Education than to any thing else.” The distinct value of education arose precisely from its early intervention on unformed human nature; “as in the fountains of some Rivers, where a gentle Application of the Hand turns flexible Waters into Chanels, that make them take quite contrary courses,” so by a “little Direction given [children] at first in the Source, they receive different Tendencies, and arrive at last, at very remote and distant Places.”17 Locke’s solution was to recognize that responsible self-governing voluntarism was the final goal but by no means the beginning point of socialization. Self-mastery needed to be developed in stages, beginning with systematic intervention at the stage of infant incapacity. “As soon

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as [the child] is capable of Submission” socializers were to establish the “Absolute Power and Restraint” of their authority. Given that infants’ deference and dependence are rendered to adults with a “Reverence” that is “Sacred,” the early internalization of authority would proceed without the “least Reluctancy in the Submission” to create the “ready Obedience of their Minds.”18 Establishing adult authority as the repository of Reason, “before Children have Memories, to retain the Beginnings of it” or to question it, moreover, would produce lifelong deference to the ends of others as not only inevitable but the product of one’s highest rational and moral judgment: “Your Authority is to take place and influence his Mind from the very dawning of any Knowledge in him, that it may operate as a natural Principle, whereof he never perceived the beginning, never knew that it was, or could be otherwise.” As the child’s will is won to a voluntary compliance, “You may turn [children] as you please, and they will be in Love with the ways of Vertue.”19 Paradoxically, this early imposition is the precondition of independence. Conduct, whose springs are “something put into [the child] betimes,” is “by constant Practice settled into Habit” and “woven into the very Principles of his Nature.” At this point the “hardest part of the Task is over.” The growing child will increasingly comply with collective norms from internalized motives without external coercion. As the reward for responsible self-management, restraints were to be “relaxed, as fast as their Age, Discretion, and Good-Behaviour allow it.”20 As the memory of submission to early demands gradually faded, maturation could be embraced as a process of increasing self-discretion and self-direction. Liberal individualism thus offered the development not of autonomy but of the capacity to direct one’s social integration in a way that was fully consistent with the modern social order. Having internalized common values by “submit[ting] his Will to the Reason of others,” the individual felt obligated to “preserve himself” as well as the “rest of mankind.” Ignoring this prior conditioning, Locke in his political writings and subsequent liberal theory celebrated responsible independent functioning as the innate capacity to conform to theological and social ends by the dictates of “reason and conscience.” This enabled Locke to imagine a more benign state of nature than did Hobbes, a “state of liberty” and not “licence,” wherein each individual was let loose to “perfect freedom.” Of course, the denizen of The Second Treatise has already learned

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how to act with “the Knowledge . . . suitable to his Rank” and to be “Eminent and Useful in his Country according to his Station.”21 Untutored early childhood was now but the last vestige of natural ungovernability, merely an inconvenient hurdle for the mature citizen to overcome, a fading reminder of the dangers liberalism was created to surmount. Having lost track of the impositions of early shaping, one willingly embraces one’s role in society as one’s nature. Locke’s innovations identified child rearing as the basis of modern individualist society, but they were only suggestive for the American case. In England, unlike in America, more permissive forms of child rearing could be grafted upon already existing structures of fixed social regulation and hierarchy in a society thickly governed by family, custom, and class. Some relaxation of parental control still left English adults with immeasurable resources for imposing lifelong restraints and tightly organizing social incentives. The expectations generated by the extreme self-reliance characterizing early American adulthood and its rhetoric of individual liberty were thus avoided. In the New World, where a more radical independence flourished and community structures were anything but inevitable, internalized character controls became a far more important— and riskier—project. The American young had to be prepared with more decisive levels of internal governance to navigate life without coercion at the same time they were convinced of the freedom to direct their own lives.

Socialization as a Preparation for Release Given the likelihood that each individual would “go forth alone” from “[his] father’s house” to seek his fortune, to “mount the shrouds, and sail the great ocean, and battle for himself the fitful elements of life,” the new socialization first had to situate the process of character formation within the child’s ultimate goal of independence. The young had to be apprised of, or at least made anxious about, the risks entailed. Moving beyond the “obligation of obedience to parents,” however desirable, carried with it the loss of an authority figure who would provide structure and security. Relinquishing the “right of dependence” on one’s parents, without the “heart that [one] love[s]” near for assistance, one ventured forth where the “eye of friendship cannot follow” to provide comfort. Likely to find oneself “everywhere in danger, everywhere in

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need of protection,” abandoned “among strangers” as an exile in a “crowded city” where many “sink down under the waves,” one had “no father’s fireside to return to.”22 Parental governance in this context was cast as the selfless wish “only to assist” children in their quest for being “their own master.” Looking ahead eagerly and impatiently to “act in all things for themselves” following Dr. Franklin’s compelling “example,” they would not take issue with the need to be prepared. Once recognizing that they would set forth with no master pilot, that “henceforth, by their own skill must their sails be trimmed and their helm directed,” the child would be most receptive to the adult stipulation rendered “always . . . calmly, ‘I am obliged to do this for your own good.’ ”23 To this end, preparation was posed as the necessary foundation for development of the child’s nature and his opportunities for advancement. One can be given a compass as well as “maps and charts,” but only with “thorough instruction” in one’s childhood could one achieve mastery of these tools. Parental intervention was simply designated as consultation on the route to independence; “discipline is intended to make [the child] better” and “happier when it grows up.” With their true love, parents were told, they could “save the little stranger in this labyrinth of life.” Enabling him to succeed required their guidance throughout the “full development of his physical, intellectual and moral faculties,” culminating in “the perfection of his being.”24 Because the child’s initial nature was unfixed, combining the “savage” with impulses “but little lower than the angels,” intervention had to begin in the “forming state” of infancy: “You must begin with the young. It is difficult to change the character of those who have reached mature age and become the subject of established habits. . . . It is the sapling alone that submits to be trained at the will of the cultivator.” Original sin had been completely replaced by malleability, a child “empty and pure— always ready to receive, and always receiving,” his unformed character a “printless tablet” in a “waxen state,” there for the parents to “write what [they] will.”25 Even though the child’s character was likened to “plastic, prepared by the moulder, soft and impressible, taking forms and images from everything we touch,” the goal was not, as in the past, impressing external patterns but rather cultivating a fully realized human form of one’s own. The child was to be taught that education alone would enable him

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to “reach the end and design of his being,” making him a partner in the construction of his own character. As a result, the child would view intervention as assistance in the process of self-definition. This would turn the “genius of childhood” to the “world within”: “Present that . . . as the noblest field on which he can labor; induce him easily to dedicate his heart, to inward toil.”26 The culture of individualism had quickly moved beyond Locke: traditional obedience had been transformed not merely into Locke’s internally motivated fulfillment of external social obligations but into the project of structuring one’s own social identity. Yet gaining the child’s commitment to the project of character and citizen formation required more than the rhetoric of self-realization. Adults had to be provided specific roles and procedures for shaping the young. The result would be a new family system and process of childhood development.

The New Child Child-rearing experts were now confronted with the question of whether an agency nation was possible—that is, whether the goal of a new republican child was in practice achievable. Parental socializers who had not themselves achieved a full agency character did not completely understand the project, and would furthermore have to resist envying those who would supersede them. They needed to be persuaded that a new child would emerge from their work, one on whose realization the republic depended. The sacrifices made to further the child’s maturation would thus be warranted and even ennobled. To promote the child’s potential for self-realization unhindered by the limitations of past societies, socializers were offered a dramatically renovated image of the young, what Herbert Ross Brown called the “cult of the child.” The view that the liberal child could become “purer and more virtuous” than an individual raised under earlier, more repressive conditions gained considerable currency in the early republic. Discovery of a “native impulse to be good” supplanted concerns about natural evil, dissipating the presumption of innate sinfulness: “God . . . places a crown of glory on . . . each of our children at its birth,” all of whom face the “prospect of a sinless and happy existence” so long as they are “taken at the very gate of life, into an atmosphere of innocence, and the cradle of love.” Even their vital impulses should be embraced as

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reassurance that a life of passivity, assuming it were still “possible” any longer, would offer no temptation: from “the restlessness of childhood” comes the great will of “force and enterprise needed for the successful man.”27 With this radical elevation of the child’s character— a primary objective of the new literature—young people were encouraged to cultivate capacities arising “from within.” Children were “active little beings” eager to run about in the expression of “motion” and “power,” and parents were told to continually foster their “intense love of action and of construction.” Ambition was recast as the drive, “implanted in every human breast,” to stimulate the “action, enterprise and self-cultivation” necessary for the responsible individual to “live an active life.” The “vigorous exercise” of faculties throughout life would be the result of such early encouragement.28 Liberalism had taken an influential step in its history. Rather than distinguish the social from the prior natural self, as early dissenters and liberal theory did, midcentury socialization advocates abandoned the differentiation, as liberal Protestants soon would. To be sure, unlike in the later claim of self-madeness, the child still was acknowledged to need shaping. But that children represented the existence of new material to work with was already presumed, a material uncovered and released, rather than simply prepared in a different way, by New World conditions. As the American young understood their capacities as a full potentiality simply waiting to unfold, society came to believe that, far from socially constructing the individual in a novel way, it had released an intrinsic human nature to its preordained development. This leap reflected an expansive, even extravagant national vision. Under the secular liberal version of the dissenting millennial dream, people had been liberated to evolve to a higher stage of human character and society, with institutions facilitating “nature to perfect her work.” In part, proponents of this vision sought to avoid the moral and political vulnerabilities opened by public declarations of social constructivism. By insisting that their goal was to “discover the design of the Creator” and the “laws of nature,” Americans would cast themselves as following the “only sure guide” for their own designs in the project of facilitating agency maturation: “If the gardener desires success in the cultivation of a plant, he endeavours to find out the climate which is most congenial to it, the soil in which it thrives best, and the positions which it seems

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to choose [and in turn] . . . he adapts his cultivation to it. He does not attempt to change its nature.”29 So long as the socially directed citizenry acted from apparently natural motives, society would appear to be the product of a natural liberal character. What few Americans after the early generations grasped was that agency was both a new potentiality called for under novel social conditions and an unrealizable stage without the appropriate child-rearing preparation.

The Project of Internalization Socializers were expected to prepare the young for citizenship by promoting confidence in their inner strength, power, and growing independence, while ensuring that these liberated energies would ultimately be directed in conformity with social norms. Moreover, they were to proceed not through physical pressure or force to generate mechanical compliance but by promoting integration arising through internalization experienced from within. The child’s sense of obligation had to spring from his own ideals and wishes, including a willing acceptance of social norms and cultural expectations. To achieve this result, boundaries and constraints had to first appear consistent with the child’s natural instincts— and thus in time to be indistinguishable from them. To “not merely . . . make the child obey externally, but internally,” the child had to believe that he “consults his true interest” in conforming his behavior. Lydia Sigourney thus advised mothers to “cultivate tenderness of conscience, and fix deep in his soul the immutable distinction between right and wrong, that from an early implanted reverence for the law of God, he may be qualified to ‘become a law unto himself.’ ” Once following impulses became synonymous with possessing moral values “within . . . that will move and guide you,” personal wishes became inseparable from learned norms.30 Such internalization required the child to be convinced that the efforts to establish internal controls were incidental to the cultivation of his dynamic individualism. The problem was that parents had never imagined such release for themselves, so they were unprepared for fostering such individualism in their children. Given the “unhappy tendency” of the time in which parental authority had “nearly passed away” in the United States amid the “cry of ‘Liberty and Equality,’ ” parents were left “looking for the light.” The cessation of their traditional control over

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“fashioning the characters of their children to good or evil” and of their early dominion over them, once seemingly “limitless and without competitor,” was not welcome news. Finding themselves with an authority that was suddenly fleeting, many parents were inclined to abuse it “while it last[ed].”31 Shaping a liberal child would be effective only to the extent that adults could reimagine themselves as liberal parents.

The New Parent-Child Bond Advice writers thus focused on educating parents in their new role. Neither the extreme use nor the complete absence of discipline would be acceptable. Both produced character deficiencies, either self-authorization or dependency. Letting the child “do as he pleases” and enabling him “to gratify every desire” would create children “who think they can go anywhere, and do anything, in their own way, and without any guide.” The children of rich parents were in particular jeopardy. Unlike those “hedged in by fences,” they were all too likely to go astray into “fashionable life and fashionable folly,” adopting “self-seeking, enervating habits” and the endless pursuit of “artificial wants” without inner control. On the other side, children ruled with “a rod of iron,” severely punished “for trivial delinquencies,” would lose the valuable “habit of filial reliance and confidence.” By “making puppets of their children,” parents would leave them “stupid, as well as selfish and hard-hearted,” the ills multiplying to “produce worse fruits there, tenfold, in after years.”32 To gain the deeper emotional commitment the cultivation of voluntarism demanded, children’s affirmation of social processes had to be sunk deeply in their beliefs and wishes. Unlike in the Lockean model, where absolute authority over the young could be loosened by degrees as other imposing institutions took over social control, the only social lever in nascent America was the absolute trust of the young in their rearing process and its providers. Any impositions that generated resistance weakened that trust and risked producing a child eager— and all too able—to escape character shaping. Complete internalization (a process modern parents are all too familiar with) required in effect a transformed relation, a new parent-child bond rooted in positive, affective attachment. By reconceptualizing domestic authority, this bond would in time refigure the modern psyche, particularly the Freudian insistence that tradition (in the form of the superego) was unyielding and reality (as the ego) intractable in structuring the inner life.

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In this new understanding, the child had to feel from his earliest psychic experience the adult’s commitment to, even more an enduring affection for, his own growth and activity. To this end, a chorus of praise rang out for the “effects . . . beyond calculation” of a “discipline, the foundation of which is mildness, gentleness, and love.” Only this most mild and most gentle of approaches was capable of “tuning young minds to love and harmony.” Lydia Sigourney called out to mothers, “Breathe over [your child] the atmosphere of happy and benevolent affections. . . . How this new affection seems to spread a soft, fresh green over the soul. Does not the whole heart blossom thick with plants of hope?”33 For Catharine Sedgwick the “home should resemble heaven in happiness as well as love.” Goodrich believed the home should create “images in [the children’s] heart which will ever incline them to love and gentleness.” The first days were crucial: “Even . . . a helpless infant . . . learns to read inward feelings. . . . Approach it with caresses, and its eyes sparkle and its features brighten.” A “forbidding aspect” or “angry words” contrarily cause tears. Such influences were enduring: “The chords [sic] of interest and love that bind them to the past are so many telegraphic wires, along which they are constantly receiving messages to remember the instructions of home.” A. B. Muzzey counseled as the bottom line a “steady faith in the omnipotence of Love.”34 Drawing the young into an early trusting bond through unselfish investment by a loving authority, parents were told, would kindle their wish to respond in kind. Parents were presented with detailed “schedule[s] of resolution” indicating the “absolutely necessary” constraints on their own impulses that must ever be in their minds. The power of “quiet love” conveys to “the little one in his inmost heart that he is blessed by it,” and in turn generates the conviction— even found in the “rough boy”—that “he cannot slight or disobey” its provider. Gentle direction becomes “to the mind in its waxen state . . . like the silken thread, by which the plant is drawn toward its prop.” Thus as the tender soul that hears and sees love from the parent willingly “gives back love for love,” parents could see how the new principle of character formation established proper direction by internal attraction and reciprocation.35

The Power of Promoting Reciprocity The greater the confidence and trust provided the child, the more “pure, sincere and unselfish” his attachment in return, for this was an appeal

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it is “not in human nature to resist.” As love “meekens authority” and “ennobles submission,” it becomes the mediator of potential conflicts “between power and dependence,” enabling the “true relation” of “free communication” and “entire confidence” to emerge between parent and child. For the child so motivated to “repay” with love of his own, the sense of being coerced or pressured would be utterly alien: with the mother’s “pre-eminence” firmly established in the “sanctuary of his mind, her image will be as a tutelary seraph, not seeming to bear rule, yet spreading perpetually the wings of purity and peace.” The child of the mother whose life exemplifies goodness in all her dealings will always hear the injunction “Who could deceive her?”36 Male writers stressed the unique power and self-sacrificing nobility of a mother’s love, her “imperishable” bond with her children as a “perfect reflection of the love of God.” Female authors also exhorted women to treat the role as the fulfillment of their own nature and calling. Lydia Sigourney asked, “Hath any being on earth, a charge more fearfully important, than that of the Mother?” The “immensity” of her trust was fully justified by the urgency and power of her “transforming love,” her capacity to “sanctify and sublimate” her “newly implanted affection,” evident in her sacrificing her convenience to the developing “moral agency” of her child.37 Thus “ordained” to fulfill their sacred mission, women would nurture the early growth of moral judgment and character. Possessing a new legitimacy as “one so loved, so reverenced, so adored” by her children that flowed, so she was told, from her own inner being and character, the mother was specifically qualified for the “high offices” of socialization. Men, it was feared, would insist on exercising their outmoded prerogatives as willful authorities, “passionate, tyrannical, [and] overbearing,” and as a result they would “never have the affection of [their] children.” When available they might participate actively in family matters, but this could not be counted on, for even middle-class fathers, with their “strong motives, to gain or glory,” pursued an “almost sabbathless” immersion in competition. Thus their optimal role was to “reinforce maternal child rearing.”38 As these writers discovered, the restraint that makes liberal freedom manageable is not rational or contractual obligation but the child’s investment in an idealized domestic authority. Drawn into a process that was arranged to “call forth his best nature,” not “docility, or submissive-

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ness” or “destruction of autonomy,” but his “own responsibility” to undertake mature conduct, the child would fully assent to what was laid out for him. Evolving into “a new creature” motivated by love, he would gladly shape his own ideals out of a “willingness to obey the parents’ will.” Personal ambitions and wishes would merge with parental expectations, and the “parent’s will [would become] the child’s will,” their understanding the “child’s understanding.”39 Once the parental values appeared to arise from within, the socializing role could be framed as ancillary to the child’s own growth. The power of the young, being so necessary to them, was not to be destroyed but rather encouraged in its proper exercise. Intervention had one goal: to develop the character of each individual through education, employing “whatever tends to develope and improve” those faculties the child was “born with.” Adults were to regard themselves as amplifying a natural process: as with a flowing stream, rather than the perilous effort to “stop its progress” or “throw a dam across its path,” one was to simply “guide its course” into “safe, and gentle, and useful” channels.40 The child, as beneficiary of this facilitative bond, would experience his development toward greater self-reliance, personal responsibility, and voluntary attachment without the traditional impediments of passivity, hierarchy, or lifelong dependency. From the outset the child had to be led to understand that his education was his own business. Once “taught that he must have a root in himself” and “determine, under God, by his personal efforts, what he will be,” the child’s “active cooperation,” without which education was impossible, would be readily forthcoming. Realizing that character cannot be demanded or found but must “be earned,” children would depend not on their parents’ efforts but on their “own exertions.” Thereafter they would commit themselves to pursue “diligent self-culture,” assuming responsibility to “educate themselves, to develop their minds, to mature their character, to strengthen their judgment.” 41 By “keep[ing] the heart so susceptible” to parental attachment that restraint became intertwined with the wish to please and thus largely “invisible,” controls were recast as the internalized compass for realizing the individual’s own will. The child was encouraged to call forth the powers and perfect the virtue of the “inner man” in order to “qualify . . . for heaven,” and to actively shape himself by accumulating the strengthbased virtues to achieve functional self-responsibility. Taking over the

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“perfect trust” and “perfect confidence” bestowed upon him to form his own “internal attachment” that could nurture his true self, what was called who “we really are,” the individual as socializing authority diminished gradually became the “artificer of his own destiny.”42 The culmination was a system of internal regulation enabling individuals to pursue “self-education” thereafter, to take over “forming themselves aright.” Framed as “continued self-improvement” toward “a very great elevation of character,” education not only permitted but mandated the gradual withdrawal of external controls.43 Replacing these were internal monitors, variously defined as reason, conscience, and habit, which in turn facilitated virtues of self-control, self-government, self-discipline, self-containment, self-reliance, self-scrutiny, and self-channeling, whose very linguistic form announced a new moral order.

An Incipient Generational Reversal Preparing—in ways Locke never imagined—ideal agency characters who could not only navigate but shape a continually innovative society was far easier to propose than to implement. Shaping a modern liberal young person might have gone smoothly if adult socializers had been models of the mature agent, firm in the role’s expectations and limits and comfortable serving as facilitators of the child’s development and independence. But this being the first agency society, the opposite situation prevailed. Adults were not yet fully developed— and scarcely on the road to self-reliance themselves— and children were not only moving further along the developmental trajectory but increasingly recognizing that they were doing so. In a socializing relation composed of modernizing children and more traditional adults, the power of adult example was giving way to the idealizing cult of the child. As a result a reciprocal bond initiated by the child’s emulation could not be counted on. In this heady environment, the child would be tempted to identify himself as the ideal, a development that Melville explores in Billy Budd and that becomes more apparent following the midcentury emergence of what Bernard Wishy calls “the child redeemer.”44 The more immediate tendency was to reverse the identification dynamic between adult and child, in the process situating generational tensions at the very heart of American social formation. The cultivation

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of their “whole nature” through the “true education” of children “in its highest sense” was in significant ways making them the exemplar. The “rapture” produced by their “expanding faculties of the soul” suggested a continual progression toward “seraph[ic] . . . eminence.” Imagining such an ascent to “holiness and perfection” as their powers and capacities were “successively unfolded from infancy onward to old age” would cast the young as “household angels” and “God’s messengers,” as a “sage” both “purer and more virtuous than the adult.”45 They now served as the inspiration for social improvement, their “holy charm of infant innocency” beaming through adult society and instilling their own parents with a renewed faith in reform and growth. Adults thus found themselves looking to children as “models of moral behavior.” Through this moral catalyst, elders, including often “fallen adult[s],” could be “led . . . to seek the better way,” committing “for the sake of [their] child” to lead more constructive lives.46 How were parents to resist reversing the idealization process and remain an example of maturity even as they witnessed the advancing psychological and moral development of their children? To help them avoid withdrawing their affective commitment, parents were offered a catechism of appropriate conduct, the details of which we will take up in the next chapter. They were advised that, to gain the “strength, and the self-denial, and the perseverance” to perform and fulfill their “high and holy mission,” they should develop a “schedule of resolutions.” In this way parents with “unformed and undeveloped purposes,” rather than wallowing in “self-commiseration,” might “reclaim [their] children, reform them, and establish” a proper “influence” over their development. This strenuous regimen included “daily self-instruction,” striving “never to act” from passion or impulse, regulating one’s moods in appropriate fashion and always being cheerful. Above all, one was instructed to “interest [one]self in the little matters of [one’s] children” to “thereby gain their love.”47 Such scripted behavior was only the beginning. Child-rearing experts understood this shifting dynamic and unfl inchingly directed adults toward a reverse identification. To secure the child’s confidence that the parent’s “will is good in its requirements” and thus “good to yield” to, the parent had to rise above mere perfor mance and remake himself. Only by accessing his “highest, holiest energies” and learning to exercise full self-mastery, with “his own passions being under control, his heart

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chastened,” and “vexation swept from his countenance,” would children be internally convinced. The young were now the moral arbiters, for one “cannot deceive” an open child: “he penetrates through every disguise” and “looks straight into our hearts.”48 Children were achieving higher levels of development because of parental investment in them as the imagined paragon of adult aspirations, as the “incarnation” of parental “will and conscience.” To continue serving as a model for the young, adults were paradoxically advised to “reverence childhood.” The demanding task of “promot[ing], directly, the happiness of the young” required parents to shape themselves in whatever ways necessary to “secure their [children’s] confidence,” even to the point of emulation: “To teach a child well, you must have the spirit of a child.”49 To empathize with the child’s heightened developmental needs, parents needed the emotional fluidity to “change places,” to “throw [themselves] back upon childish views and feelings” and reconnect with their early capacities for judgment and growth. Instead of expecting either too much or too little from children, parents needed to remember what it means to “think as children, speak as children, and understand and act as children.” Recover the children’s perspective, and you will realize that they “see a thousand sights you do not see, and hear a thousand sounds you do not hear.” Become “a child again”: lay aside your “manhood” and return to your “own early days,” and you will gain access to the child’s “inner being” in order to “truly educate, that is, call forth” the child’s “powers, sentiments, and faculties.” Parents unable to do so would be “most completely disqualified for giving youthful counsel.”50 In this way, the socializers would remake themselves. As parents, we “must . . . be—not try to seem, but be—what we wish our children to become,” using the “solemn weight” of the attachment to retrieve our own “neglected” characters and consciences. Shaping the young involves forming “second selves” in their “likeness.” To “stem an erring course, to retrace a mistaken path at the outset,” the adult can begin as a “novice,” learning along with the child in his “more advanced stages.” “Let us learn together,” Sigourney advised, enabling the adult in the process to achieve “feeling[s] new to herself.” This “transforming power” can “dissolve the soul” by reactivating one’s own memories of “unstained” innocence, thereby rekindling the “dews and showers of heaven” in the parent’s inmost being. Transformed by the child “she had assisted to

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form,” the parent rises to the ideal that “impart[ed] come[s] back” upon herself.51 Fifty years after the revolution, the project of national formation was shifting to the creation of agents one child at a time. To shape this new child as the model from which an empowered republican citizenry would emerge, the domestic setting was being transformed to include children who were no longer simply dependents and adults who were not, strictly speaking, authorities. Through the unexpected reversal of developmental leadership, emblematic in the parental injunction “I must decrease” so that “these [young] shall increase,” generational hierarchy was being profoundly altered, if not undone.52 The family found itself at the leading edge of the New World experiment and its dislocations. Child-rearing advocates had answered Paine’s call to embrace youthfulness with its personally and socially transformative capacities, had taken to heart the epic depictions of youth breaking free of the adult world in Robinson Crusoe, Franklin’s Autobiography, and the literature of the early republic, and had employed a new cultural and child-rearing rhetoric. Now the urgent question was how to replace the immemorial family and still to turn the child’s new potentialities into a functioning liberal adulthood.

7

Winning the Child’s Will The object should be, not merely to make the child obey externally, but internally, to make the obedience sincere and hearty, and to make it flow alike from affection . . . duty, and a conviction that he consults his true interest in doing so. —S. G. Goodrich

Once the child embraced the goal of developing his full potential, the challenge for liberal socialization was to generate the social expectations required for mature citizenship. The child had to be carefully led onto a path toward self-governance, which in the logic of individualism was framed as preparation to pursue one’s own integration within liberal society. To induce the commitment required, it was crucial to begin the process early on. Reformers set about devising appropriate learning strategies to foster social integration and discipline as part of guided self-development. Adult socializers were instructed in methods for activating the skills and aspirations necessary to meet the strenuous demands of liberal individualism and republican responsibility. The result would be the free—that is, self-mobilized—citizen of the liberal polity.

A New Foundation of Child Development: Winning the Will To ensure that the child would not only “obey externally, but internally,” with a “conviction that he consults his own interest in doing so,” the child’s interests— and his developing will and capacities to pursue those interests—had to be the central focus from the outset. The starting point was to remake virtue as pleasurable. Because “we all do best 174

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what we strongly love to do,” adults were to intertwine from infancy “what is good” with what is “pleasant.” All may “say we believe goodness is always happiness,” but this, Lydia Maria Child realized, was mere cant. Establishing the “perfect and entire union of duty and inclination” by following the bias of the child’s character in early life and directing him toward what he “love[s] with the whole heart and soul,” would set the path to “greatest perfection.” Linking “duty and happiness” enabled the individual to make his primary goal the pursuit not of religious but of “earthly pleasures” and rewards. This doorway to “joys more permanent and alluring” ensured amid later burdens a buoyant “disposition to look on the bright side of life.”1 To elicit engagement in socially appropriate activity that would appear to arise from the child’s “strong natural bias,” adults were to identify incipient tendencies that could be fostered as if they were an innate “gift” emerging from “natural genius.” A loving environment would stimulate the child’s interest by focusing attention on what he “most delights in” and “asks about most frequently and eagerly.” As suggested earlier, the creation of this environment would in turn depend on the role of mothers as the first and optimal teacher of the young. The many “effusions on the subject of motherhood” called on them to bring their unique skills required by the new parenting to the task.2 The mother by “form[ing] the heart to tenderness and love, would provide the “broad foundation for a noble superstructure.” In an environment in which the young experienced an inmost sense of trust, they would express themselves through genuine engagement. Building upon the mother’s trust, regarding which “earth does not present one more sacred and responsible,” would the child associate fulfillment of his own personal wishes with virtuous conduct toward those entrusted with his fate.3 As young children came to identify self-interest with fulfilling the expectations of their socializers, they were prepared to move into the next phase of development believing it to be the product of their own initiatives.

New Child-Rearing Strategies Once the child’s will was won, strategies had to be developed to secure his engagement as an agent. The paradoxical challenge was to activate the child’s sense of responsible initiative in such a way that external

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promptings could be gradually and quietly diminished as the child’s internal mechanisms took over. A carefully sequenced set of encouragements would mobilize the internal pursuit of socially designated ends and means. As the child’s commitment to society emerged in time as his own responsibility, he would willingly fulfill his role as citizen and charter his own socialized destiny. Evaluating what encouraged and what stifled initiative, self-reliance, and reliable conformance, the participants in the early child-rearing movement, in perhaps their most impressive display of institutional creativity, assembled an innovative set of child-shaping methods. The result would be a child prepared to be “his own chief disciplinarian through life.”4 The methods that were evolved included providing a good example to facilitate a positive attitude and effective conduct, encouraging confidence in individual judgment by patient reasoning with the child, nurturing decision making by providing a range of specific choices and opportunities for self-directed activity while patiently allowing for self-correction through trial and error, facilitating a growing sense of individualism by treating each child as distinct and each life stage as unique, encouraging the child to practice proper behavior to facilitate consistency, and offering the child higher levels of responsibility and independence in recognition and confirmation of increasing capacity and judgment. With each strategy, the child came to more seamlessly identify his own will as the source of his conduct. Adult socializers were to initiate the process of socialization by acting in a manner worthy of the child’s unambivalent identification. These writers fully grasped how positive examples fostered internalization: the child, “ever fixed upon the parents in the spirit of imitation,” will “copy,” often “insensibly,” what parents “unconsciously present” and model and shape his own conduct accordingly. By eliciting the wish to act appropriately, the parental influence expanded beyond disciplining with mere “rules” to “inspiring sentiments” and “right feelings.” Children, who as “creatures of imitation” form “deep and lasting impressions,” will gradually “catch the inspiration, and learn to love to ‘do as mother does.’ ” As Goodrich writes, “One of the most efficient modes of impressing a child with the importance of anything, is for a parent to let him see, by his own looks, words, and conduct, that he sets a high value upon it.” 5 To maintain the positive attachment to parents that was necessary for the evolution of mastery, the child “must never be allowed to see or

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feel the influence of bad passions, even in the most trifling things.” Because children are sponges, recording “every look, every movement, every expression” in forming their character, writers instructed parents, “[Govern] your own accents, your countenance, your whole deportment.” Given the special importance of acting consistently, parents were cautioned to “drive evil passions out” of their hearts. In being rather than merely appearing good, parents would become the “DEITY OF INFANCY” and the “DEITY OF CHILDHOOD,” embodying the child’s vision of “fortune, fate and destiny.”6 Using their influence, the “mightiest on earth,” to “bend nature” to good with the “wand of love,” they could by their example mold the child in the very “likeness of Jesus.” This relation set the framework for the child’s positive identity, creating early “home-chiseled grooves in [the child’s] mind, into which the intellectual machinery” of subsequent development seemed “to slide as by a sort of necessity.”7 To facilitate self-reliance, parents were to promote children’s own judgment. By “talking with them,” asking questions, reasoning about process, and providing other “judicious” interactions, adults were to infuse instruction with “patient counsel.” Lydia Maria Child advised parents to explain “at every step” their exercise of authority rather than simply subjecting children to adult rule, and manuals and novels offered abundant examples for handling tense situations by negotiating and counseling without displays of “passion or resentment.”8 A complementary strategy to encourage personal discretion was to continually provide options. Given that citizens were now “free to do good or evil” and to resolve each life choice on the basis of their “own inclinations,” parents must hasten that day when children act for themselves as “their own masters.” To achieve “judicious and persevering direction” in life and be capable of surmounting a “checker-work” of trials that will confront them “far away from parents,” children must find their own “discipline and application.”9 To prepare for navigating these trials, the child from early on should be directed to “lay little plans for himself.” As these are carried out, adults should provide only the assistance that is absolutely necessary. The more one could “leave to their own ingenuity,” the more the children would be “obliged to think and do for themselves.” Learning to keep their “eyes open” to see the obstacles would increase their capacity to overcome life’s “perils.” Allowed the opportunity for “errors and

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faults,” children would have access to the “great teacher” when no rules were available to guide them: “experience.” Rather than focusing critically on the child’s limitations, parents could assist maturation by highlighting “what he is gaining every day where he makes efforts for improvement.”10 In this way, trials became “blessings in disguise,” encouraging character development, perseverance, and wisdom obtainable “no other way,” and cultivating the inner capacity to “feel his way along” and “correct his own errors” and thus to appreciate “the good, and make the best of the evil.”11 The advice to individualize challenges by age and personal temperament directed parents to focus on each child’s development. The injunction to “estimate their capacities aright” by noting each child’s responses to “different things” at “different times” involved a radical shift in the perception of the young. Rather than making assumptions about his capacities, allowing the child to reveal his own maturational level and interests would enable adults to craft appropriate responses. By recognizing different stages, parents would also be able to soften methods of discipline as obedience improved and to relax their vigilance as the child became “regulated,” which would in turn minimize “re sistance and disobedience.” Moreover, it would enable the child to “improve himself” increasingly “under the supervision of his own mind.”12 The culmination— and proof— of internalization was to be achieved by replication. To teach is to train, to see that children “actually do” what is right until it is “fixed in [their] mind.” Consistency was to be established early, for early acts are “seldom very essentially changed” later on, and “what has been once done is more easy the next time.” Repetition also enabled one to “perform that which was at first difficult, perhaps painful, with facility and pleasure.”13 Recurrent behavior made “every duty easy” and created an “iron force of habit” that bound “the soul with as chains of iron” and “links of tempered steel” that were ever more difficult to alter or resist. Images multiplied: “As the stream gradually wears the channel deeper in which it runs, and thus becomes more surely bound to its accustomed course; so the current of the mind and heart grows more and more restricted to the course in which habit has taught them to flow.” In this way, parents were to lay down a “beaten track” that, once it was “often followed,” could be easily maintained throughout the child’s life.14

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Despite its inconsistency with liberal claims of freedom and moral choice, habit, as these writers candidly acknowledge, was too powerful a tool to be discarded. Its ability to “make the most irksome employment at length welcome” provided a predictability otherwise unknown in moral conduct: Principle and conscience may be more benumbed at sometimes than at others; but habit is always acting. The former may be compared to electricity . . . the latter, is like gravitation—in that its power is never for a moment suspended. To call up reason and conscience every time you act . . . is like going to hunt up a suitable garment every time you go out. How much better to . . . go out without ever thinking of your clothing!

Its greatest advantage from being “always at work” was its unobtrusiveness, its surreptitiousness. Even while adapting and performing habitually, people never felt “any iron in their chains.” Its exercise in time produced what was called without irony a “natural aptitude,” leading one “without conscious effort” to certain and “unerring” behavior.15

Affirming Self-Development All of these methods were to lead the child to a single appealing and incontestable conclusion: his world— scarcely identifiable as an arena for socialization, for there was little evidence of a program, agenda, or director—was animated by the commitment to his unfolding natural development. The child of course had no idea what this development entailed, and the confusion was intentional. Told the goal was to “imitate nature,” that is, to strive for “reality” rather than “imitation” of others, even as models were offered to exhibit the “perfectly natural,” the child quickly conflated what seemed authentic with what was socially desirable. At the same time, to dispel any doubt that his path was his own, the child was encouraged to consult his own judgment, those internalized social tools that were identified as supreme natural powers. To act intelligently and responsibly, one needed only to consult one’s “mighty gift of reason” to identify “rational management” with its “better judgment” and “principles of justice.” From a more religious perspective, the “holiest affections of nature” and “the secret impulses of the Spirit” would lead one to follow dictates of conscience and its rules of conduct. Either way,

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the child would retain “moral independence” arising from the “law of his own breast” to “do right when alone.”16 The goal now within reach for all destined to “go forth alone” was ever greater self-guidance. As the child matured, he was to be encouraged to subject his propensities, inclinations, and responses to the “science of self-control” through continual “self-examination” and daily attention to internal reactions and motives. The growing capacity for proper evaluation of his motives and goals, including resistance to internal “dangers” and temptations, would enable him to remain on the “path of rectitude.” With a maturing sense of responsibility, he would be expected to coordinate his ends with those of society. Internal monitors perfected over time would clearly “mark out the path in which [he is] to travel,” directing the self under its own management into the waiting channels and arenas of republican life.17 The early construction of such internal guidance systems would enable the child to proceed without questioning that his ambitions and controls arose “from within” and were directed “outwards” as expressions of the “inner man.” Despite the external uncertainties and continual risks of “los[ing] it all,” the “treasure within” would provide a safe and “certain investment.” Addressing girls in particular, Catharine Sedgwick explained that finding their “main-spring” in the “world within” would allow “self-educating girl[s]” to take their “training into [their] own hands.” Regardless of setbacks in the chaotic and “impassive world without,” with this power to “modulate and regulate” themselves they could at least be certain that what was within would always “move and guide” them.18 The growing capacity to direct one’s own life entailed the synthesis of personal realization and social self-management. At one extreme, this achievement, the “corner-stone of character,” was framed as “selfreliance” and “self-possession,” “self- command” and “self-elevation” arising from one’s acting as the “moral architect” of one’s own destiny. At the other extreme, offered interchangeably, the project was to make oneself pliable by disarming darker motives creating a great “danger from [oneself].”19 The capacity for “habitual self-control” and “selfconquest” required “self-restraint” and “subduing,” achieved through an inner “sentinel” or “monitor” with the capacity to contain the “warring factions of the soul.” The “habit of overcoming” and “self-denial” produced by “repression” led to the “only effectual and lasting” security,

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that of the “self-regulating machine.” The ideal world of moral development and the pragmatic world of behavioral regulation merged as the “great end” to be forged by one’s own powers, that of “self-government,” reaching its peak in the “keystone of SELF-MASTERY.”20

The Consummate Social Agent The ultimate test of one’s character was sustained discipline, the “patient, long-continued, and earnest application” of one’s abilities under the “supervision of [one’s] own mind.” To continually proceed “in the right direction” with an unwavering sense of “duty” owed to oneself required “the force of an adequate purpose.” This sense of purpose was to be evident in both the larger ends or “goals to which an ideal child must strive” and in the appropriate means, the “principled behavior” or “habits of SYSTEM” needed to achieve them.21 As the “great end to which this nation is destined” became “more clearly manifested” and in turn embodied in specific “conditions, laws, institutions and capabilities,” socialization advocates grew more confident about the early internalization of common purpose. This confidence was facilitated by the gradual merger of the two systemic authors within the nation— society and God— each expanding in inclusiveness to absorb and replace local allegiances. Now that the “good citizen” was equally an “heir of Heaven,” one who labors for God and at the same time “labours for her country, since whatever tends to prepare for citizenship in heaven, can not fail to make good and loyal subjects of any just government,” education could easily designate the overarching ends shared by the heavenly world and earthly community in the child’s moral universe.22 Firm cords now bound the “country to the throne of God,” turning the world itself into an “emblem of Paradise.” Religious commitment no longer involved sectarian tensions or the “inflexible gravity” of revivalism with its demand for urgent change.23 The main function of religion, now recalibrated as an inclusive practical “morality,” was to ask only that one’s activities and duties be carried out in the “right direction,” that is, in the spirit of social usefulness in all of one’s endeavors. Conscience was now perfectly at home with “strong desires for respectability and influence,” for one’s “true ends” included “success in the world,” and prosaic responsibilities were manifestations of higher duty.24

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In the political system the budding agent could be taught to hold “habitual reverence” for the institutions of “this world,” to take as his task the search for his “true . . . place in society” as “designed” by God. To be citizens of this “greatest of free nations,” which offered “every . . . possible means for developing all the powers of human nature,” every mechanic, farmer, and tradesman was called upon to be “the guardian of law and a maker of law.” Shaped in the “great laboratory” and “school-house” of the New World, citizens would determine finally the “question for the earth—can men govern themselves.” Accepting obedience to the constitution and laws as a “bond imposed upon each individual,” while framed as becoming “qualified for freedom” as “Freemen,” really meant accepting one’s responsibilities as agent. The common political system thus became the “established centre” around which each participant “bound by it” moved in a “safe and defined orbit,” carry ing out his appropriate functions with a sense of personal accomplishment and proud of the “harmony” generated with others.25 The “wish to rise” economically in the “World of Traffic,” the commercial realm now viewed as a proper agency activity, was also to be encouraged as one of the “highest moral ends.” Making money facilitated the power of “doing good” by furthering “high and beneficent purposes,” a “gift of God” bestowed to further perfect the individual and society. The activity itself enabled the development and cultivation of moral principles, the “habits of industry,” and “virtues of integrity, faithfulness, and veracity.” At the same time, to resist “artful competitors and shrewd traders” and “mere speculators” as well as the focus on a “mere love of money, of pleasure,” the young needed to regard work as the opportunity to “labour rightly” in “our Father’s field.” By pursuing a good “character and reputation” and fitting themselves for specific “positions of influence and growing usefulness,” they could “make men” of themselves.26 The realm of social “intercourse and companionship” was morally more ambiguous. Communities had not yet carefully distinguished the “good and bad, lofty and degrading, virtuous and vicious,” and success in this arena was too often the result of “exalt[ing] the external” and “conventionalism” over “genuine nature.” Social life, it was felt, indulged “frivolous formality, those tedious, lying compliments, that masked insincerity, that meagre sumptuousness and cold splendor” that “seduce[d] or force[d] a man from an honorable loyalty to himself.”27

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Yet informal social networks also offered important incentives for appropriate conduct such as opportunities for social integration and status ascendancy, more so as “the majority” came to “respect and follow” the “good, the pure, the deserving alone.” The individual’s “sensitiveness to opinion,” by stimulating a “desire of pleasing,” was an “incentive to improvement” and virtue.28 Thus, as social patterns came to reflect the imperatives of agency, the “affection of others” and “elevation in the world” came to be identified as just rewards. Social involvement would help individuals overcome “selfishness in [their] own heart” by providing approbation for actions indicating “benevolence to make all others happy” and promoting “self-sacrifice for the good of others.” The “monitor within,” implanted by education, could increasingly use social judgments to govern behavior: the child’s sense of “shame, a sensitiveness to reputation, and an apprehension of pain at its loss” would help ensure that his conduct reflected “his importance as a member of Society.”29 This tension between internalizing and resisting the judgments of one’s social networks, including one’s peers, exemplified the unresolved state of antebellum agency society. On one hand, agency by definition demanded the presentation of a self that was unnatural, at least in the sense of not existing at the onset of life. Furthermore, the pressure, evident in the literature, to manage, even exploit, appearances in an impersonal and fluid society of images and presentations was acute and the benefits self-evident. On the other hand, early republican social relations (unlike in the latter part of the century) could not be trusted to reflect the lessons of moral agency. Thus, as identified in David Riesman’s portrait of the inner-directed individual, youth needed an internal gyroscope to help them stay on course in the face of equivocal social messages. This problem is illustrated in the biographies of Lincoln, where later “advantages” of “wealth and progress and . . . public spirit” are contrasted to the “hard days” he endured before the Civil War. By combining a capacity to “adapt himself to circumstances” with a knowledge of character that enabled him “to ‘size up’ men as well as boys,” Lincoln exemplified the ability to avoid the pitfalls of “mixed associations” with “easily-tempted or weak-minded” individuals.30 Subject to warnings to remain morally consistent, the young could now be encouraged to enter liberal institutions. Each was a “large” and “good . . . field of action,” fully “open” to the “real equality of rights”

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that provided everyone an “equal chance for the first stations of the land.” Agents, went the message from early childhood, could now rise to the full heights of individual and social success according to “their nature and destiny.” All possessed the gifts and the means to succeed, the poorest as well as the rich, even those “of different degrees of quickness,” and prizes were distributed not by “accidents of birth, wealth, or patronage,” which offer “so little advantage,” but merit, “application and perseverance.” Under these circumstances, the most modest individual could achieve the “highest office” or “most unbounded wealth.”31 The task for individuals was to identify their natural ability, some capacity for “doing some one thing better.” With proper application all can be good if not eminent, “good citizen[s]” and “good Christian[s],” regardless of “rank and fortune.” By the same token, as the proper use of new habits could “make any man—great,” so failure was now one’s “own fault,” representing a “just poverty” and “criminal . . . improvidence” that necessarily “followed “idleness and imbecility.” Thus children were advised to develop their “own tastes and preferences,” in the process overcoming any early impediments, and to make from their “earliest biases” their “independent pursuit.” Given endless chances in this “happiest country in the world for the labouring man,” they could learn over time to craft their “means to ends” in the many situations and institutional settings presented to them. Finding and applying the “model” not only in the economy but throughout societal life “to which they should resolutely conform themselves,” they would be assured social integration and achievement as successful agents.32

The Release from Socialization into Society The point in the development of liberal individuality of greatest tension and vulnerability has always been adolescence and young adulthood. Taking full responsibility for one’s social integration, a challenge under any circumstances, was complicated as one reached the age to take seriously the cultural demand to be “the artificer of [one’s] own destiny” and to “determine what [one] will be.”33 This life stage therefore presented the ultimate test of liberal internalization. From colonial times through the nineteenth century, youth were confronted with a broad set of life options. Adolescence was the time of emerging independence, when the individual was confronted with the severe pressure to affirm

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the social and moral expectations cultivated in childhood. Several significant periods of generational upheaval, the latest being the 1960s, were driven by youth who at the point of release challenged their earlier socialization as indoctrination and servitude. In response to pervasive anxieties about the outcome of this transition to adulthood, liberal socialization has tried to render its preferred pathways attractive enough to obscure the pressure for adaptation underpinning them. The hope has been that emancipated adolescents would embrace these options more for their personal desirability than from external pressure for conformity or a conscious submission to the restraints of life in liberal society. Compliance would be understood as an independent moral and prudential decision, a recognition that established markers and social stability facilitated personal success. Once absolved of any culpability by the individual’s assumption of responsibility for integration, liberal society could frame the transition to adulthood as a voluntary and personal process. The problem in the early republic was that these designated alternatives had not yet been firmly fixed in people’s minds. In a culture that lionized adult independence, the period of “opening manhood” was “throbbing” with “peculiar . . . joys and hopes and fears.” The appeal of exerting a “powerful influence” on the world encouraged the wish to “unfurl” one’s sails and “fly before the wind.” Those who left the parental household dreamed of moving beyond “the treadmill of the father” to achieve great things. This sense of promise created great fears about “those just attaining the age of moral accountability,” for “false views of life prevail everywhere.” For many, “freedom from the control of others” was construed as “licence for self indulgence” and “self-aggrandizement.”34 Often “confident of their own power” and fueled by “extravagant excitement,” young adults lacked experience or any conception of the temptations that awaited them. This “obstructed vision,” exacerbated further by aversion to religion, led them to an “improper reliance upon self,” to a “false independence, a passion for unrestrained liberty, an idea that it is better to go somewhat wrong, than to go right by the advice of others.” Those facing the “delusion” of the city were particularly vulnerable to the wish for “popularity” with “Corrupt Companions,” that is, peers.35 Rather than restrain youth, the socializers’ response— drawn from the revivalist insistence that release was a trial to determine one’s

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personal accountability to God—was to turn the period of adolescence into the test of one’s capacities as a socially accountable agent. Could those who “look forward earnestly and impatiently to that day” when “they can act in all things for themselves” demonstrate that they were “qualified” for the bestowal of this freedom? The “great cause of difference” between “one who deserves to be, and will be stationary” and one who will “continually rise” is “in the men themselves.” With no excuses for failure, “no distinctions . . . certain and permanent,” men and women with their “independent power to shape” their “own course” and “sovereign way” must take responsibility for their “own person.” When parents depart from the scene, as they must, the firm expectation remained that “their children shall continue, as in their presence, so in their absence, energetic and pure, self-governed, self-restrained, both lovers and doers of the right.”36 The opportunity to shape one’s own destiny, echoing religious conversion, could be resituated as a visible measure of one’s capacity for social integration. The language of self-direction was prominent: an “eventful period” for choosing the “great means of Happiness” for oneself, this time arising “between childhood and maturity,” was of “incomparable importance,” the “day of salvation,” the “turning point.” Entering the “age of responsibility,” a young person “freed from the trammels of minorship” begins inevitably to imagine himself “too large and too old to be longer subject to parental authority.”37 Thus the focus could not simply be on liberation. Those entering society in this “hour of trial” with “none to control” or protect or “provide for them” would incur a “great increase of care and labor.” This burden fell particularly on youth who were not well prepared for the transition. A “wretched want” of early counsel and discipline from parents provided no “hint” of how one might have formed one’s “character altogether different[ly]” and more adaptively. This ignorance in turn exacerbated the handicaps and challenges, the likely “deformities” and “paths that are barren,” under which youth would labor. Independence was not the simple goal promised by republican rhetoric but a lifelong transition to self-governance in a society as yet incompletely realized: “The son leans on the name of the father, and so becomes a dwarf. Our children should be taught, early and late, that they are to walk their own passage across the sea of life,” using those social markers believed to be self-chosen for orientation and security.38

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Persuading the Public The shift of responsibility to youth did not mean that society was to be left in their hands. While the task of mobilizing both parents and the youth themselves provided focus to the socialization movement, the new outreach campaign, though decentralized, nevertheless had the larger aim of shaping public attitudes. It formed one of the first great missionary movements for social change based on revivalist populism, a model that would later be employed by temperance, abolition, suffragette, and other campaigns. The extensive literature directed at youth represented a clear recognition that early republican adults did not yet possess the agency characters the young were asked to emulate. Nor, unlike in the latter part of the century, when youth themselves provided examples to follow, could their achievement of agency characters be assumed. Thus, much of the early advice literature was addressed to youth to assist them in independently identifying and internalizing the new character. Youth and young adults, often “alone with nothing but God and good principles for [their] guide” and thus “unaided,” were urged to undertake “the great work of self-improvement.” Speaking to this audience directly, Sedgwick emphasized, “Help yourselves. . . . Take your own training into your own hands,” for with the “main-spring” within, there are “none educated but the self-educated.” Likewise, Eliot insisted, “[Your souls are] in your own keeping”; Todd declared, “The only being that can hurt you, is—yourself!”; and Muzzey warned, “[We must trust to] nothing but our own exertions.”39 The obvious “pandering” to the self-determining capacities of youth was only one aspect of this outreach.40 Another was the stirring of fear, expressed in terms of stark realism. One of many “successive ‘moral panics’ ” in liberal popular culture to mobilize voluntary compliance, fear was employed to warn youth of the “magnitude of the consequences that would follow” each choice they exercised. Peril was ubiquitous: “The most insignificant action you perform, in its influence upon your character, will reach through the whole period of your existence.” Vulnerable to “temptation in every walk, and at every hour,” youth were alerted to the many dangers to which they were exposed and exhorted to adhere to the clear guidelines offered to ensure that these dangers were “avoided, resisted, or overcome.”41

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Youth were also warned about the cultural rhetoric of easy success, a necessary motivator but a trap for the unwary. Where a “single misstep” could mean one has “fallen, never to rise,” youth needed to appreciate how situations “disintegrate character and undermine virtue.” There was no reason to be “over-weeningly self-confident” that the long “day of moral trial” could be avoided. To find the “means of Happiness” at this “all important moment,” no one should arrogantly proceed as if “unwilling to be advised.” Yes, there were many who had made it, but could one identify their secrets accurately enough to answer, “How may . . . you BE SUCH A MAN?” 42 Having warned youth against complacency, to “secure their confidence” experts then sought to reassure them by providing the “best hints, the clearest counsels, and the wisest instruction.” The transition from “being guided” by others to “judicious self-direction” was laid out as a “course of integrity” along the “paths of virtue, honor and happiness.” Endless moral lessons related in stories and examples reinforced and explained that those who “do not perceive that the first steps lead to the last,” those who remain failures, were those who “fence themselves in with ignorance, and press themselves down with shiftlessness and vice.” Those who, by contrast, learn how to pursue “patient and thorough self-education” will not fail at “ris[ing] above the great mass.” They had only to maintain that course, refusing to part with “purity” and avoiding the “forbidden paths of sin.”43 Best-sellers such as the work of Henry Ward Beecher were put forward as “admirably calculated, if read with attention, to lead young men to correctness of thought and action.” Juvenile fiction of the period provided, in the words of the author Jacob Abbott, endless “models of good conduct for imitation . . . to explain and enforce the highest principles of moral duty.” In these books of example and instruction, children exhibited virtuous manners and conduct, demonstrating how it was possible to do without supervision and yet take on personal responsibility and duty. Models of success were paraded before the young: Franklin, the “son of a mechanic”; Washington, a farmer; and congressmen from the “corn-field, and the shoemaker’s shop,” who “scarcely knew [their] letters.” The lesson was “None need despair.” Even lacking a teacher, youth such as William M. Thayer’s poor Bobbin Boy, Nat, pursued the independent path of character and virtue through “selfculture” to become governor of the “best State in the Union.”44

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Reaching parents was more difficult. Their presumptions of unlimited authority often rendered them indifferent to advice until it was too late. For that matter, few parents took kindly to being told that their role now entailed new responsibilities and expectations. Advice writers struggled to acclimate adults to republican child rearing. Combining patriotic visions of the future glory of their nation with dire warnings of imminent civil decline, they called on parents to embrace their noble if diminished power to shape the “vital interests of [the] country” and its “whole race.” Parents were uniquely provided a “stewardship” role with a “high and holy mission to fulfill” in the divine plan. Moreover, despite the burdens attending their increased responsibility, success was promised as compensation for “all other losses and disappointments” of life, even failed “aspirations for wealth, honor, and power.” Here in the raising of a new generation they might find satisfaction of all “reasonable ambition” that otherwise eluded them.45 At the same time, the immense cost of failure demanded their consideration: “In one hour—in less time than this—in one minute, evil may be wrought which . . . years of judicious treatment will not obliterate.” Every false trace will “frown upon [them], as an abyss” at the day of “judgment,” and can make the difference between a “savage and civilized” creature. Their burden was without precedent, and the “entire map” of their perilous situation, showing “all the regions of parental anxiety,” revealed a lifelong “flood of anxieties” that parenthood in this unstable society portended. Their task was to engage the young and keep them from seeking diversion where they shouldn’t, to “make [the] home happy,” keep their “own hearts young and joyous,” and their own lives an example of the “loftiest teachings.”46 Parents were warned that “perfect self-control” of their “own minds, habits, artificial prejudices and senile experiences” to avoid producing a “suffering childhood” and “degenerate humanity” could not be achieved without assistance. As a “novice,” the “conscientious parent is troubled, and is looking anxiously for light on the means and methods of fulfilling his task.” He is “untaught and neglected,” asking who will offer “aids and instructions,” wondering, “What shall I do?” Thus did the times call for “eloquence to teach parents the duties” and “toils, that rest inevitably— directly, personally, inevitably—upon them.”47 Parents of all classes needed to “inform themselves of the best means of training up their offspring” with the “guidance of correct principle,” drawing

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upon the “practicable science” of child rearing. Teachers of the very young in turn needed to be provided “line upon line, precept upon precept” to aid their work. All were “equally ignorant, equally without training, and equally incompetent” without a proper “book” to help them understand their “new power.”48

The Pinnacle of Freely Chosen Obligation With so many good books now available to supplement the Good Book, no one could “allow his own energies to slumber” in the projects of socialization and self-formation.49 The immense promises of success and the steep price of failure appeared to rest on the character and motivation of the emerging young adult. In the tradition of American social movements, a clear sense of delineated choices was framed as an exercise in popular initiative and democratic freedom. Raised to pursue a course that appeared wholly their own, children and youth could now experience “perfect ease and freedom” arising “from within themselves” and “their own honest hearts.” So camouflaged, social responsibility, while “always at work,” never required them to “feel any iron in their chains” even as their “true self” was carefully “restrained by the bond of definite duty.” A socialization creating the conditions for “voluntary surrender” to valid duties and obligations motivated “prompt and cheerful obedience” to “lawful commands.”50 Equality had been similarly transformed by “fireside education”: “We are all children in one family . . . some in one station, some in another. We are all of us, from the highest to the lowest, labourers” in a common enterprise. The principle of human diversity deriving from different endowments in the moral and physical world mandated “inequalities of condition,” though there be a “perfect equality of rights.” From the laborer to the millionaire, everyone was an “active and influential” participant, capable of contributing to humanity as “the humble instrument” of good.51 Socialization reformers intent on building a cohesive society had enabled liberalism to find its way beyond the complexities and contradictions to a “free agency” framework for society. Secular cultural norms arising out of the dissenting Protestant heritage had been tailored to a new child-rearing process cultivating agency in the young. Gradually recognizing their “important mission” and sensing with “just confi-

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dence” that they possessed “faculties and powers adequate” to the task, republican citizens as “agent[s] of civilization” would voluntarily embrace their “designed” moral role as “one of the wheels or parts, in a vast machine.” In their “true” position as “steward” enacting the “law of God written on the heart,” they could pursue as “sanctified” or realized beings the “great end” for which their “character for eternity” was created, that “errand” of employing “all fair and lawful means” for “carrying out the great design” of the Creator. Furthermore, they could not but as His “co-workers” become God’s own “means” as “messengers” and “agents.”52

Toward a Natural Agency Society Peering beyond the present situation of the populace, these shapers of liberal citizenship could with optimism identify the emerging republic. Clarity about the ultimate agency synthesis was facilitating the project of internalizing institutional expectations. Once individual and predictable social incentives merged, and adolescent resistance over coercive upbringing or social pressures receded before the pursuit of opportunity, the path to liberal selfhood became less conflicted. A man could not only follow the path to the unlimited “approbation of his own breast” but comfortably accept the “respect and applause of all impartial spectators.” Each citizen was to be a “city set on [a] hill,” fulfilling the “pervading and inflexible . . . law of the moral universe.”53 The once unimaginable result was an agency character formation that was becoming voluntary and at the same time inevitable. The beguiling implication was that individuals might now experience their agency development as a natural process. To be sure, socialization advisors in this era understood that this experience, the product of intensive character shaping, was not born of freedom. The habits being “engraft[ed]” upon one’s character at first felt “strange and unnatural” because they were, even though over time they become a part of one’s very being that could “scarcely be broken”: “What we do once we more readily and naturally do a second time, and go on in a certain path.” Early habits ultimately feel “perfectly natural,” arising “from the heart,” so that with practice they seem so “artless” as to “truly reflect the soul.” Establishing itself in time as a “second nature,” habit is valuable precisely because a person will “find it impossible to say what was originally nature, and what habit.” The resulting socially mandated

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conduct seems to issue from “instinctive reverence and desire,” from love rather than “slavish fear.” Such a virtually “natural aptitude,” not only “without premeditation” but “almost without conscious effort,” will yet produce appropriate conduct with “unerring certainty.” Assisted in forming its “true direction” early on, the child’s character will without conflict or tension grow to assume its “best nature,” combining the internalized with the internal.54 Success in the antebellum period was still understood as a cultural product of socialization and social channeling. In his Autobiography, Franklin offered his life story as an example of the power of adolescents in the New World to take control of their own destiny. Successful individuals were self-made; they learned to rise above the influence of institutions and socializers and to establish their own path and methods of success. At the same time, the story makes clear that successful independence turned on acquiring the republican values of economic initiative, social reciprocity, and civil engagement. Thus Franklin, nominally defending the power of self-education, ironically became the great republican educator of others, demonstrating the importance of adhering to responsible agency initiative in society. The notion of the self-made individual, which would dominate post– Civil War discourse and mainstream culture, arose not to prove the existence of a free society but to demonstrate the attainability of responsible independent agency. John Todd refers to the “long and wonderful catalogue” of “self-made men” and David Magie of “real men” as “self-made men,” though these are individuals deeply “bound” and “under obligations” by “chains” of good habits. Daniel Eddy in 1865 insisted that “every man makes himself” but must incorporate “every thing that God included in man.”55 Only a hint of the later belief in a capacity for total self-construction was evident as yet. Instructions, examples, and expectations first had to be sufficiently embedded to create the inference that they were there all along, capable of being imagined as a natural unfolding from within. The early formulations of self-creation were thus poetic exhortations rather than assertions of fact. Just as an artist hews a sculpture from “a block of marble,” one might weave for oneself a “web of habits” using materials already “in [one’s] power.” The suggestion was surfacing that, by means of “self-education,” one could “fashion the lineaments” of character, acting as the “moral architect” of one’s life.56

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As confidence in the processes shaping the individual’s consensual commitment to republican order and process grew, poetic possibility turned into prosaic fact. Socialization was not only a more effective, predictable, and universally applicable alternative to adult revival and religious transformation, but it worked more quietly. The ties to socialization could be quietly dropped, leaving the nation to imagine itself the free society of free individuals that had seemed so unlikely and so perilous an aim at the outset. A new developmental path to the voluntary liberal citizen had been designed, a path that would be viewed in hindsight not as coercion but as preparation for independence. To be sure, pursuit of one’s own path required a “spirit of accommodation” enabling one to locate and pursue the “correct channels” to render one “an interesting or agreeable member of society.” As the juvenile literature promised, the “good opinion of others” and “social approval” would provide an “easy access to the hearts of men.”57 But the opportunity to set one’s course voluntarily, using one’s inner judgment even to fulfill collective ideals, was daring and empowering. While child shaping was initially called upon to provide the institutional discipline missing in the early republic, social realities and the reigning cultural narrative forced republican leaders to reconsider ageold structures of domestic order. The rhetoric then shifted to the other extreme, holding that the young were simply being prepared for adult freedom. The result was to leave actual mechanisms generating consensual authority in liberal society lying hidden in plain sight. With confidence that the deeper conceptual problem of establishing an authority consistent with the agency republic was over, the great task now was to spread this model of citizenship to the far corners of society.

8

Socializing Society: Popular Education and the Diffusion of Agency Nor is this great people invited merely to speculate, and frame abstract theories, on these momentous themes; to make picture models, on paper, in their closets; they are not only invited to sketch Republics of Fancy only, but . . . to make Republics of Fact. —Horace Mann The only restraining cords . . . are the fine but strong ligaments of a good intellectual and moral education. . . . Nothing but an increased centripetal force, binding with still stronger cords the heart . . . can balance the centrifugal tendencies which are threatening anarchy in our social, religious, and political systems. —B. F. Tweed

The early republic had placed the family at the forefront of social formation. This precedence, however, was to be short-lived. Urbanization and industrialization were eroding the contained nuclear family and weakening parents’ impact on their children. If socialization was to remain the key to that “laborious” effort to “make Republicans,” then the republic itself had to step into the breach.1 Education had long supplemented the family’s efforts in preparing citizens of the New World. But it had done so primarily to reinforce local community and religious priorities, and these were now regarded as threats to republican solidarity. A coordinated educational system was needed to take over the project of shaping common citizens. The “purpose of the fireside” was now 194

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“equally that of the school-room”: to ensure “the character which is to be enstamped on each succeeding generation.”2 The campaign to produce a “common, widely circulated middle-class ideology of the family” and of adult-child relations was initially successful among the “most articulate, Anglo-American, Protestant, middle and upper classes.” With the greatest investment in the formation of an agency culture, they were best equipped to embrace the new method of child rearing and in turn to extend it “in various degrees to all classes.”3 The formula for liberal citizenship, “destined in time to command a far wider allegiance” and to eventually become the “pervasive ‘allAmerican’ ideal,” would be disseminated in stages.4 During the next stage of the campaign, the child-rearing regimen would be provided by the common schools to reinforce mainstream adaptation and reach out to the untutored and the socially excluded, recent arrivals, and the socially marginal. Appropriating the new adult-child dynamic emerging in the domestic literature, educational innovators created an agency educational process and campaigned for the institutions to implement it.

Beyond Factionalism In the early nineteenth century education was a crazy quilt of public, private, and religious schools. The more affluent typically attended private schools and academies, while religious and philanthropic organizations supported charity schools and Sunday schools primarily for poor families. Community schools were located mostly in the Northeast. The settlement of new regions, along with increasing affluence and revivalism, brought the spread of private and denominational schools, leading many Americans to fear the sharpening of regional, religious, and class differences. Common school advocates, of whom Horace Mann was only the most famous spokesman for a spreading movement, began organizing to replace independent tuition schools and to consolidate and expand charity schools into urban and rural district systems with the objective of making primary education available to all. Access to education for most children in the North by 1830 and the professionalization of a locally controlled national primary system— except in the South—by 1860 demonstrate the success of this movement.

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The antebellum rise of American public education has been examined at length, and its success has been most often seen as evidence of a widespread liberal ethos issuing forth in the early republic. As with domestic child rearing, the assumption is made that the “educational consensus” reached on “pedagogy, the curriculum, and school governance” as well as universal schooling evolved in “conflict” with and at “considerable cost” to— even as a “betray[al]” of—the stated “partisan ideals” and “political visions” of the early republican factions. This assumption of the defeat of party ideals again leaves unanswered how the liberal mainstream, in this case the “conventional wisdom about education,” came about.5 Members of the major parties, reassessing and altering their longheld ideals and downplaying their differences, found common cause in an educationally based republic. Recognizing the urgent need for equipping the young, they established a working agreement regarding “the ideal form of political socialization” to provide an optimal “application in life.”6 Democrats gradually moderated their strong positions on individual rights, the capacity of ordinary citizens to rule, and limited state institutions, while Whigs revised rigid views on traditional elites and authority, the organic society, social duty, and privileged access. Regarding the religious constituency, modern liberal assertions of a triumphant secularism in education has produced a serious “distortion of perspective” about the formative period, obscuring the fundamentally “Protestant coloration of the common school.” Within an American society “permeated with religious purpose,” denominational ministers were intellectual and organi zational leaders in the “common school awakening” throughout the country. As Protestant values evolved into a national “culture religion,” education was increasingly embraced as a complement to the larger religious mission. Schools provided the “moral leverage [that was] diminishing in family and church” and thus offered an ideal site to spread agency values. Although early republican Protestants are commonly thought to have considered nonsectarian public education as not “thoroughly religious,” most in fact viewed education as the dissemination of an “interdenominational Protestant ideology” that anchored the liberal pursuit of “personal and social progress” and provided the best mechanism to “create the Kingdom of God across the land.”7

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Education for Freedom? Further obscuring this reconciliation of party and religious ideals was a public discourse focused on membership in a free society. Discipline and structure, obligation and obedience were cast as mere adjuncts to the goal of preparing the young for liberty. Benjamin Labaree, the president of Middlebury College, described the goal in 1849 as generating “free and enlightened citizens” who possessed the rights and duties attending “true and rational liberty.”8 J. Orville Taylor, a professor of popular education at New York University, began his classic early treatise, The District School; or, National Education (1835), with an epigraph declaring that “elementary schools bestow and sustain the nation’s liberty,” making the “freeman” into “an intelligent man.” The Common School Journal, established by Mann to promote the common school initiative, highlighted in its prospectus the “truism” that “intelligence and virtue are the only support and stability of free institutions.” Conservatives such as Orville Dewey, no less than the liberals Walt Whitman and William Leggett, argued, “Knowledge will invariably and inevitably produce freedom. The question, whether a people shall be educated, amounts to the whole question, whether they shall be free.”9 In the second year of the most important antebellum educational publication, the annual record of Lectures Delivered before the American Institute of Instruction (1831), S. C. Phillips spoke of the free school as the “cradle of liberty.” In an institute lecture six years later, President Joshua Bates of Middlebury College called for a “new and mighty moral influence, under the fostering hand of education” to “sustain [the] tottering institutions” of the “land of liberty.” The North American Review of 1838 contrasted one nation that “grovels in slavery, because it does not know its rights,” a second that “preserves but a small portion of liberty, because it knows not how to defend what it has obtained,” and the ideal one, which “exults in the unrestrained exercise of its energies, because it knows what freedom is, and knows how to value and guard it.” The clearest evidence of this third nation’s superiority is that it has “established the common school system.” Above all the other voices, Mann’s soaring rhetoric spoke of “our fathers” who came out of the “house of bondage,” the “bondage of ignorance and vice,” to devise a “system of Public Instruction” to produce finally “a MAN, not a statue, not an automaton, not a puppet, but a free, a thinking, an intelligent soul.”10

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Contemporary social critics seeking to “demystify public education” by counterpoising its bold promises with the “harsh realities” of early public schooling, particularly in the cities, have gone to the other extreme, rejecting the use of democratic rhetoric as ideological trapping. The real agenda in what Stanley Schultz calls a “culture factory” has been identified as producing “generations of children stamped out of the same mold, prepared, indeed conditioned” for modern life. For some critics, citizen formation was part of the capitalist project to consolidate its economic interests by promoting class subordination and work discipline.11 For others, it was a more generalized effort at “social control” imposed by dominant groups as a “hierarchical and elitist” as well as “class-based, racist, and sexist” project. In either case, school discipline provided “obedient children for anxious parents, malleable students for efficient schools, production workers for the emerging capitalist economy, and acquiescent citizens for the frail republic.” With the successful effort to “control and contain” the poor, white, Protestant, male population, this project of social discipline extended its dominion to all, regardless of “color, ethnicity, religion, or geographical area.”12 Social historians who focus on the role of industrial discipline and social containment provide an important antidote to the inflated and misleading narrative of the free society. More specifically, they direct attention to the overt agenda of social control in the urban systems responsible for managing the poor and immigrant young. But they pass over the commitment of educators to the task of forging an agency society, which, in the view of its proponents, would provide a new adaptive character for not only the middle class but in time the population as a whole. In this context, the critics of early republican education have been unsure what to make of educators’ commitment to a self-reliant citizenry. David Tyack and Elisabeth Hansot acknowledge that the educational virtues not only served to shape a “good employee” but were “entrepreneurial assets.” Lee Soltow and Edward Stephens admit that popular education promoted “economic self-improvement” and an “increased variety of choice,” resulting in upward economic mobility and reduced economic inequality. Schultz undermines his claim of elitism by admitting that the schools were designed to serve all the young, native as well as foreign, rich and poor. For William Reese, elevating “the

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power of the white middle and upper classes at the expense of the less fortunate” was balanced by educators who promoted “republican values, opened opportunities for the poor, and prevented the hardening of class lines.”13 This confusion over educational goals has led to difficulty concluding whether the project was “in effect democratic or anti-democratic,” or even if “school systems . . . were constructed to realize a particular vision of politics” at all. Frederick Binder attributes the rise of common schools to the wish both for social order and for “prepar[ing] children to reap the fruits of promised opportunities” in an “enlightened democracy.” David Hogan defines education as simultaneously nourishing the dream of “bettering [one’s] condition” with social mobility and creating submission to the “strategic interdependencies of the marketplace” that shape the individual pursuit of success.14 For their part, mainstream liberal defenders of schooling as the means to the free society have had difficulty coming to terms with evidence on the centrality of values indoctrination and uniformity. They have evaded the challenge by reinterpreting freedom to mean responsible liberal citizenship, through the balancing of “rights and liberties” with “bonds of obligation.” Reconstructing the past, they explain this deliberate statecraft as the rational implementation of a system to produce a “properly schooled individual” with the values of “good citizenship” instilled by civic education and authoritative textbooks, though the early educational innovators nowhere presumed (nor could they) either a smoothly functioning process or predictable outcomes.15 Neither mainstream liberals nor critical social historians acknowledge the enduring tradition of agency central to American civic culture. Lacking insight into its complex balance of release and commitment, neither can shed light on the abiding effort of early republican educators to weave self-reliance and responsibility into the child’s developmental process. The preparation of an individual “independent in means and judgment but willing to sacrifice” for the collective, one “free but subordinated” to the common good, cannot be understood in terms of the freedom narrative.16 Nor can disparaging the project as merely one of social discipline provide insight on the underlying dynamic of liberal society. Such clarity involves recognizing the inconvenient role of preliberal values in national formation.

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Education for an Agency Nation The priority given to social order in the new education comported with the goals of the national project. As proponents of education realized, promoting adult self-reliance and initiative while containing adults within institutional boundaries and norms precisely mirrored the ordered voluntarism underlying the agency dynamic. Their voluminous writings reveal them to be neither naïve proponents of liberty nor mere advocates of social control, but a vanguard in the promotion of a postreligious agency framework. In this new era “dawn[ing] upon the world,” amid discoveries and changes that were “so brilliant and surprising,” the spirit of “innovation” throughout society had produced a new people “less patient” of the “restraints of authority and even of law,” ever “more bent on change” in line with the “vast revolutions” of that age. The energies of these individuals, rather than being dampened, had instead to be directed, making “moral motives and restraints,” if always necessary, now “of the last [i.e., first] importance.” Those performing as “immediate agents” in the revolution to realize “the entire regeneration of society” needed to be infused with the “binding obligation” of “immutable principles.”17 The nation had brought this challenge on itself by identifying the citizen as one possessing the “perfect liberty of making himself what he chooses to become,” able to pursue without any “positive authority” or “even the force of external circumstances” a specific pattern of conduct or set of opinions. A “free-agent” with the power to choose between “good and evil” and to shape his own new relationships and responsibilities had to master the “regulation of his thoughts and feelings” in order to effectively “depend upon himself.” All now possessing “glorious freedom,” wrote William Sullivan in 1833, needed to ask, “What are the duties of the age in which I live; and what are my own duties?” Each person enabled in the “free air” to “stand upon his own stock” must be made into an “accountable character.” The vast human energies unleashed by open institutions in the whole body of the people called forth commensurate “regulating forces” providing “more authoritative control, and more skilful guidance.”18 The reliance at the time on what is retrospectively called “cultural conformity and educational uniformity” must be understood as a necessary response to the demands placed on educational advocates. The

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nation was still “so many distinct, independent communities; each being governed by its own habits, traditions, and local customs,” with “no superintending power.” Into this disorgani zation the revolution had unleashed “mighty powers and passions” whose exercise was no longer “monopolized by the few” but “conferred upon the millions.” The “want of instruction” among these millions had produced youth of whom “not one” in a thousand had “ever spent an hour in studying the principles of [America’s] political and social being.” A vast influx of the “wronged and persecuted” seeking asylum, but with no clear sense of the nation’s “political faith” or “moral truths,” exacerbated the “moral chaos” of an increasingly diversified population.19 “Strangers and aliens” initially lacked any “bond of brotherhood or family between them” other than liberation from colonial dependence and a vacuous belief in the right to do “just what one chooses to do.” But cultural leaders imagined that this citizenry would become the “lever” by which to “move the world” into modernity once they mobilized the collective energies of a populace with “active and intelligent minds.” The “car of progress” now demanded many who could be “conductors, engineers, superintendents, [and] directors” rather than remaining “mere brakemen.” That is, individual ambitions had to be “more fully, more effectively” actualized to unleash the “mighty will” of the people than in “any generation . . . that has ever existed.” Institutional mechanisms were thus needed to both “inform and regulate that will,” to at once promote the latent creative energy and condition its popular exercise.20 The route to this exemplary nationhood was slowly revealing itself.

The Turn to Education Faced with organizing not hypothetical “Republics of Fiction” but “Republics of Fact,” early Americans were not free to simply “sign off” and “move out” to the “state of barbarism,” like the “aborigines of [the] Western wilderness.” Rather, with the “experience of the world hitherto . . . against the duration and success of republics,” citizens were forced to ask, “What is to become of these institutions, and this country? How is it to be preserved?” The urgent need for cohesion required systematic intervention: “What institutions exist among us, which at once possess the power and are administered with the efficiency, requisite to save us from dangers that spring up in our own bosoms?”21

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Educators led the way in grasping the limits of existing republican institutions. Jacob Abbott in The Teacher: or Moral Influence as Employed in the Instruction and Government of the Young (1839) noted the “hapless efforts to produce uniformity” in religion, wherein each community was split into a “thousand contending sects” reflecting “every shade and every variety of religious opinion” that “hold nothing in common.” With their sole objective being the “annoyance and destruction of each other,” curbing the endless contention and strife was “hopeless.” Similarly, in secular matters the wide unleashing of a “ruling passion for personal aggrandizement” and ambition was producing an epidemic of “overreaching” and the worship of “the god of power and the mammon of unrighteousness.”22 Adult society was thus described as consumed by “the panting spirit of wild fanaticism,” an “endless contention,” the “war-whoop of party strife,” a return of the “confusion of Babel.” Alonzo Potter, a religious leader, university professor, and social reformer, wrote: [We are increasingly] divided into political parties [and] we are both right. We disagree respecting the fundamental principles of government; we quarrel about the laws of a circulating medium, we are bank and anti-bank, tariff and anti-tariff, for a national bankrupt law and against a national bankrupt law, for including corporations and for excluding corporations, for unlimited internal improvement, and for no internal improvement. We have creeds, sects, denominations, and faiths of all varieties, each insisting that it is right, and that all the others are wrong. We have cold water societies, but many more that deal habitually in hot water. We are anti-masonic and masonic, “pro-slavery and anti-slavery”; and are spiced and seasoned with abolitionism, immediateism, gradualism, mysticism, materialism, agrarianism, sensualism, egotism, skepticism, idealism, transcendentalism, Van Burenism, Harrisonism, Mormonism, and animal magnetism.

The result, in Samuel Hall’s words, was the “party thing,” the proliferation of every conceivable faction from religion to politics to “the ‘hill party’—the ‘meadow party,’ the ‘river party,’ and the ‘school house party, &c. &c.’ ”23 The new republic was disoriented by the cacophony of agendas, ranging from traditions “two thousand year[s]” old to visions of a new “millennium, at once.” A citizenry suddenly “free to do wrong as well as free to do right” was disinclined to collaborate. Many fearfully con-

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cluded that popular governments, in which no tyrant may compel men to “express the same thoughts,” created citizens who “differ in opinions and actions” and easily embrace “ideas and theories which are new and strange.”24 Adding to the difficulties, educational reformers were alerted well before others about the intrinsic limits of the family as the primary site of citizen formation. Individuals wholly “unprepared [for] and uncongenial” to the demands of agency society, including immigrants arriving from oppressive traditional lands beset by ignorance and vice, populated the growing cities: “Accustomed to be restrained by the strong arm of power, and to look upon themselves as belonging to an inferior class of the human race, they suddenly emerge from the darkness of oppression into the light and liberty of freemen. The transition is instantaneous, and admits of no preparation for the new life.” Like a slave raised in America, one who “has been a serf until the day he is twentyone years of age cannot be an independent citizen the day after.” Such political “alienation” made conditions ripe for the undemocratic “demagogue” playing on popular immaturity and, in the view of conservatives, for stirring popular envy of the established.25 Educators did not single out new arrivals for educational remolding in a nativist campaign. “We are all of foreign parentage,” they said, “and but a short distance removed from such an origin.” American parents, including the highest class, careful to disguise “their origin in the lowest,” were also too often “ignorant or vicious instructors,” with “no proper sense” of the importance of learning and moral conduct. With vast numbers of the young having parents only too willing to “relieve themselves of their toilsome duties” imposed by socialization, they had no opportunity to gain more than a “limited education” and “too often entirely neglected” religious cultivation.26 Not only those sunk in ignorance and apathy or extreme poverty but also the rich were failing. Given their “profligate habits,” their “false notions, the useless acquirements, the imperfect instruction,” and their reliance on “invidious distinctions,” those possessing wealth and prestige prepared their children not for “the broad ground of free and open competition” but for “the races, the billiard-rooms, and the brothels.” Even the best were “too blind to their children’s character and capacity, or too impatient for their improvement.” The domestic relation thus seldom provided the “steady, permanent, daily control” that was necessary,

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leaving the young “delinquen[t]” and deprived of adequate instruction themselves on future parental responsibilities.27 The shift from the town and the insular family to the “bustling multitude” in the “mighty city,” with its emphasis on novelty and work outside the home, was further undermining family control and socialization in all classes. Even the strongest proponents of domestic socialization recognized, in the words of Lydia Sigourney, that but few of the multitude under these circumstances had the opportunity to follow the “more excellent way” proposed by family advice books. The lack of a common culture only fed the fears of social anarchy and the fatal distinctions between “rich and poor, educated and uneducated, men of leisure and men of labor.” In Mann’s eloquent summary, education was the last, best hope: “Such an event as the French Revolution never would have happened with free schools; any more than the American Revolution would have happened without them.”28

The Case for Education Despite the evident need to supplement failing domestic socialization and in many cases offer “preventive” measures as an “antidote,” the insistence on a crucial role for public education was novel— and controversial. Family advocates had just succeeded in mobilizing parents as the indispensible directors of child formation. Samuel Goodrich writes: The seminary is home; the teacher is the parent. What spot on earth so likely to abound in general influences as the fireside? What schoolmaster so likely to teach with blended wisdom and kindness as the parent? . . . I should not hesitate to attribute greater importance to home education than to school education; for it is beneath the parental roof, where the heart is young and melted by the warmth of fireside affection, that the foundations of physical, moral, and mental habits are laid . . . where abiding tastes are engendered . . . where lasting opinions are formed.

In Muzzey’s view, putting teachers in a more active role than as “auxiliaries” and “assistants” to the father and mother would be “disastrous to the young.”29 Sigourney was worried that mothers, seeking to get their child “outof-the-way,” would send the child off to school during his most vulner-

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able years. Believing no one could be as “deeply interested in [the] improvement” of the child, she asked rhetorically, “Why then does she entrust it to the management of strangers?” Why expose one’s child to the “influence of evil example” and “promiscuous association”? Sigourney believed the child’s place was in the parents’ home, where “innocence may be shielded” and “intellect aided to expand.” Catharine Sedgwick concurred: “Home is the best school,—the parent is the best teacher.”30 Before the reform movement, education had hardly distinguished itself as the central institution in modern social formation. The schools’ ever “so prevalent” and “old-fashioned style of frightening into obedience” produced only “blindness and ignorance.” Students, forced into docile compliance as “unwilling and miserable slave[s]” by mediocre and unprepared teachers, manifested a “groveling dependence on the decisions and caprices of others” more appropriate to the “servility” and “servitude” of feudalism than to “a vigorous republic.” At the same time, a school system filled with “profane, impure, [and] passionate” youths terrified parents, who preferred that their charges “be kept from contaminating influences” in the community, lest they be “ruined.” Because for many families schooling was of little use for practical life, children were led to the “habit of considering the school a subject of far less importance” than it should be. Irregular attendance and parental neglect and opposition meant that vast numbers were “not furnished with any school[ing] whatever” and that many schools “scarcely deserve[d] the name.”31 Public support seemed unobtainable. For many parents, particularly those who did not themselves have access to “good schools, or leisure to attend such while they were young,” there was a “want of interest,” a “general apathy.” For the rich, the problem was not a lack of schooling but a “heartless indifference” to the education of all they “deem[ed] their [inferior].” Withdrawing to private schools, they were willing to leave public education “poor or indifferent,” at once “ill managed” and little more than a custodial institution, a “mere pound” filled “with the worst children of the place.” That is, once “having secured for themselves a few well-lighted apartments,” the wealthy defended “total darkness,” where others’ “children . . . remain blind,” as somehow “better” for its occupants.32 To bring schools into the national project, education advocates had to demonstrate the distinctive role they could play. Since all were

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“embarked in one bottom” and had to “sink or swim together,” those who refused to indulge in the “language of party” must join to make education the “one institution . . . sacred from the ravages” of “party spirit.” To counter the prevailing fear that the “principles of disunion” were “original in the human heart,” they had to convince a skeptical public that common schools surmounted as no other institution the limited concern with “private personal aims” in their pursuit of “public ends by equitable means.” Common schools could best achieve “what is right, in spite of the favors or the frowns of friends or foe, sect or party,” to inscribe for their “great Republic” the motto “ESTO PERPETUA.”33 Speaking of parental opposition to common schooling, Mann demonstrated his leadership role through his capacity to put the problem most graphically: “ ‘Why all this interference? Why this obtrusion of the State into the concerns of the individual? Are they not our children,’ say they, ‘our own? Who can be presumed to care more for them than we do? And whence your authority,’ they demand, ‘to fetter our free-will, and abridge our sovereignty in their management?’ ” The answer was resounding: “The cry of the age is for true education.” Taylor argued, “If we would perpetuate our country’s happiness and liberty, we must make ourselves intellectual and moral instructors.” The common school could uniquely inculcate order within the young, providing both that which is “true” and “not partisan” and the “only restraining cords” that “will not snap,” and generating for society an “increased centripetal force” to “balance the centrifugal tendencies” of the time.34 Given a government too feeble to do more than merely “check and restrain,” establishing the proper “bias which the minds of her children and youth receive” was the “sole alternative” to continual disorder. With religious influence often “frittered down to a few hours on the Lord’s day,” so too must education provide “the christian faith nearly all its power.”35 The “American schoolmaster” best spoke for the “AMERICAN” and for what was needed to make the “whole population homogeneous”: “Let our instructors then aim to divest their pupils of all unworthy sectional prejudices, and violent party antipathies, let them inspire our youth with a comprehensive patriotism, and a genuine, expansive benevolence toward their countrymen.” Education reached the “needy thousands whose parents think not of the minds or souls of their children,” providing the benefits of quality instruction to all. Muzzey spoke directly to parental realities:

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The child spends in these schools, in ordinary cases, six hours a day; that is, from a third to one half of his conscious existence between the ages of four and sixteen. It is this period which usually decides the character for life, and the large proportion of it spent in the schoolroom clothes that place with a momentous interest. . . . Hence it is . . . that no conscientious parent can fail to give this subject his constant and anxious attention.

Only with common schooling, John Todd wrote, would Americans find “how high” they could raise not simply so many individuals but “the great mass of [the] population.”36 The momentous charge of education was to be the “new agency” that was “far beyond . . . other earthly instrumentalit[ies].” Never before employing more than “one-hundredth part of its potential force” and with powers only “beginning to be understood,” education now made feasible the unprecedented national experiment upon which Americans had embarked. Youth were “treasures of inestimable value” whose “forces and passions of fearful energy” were to be cultivated in a way consistent with the “powers of citizenship.” As education brought together individuals “too near to be independent of each other, or to be indifferent to each other’s interest,” it would nurture “in embryo the future communities of this land,” despite the rhetoric of individualism. Thus “giv[ing] form to chaos and bring[ing] order out of confusion,” education was now the “key-stone of [the] social arch.” George Hillard concurred: “I cannot conceive of the permanence of [American] institutions without a system of popular instruction. When, therefore, I am asked if I approve of the system, it is as if I were asked whether I approve of laws and magistrates, of marriage and of property.”37

Education for Social Transformation While one function of education in “modern and democratic civilization” was to promote social cohesion by pursuing the “greatest good of the greatest number,” a more challenging task lay ahead for a society predicated on a new form of human character: it had to set in place the means by which the “moral nature of man” was “permanently raised and transformed,” which would in turn make the United States “more dependent on education” than elsewhere. If every American child was to become an American citizen and a “constituent part of a self-governing

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people,” an educational process “properly conducted” had to be the locus for this “great work of reformation.” In the inaugural lectures of the American Institute of Instruction, William Russell spoke of precipitating “vast, though silent and unostentatious, changes on the condition of man” in order to “renovate his whole character.” As Taylor wrote, “He who acts upon the mind, takes hold of the future” by “fix[ing] character and destinies of generations that will follow . . . beyond the present generation . . . to the last moment of time.”38 Given that the project of character transformation is one in which “armies, revenues, or constitutions” can have little impact, Americans asked, “What other fountains of intelligence have we for the whole people, but our common schools?” Education elevated those who would “never receive any holy impressions” to stimulate character development “unless they receive them in the school-room.” In this way education became the key to the realization of a universal agency society. Mann believed the pressing educational “mission” was to effect “a new series of developments in human character and conduct.” By undertaking this “vast cause” of human transformation, in relation to which all other goals were but “constituent parts,” Americans would set permanently in motion the “sublime law of progression,” enabling civilization to arrive at the ultimate agency truth, the “eternally and indissolubly One!” A process ensuring the “harmonious development” of its young would wrest from “the void” and then unleash “new and unheard-of powers,” and thereby reconstitute the balance between “mortal misery and happiness” and the fate of “earth and heaven and hell.”39 The project of social transformation dramatically increased the importance of reaching all of the nation’s young. Given the “universality in its operation, which can be affirmed of no other institution whatever,” education had become an “absolute right” on par with “common air” and “common light.” It was simply the “instrument more extensively applicable to the whole mass of the children than any other instrument ever yet devised.” For “every child that comes into the world” in “every district and village,” every corner of “mental and moral darkness,” education could cultivate the many forms of “talent, taste, and power” while reducing many of the “unnatural distinctions of society.”40 From the “nurseries of the public mind” would come “the formation of national character,” as compulsory education ensured that “the children of the rich and the poor sit down side by side on equal terms”

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as the future American community, “members of one family— a great brotherhood.” Every educated child would regard himself as a “member of the community,” and none would feel himself a social burden. In reaching “all the children belonging to the State,— children who are soon to be the State,” education would shape generations who embodied the “national character” and “stamp[ed] their ineffaceable seal upon [American] history.” As each and every citizen was “gradually prepared to become the subject of civil government” in a uniquely modern fashion, the “whole land [would] be watered with the streams of knowledge,” not merely “here and there, a beautiful fountain playing in palace-gardens.”41

Mobilizing a National Constituency A right, however universal in its expression, was only as expansive as its application. Few Americans understood the real challenges that lay behind the sweeping rhetoric of historical change. A radically decentralized society had to be galvanized to carry out the task of social transformation. To this end, the leaders of the common school movement followed the model of popular religious revivalism, reaching out to communities and local leadership throughout the land. They used a variety of methods— community activism, teacher-training programs, conventions, professional educational associations and professional journals, newspaper series, religious organizations, and local and regional political lobbying and campaigning—to “awaken the community to the importance of the subject” and “arouse every thinking mind to vigorous activity.”42 The strategic emphasis for education was thus on “diffusion” of methods rather than simply on the “discovery” of new ones. Since “as the children now are, so will the sovereigns soon be,” there was no substitute for ensuring that each citizen was prepared to meet all the institutional demands of the new society. Mann stated the charge of the movement: “The education of the whole people, in a republican government, can never be attained without the consent of the whole people. Compulsion, even though it were desirable, is not an available instrument. Enlightenment, not coercion, is our resource.”43 Establishing an educational system in a liberal society, in other words, to be “accomplished here (if at all),” required “voluntary action,” what

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Frederick A. Packard called “voluntary co-operation . . . throughout [the] land.” The role of education had to be “explained.” Partisans and sectarians were asked to lay down their rhetorical arms and further the “assimilating and uniting tendency” of the emerging society by becoming “sustainer[s] of the Common school system” for all children. Building momentum for the great “cause of Popular Education” would, it was hoped, give rise in every town to leaders and “in many, a band.”44

Reaching Divergent Interests The scale and focus of this mobilization is evident in the dissection of divergent community interests, which generated appeals targeted to different constituencies. Mann, who once described himself as “a fluid sort of man, adapting myself to tastes, opinions, habits, manners, so far as this can be done without hypocrisy or insincerity, or a compromise of principle,” was the master of this strategy. Every constituency had interests to be acknowledged. Unlike the writers for youth, the educational advocates focused first on current and prospective parents, the crucial voices in determining local school policies. A shift to standardized and mandatory preparation of the young, by taking education “out of the hands of parents” more and more, clearly intruded on “parental influence and authority.” Given teachers’ own “somewhat questionable” authority for the role they were demanding, they had to address the continuing difficulties arising from parental resistance, including “THE WANT OF CO- OPERATION, OR THE MISDIRECTED INFLUENCE OF THE PARENT.” 45 Advocates employed numerous strategies to minimize “collision[s]” and bring adults into the fold. They realized, “If we wish to educate the child, we must also educate the parents.” Teachers were to cultivate parental “confidence” that families remained the guiding force of local education, and to emphasize how schooling implemented the goals of domestic socialization. Every “enlightened” parent concerned with the “direction and culture of the intellectual and moral nature” will be among the “friends of education.” The older generation would also benefit from the enhanced learning environment. An educated young operating “constantly and powerfully upon the family” would demonstrably elevate “the conversation, manners and conduct” of the whole community. By cooperating, then, a parent could feel “part of a mighty nation, which has just embarked on the grandest experiment ever yet attempted on earth.”46

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To emphasize the benefits, Mann shrewdly polled teachers— no impartial audience— about the effectiveness of a competent universal education from ages four to sixteen. To what extent would such an education, he asked, produce “useful and exemplary men,—honest dealers, conscientious jurors, true witnesses, incorruptible voters or magistrates, good parents, good neighbors, good members of society,” as distinct from those who “must be pronounced irreclaimable and irremediable,” for whom it was “better for the community had they never been born”? Not surprisingly, the projected rate of failure for the new education ranged from 2 percent to Mann’s claim that “ninety-nine in every hundred of them can be rescued”— and included several (one from Catherine Beecher) indicating that not “one, no, not a single one” would fail.47 At the same time, the parental monopoly over the child’s destiny had to be addressed in no uncertain terms. Because children “encounter perils more dangerous than to walk a bridge of a single plank, over a dark and sweeping torrent,” their condition cried out for expert guidance. Were parents to “lay their rash hands upon this holy work” lacking the necessary knowledge and skill, the chances were “infinity to one against the proper training” being implemented. Given the risk of producing Cain rather than Abel, parents needed to realize that “in no other navigation is there such a danger of wreck; in no other is there such blind pilotage.” The character-building initiative entailed “such delicacy and difficulty” that it required those “deeply conversant with the human soul, with all its various faculties and propensities,” its “circumstances and objects.”48 The distinct concerns and anxieties of parents from different socioeconomic backgrounds were strategically addressed. The involvement of well-to-do families, who regarded themselves as “too good” to attend “the public school” and preferred to remain in a “higher and more select circle by themselves,” was essential to the “financial success of the initiative.” They were told by the civic leader Bishop George W. Doane of New Jersey, “The Common School [must be] common, not as inferior, not as the school for poor men’s children. . . . It ought to be the best school.” Mann asked them in this regard, “Could there, in your opinion, be any police so vigilant and effective, for the protection of all the rights of person, property, and character . . . [as the] sound and comprehensive education and training [in the common schools]?” Seeking the support of the

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commercial community, he gathered testimonials from business leaders about how a common school education would generate new “habits of industry and economy” and improved skills, initiative, and industrial innovation on every rung of the occupational ladder. Education was a primary creator of wealth in all classes, a “great money-maker,— not by extortion; but by production.”49 Participation by members of the “more respectable and opulent class” was touted for another reason as well. It would prevent these parents from making the “foolish” decision of pushing their children toward “excess and predominance” by indulging children’s “every whim and desire” as well as their “vicious inclinations.” Unlike private schools, which produced “incendiaries and madmen” unfit to function in popular society, public schools immersed the young in society “such as it is.” They taught the “language of men” and a knowledge of the broader community that every class “must enter, earlier or later,” and serve. The emergence of public high schools at the end of this period would draw heavily on this rationale.50 The middle class needed to recognize that despite the private schools’ “showy” and “superficial” promises, they were often not of the highest quality and would provide their children less supervision, less commitment to a common society, and less than competent teaching. The upwardly mobile needed to be convinced (as many in the urban middle class already were) of the importance of education for entering skilled and professional white- collar occupations. Though more important after the Civil War, the practical benefits of education on “the worldly fortunes and estates of men” meant their children would have the opportunity to qualify for higher-level occupations in the emerging commercial society. Inculcating the “right spirit” to make the young “provident, industrious, temperate, and frugal” would be “the best prevention of pauperism,” of which “nearly nine-tenths” was due to “moral causes, such as improvidence; idleness, intemperance, and a want of moderate energy and enterprise.”51 The poor, whether once “serf[s] in Austria or in America,” were targets of the educational initiative, both because they “are, or will be voters” and because their children as natives would have a powerful role in shaping Americans’ “social and civil existence.” Substituting for a system that allowed the masses to “become worse,” educational reform would lift them out of “the dust” into the “sunshine of a higher and better

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life.” Parents whose “weakness of their moral principle” resulted in their children’s neglect risked exposing them to the “truant’s downward course,” which culminated in life as a “ruined, wretched, forsaken, miserable outcast.”52 On a larger scale, the “domination of capital and the servility of labor” risked leaving society “monopolized by the few,” whereas universal schooling, by “diffusing old wealth” and “creating new,” would redistribute “property, human comfort and competence.” Liberating children from juvenile labor was part of this effort: “How can any man seek to enlarge his own gains, or to pamper his own luxurious habits” by keeping a child from school when “he knows that he does it at the sacrifice” of the child’s “intellectual and moral life?”53 Educational outreach also addressed members of each political faction. Despite their strong laissez-faire attitude toward government, all Democrats—be they party leaders, radicals, members of craft and workingmen’s organizations, more radical urban reformers, liberal newspaper editors and workers, shopkeepers, or artisans—were encouraged to support public education. They were continually reminded of its impact in broadly disseminating culture, knowledge, democratic attitudes, self-reliance, enterprise, literacy, and opportunity. To the doctrinaire “objector” to public institutions, the injunction was particularly harsh: “This earth is much too small, or the race is far too numerous, to allow us to be hermits; and therefore we cannot adopt either the philosophy or the morals of hermits.”54 As a result, in spite of their increasing political antagonism toward the emerging class-based society, Democrats advocated universal schooling, evident in the masthead of the Working Men’s Advocate in New York, which read, “All children are entitled to equal education; all adults to equal privileges.”55 For the more socially elevated Whigs—including urban civic elites, newspaper editors, philanthropists, establishment religious figures, nativist Protestants, middle-class educators and reformers, and rural political elites as well as commercial farmers—the growing inevitability of broad popular governance was stressed to increase the appeal of an educated public. To demonstrate their commitment to popular aspirations and appeal to Democratic voters, education was no longer cast as an elite privilege but as a popular “instrument of reform” worthy of conspicuous Whig support.56 Less explicit was the advantage of education as a brake on popular demands for immediate equality. Schooling

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promised equal access to social and economic activity, but it did so by providing a rigorous and time-consuming path to success. Smaller political groups were encouraged to join the Democrats and Whigs. Sectarians seeking access for their children to the larger society were offered a welcome alternative to the separatist socialization provided by religious communities. One minister noted in 1848 that school events were “crowded,” while his own prayer meetings were sparsely attended.57 As the moral agenda of the educational advocates was more clearly recognized as having a Protestant character and the religiously committed took on more leadership positions, many in the religious community were drawn to public education. Bushnell observed, “We cannot have Puritan common schools—they are gone already—we cannot have Protestant common schools, or those which are distinctly so, but we can have common schools, and these we must agree to have and maintain, till the last or latest day of our liberties. These are American, as our liberties themselves are American.”58 The public schools provided many immigrants and even many Catholics the most accessible ladder to social mobility, and pioneers in the Midwest were exhorted to initiate public schooling as they settled the national heartland. With “every eye” now “turned to the school-houses and school-teachers of the country,” the common school movement extended its reach more widely than other institutions. The leaders of this “greatest work of reform,” believing it would drive the “wheel of progress” to move the nation “harmoniously and resistlessly onward,” placed education at the “centre and circumference” of the quest to frame the terms of national integration. Tyack and Hansot have noted with surprise the extent to which, “given the contentiousness of party politics and the competition of religious sects, the leaders of the common-school movement succeeded in making public education to be not only non-sectarian but also politically non-partisan.” Despite disputes based on class, religion, and ethnicity that were “crosscutting and intertwined in complex ways,” there never emerged, as in England, “separate educational platforms or different educational principles” by the parties.59 Yet reformers recognized the controversial nature of their work “to make schooling more responsive” to new “political, economic, and cultural tasks.” Their large-scale reform efforts would encounter “opposition, violent opposition,” as conservatives, sectarian clergy, and other

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proponents supporting traditional pedagogy and discipline, elite education, limits on the social integration of immigrants, and traditional authority reacted strongly.60 It is easy in hindsight to underestimate the achievement by which “a consensus based on public schooling as a common and public good became an enduring legacy of that millennial faith.”61 The success of the movement depended on its ability to reach broad constituencies. Yet it was also necessary to convince the public that the new educational initiative had devised the means for producing the self-reliant yet responsible, that is agency, citizens that educators had insisted were the foundation of the new republic.

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Educating the Agent as Liberal Citizen It may be easy to make a Republic, but it is a very laborious thing to make Republicans. —Horace Mann

The greatest challenge for the new educators was to determine what preparation individuals would need to become members of a consenting body politic. They understood their predicament as “pioneers in this work in this country,” pursuing a “radical improvement in the means of education” through an organized process of child shaping that had “scarcely been naturalized,” that is, realized, “among us.”1 In his preface to Lectures on School-Keeping Samuel Hall refers to the daunting task as an experiment being undertaken with “no track to guide” the innovator besides “his own judgment and experience.” Because of the great disparity “between [America’s] political institutions, and those of any other government . . . which has ever existed,” Horace Mann dispensed with precedents as “stale” evidence from past times. To determine what will work today, he argued, the inquiry must be directed away from the past and toward “the nature of things” to identify the elements of human development and intervention that “always continue to be true.”2 Building upon the innovations of family reformers, educators anchored the willing assumption of the agency character deeply in the psyche of the young, enabling the American people to presume their compliance to be voluntary and their society to be free. In so doing they laid the groundwork for mainstream American culture and ensured their contribution to the nation’s formation. 216

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Freedom and Constraint Americans were troubled about the “radical reformation of educational principles and systems,” which, not surprisingly, provoked a widespread “dread of innovation.” Having jettisoned authoritarian practices, the reformers were challenged to inspire “FAITH” in the “great law of individual and social progress” to rebut accusations of “so much morbid” tampering with pedagogy.3 They had to demonstrate how the agency approach would establish ordered conduct and systematic learning. It was unclear how encouraging “the youth and even the child, to think and reason for himself” would result in an “active obedience to rightful authority.”4 Moreover, reformers who argued that these strategies promoted compliance were also obligated to explain how their work would promote a free society. The advocates of change, having clarified the agency child-rearing dynamic in the earlier family discourse, understood that these multiple priorities could be resolved only by showing the effectiveness of agency practices in preparing citizens. On one hand, the classroom had to outfit the young for active participation in a self-reliant and self-governing society by facilitating new powers and a belief in their own autonomy: “As a child must ultimately separate from his family, and adapt himself to the ever-varying emergencies of life, and struggle with its difficulties and temptations, he should be early prepared for all this.” Even at a young age American children were often placed in situations where “they [were] left to take care of themselves,” what Hall called “situations, where self-control is all on which they can depend.” Only by learning how to “educate themselves, when they shall have left the school and the living teacher,” would they be fit for republican life.5 Schools must therefore cultivate a nature that “craves variety and change” and is motivated by a “self-directing power” and sense of inner purpose. Modern children must be capable of using their “vital and efficient forces” as they “meet and re-cast opinions, codes, communities, as crude ores are melted and purified in the furnace.” Only then would they possess “minds which move the great machinery of society” and take “an active part in the operations of the world.”6 Engaging in commerce and social responsibilities far “beyond the family circle,” in the “tumultuous throng of men,” amid “broken institutions” and “a world in commotion,” where one is eventually left to one’s own discretion, the

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individual had to face every challenge “prepared to protect and guide and teach himself.”7 On the other hand, individuals had to learn how to operate within social networks. What awaited youth was not life as “some Robinson Crusoe in a far-off island” or even life in a free and idyllic “natural society” in which they could “shrink into [their] individuality, and disclaim connection and relationship with the world at large.” This would only render them “hermits and solitaries,” in the eyes of others all but “halfmad or half-monstrous.” Rather, with its growing need for social interchange society had an obligation to render each citizen a “public man” willing to undertake what was needed by the community as a whole. Encouraging both self-will and the social affections that “interest[ed] [Americans] in the welfare of [their] kindred, [their] friends, [their] acquaintance, and [their] race,” educational reformers, complementing the family thinkers, would further consolidate the agency character balance of individualism and commitment upon which the American project relied.8

Winning the Child to (Natural) Self-Development Unlike the family, whose control of the young was a cultural given and— even if cast as preparation for freedom—fully understood as such by adults, early educational institutions had no open-ended warrant. Schools educated the young at a later point in their identity and role formation. Educators were continually subject to parental scrutiny and worked with children more set in their ways and already more influenced by freedom rhetoric, so teachers were not in a position to impose an agenda. Policy initiatives were also constrained by popular suspicion of institutional demands— summarized in one Vermonter’s insistence, “I’ll be coaxed but I won’t be drived”— and the public view of education as the port of entry into the “free society.”9 To win over a reluctant public to the value of education, reformers were inclined to idealize their pupils’ prospects more than in the family discourse as well as to inflate the essential role of their pedagogical methods in producing free citizens. Constraints were justified as facilitating the cultivation of inner resources that enabled “every man to act according to his own native dignity and free choice.”10 Asserting the “directness of [the] course” to self-reliance and self-direction, educa-

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tional reformers promised to provide the “highest attainment” of which the young were capable. Through the “vast changes and improvements in character” generated by the educators, each child would achieve the “perfect character” of a “perfect man or woman” rising to its “highest and holiest direction.”11 At the same time, achievement of a full agency character was now understood to owe less to education than to the vital and legitimate “power that comes from within.” Given an “angelic” being bathed in the “light from heaven” and “fresh from that Hand which has written the laws of truth upon the heart,” optimal forms of self-realization and the good society would emerge unbidden in the absence of pedagogic missteps. In a process that brought forth the individual’s “inward universe, illimitable in extent, and eternal in duration,—the image of the all-pervading Deity,” the young by the time of the Civil War were being consecrated as saviors who “float in the Infinite, whence they come.” Release of this “godlike capacity” would provide them the power to freely reshape “the Universe” and in effect “re-edenize the earth.”12 The new pedagogy presumed that the young had already actualized in their families the “first principle of man”: perpetual action. Unlike societies wherein the “human faculties are benumbed and paralyzed,” creating a “chained mind” that can do little, free societies “multiply human energies” until they “glow with an intense life, and burst forth with uncontrollable impetuosity.” In presuming a young child already growing and unfolding on his own, educators could position themselves as facilitating the child’s natural evolution as “joint-partners” with parents and pupils. By building on “Nature, rather than in opposition to her dictates,” education “elevate[d] way above every thing else the nature and capabilities” of the individual.13 Supplementing this “natural course” of “infant morality” already in progress, direct shaping could thus be cast as a liberating intervention. The objective was “to remove improper restraints; since all these faculties, if secured from pernicious influences and allowed free opportunity for exercise, will grow up, on the ordinary course of nature, in a healthy and vigorous state.” This orientation made clear to the young— and their parents—that education was organized for their improvement and “their best good,” providing each the “private judgment and selfdirection” to take on “a part for himself to act, and a responsibility for himself to bear.”14

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Harvey Newcomb addressed youth directly: “Remember that you are placed at school for your own benefit. It is not for your parents’ advantage, nor for the benefit of your teachers, that you are required to study; but for your own good.” Of course, even an education for freedom required the submission of one’s will and desires, the more so the “greater the liberty enjoyed” by a particular society. Systematic regulations, identified as necessary to prepare the youth “for higher spheres of usefulness and happiness,” were portrayed as being made for the child to expand his sense of his own true interests and autonomy.15 Children were to see themselves as undertaking their own selfdevelopment. Following “the voice of Nature,” this “true path” they were offered led to the emergence of their “true self,” their “real nature” and destiny, the whole individual in “all respects what he was designed to be.” Engagement in this process amounted to being “invited” to participate in one’s own internal “evolution.” The result was not an “accretion” or “accession of knowledge from without” but “waking up” from the sleep of immaturity through “the developement” of “noble powers and capacities” until maturity is reached.16 The emphasis was on the unfolding of hitherto “hidden powers” and “dormant sensibilities” unknown even to the subject, all the capacities of mind and body that would enable the young to choose among possible paths to self-realization. As the individual achieved the efficient and complete use of these capacities, they collectively matured into the “abiding Power” of the individual, a “selfimpelling” capacity to actualize oneself as a self-motivated initiator ready to assume power in society.17

Self-Development as Self-Containment Once the children’s commitment to their own growth was secured, the capacity to “be able to restrain and direct themselves” was the necessary complement. Variously called “self-guidance,” “self-education,” and “selfsurpassing,” among many other names, the ability of “surmounting, by their own efforts” the obstacles to “self-knowledge, self-control, and selfculture” was at base the critical virtue of “SELF-GOVERNMENT” or “selfdiscipline.” The goal was internal guidance that would be equally effective “in the presence of governors” and in “their absence.”18 As with the family discourse, self-regulation was redefined as the embrace of one’s “monitor,” alternately referred to as “enlightened con-

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science” the “inward voice,” the “Divine Light within,” or secularly as “Reason” and the “moral agent.” In the educational context, enabling the child to “follow out [his] own conclusions, free from the shackles of human authority,”19 required processes whereby the teacher’s authority was in the child’s mind “superseded by the love of right” flowing from the “internal principle” or “conviction of his responsibility to himself.”20 An education defined as the fulfillment of individual autonomy enabled Americans of the early republic to hold fast to the liberal conviction that “no two things [were] wider asunder than freedom and slavery.” Social discipline had ceased to be a matter of imposition and had become the voluntary assumption of limits intrinsic to the empowered agent. By encouraging the full use of individuals’ resources within those boundaries, republican education harnessed the vast energies of a selfmobilizing populace. Activating the dynamic of “free labor” (and not “slave-labor”) from childhood, citizens would “accomplish in a single hour” more than they could otherwise in a “whole day.”21 The pressing question for teachers, then, was how to establish this understanding of constraints in the young.

Internalizing Education To produce an individual at once dynamic and self-controlled clearly involved an “ingenuity of contrivance.” It required, advocates realized, “turning one principle of human nature against another,” that is, stirring the emotions while directing them back as their own constrainer. To gain the child’s initial commitment to both aspects of his education, common school advocates followed family reformers in relocating the source of pedagogic demands and expectations to the child’s own will. The great question of American pedagogy became how to facilitate the necessary internalization without access to children in the years of greatest “pliability,” when their impressions were the “deepest and most lasting”: “How can I excite an interest among my pupils in their studies?”22 To establish the “true path” for the “whole of the rising generation” and “their posterity for ever,” the new pedagogy would need to “go deeper than [they had] yet reached.” Somehow self-direction would have to be linked to the “interest of men to act in a given way.” The extremes, traditional “doctrines of passive obedience” and “modern degeneracy

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and rash innovation,” had to be replaced by a “bold spirit of inquiry” that emphasized “strict scrutiny” and “varied experiment.” In the “violent struggle” between “the old and the new,” the goal was to “train up a generation . . . who will not be so servilely attached to antiquity, that they will close their eyes to substantial improvement, nor so zealous for change that they can discover nothing good in the past or present order of things.”23 While radical experimentation was decried, by far the greatest problem was posed by opponents of reform, “moral bunglers” who demanded “conformity to the existing standard.” Methods of external imposition that “force open [students’] mental gullets, and pour in without mercy and without discretion,” were renounced for producing only the “imbecility” of passive “victims” and “sheep.” The use of a “most debasing and dementalizing” fear by a “whip-holding task-master” and “daily prisonkeeper” resulted only in the “slave-labor” typical of the bondage of despotisms and of “menial servants,” the “deadly blight” of “negro-servitude,” and the “fearful spread of lynching and mob-law.”24 The emphasis on compulsion made “dolts” capable only of “mechanical routine.” Mann spoke of the old ways as stagnation, producing heads “surrounded by air as hot and dry as that of an African desert . . . condemned to read what they did not comprehend, and to commit to memory arbitrary rules.”25 Once overt controls were set aside as useless for developing in children the “ability and habit of governing themselves,” the entire project turned to “indirect moral control,” whose constraints were “noiseless and unobtrusive,” even hidden: “Men govern best when they do not seem to govern.” The catalyst now driving development, teachers were told, was to be framed henceforth as the pursuit of pleasure and initiative: “how [children] are pleased” determines how “they may, most early be governed.”26 Like child-rearing reformers, educators appreciated how, by establishing in the child an “inseparable connexion between his duty and his happiness,” he would instead of “creeping unwillingly to school” be spurred to enter into the process “with all his might,—to enjoy with all his heart.” The teacher was to be a craftsman, to learn his materials, those “natural propensities, qualities and powers” of the subject-matter at hand, including most significantly the operation of children’s selfmotivation: “If we would know how to please children, we must know the Sources of their pleasure.”27

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New Pedagogic Techniques To provide focused initiative toward social ends within the maturing child, pedagogic techniques needed to “touch the right spring, with the right pressure, at the right time.” Pleasure, the first and thus “most powerful and prominent” impulse in gaining hold of the child’s will, had to be channeled into effective methods or “proper instrument[s]” providing the “means of modifying and regulating” students. That is, pleasure had to be linked to “well-doing” and to the gratification and “rectitude” that would “most naturally result” in the “subordinate” and “proper sphere” of responsible activity.28 The search for innovative methods that would “furnish those motives which will best induce the young to apply themselves” dominated the concern of early professional organizations. In place of a heavyhanded process that produced passivity and intellectual lethargy and ran contrary to the “developement” of the faculties and “enlargement of the natural capacities,” the new regimen would exploit the child’s active nature. It would emphasize “doing” rather than “telling” and provide conditions in which the child was “allowed to express” the material in his “own way.” Innovative curricular materials and instructions were disseminated through journals and conferences, encouraging teachers to provide children with interesting materials and lessons, constant activity, frequent breaks, intelligent conversation, and the stimulus to “think— to examine and to inquire.”29 By noting early enthusiasms, such as the early “pleasure of acquiring,” teachers could encourage their consolidation into socially functional activities, such as the lifelong wish “to acquire.” Objects and processes that would “quicken and employ” each of the child’s faculties were to be identified, enabling him to “grow by exercise.” Increasing interest and pleasure in the activity would in turn stimulate the child’s sense that he was acting from within. This experience of “contriving and executing his plan” would generate the “feeling of power” that comes from “accomplishing a great effect.” By selecting tasks and activities that could be effectively mastered, the teacher would further reinforce the sense of accomplishment and in turn “stimulate his pupils to the highest degree of exertion.”30 The specific methods favored by reformers reflected this agenda. Educators recommended activities such as continual conversation and

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questioning to “[keep one’s] mind active.” The teacher was never to “do any thing for a scholar, but teach him to do it for himself.” At the same time, to encourage the child to “experiment in the art of self-control,” teachers were to provide opportunities for the child to express and act on the wish to assume direction and responsibility. A careful balance between suggestion and forbearance would nudge the child in responsible directions: rather than “discourage inquiry” or “answer the question,” the teacher should “go just so far as to enlighten him a little, and put him on the scent, then leave him to achieve the victory himself.”31 Directed play in “good schools for playing” was particularly effective in building responsible initiative: using construction materials to stimulate “plan, forethought, arrangement, and accommodation” and broken window panes and a pocket-knife to make a prism, collecting wild flowers to assort, classify, and examine, and making maps and models of towns and cities to study their planning, functions, and history.32 The lasting result would be to “awaken” in the child a zeal to “try again and again,” so that in time “he shall be very unwilling to be assisted.” Kept “fully occupied,” assisted by one who knows “not only how and when to give, but, also, how and when not to give,” children were taught “the habit of investigating” and profitably employed to “discover and ascertain for themselves.” Thus set on the road to socially directed independence, they were as they matured to be trained in practical subjects and encouraged to engage in the business of the school by assuming a “continual delegation of power” in classroom and school responsibilities. Provided such lessons in independent functioning, with adults “reposing trust in them” as they attained proficiency, the young would gradually take responsibility in the community and become adept at the “practical affairs of life.”33 Through this opportunity to perfect his responses by “slow degrees and by gentle use,” the child would achieve habituation to the “systematic application of his powers.” By “acting repeatedly, in the right manner, from the right motive,” self-regulation would flourish as an internalized sense of duty. The experience of self-directedness would not be compromised, for this inner bias to “habits of ORDER and SYSTEM” would function “silently and unseen” in the student.34 Jacob Abbott explained the developmental outcome: From acting as he had hitherto been accustomed to act, in entire dependence on . . . his teacher,—he has advanced to the dignity of self-

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control. He begins to feel that it is degrading to him to be watched like an infant, and to be regarded incapable of moral effort. If the succeeding steps in the series are skilfully taken—and the process is not urged too fast—the pupil will soon find a new pleasure . . . in meeting and resisting temptation,—in receiving proofs of confidence and showing himself worthy of the trust. . . . The task for moral improvement and the feeling of moral power is formed, and all that is now necessary is for the teacher to go steadily forward, presenting one duty after another, and bringing his pupils into circumstances where they have opportunity to perform the duties, and to resist the opposing temptations.35

By mastering “this great work of forming habits,” the student would gain the fortitude and constancy to “go steadily on the path of duty visible to his eyes alone.” As the “unalloyed pleasure” of possessing an “integrity invincible amid allurement or peril” mobilized ever greater responsibility, the youth could be safely released to his own devices to act with initiative and apparent spontaneity on the road to social integration as a mature liberal agent.36

Educators: Facilitators of a New Nation In giving education the central role in shaping the New World citizen, the common school movement emphasized the close link “between the duties of the school-room and those of the world,” making the public schools “suitable places to commence the training of youth to the knowledge of the world.” Teachers, representing “the highest interests of the community,” were lead actors in the drama of national formation. To parents they were cast as a “divinely appointed ministry . . . in the sacred temple of education.” Their mission was to focus on the nature of the young and “mould it, with unerring certainty, into the images of our hopes and desires.”37 Thus were parents pressed with the “importance and necessity” of allowing educators and children “time for this great work.” Like “clay in the hand of the potter,” the rising generation would “most certainly take the form, adopt the principles, and fall into the habits” determined by “the all fashioning power of education.” More than a sculptor who “will leave his impress upon the mind which time will not efface,” the teacher “takes the soul as it comes from the hand of its God, with powers and capacities to be evolved by education, which assimilates it to the Deity himself” and gives ultimate shape to its “god-like powers.”38

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As in the context of the evolving liberal family, women were singled out. They were to be the facilitators of the shift to a more affective and nurturing pedagogy, the ideal “bridge over the chasm between the natural life of infancy or childhood, and the artificial thing called a school.” Catherine Beecher’s organi zational efforts and such works as “An Essay on the Education of the Female Teachers” (1835) and The Duty of American Women to Their Country (1845) asserted that women were “the natural and appropriate guardian of childhood.” It was, she wrote, “in the power of American women to save their country,” hoping to instill in women the commitment to the “high and holy mission” for which they were so evidently fit, that of educating the nation’s children and youth.39 The “solemn charge” for teachers was daunting: to “cultivate within themselves the character and spirit which they wish to form within the child.” A prospective teacher might wonder, “ ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’ ‘Who can meet and sustain such responsibility?’ ” Teachers—“far more brilliant” than any “conqueror”—were to be executors of the divine “law of progress,” bringing a “genuine REFORMATION” to the world.40 At the head of a “mighty movement” to “enfranchise” and “bless the world,” they would bring a “new era dawn[ing],” a “new heaven and a new earth,” in which God would surely “plant his Paradise anew” and the “jubilee of universal emancipation shall sound.”41

A Noble Self-Forbearance Carrying out the demanding task that lay before teachers required enormous “ingenuity and enterprise.” To advance the child’s all-important commitment to his socialization and integration, educators— even more than parents—were to present themselves as adjuncts and enablers of children’s natural growth. The teacher’s constant injunction was to “place himself in the condition of his pupils,” to “feel their difficulties, and use their means to surmount them.” Education can “neither create [n]or destroy; but only develop and construct character out of what previously exists . . . [by] draw[ing] out from the individual, whatever intrinsic results it produces.” By striving to enter into the children’s most inward feelings, the teacher could preserve and nurture their “original freshness and force” in the unfolding of “nature’s plan.” Rather than “force, or strive to give an artificial direction” to children, the teacher was to “gently lead things into ‘the way they should go.’ ”42

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The teacher’s deference indicated an intent to cultivate a “very different relation” with students, based on “moral ascendancy” acquired as “a true friend.” By furthering their “best good” and persuading them that “he is on the[ir] side,” 43 the teacher strove to forge the same affective attachment as a parent. The teacher was to tap the pupil’s “desire for improvement, progress, [and] growth” and his “ardent wish” to “surpass himself,” thereby stimulating a “love of increasing power” that motivated him to “do more than he has ever done before.” The goal was to “cheer and lead” young minds toward internal spiritual development by “caus[ing] them to think and act for themselves,” thus contributing to their “deep self-reverence” as it assumed a “glorious likeness to the Divine Original.”44 As the child “progressively experience[d] himself” achieving selfguidance, with a growing “delight in self-education,” that is, ongoing self-improvement, he would affirm the teacher’s impact on his life. Now regarding himself as “happy, too, in his own way,” not the teacher’s, the child would be unable to “resist the influences” acting upon him. Eager to reciprocate such devotion, he would maintain a “personal attachment” that would bind him to the teacher. The deep and lasting impression generated by the “fervent spirit of a loved instructor” would produce the gentle and seamless control the teacher “wish[ed] to create” through “cords of reason, confidence, and affection” and the “silken cords of love.”45 In this way the teacher accumulated the “power, to direct [students] in almost any path” he chose. The students unknowingly integrated an early “spirit of subordination to lawful authority,” strengthened through similar relations in the nursery and family. This integration would “lay a foundation for submission to the usages of society” and “prompt and willing obedience” as a lifelong pattern. As Mann summed it up, “where there is perfect love, every known law will be fulfilled,” just as “certainly as every true disciple finds the love of Christ ‘constraining’ him to good works.”46

The Self-Directing Social Agent With the “complete development” of “all the talents, the powers of mind and body, as well as the moral and religious faculties” fulfilling the “obvious purpose of [their] Creator,” young adults were as “moral men”

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with a “holy character” set to become “independent agents” and not “blind followers.” They were now eager to “co-operate with Providence” to facilitate “human improvement.” This was a joint effort to actualize the “law of progress,” a law not “arbitrarily imposed upon man” but requiring his “voluntary action.” To fulfill his role as an independent agent meant being able to choose “means rather than ends” and pursue with “active energy and firmness of purpose” those “certain ends” and “certain duties” identified by the Creator as worthy of an elevated humanity.47 The final step before release from local supervision was therefore to help youth “discover for [them]selves the means and procedures” that aligned with the “great and inflexible laws of the Creator.” Tutelage reinforcing parental lessons on the governing cosmic and social law whose patterns “direct [one’s] course” and “regulate [one’s] tendencies” would encourage youth to fit themselves into the “peaceful channels” of “conforming personal habits” in their life choices. Ratification of, that is, consent to emerging institutional norms and processes as the optimal means for self-realization would mobilize the individual to perform within each sector of liberal society and generate faith that one was participating in the broader dissenting Protestant “brotherhood” or “partnership” of agency society as an “extended system of co-operation.”48 To build a consensus regarding the new institutions, the educational process was to emphasize the common paths to institutional engagement and to steer clear of the controversies of the adult world; “partisan topics which agitate” the “tempest of political strife” were unwelcome in the common schools. Recognizing that families professed “every shade of religious belief” and that teachers’ beliefs often differed from those of their pupils, teachers were to avoid sectarian controversy. They were to resist “favor[ing] the peculiar tenets of a particular sect” and leave specific religious doctrine to parents and guardians. At the same time, not every view was to be assimilated. The “dissenting minority,” if there was one, was so small that it was “hardly to be considered,” and opinions like those of “an irreligious man” were not to be followed any more than those of a “monarchist” or “drunkard.”49 Accepting that individuals shared the dissenting goal of “seeking, through different avenues, to reach the gate of heaven,” the schools were the “one place in the land” where the young from every denomination were able to learn together and “kneel at a common altar.” Refusing both

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“ecclesiastical tyranny and the greater evils of atheism,” educators were asked to identify the “common ground” to which “no reasonable man can object”—the essentials of Christianity to which the “whole community has agreed” and the common elements of “Christian practice.”50 The message for the young was that Christ “need not be ‘divided’ ”: “Let the grown people be Trinitarians and Unitarians, Catholics and Protestants: be content to let the children be Christians.” An “enlightened, Christian education” would thus establish the universal “true religion” rooted in the Bible as the “national book” and Americans as “children of one common Father” ever more integrated and unified.51 In terms of politics, the deft “middle course” that rejected “political proselytism” in the schools would promote the universal “creed of republicanism” constituting Americans’ “common faith.” Instructors would focus on the patriotic “rights and duties of an American citizen” as an “associate sovereign.” Regarding economics, providing every child with a competent education and morally assuring them of the justness of differences as “rewards of merit” would by stimulating the will and incentive to participate provide the “most certain means of success.”52 Education would also point the way toward integration in society. Awakened to the love of “praise— a desire of approbation— a wish to please,” students would thereafter be motivated by the “desire of continued reputation” and a concern for “respectability and influence as a member of the community.” Internalizing the “standard” of appropriate “action and opinion pervading the . . . community” and cultivating social virtues and manners, they would seek to become “qualified for Social rank” as “good citizens, and respectable men.”53 The ultimate message was one of agency commitment to the new republic in all its dimensions. The nation needed those who would accept “things as they are” and “perform [their] office with facility, precision and despatch.” Refusing to be impeded by early circumstances that bore “no relation” to one’s future prospects, the ideal citizen would be capable of “making himself what he chooses to become.” As they traversed the critical transition from childhood to young adulthood, that dangerous “heyday of their blood,” students ascended from “the condition of restraint to that of freedom, from years of enforced but impatient servitude to that of independence,” from “the political nothingness of a child to the political sovereignty of a man.” They were now possessed of the ultimate capacity to be “fitted” for society and for

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themselves,54 believing that they had willed their fate as free and responsible agents but likely unmindful of the coordinated effort it took to reach this point.

Toward a Science of Agency Development With education assuming the mantle from religion of forger of common ideals and continuing the work begun by the family, the agency society ceased to be a mere vision. The groundwork for a morally advanced polity rooted in individualism and popular participation was increasingly discernible within the American citizenry and institutional life: The universal tendency of mankind [is] to follow the multitude, whether it be to good or to evil . . . [given] the overwhelming force of public opinion upon public morals . . . [which is] quite as powerful among young children as among grown children. . . . In the uncultivated state of the conscience which now universally exists, the multitude rarely lead to good, almost always to evil. . . . But introduce a system of moral culture . . . into the schools generally; let all children be trained from infancy to look at every thing from a moral point of view . . . and then, would not the operation of these principles in men (call it imitation, fashion, or what you will), would it not frequently be the reverse of what it is now? Would not the multitude frequently be followed to good instead of to evil?

Acquitting themselves responsibly as “copartners in the relations of life, our equals at the polls, our rulers in legislative halls, the awarders of justice in our courts,” the populace would each become repositories of the national vision, each a star of “distinct magnitude and splendor,” each “perfect in their sphere, and in fulfilling the mission.” In this perfected order, each was to be a “truly independent mind” moving “like the planets revolving” in their “appropriate orbit,” the final liberal synthesis of individualism and social patterns.55 Led by children shaped in the image— and carrier— of the nation’s millennial aspirations, generations that were increasingly adapted to republican life would spread the new ideals to “elevate the condition of the human race” and “bring the earth nearer to heaven.” Mann understood how novel and vast the aspirations were: “In this infancy of the world, we rashly prescribe limits to what may be done, from what has been done,—which is about as wise as it would be to say of an infant,

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that because it never has walked or talked, it never will.” Called to bring forth national and individual perfection, youth could hardly resist participation in liberal socialization and education. Nor was one likely to question the acts of socializers who purportedly led each child “to strive after perfection,” who sacralized the young’s intrinsic morality as “always . . . correct, if not turned from its natural course.” Youth had little complaint with the path to individual success and collective realization laid out before them.56 With increasing confidence in their understanding of child development, educators were eager to assert their unique mastery of character shaping. If teachers were to succeed as national midwives, more than pragmatic “skill[s], aptitude and resources” were needed. To take the lead in place of parents, who, not “ever having read one book” or “reflected one hour” on education, were like the “stupid clodpoll” who “celebrate[d] his first. . . . transportation of gun-powder” with “an explosion,” educators would have to be elevated into scientists of agency character formation.57 To assume its place in the liberal narrative, pedagogy would have to be regarded not as the alteration of nature but as the scientific facilitation of the freely and naturally developing agency child present from the beginning. This claim of science preoccupied the late antebellum generation. As “that mighty force,— a child’s soul,” was increasingly seen as directing socialization, the more essential became “knowledge of its various attributes” and the manner of its development for its shapers. Only specialized wisdom on the part of professionals who “must” uniquely “know how children think” would justify their special role. School advocates wasted no time in asserting their access to a specific knowledge of children, and particularly of child development in the stages after early nurturing. At the first meeting of the American Institute of Instruction, in 1830, Francis Wayland claimed that pedagogy deserved the “rank of a distinct science.” The “science of Education” alone revealed the ways to “foster [the] energies of mind,” for it of all forms of specialized knowledge derived from the “nature of man.” The next year attendees were told that education, by its sorting and classification of the principles that “produce the highest degree of intellectual, moral and corporeal excellence,” was the central locus of character formation.58 The pretension to a “most profound and important” science rapidly escalated. The educator would be able to access the workings of the inner

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“laws of mental action” and the “modes of development” governing each capacity of the child as well as the “principles and means” governing pedagogic method. The successful teacher “studie[d] the nature and tendency of the minds which he has to control” to discern their inner powers in their “natural order and proportion” in accordance with the “laws of human nature.”59 Moreover, because all learning depended on the “right and wrong method” of knowledge absorption, pedagogy became the framework for knowledge acquisition in “all other sciences.” Once provided a “professional course of instruction,” as in “law or medicine,” trained teachers would achieve “full equality” with members of these other learned professions, while the untrained would be left to “utter incompetency.”60 These early aspirations for scientific grounding in “invariable” and “general laws” of psychological and mental life were unsustainable. Francis Gray acknowledged that education, though possessed of a “glorious vision,” was far from “having yet attained the character of a science,” remaining to that point a “crude system” like “the alchemy of darker ages.” The time when the “phenomenon of the infant mind will be faithfully observed, and the results verified and combined in theoretic forms, for the guidance of instruction,” though “not far distant,” had not yet come. Education still depended on theological assumptions about the “invariable characters of men” derived from “established principles of nature, revelation and providence,” and its trial-and-error ways, like those of “the farmer, the gardener, the florist,” were producing more folk wisdom than science; “far out of sight of land, in a sea of metaphysics and theory,” such methods provided only “conjecture and reasoning from hypothesis, rather than from fact and experience.”61 At the same time, questions about educational process and child maturation were coming into sharper focus, and questions such as “In what respects is a man like an ape? a goat like a sheep?” were no longer asked. The new “great point[s] of inquiry” were grander topics: “How shall the developement of these faculties be effected in the best manner[?] What are the best means of bringing about the desired result? How is the unfolding of these powers of mind and body to be effected, and where are we to begin? Shall we commence our operations with the heart or the head, the moral or intellectual part of our nature? If the man is to be reformed, how is his reformation to be effected?”62 Despite the absence of satisfactory responses, which led some reformers to wonder whether “human means [were] adequate to the task” of

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establishing this science, the pressure for answers escalated. In 1832 Bronson Alcott encouraged teachers to identify the markers delineating “the complete development of human nature” in its various facets and forms of expression. Because individuals begin life as a mere bundle of faculties, maturation clearly required several stages of “proper development” that needed to be identified. For Mann, the continued effort to specify the “natural order and progression in the development of the faculties” would reveal “laws of organization and of increase” as “certain in their operation” and “infallible in their results” as the laws of cultivation employed by a skilled landscaper. By ascertaining these natural laws of the “growth or decline” of each capacity and isolating by what means they were “strengthened and enfeebled,” education would emerge as the institution to shape individual character and competence.63 In a seminal paper before the American Institution of Instruction in 1847 titled “On the Appropriateness of Studies to the State of Mental Development,” Thomas P. Rodman established the groundwork for a developmental science of education. Tracing the physiological growth in brain capacity from pre-perceptual to passive perceptual to active processing modes, he linked the appropriateness of the educational process to the “state of mental development in children of the ages” when they attend school. Some forms of learning clearly nurtured specific abilities more effectively at certain “stages of growth,” and the failure to utilize them at the right time correspondingly impaired that development.64 A child’s resistance to learning typically arose not from willfulness but from the failure of educators to accurately calculate the developmental needs at a given time. Past education was replete with unwarranted assumptions of either greater maturity or a lingering childishness. To significantly reduce conflict, a model of age-appropriate tasks and goals with “suitable regulation” and “proper direction” for each period was needed. Forgoing the older language of religious “transgression,” science would take responsibility for establishing “what motives to appeal to” at each point to promote a conflict-free maturation.65

The Proto-Science of Agency With the focus on the details of knowledge and character acquisition, the direct collaboration between religion and education gradually receded. And yet behind the claims to be investigating independently operable “laws of . . . being,” educators were employing the assumptions

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of dissenting theology as the framework for their science. The law of “endless growth,” holding that the child “continually ascend[ed]” toward the capacity to “conform to a higher standard” of “Self-Culture, Self-Knowledge, Self-Improvement and Self-Reliance,” was really a restatement of the agency framework. The education mandated by such laws was in turn designed to produce agency as the goal of “normal mental development.” Under the guise of a science claiming to follow the “natural course,” the education movement replaced a passive education that “greatly retarded or partially perverted” development and produced “a state of servitude” with one that encouraged children to realize their ultimate “moral being.”66 The new education would thereby construct (and propagate as a truth of nature) the very agency characters that its science was claiming to independently uncover. Increasingly committed to revealing and implementing the emerging science of agency, the common school was establishing its essential and irreplaceable role in American child shaping. Educators sensed “how very differently” their effectiveness was being perceived when presented as the “science of education.” Wayland, summarizing twenty-five years of scientific development in education, acknowledged this shift, insisting in 1854, “[The] order of our studies must be arranged in conformity to the successive development of our faculties.” The focus on how children’s abilities evolved from external perception to internal imagining to capacities for abstraction, the formation of ideals, and self-reflection was gaining acceptance with “very little difference of opinion.” Building upon this framework, educators were now prepared to link emerging powers and responsibilities to the “proper adjustments” and reforms in curriculum.67 The stage was set for a new American science, the agency science of child development. The theorists of education recognized that the assumption of a more evolved self and society presumed a developmental framework. That is, its plausibility now depended on evidence of actual psychosocial growth in childhood and youth. An “objective” account of development would finally replace the remaining theological claims with an unassailable foundation for the triumph of the agency project. Such a foundation would solidify the consensus for the citizen-shaping function of educational institutions. Turning these aspirations into a system that established clear “principles of instruction and discipline” required a full-scale “study of ourselves, the laws of our own intelli-

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gence and consciousness”: more practically, an understanding of “how to stimulate, how to encourage, how to restrain, how to direct and control” the child’s “every movement and impulse” was still needed.68 The call would be answered after the Civil War.

The Temptation of the Free Agent Ideal Despite the underlying agency framework, citizens had already begun to idealize child rearing as a process designed not only to produce a voluntary, self-motivated, and consenting individual but to allow for an intrinsic freedom to emerge. The “free agent” would arise through the unfolding of nature rather than by the imposition of a social agenda. The language of moral growth to agency would be replaced by that of maturation and social integration, which were understood as free because they appeared to operate independent of socialization. The temptation to remove the evidence of institutional involvement was irresistible. Insulating child shaping from politics further confirmed the extreme claim of a free society. Recasting character formation as secular liberal self-development rather than the achievement of agency rendered the project to win the child’s will to adult voluntarism, and the boundaries this imposed, not just unmentionable but inaccessible. Lost would be the recognition that this uniquely American science was simply confirming a form of human capacity that had been experientially cultivated as the expression of the nation’s cultural project, an unprecedented natural potentiality at the same time constructed through socialization and education. The decision to anchor adult citizenship in early psychosocial pressures toward social integration that could no longer be addressed represents a crucial turning point in the history of Western liberalism. Adult conversion and adult choice had been the hallmark of Protestantism and early liberalism and essential features of their contribution to modernity. Empowering individuals to reassess— and discard—the traditions and value systems of their birth had brought an end to the traditional world. The return in the midcentury republic to a fixed path to maturation ironically replicated the stable pattern of social integration previously contested. No longer were individuals to be endowed with the power to assess and remake cultural and political norms. New cultural certainties had been found to replace the transitional age of individual

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experimentation. The process of entwining the child once again in a cultural web, albeit obscured by the rhetoric of free choice, withdrew the promise of a modern individuality characterized by the forging of one’s own commitments. This retraction continues to haunt liberal society. Were the freedom and empowerment promised to children to win their will for social preparation ever vested? Such a question could not be answered adequately by those who had themselves gone through the process. Unaware of the realities of their earlier socialization, they would speak the language of self-realization without comprehending the self-containment and social allegiance demanded. Embracing a scripted past and future, as well as the ends and means laid out for them, citizens would find scant resources for true democracy. The conviction, at least on paper, that a truly free individual was possible would have additional long-term consequences. Dangling before the child the image of his upbringing fueled by the “love” of his “own happiness” amounting to “self-love” was recognized even at the time as “playing with fire.” Encouraging citizens to “follow nature” by trusting their impulses, promising— even if untrue— a level of self-realization entirely inconsistent with the agent’s subordination to authority, was in Mann’s words “us[ing] materials which are liable to spontaneous combustion.” The release of extreme antinomianism, which “gains strength by fruition,” could easily generate “an enlarged capacity of wants with equal inability to supply them.” Though quickly suppressed within the nineteenth-century Protestant milieu, those energies would become ever harder to contain. The seductive image of a mind empowered to “bend, Narcissus like, over itself, survey its own features and proportions, contemplate its own powers, [and] admire its own capabilities,” would kindle expansive new aspirations in the late twentieth century.69 Only then would the transformative implications of the freedom discourse be fully evident. By the end of the antebellum period a common set of values was being spread in every state through “popular liberty and public education.” As Carl Kaestle has written, “Almost no one in America opposed widespread elementary education or spoke out against individual advancement through schooling,” creating a consensus across social divisions as well as among “all writers on education.” Rush Welter adds, “Within

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little more than a decade the practice of democratic education was fixed in American life,” embraced by “every shade of political opinion.” Given that, as President Wayland of the American Institution of Instruction announced in 1854, “this whole country must soon be educated” in the expanding network of qualified educational institutions, the universal aspirations for the agency republic were best immortalized in the term “common schools.”70 Educational leaders quickly recognized how to use the Civil War and Lincoln’s vision of a nation fulfilling its revolutionary ideals as an opportunity to reinforce their own sweeping agenda. At the very outset, in August 1861, teachers were told, “It is your war.” They had to recognize that “this out-door disturbance is a school-teacher’s disturbance,” a “school-master’s war” pitting the “system of the district school against the system of the plantation.” By their missionary work in “ten thousand . . . schools” across the North and West,71 educational reformers had sparked the national defense of liberal values, moral enlightenment, and economic progress: “And until [Southerners] are educated as the North is educated, there will never be any union with them. Their disease is deeper than Sumter or cabinet’s decrees. It lies down in the system which is unworthy of freedom, and antagonistic to it. The school must follow the ploughshare of battle over the Southern plain, and scatter the seed of truth.”72 And so the Civil War was cast as a struggle to vindicate the mission to establish a new agency nation and character, and thus of necessity as a battle for the common socialization and education that would realize it. This battle would be won. The war’s ostensible legacy, as portrayed by the Great Emancipator’s soaring rhetoric, was a national rebirth through fire, the millennial apotheosis of the original free nation. Yet the polity that was actually formed— and recognized as such in Lincoln’s theological reflections—was the society of agents that the campaigners for a new child rearing had worked so tirelessly to shape.

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The “Self-Made” Citizen and the Erasure of Socialization It is as if God had come to consciousness in the human brain . . . more than ever before, as if it were a mouthpiece of things that never could have been spoken before. —G. Stanley Hall Build your character thoughtfully and painstakingly upon these precepts; and by and by, when you have got it built, you will be surprised and gratified to see how nicely and sharply it resembles everybody else’s. —Mark Twain

The political culture of child rearing after the Civil War reflected a growing split between cultural ideals and social practice. In the latter decades of the nineteenth century, family advice literature encouraged the belief that children and youth created lives of their own choosing and advocated that families nurture this conviction by following the recommended socialization. Similarly, leaders in the movement to modernize education (including those who championed the establishment of high schools), together with radical reformers agitating for a childcentered pedagogy, insisted that schooling emphasize the centrality of the individual in American society. At the same time, society was being transformed by the large influx of immigrants from traditional societies and the rise of the corporate economy. Educational systems spreading in the cities were being pressured to emphasize standardization and social discipline among the urban masses; parents and communities were beginning to recognize the importance of fostering specific mental capabilities and building a 241

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practical knowledge base to groom their young for skilled and professional work rather than industrial labor. The result was a political culture emphasizing classic American individualism at the very point that the individualistic assumptions of the decentralized republic were being threatened. Child shaping in the last quarter of the century, then, was being pulled in contrary directions, though few in these fields directly acknowledged concern about the looming collision. Judging by the cultural rhetoric of the age, post–Civil War society saw itself as the culmination, the fulfillment of early republican ideals. In fact, the claims for individual autonomy, not least the autonomy of the young, became more insistent and expansive, suggesting that at a deeper level Americans were becoming apprehensive about the fate of their liberal experiment.

Apotheosis of the Free Agent A quest for normalcy permeated post– Civil War society, following decades of strenuous institutional formation, self-transformation, and religious fervor. For nearly a century Americans had weathered a political and cultural struggle over the ultimate shape of their nation, issuing finally in fratricidal bloodshed. Northern teachers won the battle for an agency republic rooted in both populist liberalism and nondenominational Protestantism. As these two traditions merged under Lincoln’s tutelage in liberal civil religion, American society was proclaimed the model for ordering individual development and adult citizenship within modern popular institutions. Americans were relieved about the consolidation of liberal norms and social processes, which allowed them to pursue social rewards with the assurance that agency virtue attached to institutional success. Largely unacknowledged was the contribution of socializing institutions to this consolidation. Their increasing effectiveness in the internalization of prevailing ideals and expectations was resulting in a willing adoption of agency patterns and incentives by the young. As greater regularity in the conduct of the maturing young led to the sense of voluntary order, Americans ironically imagined liberal society as a natural condition without the injunctions and constraints demanded by the agency framework. Embracing the narrative of the free society, Americans began to regard agency unburdened by its intrinsic limits. Since constraints were

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presumably unnecessary, agents could now be understood as the product of their own efforts, charting their own self-made development without the intrusion of external influences. In literary and public expressions, domestic and educational literature, and the new sciences of child psychology and pedagogy, maturation was defined as emerging not through any established institutional process or design but as the natural product of the unconditioned will. Liberal society was now the inevitable result of citizens fulfilling intrinsically self-developing characters and in turn naturally coalescing around common ideals. The national belief in free agency was consecrated. Such an idyllic scenario rendered public perception of socializing institutions increasingly marginal—and all too often mere impediments— to the flowering of the “autonomous” citizen. If Americans were selfmade, weren’t they by definition self-socializing? But in making such a claim, the age was engaged in self-deception on a grand scale. In retreating from the public eye, socialization was not withering away but, on the contrary, demonstrating its powerful role. The certainty with which the culture presumed agency formation to be natural and inevitable testifies to its pervasive impact in shaping character. The concept of the self-made individual revealed an unease with the very idea of character formation. In claiming to have naturalized agency, Americans were trying— as they have ever since—to dispel anxieties over the extent to which citizens achieved full agency maturation. Once these concerns dissolved in the presumption of success, tensions over generational relations could be minimized as well. If individuals possessed an internal compass naturally directed toward agency maturation and social integration, then adults were no longer crucial either as enablers (with their specific needs or ambivalences) or as impediments (affecting the child’s needs). Under a strategy that deferred the difficulties, the generations would be accorded equal access to developmental maturation. Similarly deferred was the impact of institutional integration. The force with which the ethos of self-creation was asserted raises the suspicion that the society was in a race against time. And yet this ethos, achieving its fullest expression in the post–Civil War period, traveled far beyond the family and school innovators to the social welfare movement, child psychology, and educational reform early in the twentieth century. As this mythology spread first into youth literature and adult fiction and,

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in the new century, into the expanding popular culture, generations of youngsters came to embrace their powers of self-creation. Americans thus evaded the organizational age, allowing themselves the belief that, though everything around them was changing, nothing was different. It is in the last third of the century that the moral, scientific, and conceptual foundations were laid for hyperindividualist American culture. The challenge for socializing institutions was how to operate invisibly while making their impact ubiquitous. Simply put, systematic intervention had to be structured to generate the development of a person convinced not only that he was achieving free agency but that his own autonomy was providing the momentum for this achievement. Free agency was thus made plausible as individuals, unaware of the demands to adapt to the expected character pattern and conform to standard practices, interpreted their behavior as arising from within. How were child-rearing institutions to resolve the incompatibility of natural development and a socialization that produced mature agents who considered themselves free? Remarkably, innovators accomplished it, inducing Americans to believe that a properly socialized child would be connected to the natural unfolding of his nature, just as revivalist conversion—while conforming to the will of God and the community of believers—had been fully the product of one’s own efforts. The emergence of this new naturalism is the subject of this chapter, and the reforms of agency socialization to ground the new naturalism in the child’s consciousness will be taken up in Chapters 11 and 12. Among the many writers of the period who contributed to this reframing, the work of G. Stanley Hall must be singled out. Not only was he the most committed proponent and sweeping expositor of both natural development and comprehensive education and training, but his theories present the most detailed and ardent defense of the essential link between these seemingly incompatible axioms of late-century child rearing. The marginalization of his work, which so evidently embodies the central tensions of free agency, by modern psychologists and educators is a strong indication of the extent to which we have lost—and have no wish to recover—the nineteenth-century understanding of agency and the complexities of its character shaping. In this part I devote considerable space to his work, for to understand Hall’s summation of a century of child shaping is to stand face-to-face with the contradictions of the American project, contradictions whose occlusion would by the

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late twentieth century leave American society ignorant of its own history and devoid of any sense of its own foundations.

The Drive toward National Integration For the generation that had experienced Civil War idealism, the postwar era— chastened by what Oliver Wendell Holmes called “the great slaughter” and the limited achievement of Reconstruction—would always represent the souring of dreams of imminent moral perfection.1 Later reformers, such as the progressive historian V. L. Parrington, immortalized the period as “the Great Barbeque,” a “splendid feast” squandered in the “prodigal waste” of a “huge buccaneering orgy.” The social theorist Thorstein Veblen was inspired by the era’s gaudy new behavior to write his classic study on conspicuous consumption, the transparently wasteful display of goods used for “impressing one’s pecuniary ability” on “transient observers.”2 William James lamented “this shrunken and enfeebled generation,” living “only half-awake” amid “flat degeneration” in the “shallower levels of life.” Mark Twain and Dudley Warner’s 1873 novel forever enshrined the “Gilded Age” as a get-rich-quick society drunk on the “fever of speculation” and “Political Influence” peddling.3 From another perspective, these displays were footnotes to the larger story of national consolidation. The widespread “propensity to local sovereignty,” pursued by efforts to “denationalize” the government through states’ rights, denominational and sectarian fragmentation, and Jeffersonian agrarianism, had been defeated. In the historian John Higham’s terms, the Civil War was a “victory for national unity,” as society embraced a newfound “respect for institutions, for discipline, for the principles of loyalty and authority.” For Charles Francis and Henry Adams, centralization had become the “natural consequence” of modern society, in which “all things tend to concentration.” The “slender wire of the telegraph” was creating “an indissoluble tie” and the railway an “iron band.”4 No longer did foreign visitors say of Americans that no notion of country seemed to “enter the[ir] head.” “If in the earlier day there was no occasion for the word Nation,” Charles Sumner observed, “there is now.” In unity, “every part has its function, and all are in obedience to the divine mandate.” The noted minister Henry Ward Beecher, who suffered “dark days” with no “way out” before the war, expressed astonishment at the national recovery, the almost magical “augmentation of power . . .

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past all computation.” Joining this chorus, late arrivals such as Emerson and many radical Republicans acknowledged the force of organi zational expansion and societal integration.5 Individualism notwithstanding, a mainstream social and commercial culture had taken shape and was beginning to exert pressure on individuals to conform. William M. Evarts celebrated the coalescing national civil religion: “The great mass of our countrymen to- day fi nd in the Bible—the Bible in their worship, the Bible in their schools, the Bible in their households—the sufficient lessons of the fear of God and the love of man, which make them obedient servants to the free Constitution of their country.” Beecher noted the immense “virtue and true piety” that had overflowed the church to take root in “the moral sentiment of the great mass of the common people.”6 The English visitor James Bryce spoke of government by the “opinion of the whole nation,” derived from “millions of people thinking the same thoughts,” each believing “the government his own, and he individually responsible for its conduct.”7 Henry James described the “appearance of a bold lacingtogether” of “scattered members” to form a “monstrous organism,” a web unfolding “under the sky and over the sea,” with some “absolute presiding power” acting to keep “the whole effect together.”8 National reconciliation, Horace Greeley noted, had overcome the “great strife between the few and the many, between privilege and equality, between law and power, between opinion and the sword.” Like an infatuated youngster, James Russell Lowell spoke of “something magnificent in having a country to love.” Even Whitman defended the Gilded Age: despite its “enormous greed,” its “absence of moral tone,” the ubiquitous “robbery and scoundrelism,” this “anti-democratic disease and monstrosity” was in fact producing by “curious indirections” a “sane, eternal moral and spiritual-esthetic” evolution to higher stages of social formation. The benefit, available only for “the price [Americans were] now paying for it,” was a truly “general National Will below and behind and comprehending all—not once really wavering, not a day, not an hour.” “What,” Whitman added, “could be, or even can be, grander?”9

The Voluntary Collective In retrospect, Americans appeared to have been swept up in a dynamic of national consolidation operating independent of their will. Their testimony at the time, however, indicates that they did not view things

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in this light. Widespread fears of corporate and bureaucratic dominance surfaced only in early Progressive-era anxieties. To be sure, late-century Americans had little trust in the national government. But most believed they had created not a supervening nation or authoritative state but the intangible bonds of a collective arising from popular initiative and representing the public will. The war had operated as an extension of revivalism or, as E. L. Goodman put it, “a popular uprising which carried the leaders forward.”10 After the war citizens also considered themselves to be institution builders, agents empowered to realize the promise of a new and different nation forged jointly as “a work of God in history” to “earth a new imperial race.”11 The Union was for William James bringing together his “countrymen, Southern and Northern,” as “brothers hereafter” rather than “masters, slaves, and enemies,” working together with loyalty and devotion to create the “city of the promise.” Situated “forever foursquare under Heaven,” this “guiding star of all others,” as President Grant called it, was ascending from the “roaring and rushing and crude, and fiercely, turbidly hastening” of Whitman’s “People en masse” on “the broadest scale.”12 The opportunities for inclusion and success outshone reservations about social exclusion. As immigrants made a necessary assimilation, rural migrants their urban journey, and blacks their first hesitant steps to liberation, this “first . . . opening up to the average human commonality” created a sense of “limitless aperture.” The “falsehood and horrible self-contradiction” of slavery was giving way to a “truth written in hell-fire,” to the “boldest thing ever done,” access beyond previous measure: “We permit the lame, the halt, and the blind to go to the ballot-box; we permit the foreigner and the black man, the slave and the freedman, to partake of the suffrage.” Soon “the mother” and “the wife,” and in time “the whole population,” would join them.13 The rush to integration seemed to typify the national mood. From the new middle class, fueled by a “mighty river of industrial expansion,” to mainstream religious participation, where one “behold[s] the countless millions assembling, as if by common impulse, in the temples with which every valley, mountain, and plain will be adorned,” the invitation was “Let all come and help themselves.”14 Migration to the city, the quintessential act of social absorption, was characterized as a way to release oneself from traditional community constraints and embrace the limitless opportunities of the free society.

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Sherwood Anderson in village Ohio heard the cry from afar, “Death to everything old, slow and careful!” before the “New Age, prosperity, growth going forward and upward.” His character Sam yearned to leave his prairie town of “no light, no vision,” where all “live and die, unseen, unknown,” for the “great game” in the metropolis. Migrants like John Godfrey focused on “the day of release,” while Rose in The Rose of Dutcher’s Coolly spurned rural life as “mere stagnant water. . . . To live here was to be a cow, a tadpole!” The goal for Sister Carrie was the “great sea of life and endeavor” in Chicago, where one would “soon be free.”15 This willing embrace of liberal society as the fulfillment of individual opportunity led Americans to believe that the dream of free individuals in a free community had been realized. Having attained a state of perfection, Americans assumed the everyday attitude of what Henry May has called “practical idealism,” the continuing “reality, certainty, and eternity of moral values” in their experience. With transcendence all around, the descriptive novel would replace the prescriptive “sermon” that “[could not] any longer serve” as moral guide. From now on, principles such as “prudence, obedience, reason,” the difference between “what is right and what is wrong, what is noble and what is base, what is health and what is perdition,” could be illustrated using the real world as the standard of ultimate morality. Henry James later in life recalled that time when “nothing was so romantic as our intense vision of the real.” Ideals no longer needed to be strenuously pursued: given the luxury of such complacency, he mused, “We dreamed over the multiplication table; we were nothing if not practical.”16 With transcendent ends now visible in ordinary institutional practice, ultimate questions moved for Charles Francis Adams “from the theological stage, in which [he] had been nurtured,” into “the scientific.” Under the influence of Herbert Spencer, the dominant thinker of the period, the Darwinian emphasis on the fierce competition for survival was replaced with an optimistic account of the millennial progress of ideals toward full realization. Higher levels of moral perfection and complex social organization developed in tandem—“not [as] an accident, but [as] a necessity. . . . a part of nature” like the “unfolding of a flower”— expressing the increasing human capacity to creatively adapt to environmental conditions.17 This conception of natural (that is, inevitable) perfectibility was applied not only to the hard sciences of physics, biology, and geology, but also to the emerging social sciences as a unified cosmological theory.

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Spencerian evolutionism was particularly well received in progressive theological circles. Evolutionary science, having “emancipat[ed]” the “human spirit from the bondage” to abstruse theology, now revealed Providence and the “working of God’s truth” in history and human nature to realize “the Divine nature.” Through divine imminence, the presence of godly ends in everyday life, the nation’s millennial vision of God’s plan for a perfected society was being realized in America. With great “growth and progress in divine revelation” in American life having already occurred, further transcendent “growth and development” in doctrines and institutions no longer required divine intervention. American religion now “embraced and included the world.” For the first time, the proper application of “human powers” and “human agencies” was alone sufficient when instructed by “divine guidance” to complete the nation’s realization. The “time in the truest sense” was thus at hand when “the kingdoms of this world,” led by the United States, “shall be the Kingdom of Christ,” ushered in by the dedicated work of divinely authorized actors willingly engaged as a society committed to universal agency.18

The Wish to Belong The call to self-realization by this “giant magnet, drawing to itself, from all quarters, the hopeful and the hopeless,” was, as Theodore Dreiser asserted, sweeping all to “join in the great, hurrying throng.” The novels and memoirs of the era display across their narratives a growing wish to belong. This drive toward “reconciliation” with the newly “interlocked, interlaced, and harmonized” national community was enabling Americans to “feel more than ever that they are One.” In her autobiographical The Song of the Lark, Willa Cather describes young Thea Kronborg as having “left very little” in leaving Colorado to find “ecstasy” in the “big terminals of the world.” Hamlin Garland’s Rose, pursuing “splendid dreams in her heart,” feels “her soul grow larger” as she immerses herself in the city that radiates from “the centre of human life” to the “ends of the earth.” Dreiser, poet of the modern “city of which I sing,” speaks of it as the place in which “anyone could legitimately aspire to be anything” and “nearly all” would be justly rewarded.19 Intoxicated by the opportunities opened by their migration, the protagonists did not stop to ponder the tension between the dream of release and the path to institutional success. The newsboy Sam McPherson,

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propelled forward by the men of his village, asked rhetorically with them, “Do not all of the poor newsboys in the books become great men and is not this boy who goes among us so industrious day after day likely to become . . . [a] figure in the world?”20 Rose, after experiencing urban life, is “confirmed in her conviction that a girl must venture into the city to win a place and a husband” and to become “so public, so admired, so lifted into the white-hot glare of success.”21 Dreiser dreamed of how he “might climb and climb” toward “greater grandeur,”22 and his young Eugene Witla wondered how he might “get a hearing” from the “seething masses of people” and a place to “enter society” where “one belonged.”23 Even the anarchist Martin Eden wanted to “purge himself of the ignoble that had soiled all his days, and to rise to that sublimated realm where dwelt the upper classes.”24 Few were excluded from such imaginings. The penniless David Levinsky, arriving from Eastern Europe in 1885, was overcome by “a trance” as the city “unfolded itself like a divine revelation,” a “New World” that “turned things upside down, transforming an immigrant shoemaker into a man of substance.” Jacob Riis landed in 1870 with high hopes that in this free country he would get “where he belonged if he took a hand in the game,” a journey he later called “the making of an American.”25 Carl Schurz, a recent immigrant, noted that the German spirit dissipates under the “waves of Americanism,” creating a “universal movement” in which the “nationalities melt into one.” W. E. B. Du Bois, in his classic Black Reconstruction, defended the era’s blacks, whose “sane, thoughtful, and sincere” behavior demonstrated their “loyal and unyielding” determination and capacity to “take their place as equal citizens with others.”26 Even southern whites in this period dreamed of national reconciliation—what Paul H. Buck, a defender of the South, called “The Road to Reunion”— and renewal of their privileged position. The very presumption of such a voluntary drive for cohesion stimulated both ambition and fear, desire for praise and stigmatization, incentive and demand. For all who desired success, William Dean Howells famously wrote, the focus needed simply be on “the large, cheerful average of health and success and happy life,” the “more smiling aspects of life, which are the more American.” Little could not be solved by “honest work and unselfish behavior.” Social conflict was to be resisted as an “ominous” danger likely to “[sacrifice] the Nation.”27 To refuse participation was a moral failure, a rejection of agency and the

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willing participation in a common dream. The sense of common purpose in turn bolstered the expectation that all must want inclusion: “Every person, no matter what his birth, condition, or color, who can raise the cry, ‘I am an American citizen,’ has a right to require . . . the nation . . . to perform [its] promises,” but also the corresponding duty to “learn this petition: Our Fatherland.”28 To fit in, individuals were expected to change themselves, cultivating the “inner qualities that make for success.” In Howells’s The Minister’s Charge, an ordinary young man named Lemuel Barker who is afraid of “remain[ing] countrified” tries to adapt to Boston life. In doing so he “had to change his opinions every day. He was whirled round and round; he never saw the same object twice the same.” The “strange populations” of the “in-sweeping migration” were pressured to assimilate at the risk of national “safety”: “[Either this influx will] foreignize us or we are to Americanize it.” David Levinsky, just off the boat, is given a complete makeover so he won’t “look green”: “That will make you look American. . . . One must be presentable in America.” Blacks were instructed to be of “such undeniable value to the community in which [they] lived that the community could not dispense with [their] presence.”29 The spreading “glow” from the “new consciousness of national life” appeared to be dissipating all opposition. Given such rewards and pressures, few would test life outside the “rationalization of the status quo.”30 Unacknowledged for fear of admitting weakness and individual failure, the intense social and psychological pressures to conform were, if irresistible, all but invisible. Endless reservoirs of individual purpose seemed to flow to a common center, not by any social logic, but from within.

The Culture of Self-Creation This culture of incentive and expectation culminated in the ethos of the self-made individual. Earlier in the century, self-authority had posed a threat to an unformed agency society, but after the Civil War, given the power of the integrative dynamic in the late nineteenth century, it was swiftly domesticated. Early liberalism, like its Protestant precursor, would not trust the effectiveness of agency socialization: it would not assume that Americans would act as agents without explicit direction. The emergence of the self-made individual marked a crucial phase

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in the logic of American societal formation. Individuals could now be counted on to assume agency without conflict because both agency institutions and the early internalization of agency roles and values were fully operational. The promotion of individuals as self-shaping contained both paradox and irony. The expression of voluntarism paradoxically arose precisely at the time when youth were moving not into spaces of their own construction but toward entry points in organi zational structures. Inflated claims of self-creation obscured how completely society had marginalized alternatives to existing practice: self-direction could now be demanded, as if institutions bore no responsibility and imposed no limits, without fear of cultural resistance. The objective of early liberalism, to create citizens who experienced freedom as voluntary (agency) conduct within approved social processes, was within reach. Self-directing adults were now those with the capacity to read and follow institutional expectations and cues without overt coercion. In short, self-creation that resulted in the pursuit of one’s own adaptation represented the successful implanting of an internal wish to conform. Because individuals preferred to think that this wish originated internally, in their own ambitions and values, rather than externally, the process of internalization was by consensus no longer acknowledged. Within this new framework, youthful struggles with authority and adult coercion, or any visible deviance, represented a breakdown of the process, a form of systemic dysfunction. A veil of innocence, an Edenic fable of self-evolving young, placed adult-child relations beyond recall and thus beyond dispute the institution’s role in child shaping. Of course, the notion of development without socialization had to be accepted without question if it was to be effective. In perhaps the ultimate irony, liberal socialization would be called upon to create the cultural perception of its own absence. An entire industry of fiction and nonfiction literature emerged, claiming to dispense with the very project of socialization it exemplified in shaping new cultural patterns and expectations. Youth and young adults were tutored on how they would naturally—that is, how they should as self-made individuals needing no tutoring—interpret and respond to institutional cues for proper behavior. Socializers were advised on how to promote liberal child development by calling forth not compliance but what was identified as an

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internal drive to self-creation. This campaign in turn was validated by child psychologists and child-rearing experts, who claimed that individuals wished to be self-made from birth. In the final ideological achievement of the era, as we will see in the next chapter, postwar child-rearing literature taught socializers how to shape this new nature without leaving telltale evidence.

The Self-Made Individual Writings on and for emancipated youth gave shape to the cultural project. A “distinct, recognizable genre,” including dozens of best-sellers, these success manuals “not only looked alike, they read alike,” for the most part saying “almost the same thing in roughly the same way.” In them, youth were depicted acquiring the skills to make their way in the new urban and organi zational networks, ever exhorted at the same time to rely on individual drive and judgment. As Edward W. Bok put it in Successward: A Young Man’s Book for Young Men, “Every man is the architect of his own fortune, . . . [for each] and [each] alone, must carve out [his] own career . . . by [his] own hands.” In his best-seller Getting On in the World, William Mathews emphasized the importance of mobilizing one’s will through tenacity of purpose: “Of all the elements of success none is more vital than self-reliance,—a determination to be one’s own helper, and not to look to others for support.” The “secret of all” secrets, the universal “master-key,” is to follow one’s “independent judgment” without clinging to others as a “moral weakling” or “intellectual dwarf.”31 In his immensely popular work Pushing to the Front, Orison Swett Marden similarly identified as the source of success an “indomitable will, the inflexible purpose” that is “almost omnipotent, and can perform wonders.” William D. Owen in Success in Life advised ambitious young adults to shape themselves by a “severance of self from every one else, and a gathering up of all the forces under [their] command.” P. T. Barnum proclaimed self-reliance as the gospel: “Until you get so you can rely upon yourself, you need not expect to succeed.” In order to achieve independence, individuals need only “really desire” it, “set their minds upon it,” and “adopt the proper means.”32 After surveying successful individuals Rev. Wilbur F. Craft concluded that whatever “a man will, he will.” Rev. Russell Conwell, in his classic Acres of Diamonds, proposed

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digging for one’s fortune in one’s “own cellar” and used Abraham Lincoln as the model: “Whatsoever he had to do at all, he put his whole mind into it and held it there until that was all done.” That this was no longer a matter of logic was most evident in Wilbur Craft’s call to participate in “choosing [one’s] birthplace.”33 In this way, the future was firmly placed in one’s own hands. To avoid going through life being “broken-spirited [as] failures,” one needed to simply release one’s inner resources of instinct and experience to pursue success. The individual starting out now “looks forward,” that is, “successward,” never “backward” to a past devoid of instruction. Owen thus advised following no guide but rather allowing one’s “reigning passion” and “active . . . wishes” the “opportunity to assert themselves.” Mathews puts the choice starkly: “help from within always strengthens” and “from without invariably enfeebles,” leaving one either with a “self within” or “as a supplicant to others.” If one would “let hope predominate,” the pursuit of happiness emerged as “a summit toward which to climb.”34 The serious literature of the age was a virtual encomium for and call to self-creation, even while instructing on its trials. Sister Carrie, an ordinary if ambitious newcomer, found herself “dreaming wild dreams” of “far-off supremacy.” The protagonist of Robert Herrick’s The Memoirs of an American Citizen migrated to Chicago in 1876 keen for glory, dreaming of making his fortune and becoming “head of the game.” Sam McPherson headed for the city with the “blind grappling for gain” by which “all America was seized.” Anderson himself recognized in Sam this “new kind of hero,” seeking in this “new age” and “new land” as all others “money, fame, a position of power in the big world.” For Rose of Dutchess County, “to win here was to win all she cared to have.” The dream of “POWER,” as Henry Adams most fully exposed, was what all wanted to see, to touch with their “own hand.”35 Fueling the conviction of self-creation as one’s destiny was the ease with which generational chains were escaped. The world of Eugene Witla’s parents was “no world at all,” but filled with “country or small town mind[s]” that he would “never come to” again.36 For Thea Kronberg, the time spent with her family and hometown seemed simply “over” and “done”: “Nothing that she would ever do in the world would seem important to them, and nothing [of theirs would] seem important to her.”37 Dreiser, subject to the “terrors of a small town” and his family, plotted how to “carve out something for [him]self in the future regard-

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less of what [his] family might do or say.”38 Rose asked, knowing the answer, “Should not the old be sacrificed to the young?”39 Young Skeeters Kirby had the epiphany that he was “free,” not “restrained or in chains,” able to walk “out of town without hindrance.”40 Whatever barriers lay ahead, what force could they have when the holds of the past could simply be “diminish[ed] . . . half contemptuously”?41

Self-Making Adolescents A compelling indication of the culture’s new self-confidence about character shaping—and the corresponding denial of socializing institutions— was the framing of early youth as a time of self-creation. A literature of resourceful and self-sufficient youth had already emerged late in the antebellum period, with novels by J.  H. Ingraham, Emily Chubbuck Jackson, T. S. Arthur, Elizabeth Smith, and J. W. Smith. While a successful and respectable life was attainable on one’s own, the language of selfreliance belied a lingering dependence on such influences as loving (if ineffectual) parents, religious inspiration, or exceptional teachers. The goal was to restore well-being to the family. After the Civil War a new picture of independent youth emerged. In stories of the era and in those recalling childhood during the period, young protagonists yearning for separation are “anxious to get away from home.”42 Writers such as Garland, Bayard Taylor, Howells, Twain, Edgar Lee Masters, Sherwood Anderson, Cather, Howe, Dell, James, Herrick, and Harte portray youngsters cast adrift from the world of their parents, psychologically detached from its narrow communities, convictions, and conventions. Self-creation, the stories suggest, was not merely an alternative but a necessity. Though connections are made with hometown peers, occasional adult confidants, and in some cases intimate partners, these youths never doubt leaving home to pursue their own destinies. The popular novels written for young readers by Horatio Alger and his mentor, William Taylor Adams (writing as Oliver Optic), as well as William O. Stoddard, John T. Trowbridge, Kirk Munroe, E. D. E. N. Southworth, Thomas B. Aldrich, and Frank Munsey, among others, elaborate this world of independent adolescents. In many stories, parents, like community and religious institutions, were absent either literally or figuratively. Fully formed from the outset, the young possessed not only

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an innate moral sense but the experience and knowledge to anticipate and master the inscrutable and ever-threatening city and its denizens. With unremitting self-reliance and shrewdness, their steady and easily worn individualism presented a realistic and “noble” model of success. In a stunning cultural reversal, the naturally self-made and self-making youth, having arisen in most cases without either origins or mentors, was the one “to imitate.”43 The new cultural ideal purported to set the individual loose. The first lesson for those newly assuming self-reliance was revealing, for it taught whom not to consult. Youth were told never to “[look] backward,” for the lessons from the past, useless and even harmful, would soon stop them “where [they] are.” To follow one’s own inclinations from early youth meant resisting any turn for help to “some father, mother or friend” as likely to produce “dolts, if not worse”; their mere example, “flying around in all [Americans’] homes,” will “[flit] about as silently as the moth-miller and often looks just as innocent, but it does a thousand times more harm.” One must “cut loose from the old homestead” and stand or fall as one’s “own master.” One “can not always be tied” to “apron strings” or indulge in “undue dependence upon parents and friends.”44 Advice, though less welcome to the newly independent, was more necessary than ever. Handy catechisms summarized the new wisdom for youth, virtually excising families and communities of origin and offering truisms of a self-made society in their place. One list of rules read thus: If any young man wishes a set of rules even more concise, here it is: Get into a business you like. Devote yourself to it. Be honest in everything. Employ caution; think out a thing well before you enter upon it. Sleep eight hours every night. . . . School yourself not to worry; worry kills, work does not. Avoid liquors of all kinds. . . . Shun discussion on two points—religion and politics. And last, but not least marry a true woman, and have your own home.45

Dependence on others now stood in the way of self-creation. Difficulties “make men,” rendering early adversity (rather than the misfortune of early advantages) a “blessing in disguise.” Parents of means were the

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“worst enemy,” destining their children for “poverty and obscurity” by seeking to “better their condition and make their life-journey easy.” Religion was also to be avoided, for even “the wisest of us can only dimly comprehend” its concerns. An individual was to “stand alone for himself in the world.”46

The Natural Agency Child Only an intrinsic drive to become an agent could account for a youth who assumed the agency role without coercion or even guidance. As earlier educational thinkers had already concluded, once the role of socialization was diminished, the natural endowment had to be expanded. It was thus among writers focusing on early development that the emerging discourse of the natural agency child flourished. The project was, as always, double-edged, for while parents were being persuaded of their child’s intrinsic capacity to evolve an agency character, they had to be instructed on the child-rearing subtleties by which the child would discern the expectation to embrace that character without recognizing adult intervention. The former, an insistence upon natural agency, spurred the search for a new science of child development. At the same time, the latter provoked the search for specific strategies of embedding these expectations in the very young, accelerating the spread of modern permissive child-rearing methods. The prototype of the natural agency child was vividly portrayed in journals such as Babyhood and in books such as Children’s Rights (1893) by Kate Douglas Wiggin; Nursery Ethics (1895) by Florence Hull Winterburn, the editor of Childhood magazine; The Children of the Future (1898) by Nora Archibald Smith; Notes on the Early Training of Children (1898) by Mrs. Frank Malleson; Love and Law in Child Training: A Book for Mothers (1899) by Emilie Poulsson; Childhood (1904, based on earlier work) by Mrs. Theodore (Alice McLillan) Birney; and Concerning Childhood (1900) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In these works, along with writings on pedagogical reform, unsullied “human nature” had become the “great book of which all other sciences and arts are mere volumes.”47 Development was now to be understood as a natural dispensation: “Nature is the first, the true mother and educator . . . a much better teacher than the most careful parents,” and it reliably “teaches what

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must be learned: that which is essential to living.”48 Gilman understood that calling something “natural” was only a shorthand for a moral conclusion: “We use the word ‘natural’ in many senses,— sometimes with warm approval, as indicating what is best; sometimes with disapproval, as low and discreditable.” Moreover, the natural may not be obvious, since with changing “conditions and habits,” what was once natural is continually covered over by the “slow, laborious, hard-won advantages of civilization.” Yet the concept still had meaning. Changes occasioned by civilization were not arbitrary, for they were “suited to man’s present character and condition.” Thus even in this unusually sophisticated analysis, the natural survived its flexible alteration to circumstances: whatever social reality was “most advantageous” to its time and place was guaranteed to be natural by the “rightness of the working laws of the universe.”49 The advanced agency characters shaped in American socialization were thus confirmed as the product of “nature’s mode of development.” As “children uniformly unfold[ed] in character in the natural course of development,” they exhibited the “progressive manifestation” of their evolving senses, emotions, habits, and dispositions in “their [proper] order.” Though hard to imagine, in that “strengthless, helpless, thoughtless creature” lay the germs of later “wondrous powers and manifold faculties.” There is “nothing [that] has developed in the man which did not potentially exist in the child,” just as the acorn becomes a “majestic oak” by an “infinitely gradual process of growth from infinitely small beginnings.” The true educator never forgets that socialization “never produced anything in a child’s mind,” that “all he is to be . . . already exists” within him at the start.50 The stages of internal life are embedded as preexisting patterns that emerge as “manifestations . . . through [the] inclinations.” Proper development therefore involved these original patterns “unfolding spontaneously” from the child’s “inner being.” Unlike the “artificial lives” in past societies, the agency individual was no distorted product of social coercion. Rather, he was an “authentic” being with “only himself to imitate,” a “real self” that made a “true report” to itself.51 Just as Hegel’s spirit realized itself by unfolding in history, the child’s soul “spread her wings into the blue,” issuing forth to “work out [her] own salvation” and destiny as realizer of her own “rational and connected scheme of life and method of action.” Able to “stand apart, as an independent be-

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ing,” the young individual activated his “inner life” to shape the “outer life” in conformity with his ideals.52 Social harmony among self-developing individuals was equally natural. The natural world “must work according to its own laws” in conformance with a larger plan, just as the “true and complete development of any individual can only be attained by following those laws.” In this way “fundamental principles of the universe” perfectly aligned “human nature (and therefore child nature, too)” in its “complete development” with the “perfection” of the larger order. Given the “parallelism between the development of each individual and of humanity as a whole,” the child evolved his higher nature as the “ceaseless longing to be in perfect harmony with the principles of everlasting and eternal right.”53 Appreciating that “we are members one of another” and “all are essential to the whole,” individuals are eager to work within the “order of things which shall give the greatest happiness to the greatest number.” To be an active, useful member of society, the optimally developing child willingly “subordinat[es] personal desires to the common good.”54 Finding the “higher motive of doing good” to be “easy and natural,” the child would realize that “the law is absolute” in the moral and physical worlds and would affirm the “obligations naturally imposed upon him.” This development culminated in “voluntary obedience, the last lesson in life,” in a “free surrender” of the will, and the “free glad offering of the spirit.” Striving for “freedom through harmony with law” from the time he says “I do this thing, I form this habit, because it is right. . . . I therefore will to do it,” the child achieves inner moral agency: “a free, seeing obedience to law, not to mere authority; to necessity, not to whim, to inner purpose, not to an external master.”55 Accepting “in great and permanent matters, restraint; in little and transient matters, liberty,” an individual’s “higher nature” or “best self” would now “govern his acts to a desired end, and enjoy it.” The result would be “steady, self-determined action” toward the ultimate ideal, “even in opposition” to and overcoming any personal resistance in the form of an internal “stimulus tending to oppose that end.” The ability through self-mastery to live by the laws and customs of agency society, reconciling personal freedom with “the right to freedom and happiness possessed by all other members of the community,” produced the ultimate synthesis of “freedom and restraint, of play and work, of love and law,” of individual and community.56

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Two Paths to Liberal Psychology The claim of inevitable natural development proved too much, for it appeared to dispense with the need for further scientific inquiry into the patterns of maturation and for socializing intervention. But both were clearly necessary. If the socializing regimen was to persuade children— as it must—that they directed their own adaptation, the exhortations of advice literature were no longer adequate. The child (and parent) had to be convinced that the child’s maturation was firmly grounded in internal patterns of growth. These pressures gave rise to the science of child development, spawning new fields of study, such as experimental psychology, developmental education, evolutionary study, and infant psychology, all intended to reveal “knowledge of the lawful manner of the child’s natural unfolding.”57 The emergence of these fields demonstrates the influence that social and political agendas have on the shaping of scientific discourse. The powerful role of nineteenth-century child rearing should have conclusively belied the claim that character development occurred simply as an objective natural process. But beginning in the late nineteenth century and continuing through the twentieth, the determination to ground agency values in processes seemingly independent of internalized cultural construction led liberalism to the promulgation of what must be called agency sciences, that is, discourses claiming objectivity that were actually grounded in the presumptions of the agency framework. The political demands upon the new sciences were yet more complicated. For agency was to be asserted not only as the outcome of a fi xed biological and psychological evolution, but as an evolution that simultaneously culminated with agency. That is, the American claim to have reached the highest stage of evolution meant that agency, scientifically speaking, had to be asserted as the ultimate stage of internal growth. However, the reigning developmental models, such as Darwinism and American Hegelianism, assumed processes of continuous innovation, with the possibility of new stages and unanticipated shifts. The American sciences would be expected to produce a natural model in realized agency while precluding the emergence of other possibilities. Just as the ideal of the self-made in fact meant the capacity to make oneself as an agent and nothing more, the new sciences would aim to objectify and then freeze evolution at the agency stage.

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The attempt to explain the distinctive agency self and society led psychology in two directions. What became the dominant account would presume the achievement of agency while rejecting the developmental framework altogether as too open to further evolution; it left liberal society in an ahistorical present, needing to rely on established institutional practices to sustain agency without any explanation, scientific or otherwise, of its emergence in the individual or in American history. The alternative approach traced how the agency character had emerged as a historical and social reality to constitute new potentialities and social forms in the American republic. These differing theoretical agendas were taken up by the fathers of American psychology, William James and G. Stanley Hall. The work of William James, one of Hall’s influential teachers, points to the direction the developmental sciences would take in the next century. Given the tendency of organisms to revert to stasis as a result of moral lethargy and complacency, James proposed a cautious and limited view of scientific progress. While accepting the Civil War as an advance for the nation, he was disinclined to turn the science of mental life into a celebration of American accomplishment. Internal development and historical progress were hardly inevitable, given the “rancors and delusions” of history, the likely “degeneration” and “trials” of democracy, and the moral complexity and volatility of the inner life. Only the “law of habit,” by limiting the power of the will and promoting adjustment, provided a measure of “determinate order.”58 James’s goal was to restrict the impact of the human will on social processes. To do so he turned to scientific determinism. By positing the external and internal worlds each as a “system of fi xed relations” without “independent variables,”59 he hoped to insulate society from change. The result of this static vision of reality would be the two deterministic sciences of child formation dominating the first part of the twentieth century: with regard to internal processes, experimental psychology and learning theory deriving from Edward Thorndike; at the interpersonal level, social behaviorism in child development and pedagogy stemming from the work of John Dewey (though Dewey would reject this characterization). As different as they were, these sciences of psychological causation, whether biopsychological or social psychological, shared a common assumption: human behavior could be explained as the responsive adjustment to external systemic pressures rather than as

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the result of any internal unfolding of capacities within the individual or society. The legacy of the nineteenth-century social transformation, and all further potential for transformation, would be scientifically excised from historical memory. The triumph of Jamesian psychology would be apparent before long. Hall’s psychocultural vision, on the other hand, represented the final statement of the nineteenth-century achievement and the great expression of the role of American socialization in societal formation. Hall was consumed by the great character shifts the youth of his era and earlier had undergone. These shifts could in no sense be understood in terms of mere adaptation, for they represented the development of a new psychological and experiential reality. Having undertaken this constitution of an agency character in his own life, Hall acutely sensed the new capabilities and challenges involved in its realization. He was determined to convey that developmental and transformational vision in his voluminous research and writing, his influential child study movement, and his efforts to organize American psychology as a profession, and he exhorted the many colleagues and students inspired by him to do the same.

Hall’s Turn to Child Psychology For many nineteenth-century thinkers, the dramatic changes wrought by modernization demonstrated the implausibility of presuming the constancy of human nature. If the American character was a distinctive historical achievement, then identity evolved in conjunction with shifting social realities. This recognition accentuated the opposite danger, that identity might be entirely relative, which would have vitiated the American claim to have brought into being a latent but intrinsic developmental stage. To rebut relativism, developmentalists argued that human potentiality emerged in clear patterns as society was released from the traditional strictures that in the past had frustrated the full growth of the young. Because the child’s greatest potential was present in early life, before becoming stillborn, child psychology would reveal these patterns as modern society allowed preconventional human nature to flourish. Darwinists and early European child psychologists, as well as the few precursors to Hall in American child study, thus sought to uncover the

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biological and early psychological drives as a scientific baseline to distinguish latent natural capacities. The leading child psychologist and Hall’s student, Arnold Gesell, wrote of the “revolutionary and productive” impact of Darwinism, “an organism is really not understood” until one addresses “the great historical question of origin and development.”60 Only by identifying “antecedent phenomena” in psychic life and the “conditions of [psychic] production” could the evolutionary sequence tracing the “origin and development of mind” be known.61 Some early psychologists sought answers in comparative psychology using animals or in anthropological psychology studying earlier societies. Hall, influenced by such European educational theorists and reformers as Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Friedrich Froebel, Johann Herbart, and their followers, turned to the study of the child. He was deeply indebted to Rousseau’s “half mystical,” “prophetic and intuitive” vision of the child’s nature, which he believed was “virginal and unspoilt” until “marred by man’s awkward touch.” For Hall, the socialized individual bore little relation to the original child. In pursuit of “deeper insight into children’s psychic growth and activity,” he hoped to ground the “nebulous speculations” of earlier child enthusiasts with a grounded psychology of child development. This true science of mind would locate the “heart of psychology” and the true “basis of pedagogy,” enabling them to combine “educational romanticism with biological evolution and scientific methods” in an objective account of human growth.62 Called by Gesell the “greatest modern student of the child,” Hall sought to forge a new vision of human development with the child at the “center of unity.” His later recognition for having presented development “in a new light” as the Darwin of psychology and Darwin of the mind gave him “more satisfaction than any compliment ever paid.” His immediate precursor, Spencer, had already recast human evolution as an educational process unfolding according to universal psychological laws and driven by the emerging natural capacities for rational knowledge. “Almost hypnotized” early on by the concept of evolution, Hall sought to “introduce evolutionary concepts into psychology” to explain “how psychic traits and trends arose.” The idea that “every human institution, organization, and even science itself were but the unfoldment of infantile impulses in man” from the “very dawn of the psyche” appeared to open “a totally new” way of understanding reality, a project representing the “consummation of philosophical endeavor.”63

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Like Casaubon in Middlemarch, Hall sought a unitary account of human existence, integrating Darwinian biology and Spencerian sociology, the anthropological past and the prophetic future. With the American achievement as an agency nation vindicating his “faith in an evolution which is slowly but surely accomplishing before our eyes all worthy ideals,” Hall assumed, as did like-minded theologians of the period, that a comprehensive science would confirm the realization of the evolved agency character. This developmental foundation was clearly to be located in the “child, uncivilized and to some extent even savage.”64 Research into the nature of childhood, drawing upon physiology and the emerging fields of psychology, pathology, anthropology, and pedagogy, would reveal the natural laws propelling the unfolding of agency civilization. Dismissing as “bankrupt” the understanding of psychology prior to the evolutionary approach, Hall at the same time sought to improve upon Spencer’s rationalistic model. The “true evolutionary order” was more deeply rooted in the “facts of instinct” and “daily life,” those “instincts, feelings, emotions and sentiments [that] were vastly older and more all-determining than the intellect.” Given the depths of the unconscious, a “chaotic domain” of “very antique foundations” (what he called “paleopsychic”), the states of mind below “the threshold of consciousness” would alone explain the “progressive acquirement” of more complex attributes. The science of psychology had become an “embryology of the soul.”65 This cosmic synthesis to which the child was the doorway long predated Hall’s scientific work. Reared in a devout rural New England Congregational family, he entered Union Theological Seminary in 1867 with the intention of becoming a minister. Struggling to give voice to his early vision of the nation’s agency achievement, Hall’s exposure to liberal progressive theologies of history turned him toward philosophy. Like many of his era, he initially found in Hegel the ultimate expression of the ascending realization of human nature in the American experience without the religious baggage. After a time, however, absolute idealism also had to be rejected as “a kind of delicious mysticism” divorced from reality. Empirical psychology promised to provide the objective physiological account needed to anchor Hegelian “growth and development,” leading Hall to study with William James at Harvard and Wilhelm Wundt in Europe and to obtain the first American doctorate in psychology.66

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Finding the mechanistic and ahistorical approach of experimental psychology incapable of addressing questions of human consciousness and experience, Hall became determined in the early 1880s to forge a “New Psychology.” While this science would be “Christian to its root and centre,” its goal would be to “illuminate the whole” process of human evolution toward agency. Documenting the rise of this “new cosmos” historically as its “new and vaster conceptions of the universe and man’s place in it” were now “slowly taking form,” this science would “effect a complete atonement” or reconciliation “between modern culture and religious verities.” The scientist, now the “mouthpiece of things” never articulated before, the vessel by which “God had come to consciousness in the human brain,” would as “God’s creative prophet” finally be equipped to announce the larger divine plan as “God coming to consciousness” in humankind.67 Such a grand synthesis of science and religion, Hall recognized, would be credible only to the extent science could provide verification of its developmental claims. In a series of seminal essays, he first undertook a statement of his life’s work on the psychological evolution of the young. A new form of child development, he insisted, had made the American realization of the agency character possible. Because of the nation’s preoccupation with “independence and self-regulation,” the individual was quickly able to take “control of himself into his own hands” as “nowhere” else, for in no other society were “children emancipated from the control of parents at so early an age.” Such unprecedented release, however, had proved viable only when tempered by the “moral freedom” of the agent, a process facilitated within the American setting enabling the “highest” motives to be “spontaneously and autonomously acted upon” with “no sense of compulsion or obligation.” Promotion of the “most comprehensive” growth of the child had plainly resulted in the more evolved individual of dissenting Protestantism, one animated by the “promptings of the inspiring Spirit” within and committed to “responsibilities which transcend this life.”68 A true science of childhood with access to the biological substrate of human life was to explain optimal development as a natural sequence emerging independent of all environmental and socializing influences. Unlike theories ignoring the “order in which the child’s capacities . . . unfold,” this account of “naturalism and spontaneity” would capture the “order of growth” from lowest to higher: “The senses develop first,

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and all the higher intuitions called by the collective name of conscience, gradually and later in life.” Later changes in character could thus be explained as the surfacing of slowly emerging “natural predisposition[s],” of “later-acquired motives and considerations” and instincts.69 Tracing the path from the species’ “primeval” beginnings in “biological inheritance” at the “origins of human mind” to its culmination in agency society, this science would explain the child’s natural “process of crystallization” as the biopsychological unfolding of a capacity for “self-regulation” bolstered by a “sense of God within” and “the natural reactions of conscience.” As the mature agent strove toward “angelic communion” and moral “reconformity,” it achieved a “restored harmony with self, reunion with God, [a] newly awakened love for Jesus,” and “new impulse to do his will” as a “complete man” with “true or inner [moral] freedom.”70 All that remained was the evidence.

Studying the Child The child study movement in America initiated what the educational reformer Francis Parker called “the scientific period” in child psychology, turning “theories about children” into the “study of children” and creating the impetus toward the modern concerns shaping “the Century of the Child.”71 Advocates of parental reform were calling on new “child’s expert[s]” in psychology and pedagogy to supplement grand claims of developmental inevitability with the details necessary to construct “better ways of serving . . . children.” With Hall as its dominant figure, the child study movement sought to understand the child’s life from conception in terms of “heredity, natural and acquired endowment, and the whole equipment of the child,” the comprehensive impact of prenatal influences, nursery environments, games and stories, training and discipline, disease and remedy, kindergarten ideals, moral education, punishment and rewards, and the role of mothers.72 Building on early child study in Europe and the United States, Hall hoped that observing and making a careful record of early childhood behavior and the “signs of development” would provide a comprehensive collection of facts revealing “some portion of the secret of the mental and physical development of infants.” By means of questionnaires completed by parents, inventories of children’s knowledge and perceptions, and parental registers of their child’s development, investigators

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reached beyond individual cases and “speculative conclusions” from a narrow sample to gain a broader, “more objective picture of the inward growth of [human] faculties.” Using these results, “parental instinct” would be replaced by the “science of motherhood” following the “dictum of the scientist.”73 Hall’s premise was that psychological experience—individually and collectively— constituted a distinct, identifiable, qualitative reality whose presocial logic could be revealed in experimental subjects. He was convinced that the record of natural experience could be traced beginning from those “more irrepressible instincts” that are “deepest down in the scale of life.” Reaching the natural child, the “true self that words, social forms and conventionalities so often hide” as the “shades of the prison house close” to create the traps and “mazes of culture,” was a project of extraordinary ambition.74 As “unique and very different creatures” with ways and thoughts “very little” like adults, the young were the unfailing and undimmed “oracles” that would provide the “keys to unlock” the whole “history of the race” by revealing the inner “laws of the soul.” As “the child is father of the man,” accessing the child’s developing “personality and consciousness” would help explain how humans actually shape themselves and their world. Comprehensive inventories of “every act, sensation, feeling, will, and thought,” and each pattern of fetish, fancy, fear, speech, expression, belief, and relation, had to be catalogued.75 Hall planned to bring to light the “purpose and design” of human development with the aim of discovering the “larger human logic in which all systems move,” a logic that human subjects enact but seldom recognize. Once identified, the distinct stages of individual development, each with its “own special form of productiveness and creation,” would reveal a pattern of maturation, and the “order, directions, and rapidity” of unfolding could then be codified using the methods of modern psychology.76

The Science of Self-Evolving Agency Development Hall’s theory of natural development never became a legitimate science. Despite the sustained attention his work brought to the child’s inner world, the accumulated “mosaics” and “composites” of cultural experience painted no clear picture. Instead his limited and problematic data on childhood involved simplistic labeling, circular reasoning, and

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wishful thinking, framed by repetitions of the claim that his “now impending synthesis” would establish the “long hoped-for and long-delayed science of man.”77 But Hall remained undaunted by such criticism. The rise of agency society was no illusion: it attested to a “real history” of “true evolutionary sequences,” an “authentic line of development” in “natural stages” of growth to the agency “ego synthesis.” His science was necessary to safeguard society against “prevalent errors of education and of life” and detail the conditions that allowed children to “live out each stage” to the fullest. The establishment of accurate “formulae of development” would also generate “true norms” as mea sures of “further development,” enabling socializers to “diagnose and measure arrest and retardation” and in turn to treat failures of growth.78 Uncovering the laws of natural development, at once “moral and natural,” that detailed “the universe and man’s place in it” would moreover provide Americans a road map to chart their “great national expansion” in this “greatest of all historic periods.” Poised for further advance, the result would be progress “so amazing that in it we read our title clear to dominion,” producing “new and vaster” realizations.79 Believing that “every living philosophy” must contribute to future “moral regeneration,” Hall expected his science to clarify the ideals best suited for the age of universal “democracy and government of, for, and by the people.”80 Hall’s conceptual model of human development identified three main stages: early childhood, late childhood, and adolescence. The early years, following Rousseau, are a “wild, undomesticated stage” in which the “nativistic and more or less feral instincts can and should be fed and formed.” In this “sheltered paradise,” building on Froebel’s commitment to the “purest and most spiritual activity of childhood,” the child indulges his “interest, zest, and spontaneity” in play. Acting with a “whole and undivided personality,” young children learn to “love their tasks,” to discover their interests and extend their “reserves of vitality” through intensive and persevering effort, to develop the capacities for selfexpression, and above all to sharpen their own “organizing instincts” by directing their impulses with an increasing sense of personal attentiveness and responsibility toward goals chosen “from within.” At the same time, open to “illusion,” they learn to “imagine and state things that have no objective counterpart,” developing “new mental combinations independently of experience.” Creative play activates the “creative imagination and idealism” to propel thought and the “mythopoeic

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faculty” toward possibilities “above reality,” a source for later cultural innovativeness.81 During the second stage, from eight to twelve, the child develops “a life of [his] own outside the home,” away from the influence of adults.82 He also begins to focus his spontaneous energies in more functional and socially adaptive ways, such as mastering a craft, acquiring practical skills, participating in group projects, and interacting with peers, not in response to external pressure but from a desire to participate in and imitate the life of his surroundings. Play tends to take on a more orga nized character, as the child uses dolls, builds collections, and participates in competitive games with rules or structured activity. In this period fancies are “ripened to more practical form,” as the relation to reality is tested through concerted action. This sustained mental and physical experimentation, gradually integrating and “combining physical, industrial, [and] technical with civil and religious elements,” promotes the child’s adaptation and adjustment to his environment.83 Adolescence, the third stage of development, is the culminating period in the “long pilgrimage of the soul” to higher maturity that the “great revolution” of agency in the United States had made possible. As the child moves beyond the peer immersion and is “driven from his paradise” as a typical being in “harmony with nature,” he discovers the “higher kingdom” of his distinctive “psycho-physical nature.” A new “character and personality” begin to form, in earlier religious language a “marvelous new birth” into a “new world.” The capacities developed during the earlier periods have to be integrated: the seeds of “individuality” and “selfaffirmation” that had arisen in early free play now emerge as mature drives toward “self-feeling and ambition,” and the “social instincts” from the second stage are newly sparked by “great and new enthusiasms and ideals” and directed toward the enrichment of higher collective life.84 American adolescents, in other words, were charged with the ultimate developmental challenge of forming an agency character, integrating the individualist demands of self-realization with the voluntary drive toward social integration. On one hand, adolescents were spurred by “dreams of greatness,” including the wish to challenge parents and become “independently developed” as they achieved mastery over their environment. Hoping to fulfill “their ideas of their own merits,” adolescents wished to break free of the “common constraints of society,” eager to “test themselves by mea sur ing their powers with those of others”

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and to “set up for themselves and begin life on their own hook.” On the other hand, adolescents sought to fulfill their “immensely broadened and deepened” capacities for love, “religious sentiment,” and “ethical life,” serving the common welfare in what Hall called an “altro-centric” or other-centered fashion on the basis of noble “self-subordination” and “self-sacrifice.” As the budding conscience awakened a “thirst for righteousness,” for the ideal world of God, for love and communion in a “new heaven and a new earth” of “human beatitude,” adolescents were inspired to seek outlets for ser vice and devotion in order to express their “enthusiasm for humanity.”85 Agency society had enabled the child to discover a level of individualism unavailable in traditional cultures. Yet it would prevail only if it produced “better men” capable of harnessing that individualism. The United States needed to fi nd a “center of gravity” that would stabilize this “definite social character,” in Hall’s terms, by facilitating the transition to agency as the “stage when life pivots over from an autocentric” to a “heliocentric basis.” Borrowing from his dissenting religious culture, Hall referred to this growth into agency selfhood as “conversion.” Once adolescents accepted the appropriate “means” to collective “end[s]” established by their community, shaping their lives by its “largest wholes and great principles,” they would be integrated as parts of an “all-encompassing oneness” in a society of agents.86 In Hall’s vision of perfection, individuals “molting naturally of themselves” would henceforth follow a higher developmental path that “impel[led] every child toward maturity” and “natural . . . unity.” Society would in turn achieve integration of “the social and the individual,” a “complete self-realization” of individuality directing itself by “limitation and dependence” into the “right channels” of “social righteousness” and virtue. The new “cosmic order” unified American “secular and religious life,” merging the ends of “science and theology” as a synthesis of the practical and the ideal.87 A “regenerate ‘science of man’ ” was to record how the “deeply divine” elements of “ethical power” and “conscience,” of “faith, and imagination,” came together in a grand “evolution into the higher plane of the soul.” The scientific account of the soul unfolding in its ultimate power, highlighting the “comprehensive evolutionary synthesis in the psychological domain,” was the modern “Bible of the soul of man.”88 The nineteenth-century project of establishing a mainstream agency conception of self and society was complete. Agency, once only a faith,

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was now an experiential assumption of American child development and character formation. In Hall’s view, any science that, like psychology, sought to explain modern individualism had to take into account the evolution of that individualism. Neither Hall’s broader framework rooted in historical change, nor his account of agency maturation as a process of individual change, would serve the new century, however, for each explained too much to a people who assumed that citizen formation was no longer necessary in the free society. Theories that identified a continuing capacity for individual and societal development would stir questions about the fi nality of present arrangements and might encourage further speculation about what forms of self-realization lay beyond agency. Americans wanted no reminder of the challenges involved in generating mature and responsible agents or the limits imposed on the unconditioned will by agency child rearing, and would excise the developmental achievement underlying American societal formation from the nation’s record. The late nineteenth-century child-rearing reformers, including Hall, knew that cultural regimens were a necessary part of any developmental process. Most ironically the conviction of self-creation itself required a socialization that persuaded the young that they were self-made. In effect, socializers were expected to facilitate a child development that dispensed with the last vestiges of their work. Regimens of socialization and education would have to be implemented that were self-erasing. And a major figure in this quixotic project, embodying as always the great conundrums of American social formation, would be G. Stanley Hall, paradoxically a most forceful advocate of the strenuous child rearing that his developmental science had seemingly obviated.

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A Superfluous Socialization? Shaping the Self-Realizing Child This whole [early] period is preeminently the period of “self-establishment” for the child. —Emilie Poulsson Not one man in a million has a sense of what is right or wrong except as the result of education and experience. —Henry Ward Beecher

What role could socialization play if the young evolved naturally and, in time, took control of their own nature to shape themselves? Were socializing institutions even necessary? How could adults not be free if they had freely developed from children without external constraints? As the young were trained to will their own integration, socializing institutions became the linchpin of society, the unspoken source of liberal consent. The certainty of a child’s agency development, though a popular assertion in scientific literature, was of little value to socializers. Both parents and educators had to be assisted in producing the inevitable. The result would be a growing division of labor. Parents, already recast from child shapers to modest guardians of a natural process, now focused on enabling children to realize themselves in the apparent absence of interference. Educators, by contrast, as we will see in the next chapter, had to maintain the stated objective of self-development while managing adaptation to an increasingly stratified and role-conscious society. Reconstituting the family as an influential but invisible presence in the child’s development required intricate child-rearing techniques, distinct from but compatible with the educational strategies by which 272

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the child would be party to an increasingly routinized integration. Persuading the young and the public at large to embrace a natural process of agency integration would paradoxically be the clearest evidence of the socializing achievement.

The Family Eclipsed Before the Civil War, as we have seen, education had moved toward the ethos of a naturally developing child, leaving direct intervention to the family. By the mid-1880s parental advice writers at the vanguard of modern child rearing similarly retreated from any inference that their work had a direct socializing impact. Serving as a “bugle-call” for better “preparatory training” for modern child rearing, they exhorted families with an extravagant child-centered rhetoric to prepare “the Children of the Future” as “liberty-loving Americans” for “absolute independence” in the free society. With even women “beginning to be free,” no longer could infants “be muzzled” or children be the “under-dog always” who must obey.1 An oppressive regime designed to get children “used to suppression” would be replaced with “higher and more enlightened modern methods” that nurtured natural capacities.2 To reframe the family, like the rest of liberal society, as a free institution, direct parental intervention was to be contracted using indirect methods developed in psychology, child development, pedagogy, and child study.3 Parental authority, which like the catechism and the Bible “never used to be called into question,” was now highly suspect, subject to the “universal interrogation” now present in society. Moreover, the truism that parents “know by a kind of instinct” how to proceed was wrong: “They do not.” Given that so few women had “even a smattering” of the relevant knowledge of physiology, hygiene, the child’s ner vous organism, the nature of intelligence, heredity, emotions, infant and child communication, psychological needs, the role of economic hardship, or the impact of parental actions on children’s development, reliance on the maternal instinct was a “gross but popular error.”4 Still less were parents able to grasp the “philosophy of child-nature” or the developmental process. Articles such as “Our Baby, and How We Undid Her” addressed the “lamentable lack of wisdom” in many homes: “Stand on any street corner and notice how . . . probably not one child in a hundred is properly handled.”5

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Misreading the developmental cues on the effectiveness of a given intervention, parents were told, would inevitably create “young victims of their mismanagement.” This was a bitter pill. Despite stifling their own impulses in earlier calls for “self-abnegation” and “extraordinary selfrestraint” in order to promote those of their children, parents were still burdened by limited experience and knowledge, biases shaped by “prejudices[,] . . . conventional customs,” and “class distinctions” as well as inbred “habit[s] of obedience” that compromised child growth: “In family government the difficulty far more often lies with us than with our children.” Nor were the necessary changes easy: “parents must somehow be brought into sympathy” with the child’s progress, though “it is harder to reform parents than children.”6 Errors in upbringing, parents learned to their surprise, were now obvious even to their offspring. As the “glow of individual freedom” reached that “stronghold of all habit and tradition, the Home,” “parental incapacity” was obvious even on “the child’s part.” It was no longer a secret to children “where the error lies in their own training.” Columns such as “Stray Leaves from a Baby’s Journal” illustrated the deference children were to be accorded, as the author assumed the voice and presumed prerogatives of an infant: “I love to stick my fi ngers in the butter [and] take my revenge on the salt by sending it flying all over the carpet; it looks so pretty.” The author tells readers, “[I] indicate my wishes” despite the “eternal remark, ‘No, no.’ ” Noting, “I feel wronged [by] big folks,” the “helpless baby,” though “unable to talk,” bewails his torment by those professing to “love him most.”7 Parents’ efforts to regain authority in the face of this precocity were transparently self-serving and inapposite. Parents would assert a duty “invented” from their own self-interest or would “fatuously” demand of the child, “Obey me, because I [am your] mother”; the result of such vacuousness was “nil.” Some frustrated parents would renew traditional claims that assertions of the young stemmed from child depravity, which indicated “only the foolishness of the parent.”8 The only extrication from this bind was for parents to relinquish control, first, to “scientific preparation” and the “scientific standpoint,” with “faith” that the knowledge provided by experts who understood the child’s natural path to agency would yield “glorious results,” and second, remarkably, to the child himself. Debuting a role that would grow throughout the following century, child-rearing advisors raised “listen-

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ing to the child” and the child’s wishes to the preeminent responsibility of parents. Parents were instructed to sharpen their sense of how and when to intervene by “see[ing] life from the child’s point of view,” and in turn to develop their insight into “infantile feelings, passions, and mental processes.” Interventions consistent with “childhood’s title” to development and “inalienable rights” stipulated a new “code of laws for the nursery,” bringing to fruition a new stage in human growth and parenting.9

Parenting the Natural Child Even if the fight for parental authority was essentially over, the role of the family in child rearing could not be “lost sight of.” Education “begins at birth,” parents were told, and the first three years of parental monopoly were more critical for “happy development” than any other period. For that reason their “practical deductions” still had more influence than abstract principles of “theoretical psychology.” Because the child’s character will tend in the direction it is “oftenest drawn,” parents needed to focus on the very early years: the initial appearance of “specific sensations and feelings,”10 the natural movements the child makes and his physical health, and the stages of development, including how each baby develops in a “different way.” Parenting required continual attention as well as the “most careful thought and action”: “To study the mental characteristics of our children should be a solemn duty, and, looking into their natures, we should not strive to find, as in a mirror, a reflection of our wishes or ideas, but to see what is there.”11 To acquaint themselves with the child’s natural tendencies, socializers were instructed in his intrinsic capacities, innate strengths, and “mighty innocence” and in the detailed stages of development. As the “passive, protective, observant” tender of the “child garden” who enables virtues to “bud as in their native air,” the parent had to protect the child as he comes “by his own individual will, to do things which are right.” Given a child’s “pure and innocent and holy thoughts,” this meant learning perhaps “the hardest” lesson: “what not to do.”12 In order not to “thwart” the child’s “own and Nature’s way,” parents were to carefully identify those “things [they] do that are really unimportant, and then omit them.” Above all, they were not to tamper with or misdirect the unfolding developmental order, that “original line of smooth connection” that would

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take “years of conscientious work to re-establish.” A permanent injury to the growth of any capacity not allowed its natural course created the danger of “arrested development,” with its potential for damage in “afterlife” that was “difficult to over-estimate.”13 To nurture the infant’s “right to be,” his “rights” to his own development, parents’ initial aim was to satisfy his impulses for pleasure and well-being. So long as “the baby is kept constantly happy and at [his] ease,” with minimum displeasure, and encouraged to trust that “all [his] wants will be gratified as far as it is possible,” his independent development would seamlessly unfold. A “fair degree of liberty” was to be provided without injurious prohibitions or “constant repression” and needless restrictions on noise or play.14 Misconduct was not to be faulted, but understood as the erratic “beginnings of powers” arising naturally from the child’s “enterprising experiment” and initiative. While this holy and “natural force,” emerging from its “storage battery of power we call the will” and bubbling over with “natural initiative” and “natural, innocent curiosity,” was at times undirected, these incipient powers were the prelude to “new truth” about the child’s maturation and “great improvement” in the outcome.15 Given how “perfectly Nature insists on doing her work” regardless of “most adverse circumstances,” the young child presumably would quickly adopt an internal timetable. Directing the progress according to specific developmental stages, as with plants “growing in accordance with laws as inexorable as the law of gravitation,” nature would guide “every step upward.” Parents needed to trust that the relaxation of constraints would allow for the natural development of interests and talents through which, in time, “all positive virtues, will become habits.”16 The most striking— and previously unimaginable— capacity to watch for, and whose cultivation was the key to the new child rearing, was early self-reliance. From the first time they “depend on themselves for amusement,” children use their activities as practice for becoming their “own instructor.” The author of Self-Reliance in the Nursery emphasized the “absolute necessity” of nurturing from infancy the child’s inclination for “depending upon himself.” His intrinsic desire for freedom, evident in his early wish to be “let alone” and “understand for [him]self,” indicates the priority placed on “self-activity”: “Our American children . . . are thoroughly independent, feeling the need of caring for themselves when scarcely able to toddle.” Offering the “first lesson in self-reliance” so

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early in life that “it hardly seems possible” will enable the child from infancy to be “in the habit of listening to his thoughts, of depending upon himself in a large sense, of being, in fact, at one with himself.” From shaping “play . . . for themselves” to “democratic comradeship” with the “hatless, shoeless, curb stone revellers” on “the Avenue,” the natural path from the start led to self-creation.17 By allowing the child’s power and self-expression to flourish, parents would observe the growth of intrinsic capacities, from the child’s “loving thoughts that stir within” to his growing ability to “observe, understand and reason without aid.” Parents were assured that the child’s “moral sense”—that “something in our bodies,” as reported by a little girl, that “tells us when we are doing right or wrong”—would flourish in this environment. As “reasonable little beings” from the start, children were directed by an “innate guide” that indicated they “ought to do right” and not “wrong,” whether they had “ever heard of the golden rule or not.”18 If carefully prevented from being “dulled by contact with the world,” this “keen sense of justice,” as “keen as an adult’s ought to be,” enabled the child, with his inborn moral discernment, to “detect its absence” in others as well as others’ efforts at “guile.” As the child developed a “self-governing intelligence” and became “an emancipated, selfgoverning being,” he would in the proper sequence embrace obedience and social propriety as an emerging “impulse of [his] higher nature” and affirm “harmonious relations” as “natural between parent and child.”19 As the patterns of agency infused the culture, parents could encourage these patterns without the sense of restricting the child. The child’s “healthy absorption” in natural feelings, progressively revealing his “best self and powers” and his guiding “inner voice,” urged him toward a “constantly advancing ideal” issuing from his own experience. With the demands of agency now located in situational expectations, the “ideal toward which the child is attracted” no longer appeared to arise from the expectations of others. What was once an “ideal which [parents] offer to the child” became one he “develop[ed] after [his] own pattern.”20 As the young person became the “intelligent agent of his own destiny from his earliest years,” the “glorious possibility” of agency society would crystallize, with the “new-born generation” serving as the “longed-for Messiah” possessing “The Kingdom of Heaven . . . within.”21 The child had become the model character and national ideal.

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And a Child Shall Lead Us Confronted with the challenge of raising such children, parents were not simply to relinquish direct authority in order to protect the child’s emerging character. In framing childhood as self-evolution toward ultimate cultural ideals through internal timed release, child-rearing advisors expressed the need to treat the young as bearing the future within their original natures. The result of such treatment, the facilitation of levels of liberal development and integration in the young never attained by their parents, left parents both deprived of their role as models and unsure how to reengage as socializers. Parents were told to look to the young, to put themselves “into the place of the child,” to “understand what [he] feels and needs,” and to be guided by the child’s interests and wishes.22 The baby had become the expert. Given that the “newly-born babe is very wise for one so ignorant,” socializers had to continually remind themselves that “baby does know.” Now an educator, even “disciplinarian,” of his parents, the “little child [was to] lead them.” What is “right and natural” originated in the “child’s sense” and was only “learned through long experience” by adults. Moreover, this “great educative force” of the young would act upon the “generation that bore them as effectually” as the young are “acted upon,” achieving for the elevation of adult characters “all [child rearing can] hope to do for” the children’s characters. By turning parents to “better thoughts” and “higher living,” the young approached a level of equality with adults, and, through the power of their influence, even a reversal of generational roles.23 Two widely disseminated parental advice books, Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young (1871) by Jacob Abbott and Hints on Child Training (1891) by H. Clay Trumbull, reveal the profound shifts in the parental role. Abbott’s stated objective, to retain “complete, absolute, unquestioned authority” as the “only government of the parent over the child that is worthy of the name,” required parents “to develop in the mind of the child a love of the principle of obedience.” On closer examination, however, the relation turned out to be neither absolute nor even authoritative. To begin with, corporal punishment, fear, and harshness were now unacceptable, for these would risk “alienating their [child’s] affections,” rendering parents an “obstacle to [the child’s] happiness” or “object of her aversion.” More important than merely preventing a rupture in the relationship, however, parents were to ad-

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mit their stake in the child’s affections. Abbott encouraged parents to personally acknowledge that the “supreme and never-ceasing wish of my heart” is for “my child to love me.”24 This surprising admission of parental neediness, an indirect confirmation of the child’s moral power and developmental lead, dramatically altered child rearing. Abbott initially insisted that “absolute and supreme” parental authority was still obtainable without causing antagonism or claims of inconsistency. Parents simply had to gain their children’s affection and keep them in a “contented and happy frame of mind” by “entering into their world” as a “sharer” and solicitor of their ideas and feelings; by becoming “their playmate, their companion, and friend, indulgent in respect to all their harmless fancies,” taking part in “their occupations, their enjoyments, their disappointments, and their sorrows”; by “indulg[ing] their child-like desires . . . the more . . . the better”; and by in turn “mak[ing] these very indulgences the means of strengthening [parental] authority.”25 What flowed from this affective bond reinforced by “great liberality of indulgence” on the parents’ part was not total authority but exposure of the parents’ deeper, previously inaccessible craving for identification. Restoring this deference was what parents “long, above all, for.” Yet as children’s investment in parents’ authority weakened, parents were advised that this commitment could be restored only by idealizing the young in the hope of engendering reciprocal idealization. As the child was “spontaneously drawn into harmony” with his benefactors by this treatment, subtle expectations would activate his “involuntary tendency” to admire and “to become” like those “whom we love.”26 This reciprocity might have made generational relations appear normal, but it obscured the “magic power” of children’s affections in their parents’ lives. The “silent and perhaps unconscious sympathy” generated when we “make them like us or love us” operated as a “magnetic or electric” or “moral induction,” producing a force that “greatly aggrandize[d] and ennoble[d]” the adult. Parents, driven to fulfill the need to “make a young person” love them, had in this way gained reciprocity, though at great cost to generational structures. In effect acknowledging the child’s rise to a “very exalted position,” parents now depended on winning not only the child’s will but his identification. The young, responsible now for bolstering parental authority, had become the paradoxical if deeply hidden sustainer of the socializing hierarchy.27

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Trumbull’s work took yet another major step in the dismantling of generational hierarchy. Offered as informal rather than scientific advice, his work assured parents of their power. Socializers had the capacity for “making . . . a child anew,” for shaping the young to be what they “should be” and not what they “would like to be and do.” At the same time, each child was to be recognized even in embryo as filled with capacities “his parents could never attain.” The potential for “highest [self]hood” was already “cooking within,” simply waiting to be released. Parents were therefore charged to “develop and perfect what is best in [the child’s] distinctive self,” resisting unnecessary intrusions and encouraging “all the possibilities . . . working within him toward their independent development”: “we should never, never, never force their choice,” parents were told, even toward “our intelligent preference for them,” for the “final responsibility . . . rests with the child, and not with the parent.”28 Trumbull’s quixotic hope was that such autonomy would bring the child “to use his own will, freely and gladly, in the direction” of parental commands. Yet parents could not sustain their preeminence. Seeing the advancement of their children would stir parents’ own wish for further development, a development that required them to play catchup with their young, in the process producing a reversal of generational roles. Once committed to releasing the “individuality and glorious possibilities of each and every child,” parents had only the child’s model to follow. In other words, for parents to reach their own height, they needed to identify with the child. By determining to “learn from the child” and even “become as little children,” and thereby recovering “child-freshness” and “child-like” innocence, adults would recover the “gleam of childhood’s possibilities” rekindling from the embers the parent’s own “marked and distinctive individuality.” As the parent recalled in the process of self-recovery that in his “earliest days he had his own standpoint of observation and reflection,” including an “independent outlook” as an individual, his wish for selfhood would be restored along with the determination to continue advancing.29

The Fate of Parenting? In their efforts to maintain at least the shell of the traditional parental role, Abbott and Trumbull exposed the foundation of generational au-

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thority in the United States and perhaps of authority in general. One of the shattering revelations of the nineteenth century was Hegel’s observation that the slave constitutes the master through his projective investment in the master’s authority. In American generational relations, this deeply buried process was destined in time to reveal itself. The voluntary society, while an ideal advanced by adults, had to be realized— paradoxically for liberalism—by the young, who were not only the vanguard but the cohort most easily induced into a commitment both willing and unquestioned. To achieve a level of early adaptiveness unreached by adults, the young had to be persuaded of their distinctiveness—in liberal child-rearing terms, their capacity for independence had to be magnified and their self-development emphasized. By century’s end children had gained unprecedented power and leverage over adults. Parents learned to “bring out the best” in their children by seeing only “the best in them,” to wipe away any “disagreeable experience” by “hold[ing] the right thoughts” about them and nourishing the “grandeur of [their] character.” There was to be no mention of “deficiencies or peculiarities,” no “criticism, blame, or depreciation”—only support for “self-confidence” and “purity” through “appreciation, praise, and encouragement” would do. The choice was simply put: “repressing them” and “destroying their childhood” or adopting “cheerful, optimistic” moods that generate inner harmony and the “highest possible state of creative efficiency.”30 Particularly unsettling to adults (if inadmissible publicly) was that beneath their support for children’s development and self-creation as agents lay their own wish for fulfillment as agents. Abbott and Trumbull suggested that parents wished to gain back from the young the idealizing affect tendered to children to bolster their own identity. This could be achieved either by inducing idealization of oneself in one’s child or by more radically experiencing the feelings of potency as an idealized child oneself. But these were not true solutions, rooted as they were in the unspoken preeminence of the young. As Trumbull recognized, the adult in the latter case would likely recollect this imbalance when recalling his own childhood feeling of being the “superior of his parents in the basis and scope of character, in the attributes of genius, and in the instincts of high spiritual perception.”31 The more immediate problem was how to shape the young as agents. Where was the necessary socializing authority to come from? To develop as agents, didn’t individuals need authors? Weren’t agents without

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authors in effect authors themselves? As self-determination appeared increasingly accessible, the culture of self-authorizing individualism seemed all but unavoidable, particularly to cultural radicals just after the turn of the century. The emerging power imbalances of the organizational age would revitalize a sense of common purpose and institutional authority reminiscent of agency, allowing the shift from willing engagement to compliance in the face of shrinking alternatives to go largely unnoticed— except among the socializing experts expected to smooth the transition. The deeper dislocations caused by the seismic shift in generational relations, including the rise of forms of individualism incompatible with agency, such as self-authority and bureaucratic servitude, would remain.

Intervening within an Inevitable Process The possibilities for adult intervention in a process presumably on autopilot were severely curtailed. How could socialization be understood as a contribution to the child’s “natural, spontaneous efforts at self-education”?32 While socialization was more necessary than ever, the problem was how to carry out internalizations that had been culturally defined as already part of the child’s intrinsic motivation. Strategies were needed to make the child believe he had arrived at agency on his own, without socialization. Writers of parental advice fully understood the dilemmas and paradoxes involved, as evident in their insistence on disguising authoritative intervention. The expression of authority, they suggested, “should be latent, not wantonly exhibited; felt rather than seen,” and “appear to be, in a way, involuntary,” as if “affairs flow on guided by some invisible agency.” Promoting “direction (I prefer it to the word government),” advisors counseled parents to “eliminate the words and as nearly as possible the processes” mandating overt obedience. This would foster “unconscious growth” within a “simple unconscious childhood” featuring an “unconscious . . . progressive education” that eliminated any intimation of “surrender” or “submission” to another’s will.33 At the same time and with greater urgency, parents were exhorted to act from the outset to ensure “a right start.” The concern was to camouflage “early tendencies” toward intervention—which were to be commenced in “the first week” or they would “never be done.” The dilemma

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became apparent: to generate a firm sense of limits while encouraging the child to believe he had the power to pursue experience without the constraints of external authority. An immensely “subtle and difficult task,” it was posed as “how to modify the child’s action,” to “alter his act by first altering his feeling and thought,” using methods that kept the “healthy sequence [of growth] unbroken” and enabled the child to believe growth “still his own.”34 The child was to be led to will his compliance, to say, “I do this thing, I form this habit, because it is right,” and only for that reason. The goal was “awakening the child’s affectionateness, and so captivating its fancy as to make it feel that it is doing as it likes, though it be something different from what it was impelled to do at first,” and moreover the “better thing.” Once “ruled by a mental bias seemingly self-created,” the child will through his “own choosing” determine to follow in “the paths which you command.”35 This was easier said than done. Parents had previously been advised that the “only sure and permanent hold” remaining on the child was to get him “to so love and trust his parents that pleasing them shall of itself give pleasure.” But an affective bond was no longer enough. Now parents were asked to involve themselves in the details of his growth, such that the child “feel[s] that every wish of his parents is in harmony with their consistent and never-failing endeavor to secure his welfare.” Supported in “each upward impulse which says, ‘Do!’ ” with “its bent respected, its curiosity utilized,” encouraged by a parental commitment to letting the child “have its own way,” and accorded the liberty to develop in a “free and joyous atmosphere,” the child would appear to live entirely without coercion or even pressure.36 Tailoring their interventions to “follow natural law,” that is, synchronizing them “thoroughly in harmony with child-nature,” parents would make them seem “apparently spontaneous” rather than reactive to any agenda. Responsive behavior would be so emotionally rewarding that it would be experienced as the result of the child’s own inner purposes. Having continuously “felt themselves free,” children thereafter “never even knew it was obedience—the bugbear and stumbling block of most households.”37

Parental Strategies for (Non)Intervention Convinced he was pursuing his own well-being, the child would find it easy to take the next step, that of “divert[ing] the activity into some

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proper channel.” The child’s impetus to further his own development would direct him “to desire what [he] ought to desire, to strengthen, and to develop” himself accordingly. To facilitate agency internalization while claiming that intervention merely “assist[ed] nature in the simplest possible way,” strategies were designed to “suit the child’s mind, not [the adults’],” as acts taken “distinctly for the child’s benefit” and training for what “the child demands.”38 Such shaping strategies included providing a directed environment, disguising acts as natural occurrences, using the spontaneity of play, intervening only when necessary and as developmentally appropriate, and at all times framing intervention as support for self-development.39 The least intrusive strategy was to control the environment. By rearing the child in an “atmosphere which will gently, unobtrusively suggest to him” activities and responses that incorporate the appropriate expectations and boundaries, the parent was not denying or limiting the child but facilitating his opportunities. Like the gardener who places plants in the “situation and soil which suits them,” parents will best “assist the growth by providing the right conditions” and keeping everything hurtful “far away.”40 Within this structured setting, parents could disguise controls as constraints arising not from them but from external necessities. These methods would emphasize the “natural consequences” of a child’s act. While acting as if always “in obedience to the child’s demand” and as the child’s allies, parents were to place “whole dependence” upon linking conduct in the child’s mind with its natural outcome of “pleasure and pain.” As “discomfort” will “seem intrinsic to the act,” a suffering of the “natural consequences of [the child’s] actions,” limits would be encountered as a “natural punishment” and thus seem “purely just.” Moreover, as the child learned to connect these intrinsic effects to each act, this “law of association” ensured the child’s “harmonious adjustment” of behavior to his environment. Parents could then provide “gently graduated exercises” and “repeated slight experiences” to guide the child in the right direction. Limits would now be “formed without any unpleasant association with the parent,” as the child’s own adaptation— with the helpful assistance of parents—to reality.41 Whenever feasible, early lessons were to be delivered by means of spontaneous and apparently undirected play. The “business of play is so engrossing,” so “free[ing] to the imagination,” that it is for infants

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and children the “most important” of the educational methods. Encouraged in endless games they “invent . . . for themselves,” they gain the initial capacities for “self-dependence, patience, perseverance, steady effort,” and “determination.” Above all, they become “accustomed early to freedom,” to self-directed and voluntary activity that expresses the “inner life through [their] inclinations.” At the same time, play imposes an inevitable “discipline of natural consequences” without the intervention of an authority, and further calls for voluntary discipline as children freely make “their own rules.”42 As more demanding activities ensue, the same “constant selection” of priorities required in play facilitates the “strengthening of the will” and the demand for creating order and organi zation of one’s “own accord.” The child thereby gains full “measure of his power in the world” and an ability to pursue the “paths of his own choosing.” These “spontaneous efforts at self-education” in turn become a “rehearsal” for “later life,” with its challenge of and opportunity for self-creation.43 To ensure successful intervention, parents were to ascertain “completely, at any stage of development,” what was feasible and to assist children to be “what that stage call[ed] for and only that.” Parents were discouraged from promoting games that did not “promote proper development,” and from having unreasonable expectations of “speedy or early growth” in their children, such as “complete self-control” in a little one. To reap the “fruits of gradual development,” the literature emphasized the ways to recognize and provide “that which seems next in the order demanded,” including those materials and games appropriate to strengthen a particular skill, sense, or faculty. If parents proceeded cautiously, the child would not only “surprise us by beginning to do of [his] own accord what we have despairingly given over advising,” but also would regard these actions as the product of his own initiative.44 Once the child trusted his capacity to master situations, parents could escalate their expectations to facilitate more complex forms of selfadaptation. A child assisted in his own growth would continue to affirm the “desirability of the behaviour [parents] wish produced” as essential to the realization of his evolving goals, rendering the path toward full social integration “pleasant and unconscious.” Parents should not waver when a child, preoccupied with his own interests, exhibited periods of selfishness or self-will, for these were “necessary and natural” stages in establishing an “individual self.” Parents had to trust in the developmental

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sequence, in which early faults were “outgrown” as the child’s internalized ideal evolved in appropriate ways.45

The Web of the Normal The fantasy of a society of self-created individuals cannot, for obvious reasons, be taken seriously. The wish for this idyll to be true, however, can and must be. The ultimate goal of a free society of free individuals presumed that agency values would in time permeate social relations, including child rearing, to the point society could expect appropriate behavior without explicit demands even on the young. Any additional leverage to ensure integration would come from peer pressure, the “public opinion” now recognized as the chief “instrument of restraint” both early and in “later life.” Because “we are influenced by our equals more than by superiors or those we deem inferior,” children were not to “be much alone, nor to be chiefly with grown persons.” There was “no substitute” for “association with a large number of children of [their] own age and interests,” now their “judges and jurymen” beginning in infancy.46 For the child, the “disapproval of the small world about him,” though indirect, was “more keenly felt than the disapproval of his mother.” Proper social behavior could therefore best be learned through engagement with other children as they made “a miniature community for themselves.” This “free republic of childhood” would subtly impose recognition of the laws and “will of the social whole.” Children would in turn be “trimmed and rubbed to smoothness” as they interacted: they found it joyful to “learn ‘the rules’ and play according to them,” leading them to pursue the “harmonious adjustment between themselves and their environment.”47 The child who is “predisposed” to obedience, possessing a disposition to “yield to others” and an “eager desire to please,” came to be seen as the “normal child.” With frequent repetition this adaptive child established an “orderly sequence” of development akin to a “natural connection,” making his behavior appropriate and predictable. Credited as the “marvelous work” of the moral nature, this predictability—the basis of all virtue and equal to “ten natures”—was what parents who provided the “normal . . . training each [child] should rightfully receive” had every reason to expect. Child-rearing experts increasingly identified the goal

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of socialization as the child who naturally grew up “normal.” To enable parents to accurately gauge what a “normal child” was able to accomplish, socializers compiled behavioral standards specifying the sequence of “typical and universally valuable” conduct. They were in effect establishing patterns of appropriate development by which each “particular child may be measured and judged.”48 The normal was natural in that the potentialities constituting it arose from within the individual, and predictable in that these potentialities emerged in accordance with an increasingly rigid pattern of social expectations. The natural path would lead to establishing “relations with society occupied by an average man” as the mark of success; failure to attain them would be the “defective” result of a “development impaired.” Because “there is nothing to which human nature either in young or old more cheerfully submits than the inevitable,” these markers were presented not as constructs but as developmental certainties. Encouraged to grow “sweetly, serenely,” and unknowingly into independent fulfillment of the prevailing laws and patterns of development, the child could follow them to “restrain and guide [his] self-assertion” while believing all the while that he is “master of himself.” Subtly superintended by enabling adults, the well-adjusted youth could be released to life as a free agent, convinced his “conduct shall be his own,—his chosen course of action, adopted by him through the use of his own faculties.” The claim that socialization was nothing but restating the obvious, reinforcing the evident, and reaffirming the inevitable sealed the loss of historical memory. Of course, the insistence on a “general standard,” both its “inevitable operation” and the dictum that “meet[ing] it at every turn” prepared one to “meet life,” was the socialization itself.49 With its application of pressure increasingly indirect and invisible to the young, the family was now praised as a setting free of conflict. A child’s antisocial behavior was simply “mis-directed energy” to be set back on course. Childhood rebellion was the result of “injudicious management,” and without such parental errors there was “no instance of [children’s] abusing their privileges.” Even adolescence would recede as a period of turbulence, as the replacement of internalized values for the overt “standard and conscience of his parents” is “so imperceptible, that we can scarcely mark it.”

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That parents’ authority continually grew “weaker” and their “influence waxe[d]” as the child assimilated to broader social expectations, particularly if their “government has been wise, tender and just,” was to be expected: “Little by little the iron bonds of restraint,” necessary only during incapacity, are “loosened, until with maturity of mind the last link slips away and he stands fully evolved, a free man with only his own conscience for his king.”50 The image of children conforming naturally to their role as social agents, with parents as cheerleaders, reflected the national idyll of absolute voluntarism. Parents, initially expected to systematically disguise the early mechanisms of compliance, were now instructed to back off even further once youth moved into the web of institutional expectations. But this integrative system remained more aspiration than social reality. The average individual was not the normalized self-regulating agent, nor was the peer culture of the era a community of self-mobilizing and self-adapting citizens. Yet organi zational society was escalating the pressure for an unconflicted transition to social functioning. Just as child specialists knew that the young child’s belief in his self-reliance was the creation of constant external encouragement, they realized that the self-integrating youth would have to be assiduously constructed as well. As family authority declined and the rhetoric of self-creation ascended, this task required much greater skill than parents could muster. The burden of ensuring integration would now fall primarily on others in the child-shaping process.

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Educating the Voluntary Citizen in an Organizational Age Whether a republican form of government can be permanent, is at bottom a question of education. —G. Stanley Hall One purpose of all training is to mechanize right-doing. . . . There remains the power to make every unconscious, or automatic, action conscious. —Richard G. Boone

Sherwood Anderson, writing in his autobiographical A Story Teller’s Story, marveled at the late nineteenth century’s “great flood” of organizations and cities and factories, the “coming of modern industrialism,” with its “prosperity, growth going onward and upward.” As we have seen, few had the heart to examine the impact of these “new gods” that were “cast in iron and steel” on “every street of every town and city.” Preferring the “childish belief” that organi zational society would automatically “raise free men who could think for themselves,” they risked producing new generations unprepared for success and institutional integration in the “New Age.” Schools, as always, would be the canaries in the mine, charged with preparing the young.1

Facing the New Age Alone Education in this transitional period was being pulled in many directions: reform versus pedagogical rigidity, moral versus vocational preparation, self-reliant agency versus organi zational integration, citizenship training versus skill development. Citizens were simultaneously 289

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demanding help to “rise from penury to plenty, from ignorance to knowledge, from vice to virtue.”2 In the midst of the struggle with these multiple priorities, pressure was growing to provide standardized educational training. Both the maturation of liberal institutional processes and the increasing power of bureaucratic organizations to control economic access and mobility resulted in a decreasing institutional flexibility. Ironically the push for a more rigorous socialization was growing just as domestic authority was dissolving. Parents were being warned not to pose a “serious stumbling-block” to their children’s advancement, and educators were being asked to take on the socializing of the organi zational citizen on their own.3 The challenge of providing more rigorous training was compounded by the culture of self-creation. Fed “innumerable tales” of great successes who “had begun with nothing,” young Americans were led to believe that “formidable obstacles” were no obstacles because “boys with no chance” from a “straitened household” had the best chance.4 In 1883 Jacob Wilson described the “driving, head-long age” as one in which youth cast aside elders who appeared to be “in the way,” believing that their “work [was] finished” and their “ser vices [were] needed no more.”5 Implementing its agenda with the arrival of Tocqueville’s equality, not of outcomes but as the rejection of hierarchy, would be the task facing education. In the shift to organi zational society, education was forced to operate within the discourse of liberal individualism. The agency values it had championed, with their overtones of religion and obligation, proved too confining. The challenge now was to provide a more structured schooling framed as the further realization of the free society. Toward this end, educational thinkers, aided by early psychological theory, pioneered discourses in the last quarter of the century that would become central to the liberal defense of voluntarism in its organi zational phase. In the first discourse beginning after the war, educational advocates affirmed the antebellum goal of preparing the young for self-reliant agency. Then, with the development of a more structured economy, a second discourse began, drawing on the late-century cultural focus on individual will. Educators were insisting on increased discipline and order, and they found the will to be a faculty at once voluntary and highly amenable to pressure and direction. The third discourse arose with the diminishing importance of the will in organi zational networks; begin-

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ning just before the turn of the century, this third discourse on voluntarism is addressed in the coda.

Mounting Pressures for Adaptation The complex demands on the educational system reflected the larger ambivalent attitudes of the society. Americans recoiled from the perception that society was quickly passing to those who would “root out the great brooding spirit of freedom.”6 Most liberal thinkers, except for early sociologists such as Lester Ward and Albion Small, considered the organi zational dynamic just a normal aspect of agency consolidation. For the public, the great energies creating the industrial system even reaffirmed that the “new generation [would] do great things” for the “glory” and the “rights of man.” Few demurred when “paradise” was foreseen arriving “just at hand” with “the Ford, the city apartment building with tiled bathroom floors, subways, jazz, the movies.”7 Few doubted that institutional voluntarism, choice, and opportunity would continue to thrive. Liberal economists such as David Wells and John Bates Clark praised the unregulated market as an open system of horizontal exchange and utility governed by invariant natural rules. In an era described as “the Summit of Complacency” by Henry F. May, Protestant leaders concurred that the “agrarian democracy” of “Christian America was still being guided by the Unseen Hand” and needed no intervention but His.8 This “dream of nostalgia,” as Arnold Meyer called it, brought with it the comforting thought that “industry, and the ominous new populations” of laborers “it spawned, could be absorbed” and “socialized by an applied science and piety” as “though it had never been.”9 Yet under cover of this complacency, pressures for integration were slowly mounting. Anderson declared “Standardization! Standardization!” the “cry of [his] generation” sweeping forward to embrace the “great machine.”10 The pursuit of wealth and status, propelled by the economic system, with its “mighty river of industrial expansion,”11 was becoming the national obsession: “There was but one direction, one channel, into which all [were to] pour their energies. All must give themselves wholeheartedly to material and industrial progress.” Exploiting and exacerbating the widespread wish for inclusion was the ethos of consumption and display, the vast competition fueled by the expanding industry of

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marketing and advertising to show off one’s spoils. Where “men at their fi reside gathered their children around them and talked glowingly of men of dollars,” the assumption was that “to be poor was to be a fool.”12 Henry Ward Beecher intoned that any “laborer ought to be ashamed” who did not in short order “own the ground on which his [unmortgaged] house stands” with “carpets . . . China plates . . . chrome” and the like.13 The novels and memoirs of the era describe how the social expectations to get ahead, to be either quickly “caught by the American spirit of national advancement” or risk being “a nobody” facing “isolation and indifference,” sidetracked the liberation promised by the city.14 The city was no frontier but a place built on status and success. Dreiser’s Carrie, overwhelmed with the “flame of envy” and the “drug of desire,” by Chicago’s remarkable displays in “showplace[s] of dazzling interest and attraction,” turned her sights to the “world of fortune.”15 Told by self-help books what one “should like to imitate,” the individual learned to “speak promptly, and to appear well,” to assess “the stylishness of his own image,” that is, his appearance to others, as he internalized their “motives” and “actions” and “ape[d] the[ir] manners.”16 Repeatedly, characters only grasp themselves in the mirror, like David Levinsky, who, “parading [his] ‘modern’ make-up” before a “looking-glass,” is told he is “quite an American,” though in this image he “scarcely recognizes himself.”17 While few protagonists paused to consider the implications, the journey to pursue self-creation and the creative life was eventuating in work catering to others, ironically seeking to win their will. Whether in journalism, commercial art, law, commerce, real estate, the theater, or even the ministry, one was left little more than “an intellectual prostitute” to mass taste and sensibilities.18 Friendly advice counseled “stay[ing] within the bounds of convention” in order to “get along” with “society or public opinion.”19 Behind the flattering language of willful self-exertion, one found oneself “part of a chain” in a “vast, competent, largely useless cosmos of offices,” whose “noblest vista” included “desks and typewriters” and the “bald heads of men who believe dreams to be idiotic.”20 The advice literature for youth emphasized these tensions. Underneath the required emphasis on individualism, writers increasingly acknowledged the impact of new economic and social networks on one’s

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ambitions. Though “censured by the moralists,” “moral power” had to be supplemented, and even a determined will was not enough. Though youth were counseled to act in such a way as never to “give [their] conscience a single pang” and to measure their real merits using “honorable means,” the “deceitfulness of the apparent facilities for getting rich in cities” was undermining the “old-fashioned modes.” A capacity for “adjusting one’s self” to the “wants of the time” and “saying to one’s fellows what they want to hear” was needed. To make “sure of a market” for one’s initiatives, it was necessary to perfect one’s “first impressions” and develop a talent for “attracting and securing attention,” what William Mathews called “self-advertising” or “blow[ing] your own trumpet.” Although some may call it “charlatanism,” it is often necessary “to seem” rather than “to be,” by maintaining social “forms and conventionalities,” including a certain “appearance and demeanor.”21 In the 1880s commentators sensed a new “age of sham,” of individuals “constantly pretending to be what they know they are not.” Amid a public shifting its opinions from “one to-day” to “another to-morrow,” individuals were required to “make a noise” to gain esteem and regard and to learn the “art of managing men” through “artifices” that would enable them to “mould” others “to [their] purposes.”22 Studies of late nineteenth-century advice literature such as Karen Halttunen’s Confidence Men and Painted Women and John Kasson’s Rudeness and Civility note the sharp decline in moral resistance to the “manipulation of those surface impressions of dress and conduct” associated with the dissembling, disguise, and hypocrisy of confidence men. Where so many people were pursuing a “new and better social identity” to rise by “pass[ing] for more than they really were,” the adoption of “outer conformity” and “social hypocrisy” provided a “necessary social mask” in the larger “confidence game” of social relations.23 As one manual put it, “You are never alone” in the emerging interactive network. Facing continual “public scrutiny” by “anonymous strangers” susceptible to impression, influence, and mass suggestion, individuals honed “polished social performances” as weapons in the ambiguous search for status and belonging.24 To act as “[one] see[s] other people perform” and “appear well” meant trying to “please men” and “serve them satisfactorily.” With the “success or failure of [one’s] per for mance” depending upon the “favor with which it is viewed,” emphasizing one’s

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presentation was “not in human nature to resist.”25 As Halttunen notes, Horatio Alger’s successful young men possess not only abundant moral virtue but the urban art of social perfor mance and interpersonal engagement, an ability to please others and be what Alger called “the most popular.”26 By the last decade of the century, the large business house loomed as the locus of social mobility. In the confines of this setting, the employee must not only “give and take with the others, or get out,” but make a “strong impression on the employer” by “being faithful” and “keeping his mouth shut.”27 The much touted field of opportunity turned out to be a “rigid world” ruled by an iron “Law of Success” that shaped moral and economic outcomes “as certain as the law of the seasons” and which “all must obey.” The “right path” was to that particular position one is “best fitted to occupy and fill,” and the ultimate virtue was “regularity,” which, acquired in youth, would produce “steady, persistent effort” toward a fixed place.28 Getting the “approval of that still small voice within” on the path to becoming a “master” and “conqueror” now meant doing the job, cultivating the “art of being agreeable” and the “secret of pleasing,” and hoping to find the “key that will unlock the door” now located “above [one].”29 Frederick Jackson Turner’s proud eulogy to the frontier conveyed increasingly deep national forebodings.

The Religion of Education Its capacity to “fulfill [the] national promise” remained the key to education’s place in the American story. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, Americans from all walks of life— southern whites and blacks, immigrants and farmers, members of the labor movement, middle-class reformers, business elites and educators—looked to education as the “national panacea,” creating new initiatives such as vocational education, compulsory attendance, and high schools.30 Educators understood their special role as inculcators of the national faith. Commissioner of Education John Eaton said in 1871 that nothing was more “irrevocably fi xed” or “sui generis than American education,” having undertaken the “work for man and God” to shape the nation in the “spirit of progress.” Amid a “stormy ocean of new perils,” the “superior modern American school” was an island of “all superior things in the Union.”31

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This liberal faith continued to assert the compatibility of expanding individualism and liberal order. At this modern “Dawn of Individuality,” education uniquely promoted the “free, conscious activity of the individual,” arising not “from without, but to actualize himself.” Expanding schooling was the “best guarantee of success” in “every conceivable . . . human enterprise.” Able to “make American freemen out of all born here as well as all coming hither,” it liberated the individual from “inferiority and subordination” to “fashion his own sphere.”32 At the same time, education enabled Americans to establish their “new order” for humankind.33 As youth migrated from “country school” or “plough” to the urban areas, the “only bond of permanent union” and “cement of the new edifice” was children “thinking together” as a “common mind.” Cultivating “universal principles of morality” and developing social capacities would enable all to “perform easily, accurately, pleasurably, the offices assigned to them.” Individualism, grounded in “universal Christian intelligence and virtue[, which] only can make [people] free,” decisively shaped the liberal “national sentiment” and “national character.”34 The premise of this universal creed, guiding the individual “from childhood to manhood, from subordination to independence, from pupilage to mastership, from servitude to integrated individualism,” was the “ethical freedom and responsibility of the agent.” The agency character resulting from the “deeper work of character- culture” was the “corner-stone,” the “bulwark,” and “sheet-anchor of the Republic,” and now a “self-evident truth.” The “ground-plan” for this character to which Americans “conform[ed] all [their] labors” was, as always, the agent’s “right use” of capacities for “the end for which he was created.”35 The liberal citizen’s competence arose not as “mere compliance” but “freedom through lawfulness,” not from “fear of authority” but “innate reverence,” producing his distinctive capacity for “voluntary conformity” to “self-imposed law.”36 The drive to consolidate liberal society thus became a call for “a great educational awakening” led by “evangelists of this new revival.” To prepare the “sole self-active agent in human history” through “popular instruction,” teachers were exhorted as “an Agent, not a Servant” to perform “work so high,” even beyond “that of the pulpit,” in their “ministry in the school-room.” As foremost missionaries “convert[ing] mankind” to “a new heaven and a new earth,” their own “new birth” as agents would

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in turn “lift up, transform, exalt, and glorify” the young, leading to the “millennium of education.”37 By “convert[ing] mankind from primitive savagery” to civilization, this mission would “melt aristocracy into democracy,” “level all castes,” and create the “peerage of the common people.” With the young regenerated as “new creatures,” potential “hoodlums” reborn as “aspiring, kindly, noble boys,” the “perfecting [of] human nature” would ensure the “salvation of . . . republican institutions” inhabited by the “new race of Americans.”38

Phase 1: The New Education For many modern scholars, postwar American education was a response to the emerging industrial, urban social order. The professional literature of the era reveals a more ambiguous goal of situating the necessary accommodations within the liberal culture of individualism whose guardian they believed themselves to be. If in this way “schooling was not only accepted but given perhaps unwarranted esteem by almost all segments of society,” perpetrating what some have recently called “a colossal fraud on the American’s social consciousness,” yet it was “a fraud in which nearly the whole people was implicated.”39 Reformers during the period began in the spirit of earlier reformers. Witnessing the “encroachments of the machine spirit on education” in many places, despite the best efforts of the previous innovators, they perceived a “short-sighted and self-deceived” betrayal of the project for the “regeneration of society and the development of national character.” They asked, “Can a code of rules transform a boy’s heart [or] reprimands . . . waken the dormant power of self-control? . . . Never!”40 Traditionalists too often still demanded “police discipline,” with rules “severe, the system unyielding, the master inexorable.”41 These “unnatural ways of the past” produced students who “follow blindly,” achieving through “monotonous repetition” only what a “machine could have executed as well,” at the cost of the voluntarism required of agency.42 The watchword of this reform was the role of interest, to “awaken an interest in every pupil” stirring “within himself” and not “without,” thereby animating his “heart and soul and mind and strength.” In the 1870s, a widespread movement under the banner of the New Education arose to identify the “natural methods of education” capable of “interesting the pupil in his work.”43 Gaining a foothold in kindergartens

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among followers of Pestalozzi and Froebel, stirred by the success of Col. Francis Parker in his schools in Quincy, Massachusetts, this “great revolution” was soon surging “across the continent, waking up the sleepiest old neighborhood” in a “vast tidal movement” to regenerate the dream of “a new heaven and a new earth.”44 The New Education sought by encouraging “those motives which spring from sympathetic relations between the pupil and teacher” and from “generous emulation” to motivate the child’s innate active and receptive being.45 Rather than directly impose learning, classroom conditions were to facilitate free activity and provide opportunities for curiosity, creativity, and expression. Following what he “naturally desires,” the student “discovers for himself” what must be learned, developing his capacities through “unceasing activity” and mastery.46 By emphasizing “life and experience” in place of “outward mechanical precepts in all discipline of the character,” teachers were assured, “all the mental faculties” would achieve “healthy action” and “harmonious selfactivity” while “discipline largely takes care of itself.”47 For an age anchored in the “bedrock of facts” rather than an abstract “world of theories,” the “methodical spirit” spread nowhere faster than in education. The cry to teachers, “Please look to your methods,” resulted in “Method run mad!,” an “insatiate demand” for improved procedures and practices.48 Journal articles continually offered innovative strategies for engagement that were patterned after the “inductive” method in the “experimental sciences” and built upon popular child-centered kindergarten pedagogy.49 The focus on motivating the student to “observe and reason for himself, to state his own ideas, and then to commit to memory the correct statements of what he has learned” was gradually formalized as the sequence “observation, thought, expression,”50 known as object-teaching. In the first stage, activities would encourage observations that subtly directed students’ experience and interest into “work that [would] engage their attention willingly.” In the next stage, the child would learn to process the experimental data he had accumulated by observation. In the third stage, by expressing his judgments and conclusions in presentations, projects, and perfor mance, the child would achieve a sense of initiative and the independent capacity “to think, to do, and to be.”51 Observation eschewed “an excess of book-learning” in favor of actual experience. To stress the worldly and inductive capacities through the

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“freer play” of sense stimuli, as in “full and fun activity,” the teacher surrounded the child with “things upon which he [could] try his powers freely.” Encouraged to “see, hear, and handle,” children were provided a variety of “suggestive objects” in every subject. By selecting projects for children that were “suited to their capacity” and “periods of development” and that drew on a “variety of interest[s],” the teacher gently “direct[ed] their steps,” immersing children in “things as they are.” By unobtrusively “calling forth and disciplining the senses,” in time appropriate “tastes and habits and judgment” would “safely assume their guardianship.”52 Thought, the “habit of careful observation and investigation, logical thinking, orderly arrangement,” was to be encouraged not as passive reception or incessant testing but as “cogency” of analysis: “Take especial pains to draw from the pupil whatever he has thought or learned in regard to the lessons and listen with a manifested interest and respect to any contribution, however small, which he offers.” “[Neither] take . . . the words out of his mouth [nor] tell your pupils all you know or think,” educators were told, for they may “refuse to say anything” or may even “cease to think.” Encouraging participation and leaving subjects openended would make students “eager to bring more to the same market,” leading to improved focus and concentration as well as skills of interpretation, testing, and verification and the ability to generate workable hypotheses.53 The motto for the third stage of expression was “Learn to Do by Doing,” designed to promote the sense of self-willed and self-directed activity. It is “impossible” to know or do “anything without ever doing it” because a “thing is not known until action” has relayed it into the “very fibre of [one’s] being.” The gradual shift from play to “practical work” as “another kind of play” would enable practical skills and self-discipline to quietly permeate “pleasurable action.” In the process, “habits” that were “useful in any occupation,” including the “will to work” itself, would form, along with the crucial internal strengths to accomplish societal ends. Thus equipped, the young would easily “find their orbits,— domestic, social, and educational.”54 Hopes ran high that the stimulation of interests “adapted to the nature of the mind” would reveal the unfolding “order of [evolving] nature” which had been promised before the war.55 As “healthy” capacities emerged, they would establish the “natural history of the normal child’s faculties and growth.”56 The “universally possessed science” of

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“immutable laws of mental and moral growth” would explain how the “most complete” individual “possible” emerged from “natural endowment” to a fully “trained manhood and womanhood.”57 One comprehensive framework could now link “empirical psychology” and the “science of pedagogy” as a single study synthesizing the two elements, “harmonious [natural] development and training,” the individual’s intrinsic patterns as strengthened by education, whose result was the ordered liberal agent.58

Pressures for Standardization The New Education movement was not universally welcomed. Some critics claimed that the reformers’ sprawling and disordered practices “left [children] bewildered in the ten-acre lot of miscellaneous and undigested information.”59 Only “occasionally hit[ting] the mark,” the movement amounted to a “fluctuating and tentative” cult of spontaneity that left everyone “never quite certain of anything,” merely using the child to “display the educational fashion of the hour.”60 Where “tasks cease[d] to be tasks” and “compulsion” and “discipline” were abandoned, the “most fatal ruin of children” from the end of “genuine child-training” was at hand.61 It was increasingly apparent to many that public education would henceforth “be largely a machine” that had to settle for “stillness and outward obedience.62 Even reformers were beginning to recognize that schooling could not rest content with socialization for a decentralized society. What if “machine-life,” with its “force of habit,” was shaping the “home and the church, business and government, society and culture”?63 Did the need for “technically educated heads” and “hands” and for “directors of machinery and managers” require a “moral education” compatible with “mechanical obedience?”64 By the early 1880s the substitution of “machinery for hand-labor” led to strong interest in industrial education, particularly for the masses, white and black, who were “made for manual skill.”65 While mass urban public education was “little less than a prodigious machine,” its “task-work” orientation provided “a rehearsal of [youth’s] future life,” the “best system” of training for “that average intelligence and moral habit essential to American citizenship.”66 Given the competing emphasis on individualism, educational reformers would follow a middle course. Broad public education was indispensible, for relying on parents to provide the specialized knowledge

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would be like putting hospitals “in charge of the butchers.”67 Nor did the claim of self-creation have to be taken seriously: “Self-made men are such because, as boys, they followed the suggestion of Mahomet, and went to school, inasmuch as the school will not come to them.”68 The “best proof of the value” of education was precisely that it produced the “eminent success” popularly accorded the “so-called ‘self-made’ man.”69 Yet even as progressive educational leaders created modern bureaucratic systems, they resisted the conclusion that the “development of individuality” would be denied students who were “put through the same process, cast in the same mold, and finished in the same manner.”70 They maintained a belief in the “power of public schooling to correct structural inequities by improving individuals, to reform society not by direct means but by teaching youth.”71 For the middle classes, industrial education had “no meaning” besides “get[ting] in the way” of “character-training and faculty training.”72 The new high schools would provide general knowledge and skills, lessons of virtue and discipline, and vocational training. The development of individual “mental power” and the “educated intelligence of the masses” would allow Americans to “direct and control the industrial pursuits,” proving that “man is greater than his institutions.”73 The flexibility and control that machines denied the “hand-worker” would now be provided to the “brain-worker.”74 The immense obstacles of industrialism would retreat before citizens raised to be “masters; and not servants of their machines.” Only the “ignorant man with small brain-power and mind-development” would “consent permanently to remain an adjunct to the machine.” Social reformers need not turn to organized solutions like the “single tax, socialism, even the Salvation Army crusade.” Rather if individuals were given the “means necessary to effect for themselves a rise” through expanding levels of education, then they could create despite growing societal “inter-dependence” a society of “independent, self-supporting producers.”75

The Turn to Practice The solution for education as the “seminary” for agency and “nursery of the American character” remained a common character training.76 Yet the terms had shifted. Though “no settled science” had yet emerged of either development or education, a presumption now operated that

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“every child” in mainstream society possessed an “inner moral sense” that tells him “he ought to do right” and not “wrong.”77 Agency norms had become sufficiently standardized that schooling no longer needed to motivate the young to embrace character ideals distinct from reigning social expectations. Rather, the emphasis was on realities, that is, on internalizing existing forms of social conduct through “practice” in “daily life.”78 The focus was thus on the “how.”79 Educators no longer needed to fear “being called a ‘utilitarian’ ” or having to “apologize” for asking “What is immediately practical?” Character had itself become a pragmatic set of behaviors subject to “short, suggestive, practical” lessons.80 As the growing union of “practical ends” and “the ideal” shifted emphasis to the “practical application of knowledge,” “practical” became the watchword: “practical methods, practical means, practical results,” presided over by “practical educators” who were the best judges of this “practical education.”81 Educators asserted their readiness for the task. Equipped to “reach nearly every child, and every youth, three to six hours a day, five or six days a week” for twelve or fourteen years, the schools were uniquely positioned to affect “every child’s mind.” It was at school that “true character-building . . . must be done, if done at all,” as it “surround[ed] the young” with the optimal moral influences. Parents on the metaphorical “anxious seat” used by religious revivalism for confessions openly admitted their failures and praised teachers for “doing it ten-fold better” than they could themselves.82 With its inclusive reach, education would “spread moral lessons over a whole neighborhood,” serving as the “most effective instrument for the training of masses of republican children for citizenship, now in operation anywhere.” By bringing the young together in an “education of all alike and all together” and reducing the “sharp issues of contending factions” and local loyalties, education would tie the “lowest and highest class together in bonds of a common citizenship.”83 Educators were pressured to ensure that the “course of development” be made to “fit the pupils,” that is, prepare them —an odd declaration for a putative science—for “increased competition” and an “increased division of labor” now requiring a rigorous “order of growth.” Educators were asked to ensure that “wheel . . . fit to wheel,” to identify the “most effective results” and incorporate them into a “systematic course

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of education.”84 Character was now shorthand for the “proper exercise” of faculties in behavior that expressed “the ideal standard,” the visible “effect of mental activity” producing the “right thing in the right way,” that is, those “right habits” putting the child “en rapport with his environment, nature, society, God.”85 Agency itself was becoming simply the individual’s commitment to “take [his] proper place in society,” achieved through “conformable” adaptation mentally, morally, and physically to the “laws of his being,” those laws rendering him, paradoxically, as “free and independent” as the “perfect violet” and “perfect oak.”86 Yet worries grew with the decline of reform efforts that a standardized pedagogy was “training [the] children” like “training horses,” that with “straight-jacket methods” it was turning them into “impotent parts of ponderous, ineffective machines.”87 In this “mechanical age,” a “machine spirit” seemed to vitiate every educational reform, “reduc[ing] it to drill-master routine.”88 Teachers and students were “becoming simply part of a machine,” yielding “without question” to “invariable rules” of inflexible institutions that had lost sight of their original ends.89 Individuality, a “ruinous” affront to an “age of standardization,” was being subsumed in standardized preferences, “houses alike, all . . . clad alike . . . all food alike, all the streets in all our cities alike.” A troubling question arose: “Had men but escaped out of the prisons of the Old World into the more horrid prisons of the New?”90

Phase 2: Education of the Will As President Eliot of Harvard argued in 1892, though education must be “a machine to some degree,” it should be “to the least possible degree.”91 In “A Plea for Individuality,” F. A. Comstock warned children that they were in danger of becoming “mechanical duplicates of one another.”92 The “correct child” who is pressured to a “regularity of action” undertaken “automatically” will “fall behind in the race of life” once “thrown upon his own resources.”93 By the 1880s, with increasing pressure for institutional adaptation, education faced a challenge to its historic capacity of integrating a vibrant voluntarism with institutional order. Now that children could be counted on to perform the expected behavior, the child had to be won to “voluntary action,” meaning “voluntary conformity to right.”94 To make sure that character found its natural or-

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dering, student interest was no longer allowed to emerge informally. It would have to be directed toward “accurate” and “precise ideas” taught in the “natural and proper order” and producing the “systematic right exertion” and expression.95 The challenge then was to maintain the sense of “voluntary direction,” which entailed a shift in pedagogical focus from “forced activity” to “exciting the right degree of interest.”96 To organize this revised process, educators turned to the psychology of the will. They drew on the work in faculty psychology, which identified the innate “physical, intellectual, and moral capacities” to be cultivated to their “highest activity and efficiency.”97 The preeminent faculty, given its capacity for “determin[ing] the character” and the “direction of thought” and “feeling” as the seat of the “individuality of the child,” was the will.98 In an era of “self-education,” pedagogical practice would seek to elicit the “free and unimpeded” willing of the appropriate “inwardly prompted self-activity.”99 At the same time, to persuade an individual to “adopt a certain course of conduct” one had to “influence his will.”100 Thus, to ensure voluntary compliance, the will was the “faculty which more, perhaps, than any other, need[ed] to be educated.”101

The Science and Pedagogy of the Will Science and pedagogy had apparently found their common subject, as the postbellum “revolution in education” synthesized natural development and the “education of the will.” The goal of a “completely fashioned will” reconciled the tensions and contradictions involved in demanding self-motivated compliance. Despite an increasingly routinized society, the will as the source of all “choices and volitions” of a responsible and moral being alone distinguished man from a “machine for the manufacture of cloth, shoes, nails or pins.”102 How could the selfdirection of one’s will be questioned when even such questioning was a sign that the will was firmly in the individual’s control? Yet its overriding characteristic, educators and child development experts realized, was how thoroughly conditionable it was. This premise of a freely conditioned will was the final explicit elaboration of what American revivalists had pursued. Regardless of what “compulsion controls the outer conduct,” the will was the inviolate “citadel” of moral strength and the “power of self- determination,”

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enabling individuals to be “self-caused” and thus “make of themselves just what they choose.” And yet this experience of self-willing itself arose from socialization. Since “like all other phenomena, volitions have causes,” the supposed spontaneity of the will was “impossible,” for its acts arose in response to prior external influences. And since these influences were the internal impact of external forces, the will was the “most educable part of man.” Given a voluntary will “largely controlled” by the individual’s “interest,” pedagogy could shape its direction subtly by choosing among the incentives and desires from which “volition follows.”103 Ironically, then, just as the powers of the will were magnified in popular discourse, educational theorists concluded that the will was a passive and reactive faculty dependent on conditioning and susceptible to pressure that prompted motives to “arise in the mind.” Facts, memories, judgments, and ideas formed from experiences “already past” acted as catalysts for subsequent “emotions, desires, and affections, those secret springs of action which determine choices, purpose, and moral quality.”104 It was therefore a simple matter to direct the will and determine its activity, even to provide “the inclination” to believe that one’s “choice [was] free.”105 To capture the power of attention that underlies all the faculties and channel it properly, teachers had to encourage the interests “arresting the attention of the child.” Then the “means of attracting” attention, repeated “again and again,” would “fix the habit of attention.”106 As internalized patterns became set by practice, science would identify how “action of the objects” produced thought and feeling “spontaneously, and of necessity.”107 Once developmental science set forth the “order of growth,” a pedagogical science could ensure the proper sequence by identifying the “various forces” in a chain of causes that rendered the will highly predictable. If those forces and demands acting upon the mind were kept constant, the “mind tend[ed] to act again in the same way” as it did before and with “ever increasing facility.” By the laws of the will, repeated willing in a given way further “increase[d] the power to act in that way” without assistance or even “conscious motive.” Once the “freedom of the will” was molded by things “past recall,” this “law of habit” eventuated in “self-directive” repetition as a “second nature,” enabling that which “ought to be done” to be “habitual, natural, and preferable.” While extolled as a “free force,” a now determinate science of conditioning ensured that through the “habit of self-reliance” wills would “do exactly

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what they [were] asked to do.”108 Active compliance would feed the further wish to comply in an endless loop, turning the free will into a burdenless way to provide voluntarism. This emerging “science of mind” was the psychology the “teacher needs to know.”109 Applying the “law of mental receptivity,” teachers would direct the early voluntary “artless movements and tendencies,” those first “spontaneous and trustworthy” impulses, toward the growth identified as “natural development.” These “right methods,” using “an Americanized psychology” spelled out in articles such as “Application of the Principles of Psychology to the Work of Teaching” and “Some Applications of Psychology to the Art of Teaching,” would produce a “distinctively American” adjustment as the “basis on which pedagogy is built.”110 Recognizing how the faculties are “stimulated to activity” and “strengthened by the same means,” a teacher could now organize every lesson “knowing what he is aiming at” in the sequence of growth and “how [to] attain it,” realizing through “condition[ing]” the “necessary self-evident truths” of development.111 The “self-directive” action of the will now operated in “a given way” along “channels” following the “law of habit.”112 As an editorial in the 1885 Journal of Education advised, the “scriptural rule for moulding . . . ideal excellence” is that “successful teaching is the result of constant repetition of fundamentals.”113 In this way, freedom merged with “right activity,” “pleasurable action” with “discipline,” the liberty to choose the “good by ourselves” with choices provided “for us by others.”114 As school “direct[ed] the way in which the child shall reveal himself to himself,” the sources of motivation had merged, rendering indistinguishable the “motives” arising from within and those “presented from without.” The whole process now occurred “without conscious motive in the groove of habit.”115 As the processes of growth became more sharply delineated by “educational progress” in “thought and practice,” education claimed the mantle of truth, affirming that teachers were in possession of the “knowledge of the nature of man.” Both a “scientifically arranged” order of “healthy growth” and the specific processes of internal development now informed reformers’ “varied and complicated educational work.” Given access to the human “plan or purpose,” teachers simply needed to follow the internal laws so “clearly set forth in the nature of the faculties” that “no man can put [them] asunder.”116

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Expectations of “systematic right exertion” from the first day of school were producing “uniform ways” in which individual and “social energies act.”117 Yet if “mak[ing] man what he is” rested upon the “secret of the education of the will” to produce “habituation to right conduct,” what was the will? And if from the outset people were expected to “will to act the perfect way” without facing choices or requiring a capacity for decision making, what was agency?118

The Triumph of Influence Apprehension that a preoccupation with order was foreclosing liberal individualism, while largely unacknowledged, can be inferred from major reframings of the pedagogical discourse in the last quarter of the century. The reframing in phase 2 addressed problems in the discourse of the will: first, how the experience of the will might remain unfettered despite its rigorous training; second, how a vital sense of personal agency could be sustained as opportunities for self-directed activity narrowed both in school and thereafter. To retain this sense of acting self-reliantly, the will— continuing the antebellum agenda—had to be won without revealing the stricter pedagogical mandate. Habit had already been identified as producing conformable conduct that felt unconstrained— and therefore unconflicted and unselfconscious. But how were such habits to be produced in the first place without creating feelings of subordination? Limiting the teacher’s authority and will had been an explicit goal of educational reform from the early period of American socialization. Preparing the young to believe in their self-creation hastened that withdrawal. The earlier education, where “love dwells,” was still needed, where the “magnetic current of sympathy” flowing between student and teacher made the child “ready to receive impressions” and able to “throw . . . his whole soul” into the process.119 Yet the teacher’s role as an explicit facilitator of learning and emulation was now too visible. Given students who were driven by a “spontaneous craving or desire” for growth, he “teaches best who teaches least,” who is at best “an after-worker.”120 How was a teacher to both disappear before the children’s selfempowered will and maintain greater control than ever? The result was the first sustained discussion of the positive role of influence in minimizing the appearance of control, a discussion that would reshape not

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only pedagogy but modern popular culture. To find an answer, educators drew on the techniques of successful leaders in populist movements and mass marketing. Whereas Mathews had ridiculed the “neophyte” who would rely on “force of character” to “push his way through,” and Wilson viewed the magnetism “we hear a great deal about” as simply the “power of witchery,” educators had no such reservations. Discovering the “mysterious power which frees the youthful soul,” the “power of attraction” that “interests and influences at once those about them,” teachers could “unconsciously influence and control [the] mind[s]” of their charges.121 As the revival preacher who by “magnitis[ing] and hold[ing] in rapt attention crowded audiences” liberates souls in order to direct them to salvation, the teacher would in an almost magical, catalytic process stir the young to embrace rectitude by spreading the “attractive power of virtue.” The teacher’s “art of arts” emerging from souls themselves “set on fire” with the “holy and consuming flame” of a “new birth,” this mental force composed of “ner vous energy + sympathy + mental power,” which possessed an “unseen and subtle” capacity to “change [one’s] spirit,” was in effect charisma.122 Through this “power of attraction,” the child’s will could be directed from a distance. Such intervention operated “noiseless[ly]” and “unwittingly and undesignedly” to continually exert an unseen influence and control by appealing to the child’s “sub-conscious” or “underlying self. Tapping into the child’s “secret springs of action” in a way admittedly “not always apparent” and largely “inexplicable,” this power “elud[ing] our analysis” was identified as “magnetic influence.”123 Charisma resolved the tension between control and voluntarism. On one hand, the “best attention is that which is given spontaneously” or “con amore.” On the other hand, the child’s mental focus could be easily won by animating “attractive motives” that “operate continuously and powerfully.” Because “interest and attention go hand in hand” according to the “law of mental receptivity,” the “voluntary direction of attention” would follow the “exciting [of] the right degree of interest.” As “his kingdom open[ed] and [gave] freely what [was] rightly sought,” the child would be moved to “spontaneous obedience” without any awareness of an external authority or even separate will operating upon him.124 Educational thinkers fully understood the utility of this “sometimes inexplicable” and “not always apparent” capacity at “turning the child”

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to social regularity for an “age of organi zation” and networks. An “attractive force” that operated as imperceptibly as gravitation or “contagion” would obscure the workings of “systems and organizations” and “methods” of “inculcation.”125 Offering the child the sense of activity free from external direction would facilitate his experience of an uncontested individual development.

Agency Empowered and Routinized The process of socialization, however, was by no means free from direction. As social expectations became more rigid, educators curiously held out the promise of far greater power. Initially power was positively associated only with “develop[ment] of the [specific] powers” or individual capacities, while raw power was an ambiguous and dangerous “potency of any agent for good” or “for evil.”126 How these localized “powers of the body, mind and heart” were recast as the broader “development of power in the child” reveals a growing late-century assurance that the young would act in socially integrative ways, associating “power and correct habits” as a single set of behaviors.127 In this way, an education offering empowerment was becoming less threatening: “The popular voice calls for the practical, as if anything could be more practical than power!”128 Urging the “self-active” child to express “his own will-force” by “call[ing] forth all [a] pupil’s power” became the explicit objective. Educators were to “train all into the possession of the power that belongs” to each, continually “imparting power” and sharpening it to the “highest state of efficiency” and “fullest . . . development.”129 But the language of active self-determination and worldly influence was misleading, if not disingenuous, for the dominant characteristic of this empowerment was its predictability. This power was not a capacity for overcoming social boundaries but energy that acted in a “continued, regular, constant, and uniform manner.” The result was not liberation or even effective choice but social regularity through “active instead of passive obedience.”130 Gradually rendering “the heterogeneous homogeneous” through its exercise, power ironically turned “self-direction” toward the “intelligent direction” underlying social consensus. The scientific laws of development naturally channeling power in “uniform

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ways” toward “predetermined modes of activity” with “continuity from infancy to maturity” reinforced the desired outcome: the social “power to achieve results” in “domestic, social, industrial, and professional life.” Thus, the “entirely natural process” of self-empowerment simply moved one “along an ascending scale” toward “high and conscious participation” within and “for society, co-working in its grand co-operations, bending to its common laws, and assisting to great public ends.”131 The emphasis on power represented a major shift in the agency dynamic. Because the classic agent always considered worldly activity a triumph over internal resistance and temptation, he was preoccupied with the quality of his character and its motives. Even in the discourse of the will, the emphasis on choice left space for considering the role of one’s motives in one’s determinations. Encouraging the young to exercise their power, however, contained a veiled retreat from such self-examination. In addition to shifting the focus away from feelings of impotence—how could one praised for power feel impotent?—the discourse presumed that the universal motive was the accumulation and expression of power. The emphasis was now on the external results gained by its use. Voluntarism now presumably thrived in the child’s determination to express his will to power. At the same time, the heightened language of self-empowered individualism made internal limits on the will more urgent than ever. The challenge was to frame these limits as both expressions of and supports for the liberal subject’s undisputed power. In this spirit, the entire regimen, constraints included, was now identified to be for “the benefit of the children” by providing each “his own good.” It is for the incubation of power and self-determination “for the child [that] the school exists.” Operating now were explicit “rights of the pupils,” such as the “right of compulsory education,” which ensured “that perfect and strong maturity that comes from correct training.”132 The ultimate right accorded to the young, the pinnacle of liberal selfconfidence, was the explicit identification of the goal of education as student self-empowerment. Pedagogy now aimed to support the cultivation of students’ will that would enable them to realize the “laws of [their] being” and “well-being.” The less explicit assumption was that they would cooperate by “forming and holding themselves resolutely” to appropriate “purposes” and “habits on which their future well-being depends.”133

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Agency and Self-Creation By the 1890s the will, at once natural and conditioned, appeared to resolve the contradictions of free agency, anchoring the paradox of a selfcreation both innate and constructed. Moreover, this free will was an empowered will: “Man is strong or weak, upright or corrupt, according to the attitude and strength of his will . . . by which all other activities are largely determined.” Classic agency virtues such as self-reliance and self-discipline could now be understood as the will’s triumph.134 Moreover, with internal maturation following a uniform course, no developmental tensions would arise from youth evolving beyond the framework of liberal society. All possessed the same opportunities regardless of condition or upbringing. As a result, generational conflicts would also fade away, since adult culture no longer impeded the process of self-development. Surprisingly, professionals knowing full well the true role of education increasingly helped to conceal its importance by supporting the popular cult of the will: “Every man who has become a man has been selfmade. . . . Education cannot make the man, [for] talent or ability is a natural product wherever it exists and in whatever degree. . . . Really there is no other way to make men.” Men “make of themselves just what they choose,” suggested the principal of the State Normal School in Vermont. Everyone, according to the supervisor of Boston schools, is “in the highest sense, a self-made man.” The conclusion to be drawn from this “self-making power” was that “all instruction is really self-instruction.”135 With the child by nature a “learner” apart from the educator’s “methods and curriculums,” he would through “self-teaching” be able to “actualize himself through his own efforts.” Schooling provided no “artificial stimulus” or “new powers,” leaving each to get “his own best education” pursuing— dare it be said—the “art of self-education.”136 Americans were enthralled by the idyll of a free and natural agency achieved without effort. The rhetorical triumph of Jefferson, supported by the hidden structures of the agency self and society, had led Americans to believe that in this perfect order they would never have to experience the sense of being unfree or constrained. Instead of being educated for the complexities of modern moral and social life, citizens would simply acquire the internalized restraints that appeared to be self-legislated. Ordered consent would arise unburdened by questions

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about to what or whom consent was being given and about the generational socializing structures necessary to elicit it. The project was, if anything, too successful. Even as conditioning was obscured, the will was being dismantled as an effective force. The freest will was the one that self-reliantly “reproduce[d]” appropriate conduct, manifesting an “ability to perform processes” with “unfailing regularity.”137 Because habit simply enhanced the initial voluntary conformance, “no loss of effectiveness” was to be suffered from “unconscious” or “automatic” behavior. To the contrary, as one becomes “less and less conscious of the act” it became “almost wholly unconscious,” by which point the routinization that made “civilized society possible” was “perfected.”138 On the “straight and narrow way,” the young unfolded as predictably as “buds in a late spring.”139 Despite the rhetoric of power, agency appeared to be dispensable. Its inner struggles to forge a connection to ultimate authority and meaning and greater moral efficacy in one’s commitments were now burdens to be avoided. In a society providing designated paths, seeking to define one’s relation to authority and one’s role in the realization of larger ends only challenged settled processes. Where individuals were now “supposed to know how to direct means to right ends,” the greatest “blunder” was “misdirected novelty,” the failure of “deliberately and cautiously proceeding on safe principles, and adopting methods that are thoroughly tested.”140 With the young trained to “internalize, adapt, [and] conform” to organized social institutions, consent seemed extraneous.141 The late-century glorification of expanding national power strengthened the shift from internal development to moral complacency. The nation’s emboldened sense of its “matchless fortunes and power” now crowned it as an exemplar of virtuous strength, a “generous benefactor, the moral guide, the strong example.” This “national calling,” prepared by the “schools of America,” was to decide “the fate of weaker nations and races.”142 A few dissented from this image of “tremendous power, widespread, and deeply felt,” but many believed not a republic but an “empire upon which the sun never sets,” like “its Roman prototype,” must “shine forth” to rule the globe for human “elevation” and a “world conscience.”143 With “no more land” in the “far West” to inherit and shape, educators signed on to this “school of the future” that must “enter in and possess the earth” to “show the world” America’s “genius.”144

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The celebration of power, individual and collective, and unrestrained choice left agency in the shadows. Few would reflect on whether “tak[ing] the new learning” involved conditioning that entailed the “stifl[ing of one’s] own convictions,”145 that is, whether predictable behavior was compatible with self-willing. Fewer yet would worry whether the pressure toward compliance veiled in appealing rhetoric would produce a citizenry incapable of imagining a freer society.

Hall’s Science and the Role of Socialization G. Stanley Hall’s project was a heroic effort to reaffirm the foundations of genuine agency in an era when its future was in doubt. He was convinced that truly empowered agents would not be led astray by rigid social roles marketed as the fulfillment of possibility, or by the illusions of self-creation in place of real agency engagement. Agency had been from the outset a promise of what one educator called “golden harvests” through the cultivation of innate “powers” to “normal strength” by the “guiding hand of judicious culture.”146 As Crèvecoeur at the birth of the nation had foreseen New World trees growing to their full height, Hall believed that a child-rearing process dedicated to the full unfolding of agency natures in the optimal setting would fulfill the ideal of the American republic. Although Hall’s two frameworks, scientific laws and pedagogical intervention, nature and nurture, appear fundamentally at odds, the clear lesson from American social formation, that undeveloped potential would flourish through cultivation, inextricably linked natural unfolding and socialization in the national project. In Hall’s view, human development was both foreordained and socially constructed, nature realizing itself along the social pathways provided. The goal of science was the “better development of children and youth,” just as the “supreme test” of institutions and civilization itself was their capacity to “bring youth to the ever fullest possible development.” Only education could form an individual “so wisely trained” that he comes to believe truly “what his soul deeply does believe” in its essential nature: namely, that he has freely realized his underlying agency nature. As individuality is “unfolded to its uttermost” within institutions “made to fit it,” the new “mental and moral habits” arising along with “new faculties and desires” would evolve into a “true nature” independent of social input.147

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Thus Hall, the greatest theorist of natural agency development, surprisingly provided the most comprehensive formulation of the role of socialization. While family advisors and educational advocates focused on specific strategies, he framed intervention in terms of a grand developmental model. America’s unique contribution of pragmatism was for Hall “nothing but pedagogy asserting its sovereignty throughout the whole field of culture.” Thus, not in “theoretical regions” but by structuring “practical obligations” would the “crying needs” for an elevated citizenry promote the “fullest maturity of mind and body” in the young. The task, then, was “to fashion an environment of facilitation for the [maximal] development of all the best human possibilities.”148 Because the first popular republic depended on cultivating character development in ordinary citizens, social progress was “at bottom a question of education,” dependent on infusing “knowledge and virtue among the people” as a whole: in a “country so free and so new, and without authority, precedent, or tradition, only intelligence could control the conditions of human development.” Because “schools have the most to do in determining the level of that average” citizen, education was the “catholicism, the church universal of to-day.” Moreover, as the “one thing” widely regarded as necessary to “ensure general progress and individual success,” the “peculiar national” focus on moral inculcation in the young formed a growing “consensus of belief,” welding together those of vastly different “face, sect, party, rank, wealth or culture.” The United States had become “an educational state.”149 To further this union of science and socialization, Hall worked tirelessly with a cadre of applied researchers and educators to frame and disseminate advances in applied psychology and education: writing and lecturing extensively, facilitating the work of educational societies, setting up a doctoral program as president of Clark University for training students in the new fields, establishing national journals of child study and psychology, and supervising research and publication of results. He hoped to tie together the educational, psychological, and medical professions in the new fields of “progressive education, child development, educational psychology, clinical psychology, school hygiene, and mental testing.”150 At the same time, Hall openly called for a revivalist spirit to rekindle the drive to produce an agency world. In the tradition of Protestant jeremiads, he evoked a sense of crisis, the growing specter of “hard, grimy

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industrialism” and “ruthless commercialism,” “selfishness and moral materialism,” all evincing a dangerous “lack of vision.” He saw individualism being undermined by excessive specialization, while a debilitating urbanism and narrowly conceived business culture risked a “slow relapse to barbarism.” Calling for a “great educational revival” to “save men” and “bring consecration,” he foresaw a “great and impending movement” toward the “third dispensation of a new eternal gospel” that promised man “his completion.”151 A “whole church” would rise upon a more advanced young as the “prophetic . . . revealer” of the future, leading the way for Americans to “enter the kingdom of heaven.”152 For this dispensation to be realized, what Hall described as “rounded to completeness,” he envisioned “a national psychological and ethical enginery,” a campaign to spread “the waters of righteousness . . . from heaven” to “irrigate and refresh every part” of society and “convert arid moral wastes into fields teeming with harvest.” At the center of this effort would be educators professionally trained and instilled with American values to promote his agenda. He thus encouraged individuals of ability and commitment to enter teaching, a field “so inviting, so ripe, so certain of yielding . . . precious results,” yet one that “no man with modern methods has ever entered.”153 The means for disciples and enthusiasts, including many future leaders in these fields, was scientifically mandated intervention in character development.

The Art of Scientific Intervention The “educational side” of his work Hall called “applied psychology.” Establishing pedagogy upon a “body of scientific facts and laws that no one questions,” the “new education” was as “exact” and as fully a “science of human nature” as his conceptual theory. Its precepts were designed to correspond with the distinctive stages of childhood development, from infancy to adolescence. Tracking the qualitative shifts over time in the nature and function of character and in faculties, capacities, and moral perspectives, this science would establish “natural . . . methods” for each “stage of average development,” resulting in the agency character.154 In a process that combined individual choice and judgment with clear directions and mandates, young people could unfold and embrace consent to common institutions and the voluntary commitment to supervening ends and appropriate means from the moral depths of their full agency nature.

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The paramount objective in the first stage was instilling a sense of naturalness and voluntarism. Hall, as we recall, had advised that socializers “do little but stand aside of Nature’s way,” careful to avoid stirring feelings of “sacrifice and subordination.” This would enable “children [to] think themselves free,” self-creating and self-evolving from within, “long before [adults] cease to determine them.”155 At the same time, the “long and careful guardianship of external authority,” particularly early maternal love, would through “ascendancy over heart and mind” lay the foundation for a seemingly “natural” obedience. As feelings of “reverence” and “dependence” become “an instinct if not a religion,” the young child’s wish for “imitation, conscious and unconscious,” would lead him without pressure to “choose the right.”156 Reproducing “so immediately, unconsciously, and through so many avenues” the duty of “habitual and prompt obedience,” the child “obey[ed] as with a deep sense of being [adults’] chattel, and at bottom admire[d] those who coerce[d] him if the means [were] wisely chosen.” Moved by both “childish spontaneity” and “happy suggestion by parents, etc.,” the distinction between “what is within and what is without” became impossible to draw. The child thus “unfold[ed] in the direction of [adults’] wishes” while possessing the “sense of [his] own efficiency.”157 To achieve this synthesis, given parental shortcomings and children’s more advanced development, Hall invested education with a greater role in childhood than “any institution in history.” He demanded replacement of traditional “wooden uniformity,” the “lockstep methods” of “herding in platoons” that produced the “mechanical” and “routine” sensibility of a “monotonous mass” of “apathetic, unwilling pupils” with their “individuality obliterated.” Overcoming the fatal “chasm between knowing and doing,” the law of “attraction” would scientifically establish “the lines of strongest interest and curiosity . . . during each of the main periods of immaturity, and in what order, directions, and rapidity their capacities” unfolded.158 Following the “natural order in natural ways” would make the child feel “nature” doing the teaching and learning. Schools as “free units” would appear to be fostering “self-education,” the “unfoldment” of development: “Instead of the child being for the sake of the school, we have had a Copernican revolution and now the school, including its buildings, all its matter and method, revolve around the child, whose nature and needs supply the norm for everything.”159 Between childhood and adolescence the willfulness and spontaneity of the earlier period had to be curbed. In part Hall was anxious about

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the dangers of early permissiveness, and in part he recognized that mature responsibilities were still “only nascent” and as yet “alien.” Providing structure at this age was easy because in Hall’s view the young themselves experienced the same insecurities about effective integration. Wanting to be part of the group produced an extreme “susceptibility to drill and discipline,” creating a “golden hour” for “external and mechanical training.” Using “repetitive, authoritative, dogmatic” methods with “little reliance upon interest, reason,” or “independent work,” habituation would produce facility at adjustment to group life. Moreover, ensuring “everything in conduct be mechanized” to the degree possible strengthened the will and freed it for “higher work.”160 This “fixed and settled” training, which appeared “inexorable,” would supplant nature with “general habits of will” that seemed to be “choices,” although they really amounted to “unconscious” compliance. Such routines enabled the child to begin regulating himself, managing his own “slowly-widening margin of freedom” by choosing what has been “preformed” while believing he is seeking “all he has desired or wished, expected, attended to or striven for.” As voluntary adaptation became mature self-regulation, authority could be “relaxed gradually, explicitly, and provisionally over one definite department of conduct at a time.”161 Adolescence was the culmination of this dual training in self-realization and social integration. As the youth came to believe that his free expression of internal convictions and interests also served the community and larger world, he slowly took “control into [his] own hands” to express an emerging “sense for ideal[ism].” To nurture this agency conviction, socialization should once again “appeal to interest and spontaneity” rather than apply external pressure, confident that the adolescent willingly sought a higher “ego synthesis” amounting to a “changed heart” and “new affection.” Having a “newer, larger, better consciousness” connected to the “transcendental world” enabled the young adult to achieve all he “must or can be” as a willing agent within the larger world beyond himself. Having internalized societal expectations, he would have a “free course” to independently make his social contribution in the world.162

The Power of Hall’s Vision Hall fully understood the agency foundation of American societal formation as it arose from its religious origins, and believed that a science

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of development could record the heroic achievement of the Protestantized liberal ideal first imagined in the seventeenth century. Like many thinkers in the Enlightenment and the nineteenth century, Hall believed that human growth, even when nurtured by society, involved not primarily the internalization of an imposed pattern but the flourishing of intrinsic potential. Like Rousseau before him, Hall believed he had located an underlying developmental trajectory. He spoke on occasion of creating “freemen,” but he also recognized that “voluntary actions” were subject to “unconscious” boundaries formed by “one’s environment, breeding and heredity.” Agency development in the child was directed “onward and upward by the same way the race has ascended from nature to nature’s God.” Like a planet that is “gradually thrown off a central sun,” the individual was put into “an orbit which develops forms of life all its own” yet “never escape[s] gravity” imposed by the larger system. At the same time, individuals found their place not through an authority imposed from without but through internally evolving social instincts that together formed the organi zation of society.163 Hall grasped the formative role of socialization in realizing intrinsic agency potential more deeply than anyone else has. Only when pedagogy removed “all that cramps the soul of childhood,” straightening out and reactivating a hitherto arrested development, would higher evolution be secured. The “truth about things of the soul” was, unlike other truths, “never complete or certain till it [was] applied to education.”164 The true goal of pedagogy was to make the benefits of agency civilization accessible to all. But the lessons were broader. A good society was one that worked to actualize its citizens’ unrealized but implicit potential. Dissenting religion had uncovered the “natural predisposition” to enhanced “growth and development” stillborn in traditional society. A revised education would henceforth “ever regard and inculcate” these latent capacities, “lay[ing] broad and deep the foundations on which religion rests.”165 By embedding dissenting religious aspirations in a scientific account tracing the realization of the agency character in American history, the discourses of child development and pedagogy could now provide experiential verification and direction to what had previously been merely a world-transforming dream.

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Culture and Human Development Modern liberalism rejects the idea of character development as pure speculation, fearing the threat to its claim of having realized humanity’s full potential. By this logic, all character development, including agency itself, can be dismissed as wishful thinking because its existence depends on sustained human intervention. Does that make agency mere artifice? But what is natural in the human world? Every accretion to human culture and capacity has its telltale origin in social cultivation. As Michael Zuckerman has tellingly written, the human sciences are inextricably cultural: these disciplines “cannot stand outside the coloration of culture. . . . Developmental psychologists can no more touch nature neat than historians can.”166 To Hall’s further credit, though he contributed to the cult of natural selfcreation by holding up agency as the all but inevitable expression of human potential, he realized that the modern acquiescence to social procedures was fatal for a liberal society. Because agency citizens were the product of internal development, the full flourishing of one’s agency nature required internal maturation. Only by undertaking the journey from nature to agency would individual citizens continue to shape society and their place within it as exemplified in American social formation. Rendering the young compliant deprived the national vision not only of freedom but, more critically, of a voluntary and active agency, without which the American achievement would “perish” into mere “habit or convenience.” In an age of social consolidation, education alone kept the future open: “The school should be the bud and nursery of the world that is to be. . . . It should not be made in the image of the present, but should fit man for the next stage of development in the race and nation.” Hall’s “Pedagogy of the Future” would turn the school into “the embryo of future society.”167 Hall’s vision, with its religious and cultural underpinnings, was necessarily inadequate for a twentieth-century science that believed it could arrive at truths of human growth uncontaminated by the inputs of culture and history. Yet whatever his substantial limitations, Hall uniquely grasped that human potentialities, though emerging as part of a historical and cultural process, either had a patently natural basis or, like unaided flight, would remain idle fantasies. The inherent limitation of behavioral science, which rejects the complexities of internal experi-

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ence to investigate what can be observed and measured, is that latent capacities are not immediately visible. By dispensing with what is inchoate as unconfirmed or, even worse, as prophecy, a narrow realism marginalizes many higher human attributes. Long present only as potentialities, such attributes, from language to abstract thinking to agency itself, only manifest themselves over time as the product of cultural advances. The “great augmentation of the self” from primitive infancy to selfgoverning agency, Hall recognized, was but one example of the continuing human capacity to imagine and bring into being a future neither bound nor limited by what had gone before. At the root of character formation undertaken in the United States was a great and seldom revealed truth of human experience: because “man is greater than his institutions,” he can take control of the social world into his “own hands” and “transform” it to fit his “personality” rather than “vice versa.”168 Underlying Hall’s speculation about and (unscientific) consultation of children’s inner lives was the wish to tap the psychological origins of children’s power to dream and to aspire to new social and human forms before that power was squelched by institutional regularity. After a century in thrall to social learning models that emphasize conditioning, followed by cognitive models of mental functioning, psychology has begun to ask once again about the role of enculturation in human development. Insofar as “every psychological process is cultural” or at least possesses cultural-historical dimensions, what is learned and internalized depends on the social context. Yet resistance to a discussion of latent potentialities remains, particularly in the area of moral development and the construction of authority researched by Lawrence Kohlberg and others, because of the fear that attitudes and patterns proclaimed by society to be natural, even ultimate, will be revealed as incomplete and relative.169 Recognizing in the Hegelian and evolutionary paradigms lessons that could be applied to the American experience, Hall was the greatest early proponent of cultural naturalism. This commitment extended even to the point of questioning his own belief that agency was the culmination of human development. Despite his admittedly “conservative restorative spirit[,] which accepts and seeks to develop the present just as it is,” he called upon Americans, especially the young, to be carriers of change. Perhaps the present was “not a fi nality” but “a germ,” the

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foreshadowing of regeneration on yet a “higher plane.” Given “no finalities” for a soul that was “still in the making” and open to “indefinite further development,” other civilizations might “advance the kingdom of man . . . far beyond our present standpoint.” New “powers in the soul” could be unearthed, activating “new growths” of spirituality led by “new evangels” to eclipse present Christianity with an “enlarged and enriched conception” of human possibility.170 With the agency consensus won but for details of implementation, the age of societal formation, the first great age of American socialization, was over. At the end of the century educators declared that the “educational battle ha[d] been fought as successfully as was that which commenced at Lexington and closed at Yorktown,” with the United States in an “exalted position of educational and intellectual supremacy.” American educators, having created a system that was the envy of every “part of the world,” looked forward in the coming century to a high-quality “education of all, obligatory on all” Americans, and to their central role in the country’s mission as “inheritor of the nations of the earth.”171 In revealing liberal society and the voluntary agent as contingent developmental achievements, Hall underestimated the American hunger for stasis after a century of nation building, religious enthusiasm, and the uncertain personal journey to character formation. Early Americans had created the first modern agency society from the struggles and achievements of ordinary citizens believing themselves capable of greater things than ever before imagined. They passed on to their progeny the belief that history and innovative ways of life could be shaped in light of developmental possibilities. Yet in forming the first new nation, American society had gradually moved from innovation to replication and predictability. In so doing it had been aided by a science that confirmed agency as inevitable and a pedagogy that identified voluntarism as a feature of social compliance. With access to the past blocked by internal conditioning and the future shape of liberal society apparently settled, it would be a struggle to mobilize those aspirations once again. Encompassing organizational networks, with their demands for hierarchy and standardization, would put the consensual society in jeopardy. Insulated by the myth of the unconditioned will, Americans continued to proclaim themselves the free society of free individuals. Could

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the claims of modern liberalism be reevaluated, and would Americans discover that a truly voluntary individual consent involving a significant role for citizens in public and private matters was still possible? Or had the rhetoric simply become a way to protect citizens from the realities of late modernity? Finding their way between comforting truisms and the dynamic role early Americans had carved out in the first consensual nation would be the challenge of the next century and beyond.

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From Deweyan Consensus to the Crisis of Consent We are a great nation— a nation whose guiding principle is freedom. Patriotism is loyalty to that principle. . . . It is of vital importance that our children should be taught patriotism. . . . Their love for country must be as strong as that of the Spartans. —Florence A. Blanchard The task of those who retain a belief in democracy is to revive and maintain in full vigor the original conviction of the intrinsic moral nature of democracy. —John Dewey

In 1926 William Allen White, age fifty-eight, looked back at his own boyhood and at the progress society had made in the nineteenth century. The “miracle of this century,” he noted, was not the “commonplace conquest of the prairies” or the “bottomless cornucopia” of material goods but the “revolutionary” advances in the raising of the young. What struck him was the “conquest of the heart of youth,” its cultivation into a “richer and better maturity” through a “consistent, exemplary, and profitable training” that seemingly in an instant had brought about “deep, fundamental change.”1 Americans need no longer worry that their young, born with “character unformed,” required the “plastic hand” of society to “mould and fashion” them into citizens. From now on, the official view would be that socializers and educators drew out the “better parts of the child’s nature” already there, evoking the authentic “first promptings” and not the unnatural, the “real” not the “step-mother.” The long struggle to ground their popular society in a “second nature” available to all citizens was over.2 323

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The wish to institute a higher nature, a model character at once authentic and carefully planned, captures the ambitious—and ambiguous— agenda of the first liberal nation. The ever more explicit insistence on identifying agency as nature itself, to take it for granted, had obvious appeal for a society trying to secure its developmental achievement. A course of development too strenuous for a mass society, it was feared, would lead many to fall short; emphasizing development, others worried, would encourage efforts to venture beyond the agency resolution. A natural agency republic, relegating servanthood and self-authority to the dustbin of developmental impossibilities, provided assurance that liberal society had achieved its mature shape as a consensual society. The fact that socializing institutions from birth through high school instilled, rehearsed, and fine-tuned the proper social conduct testified to the synthesis of nature and social design. Americans today, as evidenced by the provocative “end of history” thesis and nostalgia for the work of Dewey, yearn for a return to this time of certitude. Behind the yearning, however, is the recognition that selfconfidence has eroded over the past century. The great economic tribulations of the first half of the past century and the cultural upheavals of the second half shattered the vision of closure. The realization of the agency character and society did not resolve the threats to liberalism posed by the corporate/organi zation al social order. To the contrary, the intense pressures demanding acquiescence to that order and growing discontent with that acquiescence generated increasingly troubling questions about both the viability and the validity of the agency framework. In the late twentieth century those questions prompted a renewed quest for institutional reform and a pursuit of psychosocial development. But exhaustion with the normative antagonisms, generational conflicts, and developmental dislocations that accompanied this process has led many Americans to declare a moratorium on problems without a simple answer. Others, concerned about the future of liberal society and troubled by this retreat to Pleasantville, hope against hope that the fantasies of historical triumphalism are an aberration of recent origins. It has been painful to recognize that this is not so.

The Contemporary Trials of the “Free Agent”: An Overview The full account of the crisis of American liberal society in the twentieth century remains to be told. But some observations of the impact of

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the nineteenth-century achievement on the subsequent course of the nation’s history will provide a fitting conclusion to the present story. The elision of freedom and agency, the citizen who willingly and innocently engages as a circumscribed agent of authorized ends, would prove to be too comforting. Examining the responses of the early twentieth-century consensus on free agency to subsequent challenges with the benefit of hindsight will open for further consideration the dimensions of the crisis now facing it. Perhaps, under optimal circumstances, agency society had the potential for long-term stability. After all, with its explicit recognition of supervening authority, the agency framework might have been capable of facing the growing organi zational networks and their demands for social integration. The symbolic place of John Dewey in the American narrative derives from his lifelong vision of willing and engaged agents striving together within the Great Community. His insistence that the nineteenth century witnessed not liberal self-sufficiency but the creation of voluntary agency institutions gave credibility to his view of organizational society as simply another phase in the maturation of an agency polity. To sustain a vital agency society, as understood by the radical progressives, in the best case would have required massive efforts at institutional democratization. But as the rhetoric of freedom intensified during the twentieth century—in part to offset the erosion of agency practices and in part to redeem the promise of a truly free society beyond the constraints of agency— such reform efforts remained largely on paper. But what was agency society without agency practices? The language of freedom embraced in the twentieth century, as exemplified by Dewey’s early shift from theological to liberal discourse, left American society to imagine it had dodged the dangers presented by organ i zation al society. If the free agent was the unhappy conflation of conflicting agendas to begin with, the emphasis on freedom—leading the discourse on agency to errantly posit that agents were free to determine their own ends— foretold stormier skies. No match whatever for corporate and bureaucratic structures, assumptions of self-creation and individual autonomy simply obscured the emphasis on standardized outcomes. To maintain the conviction of freedom, individualism became an imagined independence from institutions and from the socialization that instilled submission to them. The free society had become a mythical island of

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dissipating hierarchies, where families exerted no leverage, schooling was a temporary inconvenience, elites deferred as voters determined and consumers disposed, and the promise of inclusion and mobility was guaranteed by exemplary cases of success. Until the 1960s those institutional discourses that shaped the young perpetuated the rhetoric of a self-realizing individual in a realized liberal society. When, in the 1960s, the illusion of the free society could be sustained no longer, many refused to simply accede either to the closing of agency society or the failure to imagine a truly free society. Their renewed call for personal and social change triggered a vast culture war over the American future, resulting in the surfacing of serious developmental tensions and generational conflicts. Suddenly a hidden history of contestation over citizen formation emerged to complicate the official narrative of American social formation. And yet the liberal faith maintained to counter the growing web of organi zational life afforded Americans few tools to revive the individual initiative, social opportunity, and institutional participation they had been assured they already possessed. Fearing that any collective efforts at reform would compromise their natural and presumably free society, many would reject public intervention to address growing rigidities, hierarchies, and inequities.

The Consensus on Adaptation By the end of the nineteenth century, liberal psychology and liberal pedagogy had narrowed their focus to adaptation, each complementing the other. Psychology defined the child as a blank slate of learned reactions, assured that personal consent and the voluntary embrace of agency roles were generated in the educational process. Education in turn provided a routinized learning environment, presuming that the consenting agency character, per Hall, naturally emerged in biopsychological maturation. The collective preoccupation with interpersonal adjustment and mechanisms of adaptational response produced a consensus committed neither to agency nor to freedom but to the acquisition of integrative patterns of behavior. The commitment of scientific psychology to adaptation, propounded by such giants as William James, Hugo Münsterberg, James Mark Baldwin, and Edward Thorndike, was more evident. The new foundation of

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“scientific child-study”—for “the scientist only,” unlike imprecise institutional applications, which had the “same relation to psychology that horticulture has to botany”—was the “automatic and mechanical” reaction to stimuli in physics.3 Claiming to discover nature uncomplicated by instinctual motives or drives, biological endowment, or developmental imperatives beyond gross factors of age and maturational level, psychology eliminated all internal inputs not fully amenable to social shaping. At the same time, impulses were separated from any internalized socialization or cultural imperatives and reconstituted as intrinsic and flexible responses to stimuli, natural efforts to facilitate environmental adaptation. Progressive demands for the improvement of environmental conditions of the disadvantaged young led educators to proclaim that proper “formation is better than reformation” and “direction is better than correction.” As a result schooling undertook the large-scale project of facilitating adjustment to modern society.4 A systematized “education of all alike and all together” assumed that each possessed the “same mental faculties” affected “by the same means.” Thus, children had to be “formed into classes, to be instructed jointly” with individual characteristics “more or less ignored.” To teach thousands of children of “every sort and condition” and “be anything but a babel” meant accepting the “commonplace and mechanical,” defining the “average working condition” by the “wants of the average pupil.” Educational practice had to fulfill the “normal laws of mental growth,” turning the average by a self-fulfilling prophecy into one’s normal movement “straight on till ordered to halt or change direction.”5 Emerging from this focus on “right training . . . well hammered in” was an official “pedagogical church.”6 By organizing the “causes outside,” the “physical and moral environment” that makes a student “what he is,” and employing a science of averages as “general law, based on large quantitative studies,” one could get “pupils to do exactly what they are asked to do, in every school exercise.” In the 1890s regimens using “Mind Training” became popular, using discipline through drill to produce “mechanical processes” one performs “unconsciously” precisely “because it is required.” Even what is called thinking was “little more than a mechanical adjustment of our minds to our environment” and goodness our “right moral instincts that will respond instantly.”7 Pedagogy could thus “control [students] easily” and lead each one without

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“forceful pressure” to become an “efficient social individual.”8 No longer was there “virtue” in “struggle,” only the “moral quality” that inhered in experience through “facility” at “accustomed acts.”9 The “improvement in educational methods” by the turn of the century was precipitating a new “epoch in the history of education,” as the “mere empiricism of the school-room” gave way to the dream of a “true science of education.” As laws of “harmonious action” could be derived from “empirical” inquiry now that individuals were “properly regulated”— that is, once the “relation of cause and effect” could be “seen” as standardized— socialization was revealing “universal and necessary principles” to promote “development, knowledge and comprehending” and a grand “order and beauty” in “every part.”10

The Crisis of the Will If Hall’s theoretical project was the triumphant expression of liberal social formation, it also contained a tragic dimension. He pursued his synthesis of individual and collective agency at the point that voluntarism, whether aligned with freedom or a vital agency, was becoming less viable. The language of these fields betrayed the logic of predictability beneath empty assertions of voluntarism: moral development gave way to psychological processing, “clear moral insight” to “correct moral feelings,” the “tender heart” to “firmly established habit.”11 Psychology offered educators “scientific methods” establishing the universal “physiological basis of mental activity.”12 William James’s vision of “mental science” could dispense with “talk about goodness” as “oldfashioned catechism,” a “score of sermons” of “doubtful utility” compared to “one practical opportunity” for children to “see and do their duty.”13 A knowledge of “psychical facts” would now indicate what children “ought to do,” as established by a “scientific measurement of mind,” with “scientific attainment” calibrating adaptation to the “practical demands of the community,” how the child “grow[s] into the habits, customs, and moral and spiritual consciousness of present civilization.”14 As interest turned into an appreciation of adaptive function and selfdevelopment into the self-directing pursuit of “earnest preparation for the realities of life,” those who did the “right thing under normal conditions” could be designated an “average individual” operating from a

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“moral sense” undertaken “unthinkingly and habitually” as “inher[ing]” in one’s experiences.15 Under pressure from a “conformity” whose demands were “inexorable,” the focus on “manipulating these incentives” for compliance was placing in control the “involuntary will” upon which “voluntary movements always depend.”16 Was every youth trapped by “laws that fence him round, that press upon him at every pose,” with no option but fitting in?17 Recognizing increasing problems with self-assertion, educators began to worry that the rhetoric of an independent will had little weight in the face of such pressures. Discussion proliferated about how to “strengthen the will,” about “transforming the weak, flabby will into a will dominated by a high moral purpose.”18 Teachers reported that pupils were “weaker” and “less manly” than those a generation before.19 They noted the proliferation of “ner vous” disorders and bouts of “extreme or long-continued fatigue” from the “dissipation of energy” and “waste of vitality,” and many of their students seemed to be “nervous organisms so sensitive that they speedily become fatigued by the briefest and simplest” assignments.20 Failure was now traced to a “weakened will,” a “wind’s will,” whose “feeble” directives ricochet “from one momentary impulse to another.” Individuals seemed at the mercy of “contending currents” like a “water-logged wreck.”21 More troubling yet, many educators treated the spreading standardization not as a danger but as a social eventuality to be facilitated: “man himself is nine-tenths a creature of habit,” and “every successful institution” thus “becomes a machine.” The object of education is therefore to “make the machine run easier” by “depriving the child of his natural liberty and subjecting him to . . . authority.”22 Americans were convinced of the approaching “perfectibility” of their society and assured that its “guiding principle is freedom”; like the Spartans they would promote “patriotism” as “loyalty to that principle.”23 Sparta was, to say the least, an ambiguous model for liberal society, and its use highlighted the crisis of the liberal will. The increasing compromise of options and of even the appearance of self-direction raised the worry that only the “moral freedom” of the “military drill” was left.24 The specter of a “will, but not free will” created a “desperate struggle to make the theory consistent with personal responsibility.”25 But what if the only way not to “renounce [one’s] own personal agency” as “controlled by forces” was paradoxically for it to be “taught”?26

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Phase 3: A Field of Influences The increasingly predictable path of social routinization signaled a major shift in the framework of modern liberalism. Psychology, by claiming that people “accept what seems inevitable” and thus “yield to certain influences” in a “natural order” or “sequence” capable of being “determine[d] beforehand,” had undercut the importance of individual differences.27 More directly, as André Turmel explained in A Historical Sociology of Childhood, the discourse of the normal child was the means by which socializing institutions “moulded [the normal child’s] very existence,” in effect creating a uniform model that would enforce a “particular way of thinking/acting to stabilize the collective.”28 Because individuals were now regarded as developing a common “social consciousness” and “social habits” from “adjustments of the self to social relationships,” education could now presume uniform “social forces” and a common “social environment” which shape the “development of the social sense of the child.”29 To understand how schools “call[ed] common” now produced “one mind common to all,” the psychological approach was superseded by the systemic framework of sociology.30 The “steadily increasing interest in sociology” noted by Simon Patten focused on “the social man and woman” and presumed their “adjustment” as “parts of our social organism” to “best fill [their] place in society.”31 One unavoidable “lesson for education” of a standardized child adaptation was the growing “force of environment” over the individual.32 And yet if the field of external influences could no longer be avoided, the specter of determinism had to be. Given that a social setting as the “sum” of “stimul[i]” issuing from the “influence in the group” was constituted by the reciprocal interplay of “individual forces,” everyone possessed the capacity for influence.33 Liberal society had become a horizontal field of reciprocal influences. The end of the century witnessed a striking revaluation of the importance of influence. In the 1870s “the influences” on the individual were regarded as a “thousand conditions which fence a man in,”34 requiring the use of influence in return, but only if the dangers of excessive selfadvertising could be resisted. Youth were cautioned even in the 1880s that an ability to attract others does not mean one “will therefore succeed in anything.”35 While one must “keep up appearances” in order to gain “power and influence,” for most people can be “deceived” because

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of their “confidence” in “pretensions,” influence itself was belittled by comparison with a “fi xed plan” and the “right direction.” Impressing “weak minds” and achieving mere popularity by “pleas[ing] everybody” without mastering the art and knowledge appropriate to one’s work would lead to discouragement and failure. Moreover, serving the wants of others with the “greatest aptitude and precision” betrayed an “entire want of individuality,” a willingness to follow the “crowd” with “neither feelings nor opinions of [one’s] own.”36 Moral scrupulosity must give way to interpersonal adaptation, but not (yet) to being all things to all people. By the 1890s the “magnetic presence” that “each individual carries” was a “contagion” spreading throughout society: “We are under the influence of suggestion every moment of our waking lives. Every thing we see, hear, feel [is a] subtle power that seems to reach and affect the very springs of life.”37 The saving grace of this “marvelous contagion” by which “mind flows freely into mind” and is “absorbed without effort” or conflict, educators noted, was its very inclusivity. Surprisingly, one model for the new horizontal society was the peer experiences of the young, the world of the “street and the play-ground.” Even the new influence-based “relation of teacher and pupil,” it turns out, had been drawn from the way “children learn from one another with such facility” in a world without adults.38 All that was required in this field was one’s own capacity to influence, that is, personality.

The Advent of Personality As the third phase of the organi zational liberal shifts began toward the end of the century, led by the advice literature and educational writings, the will was subsumed as one faculty within the larger ambit of the personality. Unlike the will, the personality existed only as a fluid situational presence that came to life in its interaction with interpersonal cues. No longer able to imagine itself apart from those interactions, individuality was now manifested as proficiency at influencing others. Participation in an apparently open field of reciprocal influences with no visible authority or coercion allowed presumably equal units to ignore declining institutional and personal options. Personality, as Warren Susman has written, embodied the logic of twentieth-century majoritarian society. It retained the framework of the

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agency commitment to extrapersonal theological and collective ends through its dependence on external judgments. Moreover, where maximizing influence was the universal goal, individuals exercising influence could hardly complain of pressure exerted by their peers, the marketing of mass taste and opinions, and institutional expectations. With a distinct personality, one’s successes and failures remained— as in the cultures of character and will— signs of one’s proficiency or inadequacy at utilizing one’s capacities. Even as the barriers to success rose dramatically in the next century, outcomes were still traceable to one’s own free and individual choices. The concept that was to dominate twentieth-century liberal social psychology had an ambiguous origin. Jacob Wilson had spoken of the “current” of personality” as an “entire want of individuality,” and numerous educators around the 1880s concurred: since the term “personality” is in the family of “persona” or “mask” used to “represent some state or condition or society, of which it was the image,” the “greater the personality, the less the individuality.”39 Though one’s “highest self,” it was the result of “conscious conformity,” achieved not through “outward restraint” but the willing acceptance of “inward restraint” in “accord” with the collective “ideal.”40 The initial value of personality was its “effect” on others, but it increasingly conveyed the intrinsic power of the individual, “our thought, our feeling, our striving,” expressed as forces “radiating from [our] countenance.”41 The distinctiveness of this “indefinable something,” while clearly socially constituted, could thus be identified as “that personality which I call myself,” even further as the seat of “choice or purpose.”42 With ever growing anxiety about the “arrested development” of the will, the “living personality” emerged as the “individuality of a man,” whose “distinguishing qualities” were manifested not in the will alone but “in action.”43 The exercise of personality, in other words, was not concerned with motives, but rather presumed the activation of its “principles of action” through constant engagement with others.44 Novels and advice books expressed the engaged quality of personality as a “savage power” and “impelling quality” that amid “entanglement[s]” enabled one to manifest one’s “presence” at close quarters. Its impact was to “draw” others in by activating their “desire” in “waves of force.”45 Unclear to its possessor, an “unguessed power” for one not knowing one’s “own potencies,” the personality was confirmed as others were “drawn as

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if by a strong cord” of “immense, terrible magnetism.”46 As Dreiser reflects of his early life growing up in poverty, “I might have assumed that the rich had all of these virtues which the poor are too often assumed not to have. . . . [Yet] there was growing in me a fairly clear perception of the value of personality as distinct from either poverty or riches.”47 The great equalizer, this ability, what Marden called one’s “successcapital,” enabled one who “comes into a room” to exude a “personal atmosphere” or presence that “emanates from [one]” and “sways the strongest characters” while leaping over “superiors in mental endowment.” The “more you radiate yourself,” youth were told, the more others were “unconsciously influenced” with a “sense of enlargement” and “new power,” opening to “possibilities” and “longings” previously unknown and to their “larger, better selves.”48 Given the “very great significance of group activity,” education should utilize the “intensity and strength” with which “ideas and actions” as well as “feelings and instincts” were able to “develop within the group.”49 It is the lesson of the “street [that] frequently stamps itself deeper into the child’s character than the home or the school,” the last often serving merely to have “boys and girls freely intermingling” to engage in the craft of peer relations.50 Given that one could no longer choose whether to join the field, the fear of being controlled was simply a hesitancy to act caused by “dwelling upon imperfection” or thinking that one was “not the complete master” of oneself. A person “haunted by the ghosts of strangled talents and smothered faculties” becomes a “slave” to a sense of “inferior power,” crippled by inadequacy and a sense of “inferiority” and thus unable to utilize his “powers of persuasion.” Even if people were typically “ignorant of the source of their power,” the catalytic role of personality could be “cultivated,” “attain[ed],” and “practice[d],” achieved by “selfhelp,” which continues to realize “all the great things.” Those unable to “assert their individuality,” fearing they “would never amount to anything,” were exhorted “Change your attitude,” release yourself in “self-expansion” and “self-unfoldment,” and the “whole world will change to you.”51

Pedagogy and Personality The gradual recognition of the power of influence by educators rendered their own agenda problematic. Having promoted the subtle engagement

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of interest and attention, including the employment of magnetism and attraction, they could watch with some complicity as a culture of suggestibility and seduction emerged. But nurturing the power of personality so that its holder believed himself capable of surmounting all structural obstacles and securing success in the open society was beyond the educational agenda increasingly defined as the “reign of the expert” who set patterns for student attention and volition.52 Schooling, along with other socializing institutions, had certainly assisted in the training of character and will, but what did a pedagogy designed to promote influence look like? How could it “stir and rouse and direct” the powers at “the center of the child,” particularly with the rise of what Raymond Callahan called a “narrow utilitarianism,” which offered a “short, cheap, effective training to meet the demands of the field, shop, conveyance, trade, home” at the beginning of the century?53 Apparently consigned to shaping the will rather than the personality, schooling became at best the imparter of indifferent lessons and more often the medicine one needed to take. The novels of the age, as well as the literature and advice manuals for youth, typically ignore life in school. The lesson of Lincoln was that a boy with “apparently meager opportunities” for schooling and books “distances the city-bred youth who is surrounded with so many facilities for education.”54 School itself seemed “so much like a prison,” a place of mindless routine to be escaped in “dreaming” and “fantasy.”55 In this way, the socialization of the young was propelled in two seemingly incompatible directions. The family, on one hand, with its increasing permissiveness was intent upon acculturating the young to a fluid and nonhierarchical society of peers. Its honing of personality and influence would help children achieve social and later economic success in a world where the product was sales ability itself. Formal schooling, on the other hand, would impose organizational skills and bureaucratic attitudes. Both would appear marginal in the culture of influence, parenting because its message was that life lay beyond the family, education because it was little more than a necessary interlude in one’s ascent. While families would largely support the educational regimen, and schooling would work continually in the following century to recover the aura of voluntarism, the two systems increasingly diverged. Educational leaders believing themselves on the “crest of a wave” leading to the “final adoption” of “universal education,”56 advocated not

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reform but inclusion. They campaigned for the spread of schooling for immigrants, the poor, blacks and ex-slaves, American Indians, women, and underserved regions like the South, West, and rural areas, making schools the “necessary gate” for social entry and mobility.57 The present system, if not the “very best,” was, according to Benjamin Andrews, “perfect enough” to ensure a “benign and evangelical result.”58 Similarly, institutions preparing the “developing personality” according to the “Anglo-Saxon standard” would follow the “American eagle” abroad as it extended its wings, emulating “its Roman prototype.”59 If schools were the stick, the carrot was a culture beginning in the 1880s that ever more intensively marketed, packaged, and sold the narrative of self-creation. An American dream machine emerged quickly, targeting youth as one key audience with cheap theaters, followed by early motion pictures, department store displays, mass-market newspapers and magazines, fairs and amusement parks, radio and music, direct mail and billboards, and the promotion of fashion, style, and appearance. Youthful media heroes conveyed an ethos of instinctual dynamism, experimentation, and self-expression, utilizing expansive personalities as “perpetual youth” to consume the good life, creating a “dream world” to “absorb outsiders into the modern American dream.”60 The ubiquitous marketing of all products for “youth, speed, dynamism” led to the development of child products and markets as a distinct world promising a life of “fantasy and escape” into “luxury or pseudo-luxury, beyond work, drudgery,” and the “humdrum every day.”61 Youth became the official repository of “their parents’ dreams.”62 By following mass culture cues and “scientific” advice from expert family and children’s counselors, child guidance clinics, parental education, and social agencies, parents would be able to create the collaborative and affective conditions producing “ ‘normal’ children.”63 Children and youth embraced these “incursions” that came “from every direction,” establishing a powerful peer society in the home among siblings, workplace, and streets that pulled them “out of the orbit” of their parents’ lives.64 Traditional families felt modernity was a “vise to crush established arrangements in the home and community.”65 Demonstrating the wish to belong, which was the passport to membership in the free society, was a simple prospect given the unrelenting seductions now so close at hand. Integration was made easier as the reward for its unquestioning pursuit was cast as access to the “ ‘true

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realm’ of freedom and self-expression,” of “transformation” and “liberation.” The constraints imposed on members, the pressures and insecurities from a fear of “being left out or scorned” due to an inability to “keep up,”66 were ignored, and disabling questions of individuality were drowned out. Americans were more convinced than ever that membership in liberal society was voluntary.

Influence and Agency An ever more striking gap was opening between the promise of agency and the reality of liberal society. Individuals were being pulled between a world of personal fantasies fueled by a “quest for private fulfillment” outside the “conventional public arenas” of a “conflict-ridden, hierarchical society” and the mobilization of one’s capacities of persuasion to pursue success within the structured systems of power and hierarchy.67 The public realm constituted an emerging society of extroverts. Here the goal was neither self-direction nor institutional impact, but simply maximizing influence in a field of coded social behavior: “One feels “free ‘from the law’ because he is inwardly ready to do, from his own motion, the things that righteous law demands.”68 Unlike the discourse on the will, voluntarism in the new understanding was increasingly disconnected from the presence of choices, for in its pursuit of influence, no such thing as a “free personality” or a “reforming personality” was even imaginable. Moreover, given that external impact is evanescent, this pursuit impelled one to a continual perfor mance of one’s modes of attraction. In this context, clothes made the man: the “consciousness of being well dressed” and the recognition that “God is a lover of appropriate dress” suggested carefully designed presentation as the highest form of individuality, providing the individual with a “grace and ease of manner that even religion will not bestow.”69 Establishing a coherent and presentable social image required not access to the complications or contradictions of “self-exposure” but what one advice book called “a wall built up around us.”70 Inner processes presented obstacles to successful participation and influence that had to be overcome to avoid being dragged down into withdrawal and depression. To gain “freedom” and “ease,” individuals were to simply “forget themselves,” their “inward” turnings and “self-consciousness.” “Clos[e] the door on the past,” they were counseled. “Free yourself from every-

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thing which handicaps you, keeps you back and makes you unhappy.” A “clean slate” is a “free mind,” so one should “never look back.” Instead use “self-suggestion” to find “affirmation of what you wish to be and do,” for “innocence” represents “great power.”71 The extrovert was not a hypocrite, as many have thought, for where the external realm dominated social priorities, one was now one’s presentations. The internal dimension simply recorded influences, and even one’s own suggestions were simply another outside pressure shaping affects and purposes according to the situation. But with no accessible internal agenda, what remained of agency? Had one’s will been won to agency society by liberal socialization only to pursue the will of others in a field of mass persuasion? For the agent voluntarism had always been within the bounds established, but now options within these bounds were equally diminished to a closed circle of adaptation and performance. Maturation, a smooth acquisition of adaptational skills that come with practice and present no crises or moments of decision, meant one would never have to, or have the chance to, be tested or further develop. How had the agency character become an adaptive extrovert? The agent, like the extrovert, was impelled to transcend his initial nature in pursuit of a social identity by which his worth was measured. Yet transcendental ends in dissenting Protestantism existed in tension with society and the wish to belong, providing the individual with a standard by which to resist and transform present arrangements. Once divine purpose became instantiated as social ends managed by temporal elites in the name of collective good, and the means became what was deemed useful to fulfill these ends, the agent’s vulnerability to external pressure made him likely to adopt reigning meanings and measures. The extrovert was relieved of the agent’s burden: early preparation for dutiful social integration obviated the need for committing to ultimate ends and discerning valid means. By foreclosing an internal realm of discernment and commitment and thus selfhood, one precluded the possibility for opposition to agency through self-authority. Was the capacity for agency itself also undone?

Dewey’s Reconstruction of Liberalism The parallels to Rome and Sparta were not lost on John Dewey. Social thought in the early twentieth century was dominated by corporate and

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organi zational liberals who rejected individualism, regarding it as the “strange [separation] of what are really component parts” that impeded the “perfect . . . mechanical workings” of the “engine” of society. In child development the emerging sciences of behaviorism and functionalism would haunt the liberal claim of the free society for much of the next century.72 The nation’s greatest liberal theorist and the towering figure of twentieth-century child studies and socialization, Dewey almost single-handedly rescued the liberal faith. Alone with Hall in grasping the agency foundation of liberalism, Dewey realized a generation later the incipient threat to the legitimacy of liberal consent. As the age of popular social formation came to an end the challenge was to overcome mere claims of voluntarism by imbuing settled social processes with the same energy and openness they possessed in the age of institution building. In two distinct periods of his later work, Dewey enabled American liberalism to imagine itself once again on course. In the first period, he proposed an innovative organi zational pedagogy to constitute an agency character capable of navigating complex social networks. The second period emphasized the cultural role of liberal faith in maintaining an engaged citizenry. In his early career as a theologian, Dewey traced how dissenting religious aspirations to shape an agency society had been realized both in individuals and in institutions. To ensure the continued vitality of religious ideals, he translated them into popular liberal concepts and undertook preparation of the young for agency society. During the mid1890s he realized that education had replaced religion as the crucible of the nation’s agency society. In the great statement of this emerging vision, his 1897 essay “My Pedagogic Creed,” Dewey wrote that “education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform,” and the “teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer in of the true kingdom of God.” By “giving shape to human powers” and allowing society to “shape itself,” education enabled a modern society to achieve the “reconciliation of the individualistic and the institutional ideals” as envisioned in dissenting Protestant agency.73 As he began his liberal career, Dewey continued to believe that education could enable the child’s intrinsic agency nature to blossom. But with the decline of Progressive reform and his own frustrations at educational restructuring, he realized that the organi zational forces promoting mechanized education and mass compliance had to be replaced

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with flexible and receptive institutions nurturing active and willing individual participation. In short, Dewey’s Democracy and Education and other works of the period focused on designing an education to ground organi zational society in agency practices. While individuals had to accept existing social ends and institutions and their roles within it, they also had to be capable as agents of actively shaping their means of doing so. The problem of consent in mature liberalism, almost universally regarded as irresolvable, posed two challenges for Dewey; the first was to foster the embrace of liberal ends and institutions that was nonnegotiable and yet distinguishable from mere compliance; the second was to generate participation without encouraging a dangerous reconsideration of liberal ends. In taking on the greatest question in modern liberalism, explaining how children could be led in the course of their development to consent to the existing social reality, Dewey confronted the dark core of liberal voluntarism.

Restoring Consent Dewey began by acknowledging what liberalism no longer remembered: that individuals are “born not only unaware of, but quite indifferent to, the aims and habits of the social group,” that is, as “seemingly alien beings” whose “natural or native impulses do not agree with [its] lifecustoms.” As a “beginner” one did not “fit” into the “sequence and continuity of social life,” but rather was driven by “instincts [that] remain attached” to highly personal “original objects of pain or pleasure.” And yet membership had to be unconditional: “social efficiency” demanded that each citizen “really share[s]” and “participates in the common activity,” for without such participation “no such thing as a community would be possible.” At the same time, beliefs could not be “physically extracted and inserted,” either “hammered in” or “plastered on” through “coercion or compulsion” organized from without. Because liberal socialization, like the rest of democratic society, repudiated “the principle of external authority,” its only acceptable organizing principle was “voluntary disposition and interest.”74 Liberalism as always required a socialization both noncoercive and inescapable. As Dewey moved from a Protestant to a liberal orientation, he insisted that the child’s will be won to support social ends and

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institutions, now organizations, as his own uncoerced creation. Ironically the mechanism for achieving this was influence. He wanted the expectations to arise not from adult demands but from the “action of the environment” constituting the socializing experience, for the “medium in which an individual exists,” that leads him “to see and feel one thing rather than another,” is the least intrusive shaper of character and beliefs. In the “thousand details of daily intercourse,” direction and value were imparted by “supply[ing] stimuli” that operate “indirect[ly].” Those being socialized believe that what arose internally was “intrinsic” and not “external and coercive.” As the setting “saturate[d]” the child, he freely yet necessarily “vibrate[d] sympathetically with the attitudes and doings” of the group. By invisibly “calling out certain responses,” the setting led the child to his “plans,” “beliefs” “system of behavior,” and interactions with others.75 This was not to say that consensual integration was easily achieved. Those who “consciously control[led]” and “design[ed] environments” with societal “expectations, demands, approvals, and condemnations” affecting every aspect of language, manners, behaviors, taste, and morals had to render them inescapable. Pressures had to be employed that lay “below the level of reflection” and “conscious intent.” Once “take[n] for granted without inquiry or reflection,” the “unconscious influence of the environment” was “so subtle and pervasive that it affected every fiber of character and mind.”76 To assist compliance, moreover, Dewey called upon the fear of exclusion as a not “undesirable factor.” The child could be taught to regard whatever was new or “outside” the group as not only “strange or foreign” but “morally forbidden and intellectually suspect.” This could be accomplished through “shaming, ridicule, disfavor, rebuke, and punishment,” which would create feelings of being “disliked, ridiculed, shut out from favorable recognition.” Further warned that “re sistance” created unwanted “friction” and jeopardized successful integration, the child was pressured to reject the “insanity” of seeking “personal independence” or questioning social processes. Thus the child learned to willingly embrace agreeable acts and beliefs as a “condition of winning the approval of others” and to set about “conforming to the patterns set by others and reproducing them.”77 Despite this admittedly “unremitting” pressure to behave as a “recognized member” of the group, Dewey asserted that individuals made

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“their own choice.” By embracing social inclusion, the growing child sensed he was gaining the power and “active sense of control of means for achieving ends.” The result of partaking in the “interests, purposes, and ideas current in the social group” is “like-mindedness,” a “common understanding of the means and ends of action” amounting to a “common mind” with common intent. As a “copartner” with a calling in the common social project, a “sharer or partner in the associated activity,” the child finds his place as a self-realizing agent with other agents. When children understood themselves as chiefly interested in taking an effective part in the standard social activity, they became “robust trustees” of society’s “resources and ideals.”78 The complex strategy necessary to produce an unwavering commitment to ends led Dewey to restrict active social practice to the realm of means. Given institutions presumed to make the “lives of others better worth living,” participants were called to serve common ends by doing what they were “fitted to do” with a “minimum of friction.”79 Citizens were also discouraged from thinking about the role of hierarchies and elites in shaping institutional agendas by regarding themselves as full participants in actualizing the social good. Equipping citizens with this capacity for voluntary and engaged action was the task of education. Schooling would engage the “volitional” and “active desire[s]” of the young by encouraging their play and discovery of interests and directing them toward “typical modes of activity” working with others in the available “vocations of life.” Once the child’s own “desires, emotions, and affections,” his “interest and aims” and “purpose,” were framed as “native individual capacities,” he would embrace what was asked for as his own. This process of self-discovery became one’s social actualization through the election of the means and actions for social usefulness. Exercising their “socialized disposition,” engaged and active individuals would, while becoming agents in accordance with liberal “uniformity,” resist passive “habituation” and “conformity” by their continual “control of means” to pursue innovation and respond to change.80 Dewey’s reconstruction of agency would fall short on two counts. First, on the institutional level, the growing power of centralized organizations and government bodies allowed them to control both “mass production” and “mass opinion.”81 No mechanisms were offered to contest or even dissent from elite control over ends and means, making

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public participation all but impossible. Moreover, it was unlikely that individuals would simply apply themselves to social aims as a result of the “deepest and most pervasive mode of social control,” that of shaping the citizen’s “mind,”82 without eventually becoming aware of how this was being elicited. Second, on the psychodynamic level, Dewey’s commitment to smooth agency integration of the young without a trace of developmental or generational tension or the capacity (as Hall allowed) to challenge the agency foundations produced the conceit that a child was naturally amenable to liberal socialization. Because of the child’s “plasticity,” that is, tendency to acquire habits and dispositions, he was able to “take on the color” of his surroundings.83 This very flexibility, however, seemed to vitiate the ultimate goal, consent, for such a child would likely go along with the pressures of society regardless of the demands. But this plasticity was questionable in any event, for Dewey insisted that the child was not naturally flexible or conciliatory. Plasticity was in fact a learned attitude, made possible by an early nature characterized by “helplessness” and “dependency.” It was the child’s native vulnerability, subject to and even “marvelously endowed with the power to enlist” external influences, that persuaded him of the need to obtain adult interest and approval.84 Recalcitrant instincts or the possibility of independent moral judgment had to be jettisoned in the course of development as inconsistent with the expectations of social membership. The net result—the creation of a child believing that he had always been inclined to consent only because he could no longer recall the application of fear and social pressure—represented a fragile basis for the liberal project.

Freedom as a Cultural Influence More troubling yet, Dewey’s implicit reliance on influence to reconstruct liberalism foreshadowed his shift to a cultural orientation in his later work. Earlier, Dewey had rejected the emphasis on personality and the “wrong track” of “Imitation and Suggestibility” as ephemeral and random influences marginal to shaping the agency will.85 But the frustration of his proposals for organi zational reform ironically left liberal voluntarism as a faith. In his later work, notably Freedom and Culture, Dewey clearly identified liberalism as a sustaining belief in the

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free society of free individuals. Given the “determining influence” of “attitudes and habits” in maintaining freedom, democracy, and individuality, what separated totalitarian from liberal nations was the latter’s “popular psychology of democracy.”86 Dewey thus insisted on countering the looming threat of a global “eclipse of democracy” from modern mass society with the renewal of Jefferson’s “abiding faith in democracy.”87 Despite his clear understanding of the long struggle to create an agency society, Dewey again offered a liberal myth in place of the agency reality. Just as he had recast the original agency character in need of moral development into an originally pliable liberal self inherently amenable to social integration, the nation would be persuaded of its unambiguous origin in freedom. In this way, both individual and society were shorn of their complex history of development and thereby relieved of the necessity for transcending the original condition. In the imagined perfection of the present, disconnected from social realities, only the child’s reproduction of the liberal faith remained, without which, Dewey had previously acknowledged, liberal society would “cease its characteristic life.”88 At the same time, given the im mense power of influence, Dewey wondered if the “psychology of democracy” was “a myth,” a set of “long habit[s]” arising from cultural processes more akin to the “skillful manipulation” of totalitarianism.89

Warning Signs for Organizational Liberalism Even in the hands of its greatest advocate, modern liberal society was being rent into a cultural narrative of freedom on one hand and organi zation al society on the other. The “rhetoric of Freedom” took on, in Daniel Rodgers’s terms, an “all-pervasiveness” in the twentieth century, ignoring the multiple “confusions and discordances of American life” by promising a distinct space insulated from encroaching reality.90 Expanding with the growth of organizational society, it became in time a fantasy of noncoerciveness and boundarilessness. By suggesting that anyone not being directly coerced was free, and all who could claim to be free were uncoerced, the freedom narrative in fact sanctioned all forms of indirect pressure. Institutions led by administrative and economic elites and insulated from citizen initiative and reform easily expanded their scope and

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reach. The goal became system maintenance and expansion, understood early on as the optimal shift to “process, not progress,” given “everpresent, ever-perfect activity.”91 Problems of application remained to be solved, advanced technologies to be implemented that would multiply the material rewards. But a society of “movement along lines,” traversing the “same track again and again as cattle” do and as the earth follows in space its “course through attraction and repulsion,” was—if one looked beyond the incessant activity— an image of perfect order.92 With society operating “automatically” in “ruts” along the “lines of least resistance,” the “significant question” remaining was “What kind of ruts?” Liberal society in the first half of the twentieth century had returned to its original vision of a modern (proto-Newtonian) cosmology of dynamic processes first imagined by Thomas Hobbes, with individual parts moving in patterns of ordered motion, in stable orbits, within systems of unitary overarching ends and means.93 Appreciated by Tocqueville as the oscillating movement of kinetic American society with neither progress nor alteration, this was perhaps not the culmination best suited to the American experiment. On the individual level, the complacency was evident in the shift from development to growth. The paradigm of adjustment in science and pedagogy replaced the internal struggle of agency development, leaving “little or nothing in the way of inheritance” to impede the “fashion” of society and the smooth interpersonal exercise of personality.94 “Normal development” required no “corrective of human limitation and perversion,” merely “normal growth” on the “straightest and narrow way.”95 With nothing left to overcome or aspire to, agency development was now beside the point. Individuals simply “grow,” like “the vegetable, the animal.”96 In leading the charge for “laws of growth,” educators were trying to carve out a path that students should follow in the “maturing process” in order to gain the “power to achieve results.” The “measure of [one’s] education” was the acquisition of “needed power, or discipline, or skill, or other efficiency,” and anything more was a “waste” to the “normally maturing child.”97 This approach became codified in the twentieth century by Gesell, among others, as the built-in “behavioural benchmarks” and timetables of what was “expected from a child at every step of its maturation.”98 Once growth occurred in the socially prescribed way, independent of the resolutions of character, the earlier erasure of socialization was now

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compounded, for the concept of internal development that might require socialization had also been rejected. An emphasis on training avoided any consideration of possible developmental dislocations or generational tensions. Of course, in the liberal account, as the young matured they became more skilled, productive, and responsible. But now the belief in the intrinsic perfectibility of one’s own self and society deprived the individual of understanding how the liberal character was shaped and the dangers to which this shaping was heir. Caught between early permissiveness reinforced by the cultural rhetoric of freedom and the expectation of being naturally adaptive, the individual was now effectively two selves. The cultural self lived in denial of coercions and expectations, the invisible bonds of influence and authority, imagining its capacity to pursue its own path absent the unwanted intrusion of institutional demands. The organi zational self accepted conformity within mass society as the means of achieving rewards within set processes and personality as the measure of individuality. Cultural and social critics like Randolph Bourne identified this growing split throughout the first half of the century. Troubled by these rigidities, tensions, and inequities, citizens retreated to ever more private spaces where self-creation, magnetic influence, and open markets and institutions could dwell unsullied. In this retreat, without a firm grip on or place in the public world, citizens were prone to embrace what justified and eased their condition. Insulated from visible repression and entanglement in the cinematic fantasy of the “good life” as “personal fulfillment” and hedonism, free in the “ability to want and choose” from novel consumer enticements, they could imagine themselves living in an eternal and unencumbered youth.99 As organizations grew, the illusions kept pace: youth culture in the 1920s, FDR’s egalitarianism of the 1930s, the collaborative war followed by the Elysian suburbs. Politics itself rushed to adopt the rhetoric of culture, the art of celebrating the national myths as balm for the infrequently discussed institutional matrix.

The Unwinding of Consent The crisis of consent remained hidden in the 1930s by the sense of national emergency and in the 1940s and 1950s by the self-vindicating contrast with totalitarianism, a distraction to which Dewey succumbed.100 The solutions to which liberalism turned were an implicit

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admission that vital citizen engagement had given way to compliance and convenience. Pervasive feelings of personal disempowerment were deflected by the bounty of material growth and international mission. Increasing inclusion of those demanding access to the fantasies of unlimited wealth and reflected power, what Arendt called the dreams of deprived peoples for a “ ‘promised land’ where milk and honey flow,” provided reassurance of continued vitality.101 By the 1950s serious questions were surfacing about the erosion of liberal values and the deterioration of the liberal self. Even as Dewey’s consensus equating induced voluntarism with the free society was celebrated by social chroniclers as the end of the age of ideological conflict, more observant social critics saw beneath the rhetoric of the free society an increasingly passive populace succumbing from a debilitating fear of individualism to social pressures for compliance. This trend was framed by Erich Fromm as an escape from freedom into conformity, by David Riesman as an emerging other-directedness or extroversionalism, by William Whyte as the new organization man, by C. Wright Mills as a growing power elite, and by mainstream political science as the increasing power of organized interest groups and bureaucracies to control decision making. If liberal voluntarism was the same expectation of integration demanded in all societies, one inference was that consent was no longer important. Extrinsic rewards could not permanently cover over the erosion of individual options. After World War II the nation’s rise to superpower status and the wondrous productivity of postindustrial society signaled that a freer society might be possible. Sacrifices of autonomy and delays of social justice once needed to facilitate increased production and the nation’s global mission now seemed irrelevant. The seismic impact of the 1960s stemmed from the sudden surfacing of these questions that challenged the underlying dynamic of agency society. The struggle against barriers to a more self-directed individuality had been waged since the 1880s, peaking as a movement from 1900 to 1915, and continuing away from the public eye until erupting in the 1960s. The project of evolving a selfhood less beholden to collective ends produced powerful journeys of self-discovery throughout this long period, but the aspiration to transcend agency limits largely ended in failure. This journey from release to social integration begins with the nation’s own origins. As described in A Nation of Agents, a yearning to escape from restraints into an unbounded space of liberation was the

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dominant theme of early republican literature. This prototypical flight from the servitude demanded by traditional families and communities, called the narrative of reversal, involved the willing turn from independence to social inclusion. As protagonists faced the unmanageable prospect of mastering their wishes for self-authority and self-creation, they willingly reversed direction in order to seek secure membership in a modern nonhierarchical (liberal) society. This voluntary about-face, uncannily at the center of Tocqueville’s analysis of early America, led not to feelings of failure but to joint ownership of liberal society by citizens poised and willing to handle the new challenges of agency. In the intervening period since the early republic, the journey in search of autonomy has substantially altered. The challenges associated with individual autonomy and a free society remained unresolvable, but the society being rejected by the modern protagonist for falling short of the American dream was ironically not traditional society but the product of American liberalism itself. Thus, the continuing failure to achieve a viable freedom no longer resulted in healing social integration as in the antebellum experience but in a bitter sense of betrayal and self-sacrifice. Acceding to the inevitable return into the arms of agency society from which one had escaped in order to rescue one’s individuality was now to admit defeat. The cause of this shift lay in the very logic of liberal socialization. In insisting that one’s socialized agency character was natural and that its impulses were valid expressions of the capacity for self-creation, liberal society unwittingly unwound the internal dynamic of agency selfconstraint. As impulse became the glorious motor of consumer activity, with advertisers intoning that the “means” to fulfill impulse could “always be found,”102 it became harder to claim that impulse life was deficient and in need of social reshaping. Individuals were beginning to discover their own ideals and deeper personal ends and asserting them in opposition to the culture of delayed and ultimately deferred gratification. The logic of desire, and behind it the wish for self-authorization, located first by Hobbes and Milton as the greatest threat individualism posed to social order in the modern world,103 seems to have been following its own subterranean course, what might be called, paraphrasing Hegel, the cunning of desire. As Dreiser, London, Wharton, Garland, Bourne, and other writers realized, the liberal field of influences and attractions was in effect a field of desire, with personality only a surface

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manifestation of one’s deeper powers and drives. Moreover, the late agency culture of equal access to personality, dispensing with institutional authorities whose mandates and warrants once served to legitimate the agent, depended on desire as its replacement. It was the shaping of desire rather than obedience that had won the will to conformable behavior and the wish to belong that had produced the personality as a socially responsive image or reflection. Given their cultural idealization, the young were now poised to act as models for adults, who were less adapted to postindustrial society. Youth were emboldened to pursue new developmental possibilities in opposition to society’s growing rigidity. With the sixties, society could no longer assume that impulses were automatically directed toward compliance, and as adaptive pressures weakened with growing affluence, a world of new opportunities bound by no authority but one’s own came into view.

The Age of Discord Lulled by the quietism of the post–World War II era, American liberalism lost track of the process required to “naturalize” its social self. Complacency about its child shaping provided the space for dreams of individuality to incubate in a new generation of the young within the permissive family, culture, and peer society. By the 1960s the dramatic impact of structural shifts in the economy and society, the vast increase in industrial production and social wealth, and a more equitable distribution of resources, education, and opportunity propelled Americans to seek greater levels of self-realization. Mainstream culture had no inkling that this generation would treat the language of innocent perfectibility on which it was raised as an invitation to pursue new forms of individual and social development. Dissatisfied with liberal complacency, youth asserted a role as historical actors to venture beyond the structural limits to social progress and personal growth that had perhaps been necessary in past ages of scarcity but were no longer necessary. Their objective was to renew the transforming spirit exemplified in the quest for agency. The systematic regimen of character formation was in turn unmasked, as social analysts undertook the first comprehensive investigation of child socialization in liberal society, focusing on the roles of the family and educational system. They uncovered how child shapers operating in obscurity

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served as the crucible of liberal order and social regularity, generating consent and the culture of imagined self-creation to obscure society’s reliance on standardized selves and programmed, predictable processes. Intense divisions led to what Brigitte Berger and Peter Berger called the war over the family and schooling.104 No one could explain the sudden collapse of generational authority in the face of this challenge. The 1950s had seemed a golden age of generational harmony, its permissive treatment of the young muting the conflicts that emarged with their growing power. Even the schools, as Margaret Mead wrote, had made such an adjustment to the young, long helping each “generation go away from and beyond their parents,” to “desert or surpass” the adults “unable to grasp, to manage, to plan for” change adequately by providing “new skills, new expectations, and new problems.”105 Hannah Arendt recognized that the collapse of generational hierarchies signified an authority crisis of major historical magnitude, but few heeded her insistence that the resulting dislocations would shake the foundations of liberal society. A measure of the weakening of authority, she wrote, was that even the “prepolitical authority” within “child-rearing and education,” heretofore regarded as a “material necessity,” was “no longer secure.” Because “practically as well as theoretically,” people no longer “know what authority really is,” the forms of socialization upon which liberal political order were based would no longer be available.106 To widespread surprise, developmental dislocations and generational tensions burst into the open with the force of energies long suppressed and diverted. By continuing to idealize childhood the permissive family had more than leveled the playing field, according to the young a magnetism and innocence adults could but dream of. But as youth broke the subtle compact of reciprocation by refusing to return the idealization and instead acted out the faith accorded their capacities and inner potential, parental reaction erupted with a vengeance. Adult society refused to accept that an empowered youth would seek new developmental pathways, leaving its facilitators behind. For youth, their repressed desires now surfacing were informed by a history of generational channeling and manipulation, and they needed little verification to confirm the presence of a generational conspiracy. What becomes clear in retrospect is that generational tensions had always been a crucial part of the formative American dynamic. Its developmental demands in creating the first new nation and later hesitant steps beyond agency had been obscured by the rhetoric of self-creation.

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But, looking more carefully, we see that American literature even after the Civil War was about little else than confronting, escaping, and overcoming generational limits in the effort to move beyond the boundaries of adult practice. The education journals had captured this dangerous “precocity” of the American young, noting with disapprobation “a sign out West read[ing] ‘A. E. Heath and Father,” and a family life where “ownership [was] exchanged,” the child becoming “dictator” in the household and “absolute dictator of his own individual desires.”107 Many had even insisted that the “process of evolution” be “hastened” to ensure children “raising themselves to a higher plane” than parents.108 Having been ignored amid the pressures of national formation and organizational consolidation, this whole generational dynamic was now suddenly exposed, expanding with the dynamic of cultural liberation, and admitting of no apparent solution.

Cultural Recoil Progressives were initially emboldened by the promise of a more liberated society. The pressures for conformity and compliance perpetuating social stasis and arrested individual development could not be allowed to undermine postindustrial opportunities for individual autonomy, personal growth, and institutional democratization. Moreover, given that the pressure to conform now appeared intrinsic to the agent’s deference to institutional and collective ends, agency had to be challenged. While youth experimentation with extreme forms of self-release and self-validation troubled many, others regarded these as growing pains in the effort to move beyond agency limits to a society of diverse ends and ways of life. For thinkers such as Erikson, Fromm, Kohlberg, and Marcuse, the agent was thus not the ultimate realization of human nature but a transitional phase in the emergence of a “postconventional” self arising in “new developmental stages” toward “more autonomous positions” in society.109 Cultural conservatives such as Lasch, Sennett, Rieff, and Daniel Bell witnessed with horror the erosion of the legitimacy of agency socialization and thus of liberal society. In their view permissive child-rearing practices and instinctual release had failed to prepare the young for agency institutions, authority, and social propriety, creating legions of desocialized, noncompliant, and unadaptive youth. Whether or not

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progressive critics liked it, the fear of disorder was a valid basis for imposing demands for social integration. The use of pressure and discipline to internalize the limits of the agency character and ensure proper social channeling and deference was precisely the function of child rearing in maintaining a viable individualist society. Consent entailed accepting the ubiquitous restraints within which self-initiated activity operated and willingly undertaking the self-containment necessary for liberal citizenship. As liberalism’s dependence on the creation of consent during childhood was exposed, liberal freedom was more sharply challenged by both progressives and conservatives. For conservatives, given that compliance had been the goal all along, the experience of voluntarism could be dispensed with to ensure the renewal of liberal order. A rigorous child shaping bolstered by religious pressures and patriotic commitment to the national mission would reestablish the traditional moral order and institutional hierarchies, but with a tragic sense for some that liberal society could no longer defend the viability of a vital agency. For progressives and liberals, the options were even more troubling. Pressuring children to assent to agency deference without permitting the formation of individual ends or democratic empowerment made it impossible to insist any longer that internalization was natural or that freedom was the outcome. And yet a viable capacity to choose independent ends appeared to threaten the deference liberalism required for voluntary consensus. Worried that new institutions, patterns of development, and child rearing would challenge the very premises of the agency world, progressives and liberals retreated from an agenda for change. Lacking any serious alternative to the agency structures and possessing deep affinities for the sensibility of an earlier America, they have resisted the temptation to pursue a national conversation on a more empowered citizenry and a significant role for the young. Instead progressives have fallen back on an agenda of inclusion within the existing project rather than serious reform, while joining with some reluctance in the diversions of economic growth and global mission. Mainstream centrist liberals, recognizing that even core attitudes were eroding in the face of social stratification and economic concentration, grasp at new mechanisms— civic education, civil society participation, cultural capital, discursive democracy—to generate consent and restore the certitudes of the Deweyan consensus. Together these strategies

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offer no answers to the structural and cultural challenges to postindustrial liberalism, leaving the future of liberal society more in peril than ever.

Beyond Influence? American society had been taught a harsh but useful lesson about itself. Once collective ends were severed from a transcendental source in the shift from the Protestant to the liberal age and reconstituted as temporal utility promoted by existing social forces, liberalism became only the “jostle of interests” by “private, interested parties” seeking to influence collective decision making for their own advantage.110 With no access to a moral good, individuals were simply the vector of pressures reflecting socially mobilized interests and desires. There could be no basis for an appeal for social progress and individual development, neither a moral author demanding the agent’s fealty nor the possibility of a principled autonomy capable of generating personal commitment. In this crisis the agency foundation of the American project has found itself challenged once again by its historic antagonists, identified at the origin of modernity and borne out over the course of American national formation: on one hand, a genuine freedom to shape individual beliefs and ends in light of one’s own authority, which would anchor public commitment and true consent; on the other hand, nonconsensual organi zation al compliance amounting to servanthood as demanded by conservatives. Fearing the social and cultural forces that might portend the passing of the liberal system, American citizens have been vulnerable to calls to keep the specter of transformation at bay with a more authoritative, even authoritarian society. Socializing institutions have joined in as messengers of organi zational adaptation, enforcing stringent practical demands and pressures on the young to substitute for the absence of moral authority. The growing sympathy for a liberalism based not on consent but on fear—fear of economic crisis and social immobility, of national decline, of imagined enemies, of rigid hierarchies and increasingly powerful elites—raises concern that something other than liberalism is in the offing. With America’s self-definition as a voluntary society imperiled, the problem is how to reestablish consent. Hobbes best understood that fear, while one way of mobilizing the commitment of the inner author, produced results that were neither predictable nor sustainable. Yet from the

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perspective of American social formation, the alternative, childhood socialization, no longer offers a solution. Child-shaping institutions— now seen as either coercive or overly permissive—appear unable to deliver willing consent. Creating an empowering and inclusive society will require more than a field of influences radically skewed to possessors of power and privilege. We must call again upon the individual moral capacity for social and human reconstruction as in the age of agency formation. America’s bold experiment to reconfigure the nature of human authority has given rise to a remarkable journey. As the story of agency society stands revealed without the veil of prior myths and misconceptions, the great truths of that journey rise boldly from the age of national formation. A sustainable modern society requires consent, real consent, and that consent must emerge as citizens are prepared beginning with their development in childhood from natural to social beings. The question, then, is what kind of society Americans want: one of complacency and defensiveness, privilege and power, that having nurtured the modern vision of a consenting society retreats from the tensions and dislocations of a vibrant liberalism and the complexities of discovering and nurturing ideals for the late modern age? Or one that refuses to concede a diminishing space for social renewal, one accepting that this age while lacking clarity also offers immense possibilities for imagining and working toward change? The risk now is the collapse of idealism. The adult world, having withdrawn its hopes for the future from the young in the past two generations, has failed to reclaim for itself the capacity for making history. With the young no longer serving as the projective screen for new possibilities, there remains little faith that new visions will emerge. Yet if our dreams are no longer to be made the property of the young, perhaps it is not a lack of visions that beset us but a refusal to take ownership for them. What we yearn for in the age before us must be ours to realize, and so it must be for younger generations that follow to imagine and achieve for themselves. This promise of continual innovation, folded within the American project from the very beginning, was the source of its achievement. Whether American society will find its way back to a land of promise is a pressing question for our time, either to the agency ideal or to novel dreams of the free society, each requiring new ways to generate the consent upon which the modern world is based.

Notes

Introduction 1. Thomas Carothers, Critical Mission: Essays on Democracy Promotion (Washington, D.C., 2004), 260, 153. 2. Ibid., 148– 49. 3. Garry Wills, “Entangled Giant,” New York Review of Books, October 8, 2009, 4. 4. Isaiah Berlin, “Does Political Theory Still Exist?” in Peter Laslett and W. G. Runciman, eds., Philosophy, Politics and Society (Second Series) (Oxford, 1962), 7; Carole Pateman, The Problem of Political Obligation (Chichester, U.K., 1979), 15. 5. Hannah Arendt, “Civil Disobedience,” in Crises of the Republic (New York, 1972), 87; Michael Walzer, “The Obligation to Disobey,” in Obligations: Essays on Disobedience, War and Citizenship (New York, 1970), 10. 6. D.  D. Raphael, Problems of Political Philosophy (New York, 1970), 113; Walzer, “Obligation,” 18; Harold Laski, Authority in the Modern State (New Haven, Conn., 1919), 33. 7. Michael Walzer, “Are There Limits to Liberalism?” New York Review of Books, October 19, 1995, 30. 8. See Thomas Nagle, “Moral Conflict and Political Legitimacy,” in Joseph Raz, ed., Authority (New York, 1990); Arendt, “Civil Disobedience,” 87– 89. 9. Pateman, Problem, 15. 10. Theodore J. Lowi, “Bend Sinister: How the Constitution Saved the Republic and Lost Itself,” Political Science, January 2009, 3. 11. See Anna Stilz, Liberal Loyalty: Freedom, Obligation, and the State (Princeton, N.J., 2009), 22–24. 12. David Hume, “Of the Origin of Justice and Property,” in Political Essays (Indianapolis, 1953), 29, 32; David Hume, “Of the Original Contract,” in Political Essays, 52. 13. Sharon Stephens, “Introduction: Children and the Politics of Culture in ‘Late Capitalism,’ ” in Sharon Stephens, ed., Children and the Politics of Culture (Princeton, N.J., 1995), 20, 18, 16.

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Notes to Pages 10–24

1. The Hidden Dynamic of Childhood Consent 1. Laski, Authority, 32. 2. Daniel Walker Howe, Making the American Self: Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (Cambridge, Mass., 1997), 12. 3. Laski, Authority, 32. 4. George Wilson Pierson, Tocqueville in America (Garden City, N.Y., 1959), 77 (quoting Tocqueville); Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York, 1945), 1:73. 5. Michael Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent: American in Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass., 1996), 12; Mark Kann, “Individualism, Civil Virtue, and Gender in America,” Studies in American Political Development 4 (1990), 53. 6. James Madison, No. 10, in Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers (New York, 1961), 81; Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (New York, 1962), 102. 7. Kann, “Individualism,” 153, 180. 8. John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, in James Axtell, ed., The Educational Writings of John Locke (Cambridge, U.K., 1968), 210. 9. J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer (New York, 1957), 42– 43. 10. Thomas Paine, Common Sense (Mineola, N.Y., 1997), 52. 11. Ibid., 18. 12. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “New England Reformers,” in Reginald L. Cook, ed., Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Prose and Poetry (New York, 1950), 145– 46. 13. Zephaniah Swift Moore, “An Oration on the Anniversary of the Independence of the United States of America, Worcester, 1802,” in Charles S. Hyneman and Donald S. Lutz, eds., American Political Writing during the Founding Era (Indianapolis, 1983), 2:1208. 14. Leslie Fiedler, Love and Death in the American Novel (New York, 1966), 37, 29. 15. Perry Miller, The Life of the Mind in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War (New York, 1965), 40, 5, 6, 13. 16. Richard J. Storr, “The Role of Education in American History,” Harvard Educational Review 46 (August 1976): 351–52. 17. Ibid., 352. 18. Tocqueville, Democracy, 2:240. 19. Michael Zuckerman, “Epilogue: The Millennium of Childhood That Stretches Before Us,” in Willem Koops and Michael Zuckerman, eds., Beyond the Century of the Child (Philadelphia, 2003), 234.

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20. Storr, “Role of Education,” 348– 49, 336. 21. Mary P. Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790–1865 (Cambridge, U.K.., 1981), 16. 22. Aileen S. Kraditor, The Radical Persuasion, 1890–1917: Aspects of the Intellectual History and the Historiography of Three American Radical Organizations (Baton Rouge, 1982), 15; Glenna Matthews, “Just a House wife”: The Rise and Fall of Domesticity in America (New York, 1987), 7. 23. Bernard Bailyn, Education in the Forming of American Society (New York, 1960), 22, 49. 24. Kenneth Keniston, “Prologue: Youth as a Stage of Life,” in Youth and Dissent: The Rise of a New Opposition (New York, 1971), 7. See also Keniston, “Psychological Development and Historical Change,” in Robert J. Lifton, ed., Explorations in Psychohistory: The Wellfleet Papers (New York, 1974); Keniston, “Social Change and Youth in America,” Daedalus, Winter 1962. 25. See Steven Mintz, Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood (Cambridge, Mass., 2004); Ann Hulbert, Raising America: Experts, Parents, and a Century of Advice About Children (New York, 2003). 26. Edwin G. Burrows and Michael Wallace, “The American Revolution: The Ideology and Psychology of National Liberation,” in Perspectives in American History 6 (1972); Jay Fliegelman, Prodigals and Pilgrims: The American Revolution against Patriarchal Authority, 1750–1800 (Cambridge, U.K., 1982). 27. Philip Greven, “The Self Shaped and Misshaped: The Protestant Temperament Reconsidered,” in Ronald Hoffman, Mechal Sobel, and Fredrika J. Teute, eds., Through a Glass Darkly: Reflections on Personal Identity in Early America (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1997), 348, 367. 28. George B. Forgie, Patricide in the House Divided: A Psychological Interpretation of Lincoln and His Age (New York, 1979), 16. 29. Bailyn, Education, 34. 30. Joseph Kett, Rites of Passage: Adolescence in America 1790 to the Present (New York, 1977), 4, 271; Robert E. Lane, “Fathers and Sons: Foundations of Political Belief,” American Sociological Review, August 1959, 509; Samuel Huntington, “Paradigms of American Politics: Beyond the One, the Two, and the Many,” Political Science Quarterly, March 1974, 22. 31. Kingsley Davis, “The Sociology of Parent-Youth Conflict,” American Sociological Review, August 1940, 523.

2. The Revolution against Patriarchy and the Crisis of Founding 1. Paine, Common Sense, 51. 2. Crèvecoeur, Letters, 40, 55, 54, 40.

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3. Paine, Common Sense, 2. 4. Ibid., 26. 5. Philip F. Gura, A Glimpse of Sion’s Glory: Puritan Radicalism in New England, 1620–1660 (Middletown, Conn., 1984), 9, 4. 6. Helena M. Wall, Fierce Communion: Family and Community in Early America (Cambridge, Mass., 1990), vii. 7. C. G. Goen, Revivalism and Separatism in New England, 1740–1800: Strict Congregationalists and Separate Baptists in the Great Awakening (Middletown, Conn., 1987), 274 (Isaac Backus), 287 (Norman A. Baxter), 286 (New Hampshire Confession of Faith), 162 (Ebenezer Frothingham). 8. Philip Greven, The Protestant Temperament: Patterns of Child-Rearing, Religious Experience, and the Self in Early America (New York, 1977), 229 (Alexander Garden). 9. John Spurr, English Puritanism, 1603–1689 (New York, 1998), 188. 10. James Axtell, The School upon a Hill: Education and Society in Colonial New England (New York, 1974), 139. 11. Wall, Communion, 1. 12. Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Family: Religion and Domestic Relations in Seventeenth-Century New England (New York, 1966), 143 (Boston Sermons), 143 (Cotton Mather). 13. Richard L. Bushman, From Puritan to Yankee: Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, 1690–1765 (New York, 1970), 14. 14. See Greven, Protestant Temperament, Part II, “The Evangelicals: The Self Suppressed.” 15. Axtell, School, 137 (Benjamin Wadsworth), 143 (Jeremiah Wise). 16. Greven, Protestant Temperament, 50, 52. 17. Ibid., 60 (Joseph Pike). 18. Morgan, Puritan Family, 168 (Samuel Willard). 19. Glenn Wallach, Obedient Sons: The Discourse of Youth and Generations in American Culture, 1630–1860 (Amherst, Mass., 1997), 23 (William Stoughton), 11 (Cotton Mather), 18 (Cotton Mather). 20. Cotton Mather, “Cares about the Nurseries,” in Wilson Smith, ed., Theories of Education in Early America 1655–1819 (Indianapolis, 1973), 22, 13. 21. Wallach, Sons, 23 (William Stoughton). 22. John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity,” in Perry Miller, ed., The American Puritans: Their Prose and Poetry (Garden City, N.Y., 1956), 82; Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana, in Kenneth B. Murdock, ed., Selections from Cotton Mather (New York, 1960), 8. 23. Bushman, Puritan, preface. 24. Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York, 1993), 129; Axtell, School, 140.

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25. James A. Henretta, The Evolution of American Society: An Interdisciplinary Analysis (Lexington, Mass., 1973), 30. 26. Axtell, School, 186 (Josiah Quincy); 143– 44 (“Dutiful Child’s Promise” in The New England Primer); Mather, “Cares about the Nurseries,” 22. 27. Axtell, School, 94; Bailyn, Education, 23; William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–1647 (New York, 1981), 370. 28. Harry S. Stout, The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England (New York, 1986), 68 (Eleazar Mather); Axtell, School, 36 (letter to Cotton Mather), 31 (John Eliot). 29. Axtell, School, 156 (Massachusetts General Court). 30. Lawrence A. Cremin, American Education: The Colonial Experience, 1607– 1783 (New York, 1970), 192. 31. Axtell, School, 131, 121 (Connecticut Records), see 129–31; Morgan, Puritan Family, 173– 86. 32. Axtell, School, 94 (Daniel Lewes). 33. Cushing Strout, “Young People of the Great Awakening: The Dynamics of a Social Movement,” in Donald Capps, Walter H. Capps, and M. Gerald Bradford, eds., Encounter with Erikson: Historical Interpretation and Religious Biography (Santa Barbara, Calif., 1977), 201 (town of Harvard); Axtell, School, 41. 34. Strout, “Young People,” 203. 35. Harriet Martineau, Society in America (London, 1837), 3:169; Edwin G. Burrows and Michael Wallace, “The American Revolution: The Ideology and Psychology of National Liberation,” in Perspectives in American History 6 (1972), 264 (De Montlezun). See Carl Degler, At Odds: Women and the Family in America from the Revolution to the Present (New York, 1980), 98. 36. Axtell, School, 285; cf. 32. 37. Greven, Protestant Temperament, 156 (Samuel Willard). 38. Ibid., 160 (Samuel Willard), 162 (Rev. Joseph Fish), 163 (Timothy Pickering), see 165, 170. 39. Axtell, School, 94 (Thomas Cobbett); see Greven, Protestant Temperament, 10–12. 40. Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765–1776 (New York, 1972), 47; see Samuel F. Pickering Jr., Moral Instruction and Fiction for Children, 1749–1820 (Athens, Ga., 1995), 60. 41. Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), 230, 232, xi; see Peter Shaw, American Patriots and the Rituals of Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), 1–2. 42. Bailyn, Origins, 95.

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43. Gordon Wood, “Rhetoric and Reality in the American Revolution,” William and Mary Quarterly 23 (1966): 4–5. 44. Bailyn, Origins, 249; Wood, “Rhetoric,” 5 (Daniel Leonard). 45. Burrows and Wallace, “American Revolution,” 268, cf. 190; Wood, “Rhetoric,” 20, 26. 46. See James E. Block, A Nation of Agents: The American Path to a Modern Self and Society (Cambridge, Mass., 2002), Chapter 7. 47. Wood, “Rhetoric,” 25; Bailyn, Origins, 305; Wood, “Rhetoric,” 23; Bailyn, Origins, 303. 48. Wood, “Rhetoric,” 21, 22; Burrows and Wallace, “American Revolution,” 274. 49. Melvin Yazawa, From Colonies to Commonwealth: Familial Ideology and the Beginnings of the American Republic (Baltimore, 1985), 87 (Robert Beverly), 89 (Joseph Reed; Robert Bland), 93 (George Mason); Burrows and Wallace, “American Revolution,” 168. 50. Michael G. Kammen, A Season of Youth: The American Revolution and the Historical Imagination (New York, 1980), 199 (Samuel Seabury); Yazawa, Colonies, 93 (Martin Howard). 51. Bailyn, Origins, 311 (Isaac Hunt), 313 (Thomas Bradbury Chandler); Yazawa, Colonies, 95 (Isaac Hunt). 52. Burrows and Wallace, “American Revolution,” 168; Jay Fliegelman, Prodigals and Pilgrims: The American Revolution against Patriarchal Authority, 1750–1800 (Cambridge, U.K., 1982), 1, 5, 66. 53. Yazawa, Colonies, 92 (John Dickinson), 94 (Samuel Langdon; anonymous; Stephen Hopkins). 54. Ibid., 93. 55. Stephen Hopkins, “The Rights of Colonies Examined,” in Charles S. Hyneman and Donald S. Lutz, eds., American Political Writing during the Founding Era 1760–1805 (Indianapolis, 1983), 1:46; Richard Bland, “An Inquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies,” in Hyneman and Lutz, 1:85; Aequus, “From the Craftsman,” in Hyneman and Lutz, 1:65; Bland, “Inquiry,” 85. See also Daniel Shute, “An Election Sermon,” in Hyneman and Lutz, 1:129; Fliegelman, Prodigals, 94. 56. Jonathan Mayhew, “The Snare Broken,” in Ellis Sandoz, ed., Political Sermons of the American Founding Era 1730–1805 (Indianapolis, 1991), 260; Shute, “Election Sermon,” 134; Mayhew, “Snare,” 252. 57. Mayhew, “Snare,” 252–53. 58. John Adams, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, in George A. Peek, Jr., ed., The Political Writings of John Adams (Indianapolis, 1954), 17. 59. Fliegelman, Prodigals, 94; Yazawa, Colonies, 95 (Richard Wells), 96 (David Daggett).

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60. Jacob Duche, “The Duty of Standing Fast in Our Spiritual and Temporal Liberties,” in Frank Moore, ed., The Patriot Preachers of the American Revolution (n.p., 1860), 84; Isaac Hunt, The Political Family; or a Discourse Pointing Out the Reciprocal Advantages (Philadelphia, 1775), 30; Burrows and Wallace, “American Revolution,” 212 (Richard Wells). 61. Burrows and Wallace, “American Revolution,” 206 (John Adams); Duche, “Standing Fast,” 83; Moses Mather, “America’s Appeal to the Impartial World,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 452. 62. The Preceptor, vol. 2, Social Duties of the Political Kind, in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 1:182; Shute, “Election Sermon,” 133; Mayhew, “Snare,” 260; John Tucker, “An Election Sermon,” in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 1:171. 63. Hopkins, “Rights,” 47; Mayhew, “Snare,” 239. 64. Burrows and Wallace, “American Revolution,” 202 (John Allen); 203 (anonymous letter); Levi Hart, “Liberty Described and Recommended,” in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 1:310; Demophilus, “The Genuine Principles of the Ancient Saxon, or English[,] Constitution,” in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 1:364; A Son of Liberty [Silas Downer], “A Discourse at the Dedication of the Tree of Liberty,” in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 1:104. See also Burrows and Wallace, “American Revolution,” 199–213. 65. Thomas Jefferson, “A Summary View of the Rights of British-America,” in Jack P. Greene, ed., Colonies to Nation, 1763, 1789: A Documentary History of the American Revolution (New York 1975), 228; John Adams, Dissertation, 17. 66. Paine, Common Sense, 20, 28, 26, 25. 67. Ibid., 18, 28, 19, 40. 68. Ibid., 43. 69. Maier, Resistance, 138 (Jefferson), 133 (Jefferson). 70. Catherine L. Albanese, Sons of the Fathers: The Civil Religion of the American Revolution (Philadelphia, 1976), 790 (James K. Paulding). 71. Paine, Common Sense, 51, 33; Crèvecoeur, Letters, 39; Richard Price, “Observation on the Importance of the American Revolution,” in Greene, Colonies, 423; David Ramsay, “An Oration on the Advantages of American Independence,” in W. Smith, Theories, 229. 72. Sheldon S. Wolin, The Presence of the Past: Essays on the State and the Constitution (Baltimore, 1989), 2; Michael Lienesch, New Order of the Ages: Time, the Constitution, and the Making of Modern American Political Thought (Princeton, N.J., 1988), 4. 73. John Leland, The Connecticut Dissenter’s Strong Box: No. 1, in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 2:1190–91; David Tappan, “A Sermon

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74.

75. 76. 77. 78.

79.

80.

81. 82. 83.

84. 85.

86.

Notes to Pages 57–60

for the Day of General Election,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 1122; Fliegelman, Prodigals, 229. See Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo. M. Mather, “America’s Appeal,” 444; Fliegelman, Prodigals, 224; Stanley Griswold, “Overcoming Good with Evil,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 1551. Shaw, Patriots, 191, 191 (John Adams), 203. Ibid., 230. Peter Oliver’s Origin and Progress of the American Rebellion: A Tory View (Stanford, 1967), 76, 87, 54, 145. Gary B. Nash, The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America (New York, 2005), 203, 193 ( John Adams). See Bailyn, Origins, 312–18. Yazawa, Colonies, 99 (John Howard), 100 (Simeon Doggett), 101 (“Y.Z.”), 109 (David Daggett); Elisha P. Douglass, Rebels and Democrats: The Struggle for Equal Political Rights and Majority Rule during the American Revolution (Chicago, 1965), 274 (“Brutus”). Israel Evans, “A Sermon Delivered at the Annual Election,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 1070; Z. S. Moore, “An Oration on the Anniversary of the United States of America,” 2:1218; Fliegelman, Prodigals, 200 (The Lancaster Almanack); Tappan, “Sermon,” 1117, 1118. See also Phillips Payton, “A Sermon,” in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 1:236, 533; Wesley Frank Craven, The Legend of the Founding Fathers (Ithaca, N.Y., 1965). Evans, “Sermon,” 1070; John Smalley, “On the Evils of a Weak Government,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 1422. See also Nash, Revolution. Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia 1740–1790 (New York, 1988), 286– 87 (Virginia Religious Petitions). “Centinel,” “To the Freemen of Pennsylvania,” in Ralph Ketcham, ed., The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debates (New York, 1986), 229; “John DeWitt,” “To the Free Citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” in Ketcham, Anti-Federalist Papers, 190–91; Douglass, Rebels and Democrats, 204 (Mansfield, Massachusetts). See also Melancton Smith, “Speeches,” in Ketcham, Anti-Federalist Papers, 339– 40. Douglass, Rebels and Democrats, 160. Alan Taylor, William Cooper’s Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic (New York, 1995), 252 (Thomas R. Gold), 256, 266 (Albany Republicans), 250 (Moss Kent Jr.). John Fiske, The Critical Period of American History 1783–1789 (Boston, 1901), 58; Tappan, “Sermon,” 1125; Griswold, “Overcoming Good,” 1545; Fiske, Critical Period, 187.

Notes to Pages 60–63

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87. Henry Cummings, “A Sermon Preached at Lexington on the 19th of April,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 662; Samuel Cooper, “A Sermon on the Day of the Commencement of the Constitution,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 654, 648. 88. Paine, Common Sense, 40; Mayhew, “Snare,” 259. 89. Washington Irving, “Rip Van Winkle,” in Leslie A. Fiedler and Arthur Ziegler, eds., O Brave New World: American Literature from 1600 to 1840 (New York, 1968), 71, 75; Samuel Langdon, “The Republic of the Israelites an Example to the American States,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 961– 62; Elizur Goodrich, “The Principles of Civil Union and Happiness Considered and Recommended,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 935; Smalley, “On the Evils of a Weak Government,” 1433, 1431. 90. Griswold, “Overcoming Good,” 1551; Burrows and Wallace, “American Revolution,” 287– 88. 91. [Stephen Case], “Defensive Arms Vindicated,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 737. 92. Shaw, Patriots, 203; [Amicus Curiae], “Address to the Public, Containing Some Remarks on the Present Political State of the American Republicks, etc.,” in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 1:639. 93. Case, “Defensive Arms,” 722; Samuel Miller, “A Sermon on the Anniversary of the Independence of America,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 1162; Nathaniel Emmons, “A Discourse Delivered on the National Fast,” in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 2:1033, 1034; Samuel McClintock, “A Sermon on Occasion of the Commencement of the NewHampshire Constitution,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 801. 94. McClintock, “Sermon,” 801; George Duffield, “A Sermon Preached on a Day of Thanksgiving,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 784; “The Worcester Speculator: No. VI,” in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 1:700; Langdon, “Israelites,” 957; James Wilson, On Municipal Law, in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 2:1293. 95. Evans, “Sermon,” 1063; Tappan, “Sermon,” 1126. 96. Tunis Wortman, “A Solemn Address to Christians and Patriots,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 1497. 97. Cooper, “Sermon,” 656; David Ramsay, A History of the American Revolution, in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 2:738; Bishop James Madison, “Manifestations of the Beneficence of Divine Providence towards America,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 1312. 98. Joseph Lathrop, “A Sermon on a Day Appointed for Publick Thanksgiving,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 870; McClintock, “Sermon,” 800. 99. Henry Holcolmbe, “A Sermon Occasioned by the Death of Washington,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 1406.

364

Notes to Pages 63–67

100. George Bancroft, The History of the United States of America from the Discovery of the Continent (Chicago, 1966), 367, 370, 204, 368. 101. Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (New York, 1972), 601; Wood, Radicalism, 229, 361, 232, 293; Wood, Creation, 601–2. 102. Wood, Radicalism, 296, 306, 305 (Charles Nisbet). 103. Smalley, “Evils,” 1431; S. Miller, “Sermon,” 1157, 1156; Noah Webster, “An Oration on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,” in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 2:1231. 104. Wood, Creation, 394, 414. 105. William Emerson, “An Oration in Commemoration of the Anniversary of American Independence,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 1566; Richard Price, “A Discourse on the Love of Our Country,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 1012; Joseph Lathrop, “Submission to Civil Government,” in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 1:671; Cummings, “Sermon,” 669; Goodrich, “Principles,” 935. 106. Wood, Radicalism, 313, 359.[0] 107. Bailyn, Origins, 319.

3. Unencumbered Youth and the Postrevolutionary Vacuum of Authority 1. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Young American,” in Nature, Addresses and Lectures, (Boston, n.d.), 2:364; Albert K. Weinberg, Manifest Destiny: A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History (Chicago, 1935), 128 (Walt Whitman), 195 (Representative Bedinger), cf. 205 (Stephen Douglas). 2. R. W. Emerson, “Young American,” 344, 360; Joel Barlow, Advice to the Privileged Orders in the Several States of Europe (Ithaca, N.Y., 1956), 97, 91; Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language, in Robert E. Spiller, ed., The American Literary Revolution, 1783–1837 (Garden City, N.Y., 1967), 346; Edward Everett, “Oration on the Peculiar Motives to Intellectual Exertion in America,” in Spiller, American Literary Revolution, 314. 3. R.  W. Emerson, “Young American,” 360; Walter Channing, “Essay on American Language and Literature,” in Spiller, American Literary Revolution, 125. 4. Wallach, Sons, 116 (Abraham Lincoln), 126 (Philip Hone), cf. 136– 44; Richard Henry Dana Sr., “Review of the Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.,” in Spiller, American Literary Revolution, 213. 5. Fliegelman, Prodigals, 267.

Notes to Pages 67–71

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6. For a discussion of the theme of “narratives of reversal” in early republican literature and Democracy in America, see Block, Nation, Chapter 9. 7. Michael Chevalier, Society, Manners, and Politics in the United States (Ithaca, N.Y., 1961), 398, 269; Tocqueville, Democracy, 2:202, 209. 8. Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven, Conn., 1989), 35, 7. See Ryan, Cradle, 77– 80; Randolph A. Roth, The Democratic Dilemma: Religion, Reform, and the Social Order in the Connecticut River Valley of Vermont, 1791–1850 (Cambridge, U.K., 1987). 195–207. 9. Robert H. Wiebe, The Opening of American Society (New York, 1984), 327; William Leggett, “True Functions of Government,” in Joseph L. Blau, ed., Social Theories of Jacksonian Democracy: Representative Writings of the Period 1825–1850 (Indianapolis, 1954), 76; Wood, Radicalism, 327; Michael Rogin, Andrew Jackson and the Subjugation of the American Indian (New York, 1975), 261 (Edward Jarvis). See also Kann, “Individualism,” 56. 10. Tocqueville, in George Wilson Pearson, Tocqueville in America (Garden City, N.Y., 1959), 49, 77 (Tocqueville); Chevalier, Society, 335; Rodney Hessinger, Seduced, Abandoned, and Reborn: Visions of Youth in MiddleClass America, 1780–1850 (Philadelphia, 2005), 2, 6; Kann, “Individualism,” 72; Robert H. Wiebe, Self-Rule: A Cultural History of American Democracy (Chicago, 1995), 41; Fliegelman, Prodigals, 185; Wood, Radicalism, 306–7. 11. Rogin, Andrew Jackson, 107 (Frederick Jackson Turner); Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature,” in Selected Prose and Poetry (New York, 1963), 6. See also Hessinger, Seduced, 7. 12. Kett, Rites; De Witt Clinton, “To the Public. Address of the Trustees of the Society for Establishing a Free School in the City of New York,” in W. Smith, Theories, 342. 13. Charles Brockden Brown, Arthur Mervyn, or Memoirs of the Year 1793 (New York, 1962); Clinton, “To the Public,” 342; Hatch, Democratization, 36. 14. Benjamin Rush, “A Plan for the Establishment of Public Schools and the Diffusion of Knowledge,” in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 1:678; William Merchant Richardson, An Oration Pronounced at Groton, July 4, 1801; in Commemoration of the Anniversary of American Independence (Amherst, N.H.: Press of Samuel Preston, 1801), 14; Ryan, Cradle, 65 (Sabbath School Visitant). 15. Charles L. Brace, The Dangerous Classes of New York (New York, 1872), ii; Kett, Rites, 89 (Common School Journal). 16. Wood, Revolution, 308; R. W. Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” in Selected Prose, 169, 177.

366

Notes to Pages 71–74

17. Wallach, Sons, 136 (Democratic Review); Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1971), 23; R. W. Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” 178; Forgie, Patricide, 89 (Theodore Parker). 18. Hatch, Democratization; Forgie, Patricide, 105 (Theodore Parker); Karen Halttunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class Culture in America 1830–1870 (New Haven, Conn., 1982), xvi, 25. See Kett, Rites, 7. 19. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of Seven Gables (New York, 1960), 204; Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, or The Whale (New York, 1950), 1, cf. 105, 415. 20. Herman Melville, His Fifty Years of Exile (Israel Potter) (New York 1957), 212; Caroline Kirkland, A New Home—Who’ll Follow (New Haven, Conn., 1965), 189. 21. Melville, Moby-Dick, 7, 2; George Lippard, The Monks of Monk Hall (New York, 1970), 10. For a discussion of the structure of the literary narrative in the early republic, see Block, Nation of Agents, Chapter 8. 22. Hawthorne, House, 198, 204; Hannah W. Foster, The Coquette (New Haven, Conn., 1970), 153; Herman Melville, Redburn: His First Voyage (Garden City, N.Y., 1957), 1. See also Melville, Potter, 7– 8. 23. William Hill Brown, The Power of Sympathy (New Haven, Conn., 1970), 43, 39. 24. George Watterston, The Lawyer, or Man as He Ought Not to Be (Pittsburgh, 1808), 14, 9; Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown,” in Tales and Sketches (New York, 1996), 285. 25. Melville, Redburn, 143; Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (New York, 1980), 19, 28; Melville, Redburn, 150; Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Modern Chivalry (New York, 1962), 388, 385. 26. Foster, Coquette, 153; Hawthorne, Gables, 202; Melville, Redburn, 45; Robert Montgomery Bird, Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself (New York, 2008), 123; Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance (New York, 1960), 46. 27. Melville, Redburn, 45; Robert Montgomery Bird, Nick of the Woods (New Haven, Conn., 1967), 45; Watterston, The Lawyer, 13. 28. Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (New York, 1993), 35, 37; Gillian Brown, The Consent of the Governed: The Lockean Legacy in Early American Culture (Cambridge, Mass., 2001), 177; Edward Watts, Writing and Postcolonialism in the Early Republic (Charlottesville, 1998), 6. 29. Melville, Redburn, 150, 62, 63, 166; Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Huntly; or Memoirs of a Sleepwalker (New Haven, Conn., 1973), 46, 164, 130; Charles Brockden Brown, Ormond (New York, 1962), 3; Nathaniel Hawthorne, “My Kinsman, Major Molineux,” in Tales and Sketches, 70.

Notes to Pages 74–79

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30. C. B. Brown, Arthur Mervyn, 58, 59, 65; C. B. Brown, Edgar Huntly, 156, 166; Memoirs of the Notorious Stephen Burroughs (New York, 1924), 235; Hawthorne, House, 207. 31. Herman Melville, The Confidence-Man (New York, 1990), 233; Henry James, Hawthorne (New York, 1966), 48; Kirkland, New Home, 188; Bird, Sheppard Lee, 61, 108. 32. C. B. Brown, Arthur Mervyn, 19; Stephen Burroughs, 94; Melville, ConfidenceMan, 13; Blithedale Romance, 43; Melville, Confidence Man, 161, 264. 33. Bird, Sheppard Lee, 140, 392, 394; C. B. Brown, Edgar Huntly, 218, 250. 34. C. B. Brown, Arthur Mervyn, 326; Melville, Confidence-Man, 273. 35. Melville, Confidence-Man, 10; Bird, Sheppard Lee, 26; C. B. Brown, Arthur Mervyn, 65, 298, 80; Watterston, The Lawyer, 148, 107. 36. Melville, Confidence-Man, 21, 144; Hawthorne, Scarlet Letter, 93. 37. Watterston, The Lawyer, vii; David S. Reynolds, Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), 441; Watterston, The Lawyer, 181; Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland, or The Transformation (Oxford, 1994), 60, 135. 38. Watts, Writing and Postcolonialism, 20, 22; Stephen Burroughs, 47; Bird, Sheppard Lee, 18, 23. 39. Melville, Confidence-Man, 14; Edgar Allan Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (New York, 1960), 109; Melville, Redburn, 212; Hawthorne, “Goodman Brown,” 212; C.  B. Brown, Arthur Mervyn, 9; Stephen Burroughs, 3; Melville, Moby-Dick, 566, 6. 40. Fiedler, Love and Death, 38; C. B. Brown, Wieland, 58, 76. 41. Kirkland, New Home, 34; Power of Sympathy, 111; Melville, ConfidenceMan, 20; Kirkland, New Home, 211; Bird, Nick of the Woods, 207, 144; Poe, Arthur Gordon Pym, 15, 23. 42. C.  B. Brown, Arthur Mervyn, 48; Hawthorne, “Goodman Brown,” 287; Melville, Moby-Dick, 6, 105, 106, 113. 43. Fiedler, Love and Death, 155; Poe, Arthur Gordon Pym, 31; Hawthorne, “Goodman Brown,” 288; Hawthorne, Scarlet Letter, 53; Melville, MobyDick, 6, 163; Hawthorne, “Goodman Brown,” 285. 44. Hawthorne, “Goodman Brown,” 283; C. B. Brown, Edgar Huntly, 103; Poe, Arthur Gordon Pym, 34; Bird, Sheppard Lee, 52; Melville, Moby-Dick, 163; Lippard, Monks Hall, 46, 569; Hawthorne, Scarlet Letter, 196; Melville, Moby-Dick, 3. 45. R. W. Emerson, “Nature,” 6; Melville, Moby-Dick, 103. 46. C. B. Brown, Arthur Mervyn, 66; C. B. Brown, Wieland, 88, 144. 47. Melville, Redburn, 32; Brackenridge, Modern Chivalry, 242; Hawthorne, Scarlet Letter, 26–27; Melville, Redburn, 150; Stephen Burroughs, 11; Hawthorne, House, 40; C. B. Brown, Ormond, 19.

368

Notes to Pages 80–91

48. Brackenridge, Modern Chivalry, 16; Melville, Moby-Dick, 236, 200. 49. Bird, Sheppard Lee, 226; Melville, Potter, 230; Hawthorne, House, 206; Hawthorne, “Major Molineux,” 86. 50. Watterston, The Lawyer, 20. 51. Bird, Sheppard Lee, 342; Melville, Moby-Dick, 61, 319; C.  B. Brown, Wieland, 203. 52. Melville, Confidence-Man, 26, 7, 21, 14. 53. Fliegelman, Prodigals, 245; Stephen Burroughs, 96, 98; Watterston, The Lawyer, 11; C. B. Brown, Arthur Mervyn, 82, 81, 62. 54. Bird, Nick of the Woods, 125; Hawthorne, Scarlet Letter, 245. 197; Melville, Redburn, 163; C. B. Brown, Wieland, 153. 55. Hawthorne, Scarlet Letter, 172, 173; Melville, Moby-Dick, 165. 56. Melville, Moby-Dick, 165. 57. Ibid., 162. 58. Stephen Darwall, The British Moralists and the Internal “Ought”: 1640–1740 (Cambridge, U.K., 1995). 15, 208. 11; Pickering, Moral Instruction, 60; Fliegelman, Prodigals, 69. 59. Kett, Rites, 4. 60. Bailyn, Education, 22; R.  W. Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” 169, 177; Crèvecoeur, Letters, 55, 36–37. 61. Bailyn, Education, 22. 62. Ibid. See D.  H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature (New York, 1961), 1. 63. Bailyn, Education, 23; Davis, “Sociology,” 531. 64. Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (Toronto, 1981). 65. Cooper, “Sermon,” 653–54. 66. Morrison, Playing, 34, 35, 33, 38, 45, 51. 67. Rogin, Andrew Jackson, 14, 15. 68. David J. Rothman, “Documents in Search of a Historian: Toward a History of Children and Youth in America,” in Theodore K. Rabb and Robert I. Rotberg, eds., The Family in History (New York, 1971), 188– 89. 69. Hawthorne, House, 244; Hawthorne, Scarlet Letter, 157. 70. Stephen Burroughs, 47; Melville, Confidence-Man, 262. 71. Bird, Sheppard Lee, 339, 305– 6.

4. Divergent Childhoods, Different Republics 1. John Jay, Federalist Papers, 39; Goodrich, “Principles,” 937; W. Emerson, “Oration,” 1564; Thomas Jefferson, “Inauguration Address.— March 4, 1801,” in Adrienne Koch and William Peden, eds., The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1944), 322. As Richard Hof-

Notes to Pages 91–95

2.

3.

4. 5. 6.

7. 8.

9.

10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15.

369

stadter has reminded us, the early republic rejected political parties and ideological conflict, hoping to achieve “such general oneness of spirit as would render lasting party divisions unnecessary.” Richard Hofstadter, The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780–1840 (Berkeley, 1970), ix (note). Charles Jared Ingersoll, Inchiquin’s Letters, in Gordon Wood, ed., The Rising Glory of America 1760–1820 (Boston, 1971), 386; Langdon, “Israelites,” 964; Charles Grandison Finney, Lectures on the Revivals of Religion (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), 11. Channing, “Essay,” 116; Linda Kerber, Federalists in Dissent: Imagery and Ideology in Jeffersonian America (Ithaca, N.Y., 1970), 197 (Washington Irving); Ingersoll, Inchiquin’s Letters, 388; Jeremiah Atwater, “A Sermon,” in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 2:1179; Samuel Williams, The Natural and Civil History of Vermont, in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 2:962; Worcester Speculator, in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 1:701. Atwater, “Sermon,” 1179; Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1954), 85. Jefferson, Notes, 85. Morton Keller, “Reflections on Politics and Generations in America,” Daedalus 107 (1978): 124; Tocqueville, Democracy, 2:62; C. Vann Woodward, The Old World’s New World (New York, 1991), 3, 17; Ingersoll, Inchiquin’s Letters, 393; Elizabeth Hardwick, “The Fictions of America,” New York Review of Books, June 25, 1987, 12. Madison, Federalist Papers, 79; Finney, Lectures, 25; “California Gold and European Revolution,” Southern Quarterly Review, July 1850, 283, 277. See Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (New York, 2005); Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 (Oxford, 2007). Steven Lagerfeld, “The Age of Jackson Minus Its Leading Man,” Wilson Quarterly 32 (Spring 2008): 100; see also Block, Nation, especially Chapters 6, 10, 11. Taylor, Cooper’s Town, 266. A. Gregory Schneider, The Way of the Cross Leads Home: The Domestication of American Methodism (Bloomington, Ind., 1993), 23. Ibid., 12, 149, 23; cf. 66; Richard McNemar, The Kentucky Revival, or A Short History of the Late Extraordinary Out-Pouring of the Spirit of God, in Wood, Rising Glory, 88. Schneider, Way of the Cross, 123, 84 (Bishops Asbury and Coke), 18. Barlow, Advice, 98. McNemar, Kentucky Revival, 88– 89; John Adams, Political Writings, 139.

370

Notes to Pages 96–97

16. Yazawa, Colonies, 164; Z. S. Moore, “Oration,” 1212; Fisher Ames, “The Danger of American Liberty,” in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 2:1327, 1329; “The Progress of Society,” United States Magazine and Democratic Review, July 1840, 69; Atwater, “Sermon,” 1178; Rush, “Plan,” 687, 680. 17. Forgie, Patricide, 181, 8; David Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776–1820 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1997), 8, 173. 18. “California Gold,” 283; Anne Mathews, “Leading Men: Authorities on the Revolutionary Era Say How the Founding Fathers Became Culture Heroes,” American Scholar 74 (2005): 126; Fliegelman, Prodigals, 201. See François Furstenberg, In the Name of the Father: Washington’s Legacy, Slavery, and the Making of a Nation (New York, 2006), 20–21. 19. Forgie, Patricide, 198; Fliegelman, Prodigals, 262; Furstenberg, In the Name, 35. A recent claim that, through reading, this cultic project reached the “inner subjectivity” of the citizenry to effectively “shape their behavior and their very understanding of themselves as moral agents” is unconvincing. Not only did it “lead in a variety of directions,” but the clear limits to patriotism during this age makes unity a retrospective projection, an admitted myth, a “liberal fiction,” an “idealized image.” Furstenberg, In the Name, 161, 162, 200, 220. Most attachments in this age were “local,” with “patriotic sentiments” largely “contract[ed] to a “smaller compass” and very highly “diversified by different customs and forms of government.” Forgie, Patricide, 19; Craven, Legend, 103 (John Bozman); Lawrence J. Friedman, Inventors of the Promised Land (New York, 1975), 25 (David Ramsay). Under these conditions, as Altschuler and Blumin have documented in their “paradigm-shifting” work, the cultural productions of the early republic reveal “how little a role political institutions, characters and events play in the vast panorama.” Philip J. Ethington, review of Rude Republic: Americans and Their Politics in the Nineteenth Century, Journal of American History, by Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin, September 2001, 644; Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin, “Where Is the Real America? Politics and Popular Consciousness in the Antebellum Era,” American Quarterly, June 1997, 233. 20. Craven, Legend, 138; Everett, “Oration on the Peculiar Motives to Intellectual Exertion in America,” 288; Wood, Creation, 426 (Benjamin Rush); Atwater, “Sermon,” 1179, 1211. 21. Everett, “Oration,” 291; R.  W. Emerson, “Young American,” 343– 44; Everett, “Oration,” 294, 293. 22. Kerber, Federalists, 206; Evans, “Sermon,” 1074.

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23. Evans, “Sermon,” 1072, 1073; Webster, “Oration,” 1215, 1232; Tappan, “Sermon,” 1118; Webster, “Oration,” 1221–22, 1226. 24. S. Miller, “Sermon,” 1156. 25. Webster, “Oration,” 1239, 1238; Samuel Kendal, “Religion the Only Sure Basis of Free Government,” in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 2:1252; Tappan, “Sermon,” 1121. 26. Forgie, Patricide, 14, 15. 27. Wood, Creation, 426; Cooper, “Sermon,” 648; Ramsay, “Oration,” 228; Thomas Jefferson, “A Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge,” in W. Smith, Theories, 233; Wood, Creation, 397 (Charles Lee). See also Allen Oscar Hansen, Liberalism and American Education in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1977), v 28. Goodrich, “Principles,” 918, 939; Worcester Speculator, in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 1:700; Langdon, “Israelites,” 962. 29. Samuel Harrison Smith, Remarks on Education, in W. Smith, Theories, 299; Robert Coram, Political Inquiries, to Which Is Added a Plan for the Establishment of Schools Throughout the United States, in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 2:795; Evans, “Sermon,” 1077 (celebrated French writer); Atwater, “Sermon,” 1178. 30. David W. Kling, A Field of Divine Wonders: The New Divinity and Village Revivals in Northwestern Connecticut 1792–1822 (University Park, Pa., 1993), 196, 209; Curtis D. Johnson, Islands of Holiness: Rural Religion in Upstate New York, 1790–1860 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1989), 66. See Schneider, Way of the Cross, 73, 74. 31. Cremin, American Education, 51–52; Schneider, Way of the Cross, 73. 32. Finney, Lectures, 11; Cremin, American Education, 18, 37 (Lyman Beecher). 33. Rush, “A Plan,” 683, 692, 681. 34. Kerber, Federalists, 96. 35. Hessinger, 3– 4; Worcester Speculator, 701; Langdon, “Israelites,” 962; Worcester Speculator, 701; Lathrop, “A Sermon on a Day Appointed for Publick Thanksgiving,” 878; Langdon, “Israelites,” 962. 36. Kann, “Individualism,” 80; Rush, “A Plan,” 692; Stephen Peabody, “Sermon Before the General Court of New Hampshire at the Annual Election,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 1337; Tappan, “Sermon,” 1114; Worcester Speculator, 701. 37. Wortman, “A Solemn Address,” 1526; Jonathan Maxcy, “An Oration,” in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 2:1048; Smalley, “Evils,” 1431; Langdon, “Israelites,” 961; Kendal, “Religion,” 1254; Peres Forbes, “An Election Sermon,” in Hyneman and Lutz, American Political Writing, 2:993; Maxcy, “Oration,” 1048.

372

Notes to Pages 103–109

38. Emmons, “Discourse,” 1027; Langdon, “Israelites,” 961; Wilson, On Municipal Law, 1292; Langdon, “Israelites,” 961; Webster, “Oration,” 1228; Z. S. Moore, “Oration,” 1214–15. 39. Tappan, “Sermon,” 1110; Kendal, “Religion,” 1247; Maxcy, “An Oration,” 1048; Forbes, “Election Sermon,” 993. 40. Goodrich, “Principles,” 936; John Thayer, “A Discourse, Delivered at the Roman Catholic Church in Boston,” in Sandoz, Political Sermons, 1361; Tappan, “Sermon,” 1111; Webster, “Oration,” 1229. See Langdon, “Israelites,” 960. 41. Greven, Protestant Temperament, 164. 42. Rush, “A Plan,” 687; Noah Webster, Dissertations on the English Language, in W. Smith, Theories, 270, 272, 282. 43. Jefferson, “Inauguration Address,” 323; The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven, Conn., 1964), 136. 44. Coram, Political Inquiries, 757; Barlow, Advice, 54, 55, 18; Franklin, Autobiography, 136. 45. Barlow, Advice, 56; Coram, Political Inquiries, 809; S. H. Smith, Remarks on Education, 295, 296, 294; Coram, Political Inquiries, 757; Barlow, Advice, 97; S. H. Smith, Remarks on Education, 294–95. See S. H. Smith, Remarks on Education, 295; Coram, Political Inquiries, 758. 46. Coram, Political Inquiries, 803, cf. 807. 47. S. H. Smith, Remarks on Education, 303, 296; Paul K, Conkin, Prophets of Prosperity: American’s First Political Economists (Bloomington, Ind., 1980), 204. 48. Coram, Political Inquiries, 798, 797; Ramsay, “Oration,” 224; Thomas Jefferson, “Letter to John Adams,” in W. Smith, Theories, 307. 49. Ryan, Cradle, 71. 50. Schneider, Way of the Cross, 20, 41, 39. 51. Ibid., 204, 79; William B. Sprague, Lectures to Young People (New York, 1830), 31; Schneider, Way of the Cross, 141 (John Burgess), 135; Samuel Miller, “Introductory Address,” in Sprague, Lectures to Young People, xii. 52. Robert Baird, Religion in America (New York, 1856), 296; Sprague, Letters to Young People, 27, 28. 53. See Schneider, Way of the Cross, 118, 159– 60. 54. Ibid., 151, 66, 120. See Block, A Nation of Agents, Chapter 9. 55. Schneider, Way of the Cross, 74; Finney, Lectures, 423; Schneider, Way of the Cross, 159 (C. R. Lovell). 56. A. D. Eddy, Addresses on the Duties, Dangers and Securities of Youth (New York, 1836), xx; Frances Wright, Course on Popular Lectures (London, n.d.), x, 104, vii; The Backwoods Preacher, Being the Autobiography of Peter Cartwright (London, n.d.), 113.

Notes to Pages 110–113

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57. Theodore Dwight Jr., The Father’s Book, or Suggestions for the Government and Instruction of Young Children (Springfield, Ill., 1834), 175; John Hall, On the Education of Children, 2nd ed. (Hartford, Conn., 1836), 179. 58. Catherine Beecher, A Treatise on Domestic Economy for the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School (New York, 1842), 257; John Taylor, Arator (Indianapolis, 1977), 79– 80; William Leggett, “The Streets of the Palaces,” in Lawrence H. White, ed., Democratick Editorials: Essays in Jacksonian Political Economy (Indianapolis, 1984), 251; Finney, Lectures, 435. 59. Dwight, Suggestions, 146; William A. Alcott, The Young Man’s Guide (Boston, 1844), 39; Isaac Taylor, Character Essential to Success in Life Addressed to Those Who are Approaching Manhood (Boston, 1820), 5, 21, 6, 125; A. D. Eddy, Addresses, xvii. 60. Daniel C. Eddy, The Young Man’s Friend (Boston, 1855), 46, 60. 61. A. D. Eddy, Addresses, 58, 133. 62. John Abbott, The School-Boy; or, A Guide for Youth to Truth and Duty (Boston, 1839), 19, 13; Alcott, Guide, 28. 63. I. Taylor, Character, 125, 123. 64. Ibid., 123–25; A. D. Eddy, Addresses, 84. 65. Mary Watkins, Maternal Solicitude, or Lady’s Manual (New York, 1809), 18; Enos Hitchcock, A Discourse on Education (Providence, R.I., 1785), 6; Samuel K. Jennings, Married Lady’s Companion, or Poor Man’s Friend (New York, 1808), 178; Clark Brown, The Importance of the Early and Proper Education of Children (New Bedford, Mass., 2795), 15; Hitchcock, Discourse, 6; Jennings, Companion, 178; Watkins, Maternal Solicitude, 18. 66. I. Taylor, Character, 125; Joel Hawes, Lectures to Young Men, on the Formation of Character (Hartford, Conn., 1822), 7– 8; Hall, On the Education of Children, 18, 16; H. H. Humphrey, Domestic Education (Amherst, Mass., 1840), 71. 67. Enos Hitchcock, Memoirs of the Bloomsgrove Family (Upper Saddle River, N.J., 1970), 1:227, 217, 218, 216; Jennings, Companion, 174, 169–70; Greven, Protestant Temperament, 163 (Thomas Pickering). 68. Thomas Barnard, A Sermon Preached before the Salem Female Charitable Society (Salem, Mass., 1803), 12; Hitchcock, Discourse, 6; Hitchcock, Family, 1:25, 24; Hitchcock, Discourse, 7; Clark Brown, Education of Children, 20–21. See also William Mavor, The Catechism of Health (New York, 1819), 13. 69. Watkins, Maternal Solicitude, frontispiece; Barnard, Sermon, 13; Daniel Dana, Discourse Delivered May 22, 1804 Before the Members of the Female Charitable Society of Newburyport (Newburyport, Mass., 1804), 16; George Strebeck, A Sermon on the Character of the Virtuous Woman (New York,

374

70.

71. 72. 73. 74.

Notes to Pages 114–123

1800), 19; Mavor, Catechism of Health, 12; Thomas Branagan, The Excellency of the Female Character Vindicated (New York, 1807), 62. Humphrey, Domestic Education, 38, 18; Rev. Benjamin Allen, The Parent’s Counsellor, or the Dangers of Moroseness: A Narrative of the Newton Family (Philadelphia, 1825), 4, 9; Dwight, Father’s Book, 122. See Block, Nation, Chapter 10. Sprague, Lectures to Young People, 274. Wright, Popular Lectures, vi, 23, 22, vii. A. D. Eddy, Addresses, 64; Wright, Popular Lectures, 107; Cartwright, Backwoods Preacher, 114, 58, 113, 77.

5. The Emerging Consensus on Agency Socialization 1. Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America (New York, 1955), 89; Wiebe, Opening, 252, 250. 2. Samuel Goodrich, Fireside Education (London, 1839), 3; Hitchcock, Memoirs, 1:16. See also Bernard Wishy, The Child and the Republic: The Dawn of Modern American Child Nurture (Philadelphia, 1968), 4. 3. S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 4. 4. Anne Scott MacLeod, A Moral Tale: Children’s Fiction and American Culture 1820–1860 (Hamden, Conn., 1975), 20 (author of Jack Halyard); W. Smith, Theories of Education, 184; Macleod, Moral Tale, 21 (Samuel Goodrich); Cremin, American Education, 64; Humphrey, Domestic Education, 9; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 3, 111. See Hall, Education of Children, 41 (a “current of popular treatises on this subject . . . almost daily issue from the press”). 5. Hitchcock, Memoirs, 1:16–17; Macleod, Moral Tale, 9; Forgie, Patricide, 15, 18. 6. Hall, Education of Children, 9; Hawes, Lectures, 11. 7. Hall, Education of Children, 10. 8. Ibid., 186, 17, 189; Humphrey, Domestic Education, 15; Dwight, Father’s Book (1835), 15, 23. 9. Sprague, Letters, 27, 31; Schneider, Way of the Cross, 151; 155 (C.  R. Lovell), 162. 10. Wright, Popular Lectures, 25, 24, 116; Charles Steward Daveis, “An Address Delivered on the Commemoration of Fryeburg, May 19, 1825,” in Blau, Social Theories, 46; Frederick Robinson, “An Oration delivered before the Trades’ Union of Boston and Vicinity, July 4, 1834,” in Blau, Social Theories, 337. 11. A. D. Eddy, Addresses, 77, 78; Hall, Education of Children, 187; Abbott, The School-Boy, 81, 80.

Notes to Pages 123–128

375

12. Isaac Taylor, Character Essential to Those Who Are Approaching Manhood (Boston, 1820), 50; John Todd, The Young Man. Hints Addressed to Young Men of the United States (Northampton, Mass., 1844), 25. 13. Hawes, Lectures, 34, 39; I. Taylor, Character, 131; A. D. Eddy, Addresses, 36. 14. Dwight, Father’s Book (1834), 180; I. Taylor, Character, 25; A. D. Eddy, Addresses, 112, 115, 116; Dwight, Father’s Book (1835), 23; Dwight, Father’s Book (1834), 179. 15. Hawes, Lectures, 95, 86; I. Taylor, Character, 7; Hawes, Lectures, 86, 28; I. Taylor, Character, 49. 16. I. Taylor, Character, 3, 137; A. D. Eddy, Addresses, xvi–vii. 17. A.  D. Eddy, Addresses, 60; Hall, Education of Children, 188; A.  D. Eddy, Addresses, xx. 18. Dwight, Father’s Book (1835), 124; I. Taylor, Character, 38; Abbott, The School-Boy, 38; Hawes, Lectures, 108; Hall, Education of Children, 182. 19. Hall, Education of Children, 17; Humphrey, Domestic Education, 22. 20. Hall, Education of Children, 73, 85; Humphrey, Domestic Education, 28. 21. Humphrey, Domestic Education, 49, 44, 43, 47, 48; Dwight, Father’s Book (1835), 125; Humphrey, Domestic Education, 47. 22. Humphrey, Domestic Education, 26; Hall, Education of Children, 181; Humphrey, Domestic Education, 17; Hall, Education of Children, 16. 23. Dwight, Father’s Book (1835), 14; Hall, Education of Children, 184; Dwight, Father’s Book (1835), 129. 24. A. D. Eddy, Addresses, 78. 25. Humphrey, Domestic Education, 9; A.  D. Eddy, Addresses, 75, 65, 78; Hawes, Lectures, 43, 5; A. D. Eddy, Addresses, 78. 26. Hawes, Lectures, 95; I. Taylor, Character, 125, 135, 131; William B. Sprague, Letters to Young Men (Harrisonburg, Va., 1988), 49, 185, 37; see William B. Sprague, Letters on Practical Subjects to a Daughter (Harrisonburg, Va., 1987); Hawes, Lectures, 101. 27. Hall, Education of Children, 18; Humphrey, Domestic Education, 25, 29; I. Taylor, Character, 24, 9; Hawes, Lectures, 37, 54. 28. Hall, Education of Children, 180; Dwight, The Father’s Book (1835), 120; Humphrey, Domestic Education, 25, Dwight, The Father’s Book (1835), 14; Hall, Education of Children, 187; Abbott, The School-Boy, 38; cf. Abbott, The School-Boy, 54. 29. Hall, Education of Children, 188, 20, 186, 68. 30. Humphrey, Domestic Education, 42; Hall, Education of Children, 19; Humphrey, Domestic Education, 47; Dwight, Father’s Book (1834), 125; Hall, On the Education, Education of Children, 190; Humphrey, Domestic Education, 118; Hall, Education of Children, 73; Humphrey, Domestic Education, 77.

376

Notes to Pages 129–134

31. I. Taylor, Character, 23, 11; Abbott, The School-Boy, 146, 35, 156; I. Taylor, Character, 23; A. D. Eddy, Addresses, 129; I. Taylor, Character, 5, 4, 143, 2, 46. 32. Humphrey, Domestic Education, 174; A. D. Eddy, Addresses, 77; Hall, On the Education, 35, 36; A. D. Eddy, Addresses, 54, 56, 55; Abbott, The SchoolBoy, 180. 33. Humphrey, Domestic Education, 27; Dwight, Father’s Book (1835), 64; Dwight, Father’s Book (1834), 138; Hawes, On the Education, 55. 34. Schneider, Way of the Cross, 24–27; Samuel Miller, “Introductory Address,” in William B. Sprague, Lectures to Young People (New York, 1831), xii, xx. 35. Schneider, Way of the Cross, 152. 36. Ibid.; Sprague, Letters to Young People, 195, 234, 278, 194; Finney, Lectures, 403, 420; Sprague, Letters to Young People, 277. 37. Schneider, Way of the Cross, 150, 151; Sprague, Letters to Young People, 282. See Schneider, Way of the Cross, 153. 38. Sprague, Letters to Young People, 289; S. Miller, “Introductory Address,” xiv. 39. Sprague, Letters to Young People, 35; Schneider, Way of the Cross, 120, 202, 203. See Block, A Nation of Agents, Chapters 10, 11; Sprague, Letters to Young People, 239. 40. Sprague, Letters to Young People, 32, 33; Schneider, Way of the Cross, 202. 41. S. Miller, “Introductory Address,” xii; Sprague, Letters to Young People, 290, 26–27. 42. Schneider, Way of the Cross, 155, 155 (Methodist Family Manual); Sprague, Letters to Young People, 152, 151, 245, 206, 294. 43. Schneider, Way of the Cross, 159, 161, 156; Sprague, Letters to Young People, 196, 300, 295. See Block, A Nation of Agents, Chapter 10. 44. Schneider, Way of the Cross, 162; Sprague, Letters to Young People, 200, 289, 290; Schneider, Way of the Cross, 164 (John Power). 45. William Emerson, “Oration,” 1565; Wortman, “Solemn Address,” 1497; William Emerson, “Oration,” 1565; Wright, Popular Lectures, 137, 127. 46. William Emerson, “Oration,” 1568; William Leggett, “A Bad Beginning,” in Editorials, 259; Wortman, “Solemn Address,” 1482; William Emerson, “Oration,” 1568. 47. Stephen Simpson, The Working Man’s Manual: A New Theory of Political Economy, on the Principle of Production the Source of Wealth, in Blau, Social Theories, 151–52; William Leggett, “The Inequality of Human Condition,” in Editorials, 255. 48. Leggett, “Inequality,” 255; “Introduction,” United States Magazine and Democratic Review, in Blau, Social Theories, 25; Wright, Popular Lectures, vii; Simpson, Working Man’s Manual, 152.

Notes to Pages 134–142

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49. See Wright, Popular Lectures, 120, 105– 06. 50. “Introduction,” Democratic Review, 25; Simpson, Working Man’s Manual, 148; Wright, Pop ular Lectures, vii; Simpson, Working Man’s Manual, 152. 51. Simpson, Working Man’s Manual, 152; Wright, Popular Lectures, 81. 52. Wright, Popular Lectures, 135, 133, 147, 83; Coram, Political Inquiries, 784; Wright, Popular Lectures, 116, 136. 53. “On the Intelligence of the People,” United States Magazine and Democratic Review 8 (1840): 365; Wright, Popular Lectures, 80; “On the Intelligence,” 365. 54. Wright, Popular Lectures, 112, 31, 216; “On the Intelligence,” 361, 363. 55. Paul Boyer, Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820–1920 (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), 52. 56. I. Taylor, Character, 68, 74. 57. Sprague, Letters to Young Men, 144, 145. 58. D. C. Eddy, The Young Man’s Friend (Boston, 1855) (hereafter D. Eddy 1), 7, title page. 59. Joel Hawes, Lectures to Young Men on the Formation of Character (Boston, 1856) (hereafter Hawes 2), 124; Beecher, Treatise on Domestic Economy, 25; Catherine E. Beecher, Letters on the Difficulties of Religion (Hartford, Conn., 1836), 325; Catherine E. Beecher, The Duty of American Women to Their Country (New York, 1845), 4, 31. 60. Hawes 2, 124; Daniel C. Eddy, The Young Man’s Friend, New Series (Boston, 1865) (hereafter D. Eddy 2), 38; Hawes 2, 123; D. Eddy 1, 46. 61. Hawes 2, 123–24. 62. Ibid., 122; D. Eddy 2, 36; Hawes 2, 122–23. 63. D. Eddy 2, 25; Hawes 2, 122; D. Eddy 2, 27; Hawes 2, 134; Beecher, Domestic Economy, 26; Hawes 2, 132. 64. Catharine [sic] E. Beecher, An Essay on the Education of Female Teachers (New York, 1835), 12; Beecher, Domestic Economy, 36; D. Eddy 2, 249, 243. 65. Beecher, Domestic Economy, 229; Hawes 2, 125, 119–20; D. Eddy 2, 34; Hawes 2, 124. 66. D. Eddy 2, 129. 67. Ibid., 129, 198; Beecher, Domestic Economy, 36, cf. 37. 68. Horace Bushnell, Views of Christian Nurture and of Subjects Adjacent Thereto (1847) (New York, 1975), 22, 183, 21, 68– 69, 108. 69. Ibid., 21, 178, 44, 185, 193, cf. 20–21. 70. Ibid., 41, 14, 13, 37, 17, 10, 7. 71. Beecher, Domestic Economy, 231, 227, 228; Bushnell, Views of Christian Nurture, 17.

378

Notes to Pages 142–149

72. Bushnell, Views of Christian Nurture, 147, 148; Beecher, Domestic Economy, 224; Bushnell, Views of Christian Nurture, 40, 107, 106, 164, 170, 129, 85. 73. Beecher, Domestic Economy, 224; Bushnell, Views of Christian Nurture, 164, 171, 196, 16, 20. 74. Bushnell, Views of Christian Nurture, 178, 186. 75. Ibid., 43, 106, 209, 206, 207; Beecher, Domestic Economy, 38, 37; Bushnell, Views of Christian Nurture, 157, 43. 76. Daniel Wise, The Path of Life (Cincinnati, 1847), 105, 208–10, 212. 77. Daniel Wise, The Young Man’s Counsellor (New York, 1850) 13–14, 29. 78. Wise, Young Man’s Counsellor, 27, 254, 30. 79. Ibid., 30, 74–75, 18. 80. Ibid., 164, 88, 161. 81. Ibid., 17, 159, 64, 40, 159, 165, 160, 254. 82. Ibid., 219, 79, 17, 110, 42. 83. Merrill D. Peterson, The Jeffersonian Image in the American Mind (New York, 1962), 451 (Reinhold Niebuhr), 451, 457. 84. William H. Seward, Life and Public Ser vices of John Quincy Adams (Auburn, N.Y., 1849), 193–94. At the front of the volume the publishers explain that, with Seward’s tight schedule, the work was undertaken with the “literary assistance of an able writer” who “completed the work.” 85. John M. Austin, The Source and Perpetuity of Republicanism, A Discourse (Auburn, N.Y., 1844), 7,6, 11, 21–23, 12. 86. Ibid., 21, 22, 3, 4. 87. Ibid., 5– 8; John M. Austin, “The Good Shepherd,” in The Occasional Sermon Delivered before the Universalist General Convention at its Session in the City of New York, Sept. 1841 (New York, 1841), 160; Austin, Republicanism, 12, 16, 13. 88. J.  M. Austin, Voice to Youth, Addressed to Young Men and Young Ladies (Utica, N.Y., 1839), 117, 119, 136, 209, 137, 118, 148, 139, 208. 89. Ibid., 12–13, 4, 370, 136–37, 31. 90. Ibid., 22, 370, 371, 25, 66, 19, 38. 91. Ibid., 143, 118; Austin, “Shepherd,” 9; Austin, Voice, 269–70, 224, 223. 92. Sidney E. Mead, “The ‘Nation with the Soul of a Church,’ ” in Russell E. Richey and Donald G. Jones, eds., American Civil Religion (New York, 1974), 67 (Lincoln); Robert N. Bellah, “Civil Religion in America,” in Richey and Jones, American Civil Religion, 30 (Sidney Mead); W. Lloyd Warner, “An American Sacred Ceremony,” in Richey and Jones, American Civil Religion, 91. 93. William M. Evarts, “Oration,” in Henry Nash Smith, ed., Popular Culture and Industrialism, 1865–1890 (Garden City, N.Y., 1967), 8, 16, 17. 94. Evarts, “Oration,” 11–15, 5, 18.

Notes to Pages 149–156

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95. Mead, “ ‘Nation with the Soul of a Church,’ ” 63; Bellah, “Civil Religion,” 30; Warner, “American Sacred Ceremony,” 100–101; Richard Carwardine, Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power (New York, 2006), 320. 96. Warner, “American Sacred Ceremony,” 102–3; Bruce Barton, On the Up and Up (Indianapolis, 1925), 110. 97. Henry Ward Beecher, “The Martyr President,” in Beecher: Christian Philosopher, Pulpit Orator, Patriot and Philanthropist. A Volume of Representative Selections (Chicago, 1887); Ruth Miller Elson, Guardians of Tradition: American Schoolbooks of the Nineteenth Century (Lincoln, Neb., 1964), 205. 98. Eldridge S. Brooks, The True Story of Abraham Lincoln (Boston, 1896), 83; Horatio Alger Jr., Abraham Lincoln, The Backwoods Boy (New York, 1883), 179, 32; Brooks, Lincoln, 136; Alger, Lincoln, 192–93. 99. Alger, Lincoln, 20; Brooks, Lincoln, 55, 237. 100. Rev. Joshua Haigh, Honest Abe and Brother Jim: The Two Martyred Presidents of the United States (London, 1893), 37; Harriet Putnam, The Life of Abraham Lincoln for Young People (New York 1905), 33; Alger, Lincoln, 193, 167– 68 (Horace Greeley). 101. Brooks, Lincoln, 67; Wilentz, Rise of American Democracy, 790; Bellah, “Civil Religion,” 32.

6. Toward a Child-Centered Family 1. R. W. Emerson, “Young American,” 353. 2. Rufus W. Clark, Lectures on the Formation of Character, Temptations and Mission of Young Men (Boston, 1853), 56, 46; A. B. Muzzey, The Fireside: An Aid to Parents (Boston, 1854), 82; E. H. Chapin, Duties of Young Men (Boston, 1855), 35–36; David Magie, The Spring-Time of Life; or, Advice to Youth (New York, 1855), 94. 3. T.  S. Arthur, Advice to Young Men on Their Duties and Conduct in Life (Philadelphia, 1860), 57; L. H. Sigourney, Letters to Young Ladies (Hartford, 1833), 159; George Burnap, Lectures to Young Men (Baltimore, 1840), 77; Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Married or Single? (New York, 1857), 2:196; E. H. Chapin, Moral Aspects of City Life (New York, 1853), 177; Arthur, Advice, 102. 4. Clark, Lectures, 43, 46; Lydia Maria Child, The Mother’s Book (Boston, 1831), 74. 5. Todd, Young Man, 28; Chapin, Duties, 32; Alcott, Guide, 34; Magie, SpringTime, 25, 272. 6. Todd, Young Man, 240; Harvey Newcomb, How to Be a Man: A Book for Boys (Boston, 1846), 212; Todd, Young Man, 240; William G. Eliot Jr., Lectures to Young Men (Boston, 1854), 52; Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Clarence: or,

380

7.

8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23.

24. 25.

Notes to Pages 157–162

A Tale of Our Own Times (Belfast, U.K., 1846), 38; Sylvester Judd, Richard Edney (Boston, 1850), 274. Todd, Young Man, 36–37; L.  H. Sigourney, Letters to Mothers (Hartford, 1838), 16; Clark, Lectures, 356; Arthur, Advice, 194, 197; Todd, Young Man, 61; Judd, Richard Edney, 374; see also Alcott, Guide, 59. See MacLeod, Moral Tale, 10–14; Greven, Protestant Temperament, 261; Wishy, The Child and the Republic, 77. For a more complex discussion, see Nancy Cott, “Notes Toward an Interpretation of Antebellum Childrearing,” Psychohistory Review 6 (1978). Cott, “Notes,” 4; Magie, Spring-Time, 19, 108, 114. Todd, Young Man, 22, 149; Clark, Lectures, 44; Alcott, Guide, 120; Cott, “Notes,” 15; Chapin, Moral Aspects, 58, 62, 64. Magie, Spring-Time, 35; Todd, Young Man, 34; Child, Mother’s Book, 9. A.  B. Muzzey, The Young Man’s Friend (Boston, 1836), 23; Muzzey, The Fireside, 315; Clark, Lectures, 28; Burnap, Lectures, 60. Muzzey, The Fireside, 114; Samuel G. Goodrich, Fireside Education (London, 1839), 9–10; Chapin, Duties, 149; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 26. Magie, Spring-Time, 54; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 16; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 14, 15; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, iv, 13; Muzzey, The Fireside, 14, 140, 148. Locke, Education, 138, 139, 214, 148, 146. Ibid., 197, 148. Ibid., 112, 113, 138, 114–15. Ibid., 145, 144, 206, 147. Ibid., 147, 206, 154. Ibid., 146, 314, 201. Ibid., 140; John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government (Indianapolis, 1952), 6, 5, 4; Locke, Education, 197. Chapin, Moral Aspects, 190; Newcomb, How to Be a Man, 37; Muzzey, The Fireside, 120; Arthur, Advice, 138; Sigourney, Letters to Young Ladies, 161; Magie, Spring-Time, 187– 88; J. B. Waterbury, Considerations for Young Men (New York, 1851), 6; Clark, Lectures, 252; Todd, Young Man, 120; Magie, Spring-Time, 48. Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 113; Catharine Maria Sedgwick, The Boy of Mt. Rhigi (Boston, 1849), 143– 44; Charles F. Batchelder, Conquest and Self-Conquest (New York, 1843), 59; Child, Mother’s Book, 35. Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 10; Sigourney, Letters to Young Ladies, 40, 35; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, v. S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 12; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 186; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 3; Child, Mother’s Book, 9; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 10, 89.

Notes to Pages 163–169

381

26. S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 14, 5; Muzzey, The Fireside, 111. 27. See T. S. Arthur, The Mother’s Rule; or, The Right Way and the Wrong Way (Philadelphia, 1857), 193. Herbert Ross Brown, The Sentimental Novel in America 1789–1860 (Durham, N.C., 1940), 300–301; MacLeod, Moral Tale, 151; Muzzey, The Fireside, 319; Waterbury, Considerations, 40; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 46; Sigourney, Letters to Young Ladies, 163; Muzzey, The Fireside, 237–38. 28. Clark, Lectures, 51; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 193; Newcomb, How to Be a Man, 105; Muzzey, The Fireside, 110; Burnap, Lectures, 78; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 66. 29. Everett, “Oration,” 294; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 4, 12. 30. S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 26; Sigourney, Letters to Young Ladies, 123; Todd, Young Man, 34. 31. Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 38, vi; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 14; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 17, 10. 32. Muzzey, The Fireside, 92; Clark, Lectures, 39; MacLeod, Moral Tale, 148 (Samuel Goodrich); S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 19; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 32, 131, 122; Newcomb, How to Be a Man, 216; Muzzey, The Fireside, 92; Sigourney, Letters to Young Ladies, 41; Alcott, Guide, 20; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 19; Child, Mother’s Book, 46; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 9. 33. Child, Mother’s Book, 46; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 20, 92; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 31, vii. 34. Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Home (Boston, 1835), 99; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 33; Magie, Spring-Time, 10; Muzzey, The Fireside, 45. 35. Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 81, 76; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 36; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 15. 36. S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 25; Muzzey, The Fireside, 163, 158; Sigourney, Letters to Young Ladies, 123; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 196. 37. Clark, Lectures, 13–14; Arthur, Advice, 139; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, viii, 17, 23. 38. Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 15; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 15; Muzzey, The Fireside, 9; Arthur, Advice, 110; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 143; Stephen M. Frank, Life with Father: Parenthood and Masculinity in the Nineteenth-Century American Youth (Baltimore, 1998), 176. 39. Muzzey, The Fireside, 156; MacLeod, Moral Tale, 149; Cott, “Notes,” 16; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 212, 201. 40. Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Means and Ends: or, Self-Training (Boston, 1839), 8; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 16. 41. Muzzey, The Fireside, 313; Newcomb, How to Be a Man, 14; Todd, Young Man, 57; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 39; Eliot, Lectures, 54–55.

382

Notes to Pages 170–177

42. Muzzey, The Fireside, 100; Clark, Lectures, 26; Muzzey, The Fireside, 315; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 27; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 45; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 25; Muzzey, The Fireside, 16; Burnap, Lectures, 15. 43. Sedgwick, Means and Ends, 12; Eliot, Lectures, 21; Todd, Young Man, 165; Alcott, Guide, 32. 44. Wishy, The Child and the Republic, 79. 45. Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 277; Waterbury, Considerations, 23; Magie, SpringTime, 269; Muzzey, The Fireside, 309, 269; H.  R. Brown, Sentimental Novel, 301 (T. S. Arthur; Catharine Sedgwick; “Fanny Fern”), 301. 46. H. R. Brown, Sentimental Novel, 303 (Mrs. Hentz); MacLeod, Moral Tale, 48, 52, 49 (Aunt Friendly)Brown, Sentimental Novel, 303 (Catharine Sedgwick). See also MacLeod, Moral Tale, 129. 47. Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 80– 82. 48. Ibid., 201; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 9; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 26; Muzzey, The Fireside, 262. 49. Wishy, The Child and the Republic, 4; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 234; Alcott, Guide, 21, 24; Muzzey, The Fireside, 152. 50. Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 9–10, 237, 252, 253; Muzzey, The Fireside, 152–53; Alcott, Guide, 21. 51. Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 23, 27; Muzzey, The Fireside, 81; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 19–20; Muzzey, The Fireside, 274. 52. Muzzey, The Fireside, vi.

7. Winning the Child’s Will 1. S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 26; Child, Mother’s Book, 143, 72, 127; Sedgwick, Mother’s Book, 130; Waterbury, Considerations, 169; Muzzey, Fireside, 129. 2. Child, Mother’s Book, 143; MacLeod, Moral Tale, 30. 3. Hannah Farnham Sawyer, Tales (Boston, 1842), 86– 87; Muzzey, Fireside, 10. 4. Dwight, Father’s Book, 124. 5. Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 66; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 53; Muzzey, Fireside, 57; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 53; Child, Mother’s Book, 22; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 196; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 53. See also Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 185, 167. 6. Child, Mother’s Book, 9; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 33; Child, Mother’s Book, 9; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 15, 17. 7. Muzzey, Fireside, 40; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, iii; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 10; Muzzey, Fireside, 264, S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 16.

Notes to Pages 177–181

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8. Child, Mother’s Book, 143; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 8; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 33; Child, Mother’s Book, 35; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 82. 9. Sedgwick, Home, 23; Batchelder, Conquest and Self-Conquest, 55; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 113; Burnap, Lectures, 63; Sedgwick, Boy of Mt. Rhigi, 151; Batchelder, Conquest and Self-Conquest, 33; Burnap, Lectures, 62. 10. Child, Mother’s Book, 143; Magie, Spring-Time, 47; Chapin, Moral Aspects, 48; Muzzey, Fireside, 160, 244. 11. Clark, Lectures, 53; Arthur, Advice to Young Men, 78; Sedgwick, Boy of Mt. Rhigi, 151. 12. Muzzey, Fireside, 236; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 9; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 36; Muzzey, Fireside, 83; Arthur, Advice to Young Men, 74, 78. 13. Muzzey, Fireside, 65, 68; Magie, Spring-Time, 17; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 22. 14. S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 22; Magie, Spring-Time, 51, 64, 57; Sigourney, Letters to Young Ladies, 17; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 22. 15. Muzzey, Fireside, 162; Todd, Young Man, 151, 152; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 23. 16. Child, Mother’s Book, 113; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 10; Alcott, Guide, 20; Magie, Spring-Time, 215; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 101, 178; Magie, Spring-Time, 288; Muzzey, Fireside, 118, 147, 145. 17. Chapin, Moral Aspects, 190; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 170; Magie, Spring-Time, 38; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 60; Sigourney, Letters to Young Ladies, 171. See also Newcomb, How to Be a Man, 122. 18. Muzzey, Fireside, 297, 315; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 33; Catharine Maria Sedgwick, The Poor Rich Man, the Rich Poor Man (New York, 1836), 259, 33; Todd, Young Man, 34. 19. Muzzey, Fireside, 120; Eliot, Lectures, 31; Sedgwick, Mother’s Book, 153; Batchelder, Conquest and Self-Conquest, 76; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 28; Muzzey, Fireside, 314; Magie, Spring-Time, 32. 20. Waterbury, Considerations, 32; Sigourney, Letters to Young Ladies, 162; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 298; Arthur, Advice to Young Men, 30, 106; Sedgwick, Poor Rich Man, 27; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 57; Batchelder, Conquest and Self-Conquest, 216. 21. Arthur, Advice to Young Men, 76, 78; Eliot, Lectures, 21; Chapin, Duties, 31; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 113; MacLeod, Moral Tale, 78; Todd, Young Man, 157. 22. Todd, Young Man, 36; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 96; Muzzey, Fireside, 83; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 16. 23. Todd, Young Man, 281; Waterbury, Considerations, 121, 117. See Waterbury, Considerations, 168, for an apology that no possible inference picked up by the reader of “severity was intended.”

384

Notes to Pages 181–186

24. Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 92; Newcomb, How to Be a Man, 21; Waterbury, Considerations, 113; Clark, Lectures, 266; Arthur, Advice to Young Men, 103; see also Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 247. 25. Magie, Spring-Time, 102–3; Muzzey, Fireside, 305; Arthur, Advice to Young Men, 79; Alcott, Guide, 37, 33; Todd, Young Man, 22, 32, 33; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 114, 115; Chapin, Duties, 74, 75. 26. Magie, Spring-Time, 158; Chapin, Moral Aspects, 48; Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Clarence; or, A Tale of our Own Times (Belfast, 1846), 35, 36; Henry Ward Beecher, Lectures to Young Men on Various Important Topics (New York, 1844), 80; Clark, Lectures, 225; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 58; Sawyer, Tales, 13; Sedgwick, Poor Rich Man, 112; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 42; Eliot, Lectures, 43. 27. Magie, Spring-Time, 67, 71; Chapin, Moral Aspects, 63, 59, 61, 64. 28. Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 31; Muzzey, Fireside, 132; Sigourney, Letters to Young Ladies, 55. 29. Newcomb, How to Be a Man, 143; Arthur, Advice to Young Men, 68; Newcomb, How to Be a Man, 142; Todd, Young Man, 177; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 91; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 107; Muzzey, Fireside, 131; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 107. 30. Brooks, Lincoln, 32, 56, 61. 31. Eliot, Lectures, 50; Sedgwick, Poor Rich Man, 116; Sedgwick, Mother’s Book, 134; Sedgwick, Poor Rich Man, 116, 113; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 100; Clark, Lectures, 39; Burnap, Lectures, 73; Todd, Young Man, 237; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 75. 32. Arthur, Advice to Young Men, 79; Magie, Spring-Time, 273, 275, 169; Todd, Young Man, 168; Eliot, Lectures, 52; Sedgwick, Mother’s Book, 134; Magie, Spring-Time, 169; Sedgwick, Mother’s Book, 134; Muzzey, Fireside, 171; Sedgwick, Mother’s Book, 18; Sedgwick, Poor Rich Man, 154; Sigourney, Letters to Young Ladies, 177; Eliot, Lectures, 31–32. 33. Burnap, Lectures, 15, 67. 34. Chapin, Duties, 8; Waterbury, Considerations, 64; Todd, Young Man, 39; Arthur, Advice to Young Men, 7, 26; Waterbury, Considerations, 78. 35. Waterbury, Considerations, 78, 70, 79; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 54, 55; Chapin, Moral Aspects, 23; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 63, 61. 36. Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 113, 114; Eliot, Lectures, 35; Sedgwick, Mother’s Book, 14; Sedgwick, Married or Single? vi; Todd, Young Man, 33; Muzzey, Fireside, 113. 37. Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 15; Muzzey, Fireside, 2, 16, 14, 17; Arthur, Advice to Young Men, 54, Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 265. 38. Waterbury, Considerations, 63; Newcomb, How to Be a Man, 217; Beecher, Lectures, 42; Todd, Young Man, 15, 14; Muzzey, Fireside, 121. Muzzey

Notes to Pages 187–190

39. 40. 41.

42.

43.

44.

45. 46.

47. 48.

49. 50.

51.

385

writes elsewhere, “It is not our parentage on which we can depend. That may give us good blood, but without wisdom and virtue, it will be blood alone, not bones and sinews, . . . [to] brace us through the shocks and trials of life.” Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 38. Addressing the “faults and sorrows” (Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 194) created by adult “perversion” of the young’s “true ends,” (Muzzey, Fireside, 24) the didactic stories of the era featured children continually counseled “to reckon with the moral failings of adults,” including “one’s own parents” (MacLeod, Moral Tale, 65). Magie, Spring-Time, 189, 248; Sedgwick, Mother’s Book, 259– 60; Eliot, Lectures, 11; Todd, Young Man, 60; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 39. Hessinger, Seduced, 130. John Springhall, Youth, Popular Culture and Moral Panics: Penny Gaffs to Gangsta-Rap, 1830–1996 (New York, 1998), 2; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 8; Newcomb, How to Be a Man, 9; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 76; Waterbury, Considerations, 65. Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 47; Judd, Richard Edney, 81; Magie, SpringTime, 36; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 5, 15, 17; Alcott, Guide, 19; Magie, Spring-Time, 277. Alcott, Guide, 24; Todd, Young Man, 16; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 2, 12; Clark, Lectures, vi; Beecher, Lectures, 40; Sedgwick, Poor Rich Man, 154; Arthur, Advice to Young Men, 80; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 14. Beecher, Lectures, 9 (Hon. John McLean); Wishy, The Child and the Republic, 58 (Jacob Abbott); Newcomb, How to Be a Man, 115; Magie, SpringTime, 250; William Thayer, The Bobbin Boy; or, How Nat Got His Learning. An Example for Youth (Boston, 1864), 308. Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 14, 48, 99; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 81; Muzzey, Fireside, v. Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 8; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, viii; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, iv; Muzzey, Fireside, 290, 291; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 267, 266; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 167. Muzzey, Fireside, 115; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 236; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, vii; Muzzey, Fireside, vi, 29, 29, 30, 64. S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 18; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 20; Sigourney, Letters to Young Ladies, 163; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 7, 278, 16, 17. Clark, Lectures, 40. Child, Mother’s Book, 112–13; Todd, Young Man, 152; Arthur, Advice to Young Men, 105; Arthur, Mother’s Rule, 247; Waterbury, Considerations, 157; Newcomb, How to Be a Man, 31. S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 107; Sedgwick, Poor Rich Man, 112; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 106; Chapin, Duties, 178, 179.

386

Notes to Pages 191–197

52. S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 60; Clark, Lectures, 46; Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 12; Alcott, Guide, 37, 80; Todd, Young Man, 41, 37, 318; Waterbury, Considerations, 28, 79; Newcomb, How to Be a Man, 23, 224, 219, 212; Chapin, Duties, 168, 170. 53. Burnap, Lectures, 78–79; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 35; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 9. 54. Magie, Spring-Time, 52–56; Child, Mother’s Book, 113, 122; Alcott, Guide, 80; Sedgwick, Means and Ends, 131; Todd, Young Man, 184, 150; Waterbury, Considerations, 9; Muzzey, Young Man’s Friend, 14; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 23 (Dr. Combe); Muzzey, Fireside, 294, 156. 55. Todd, Young Man, 165; Magie, Spring-Time, 271; Todd, Young Man, 151; D. Eddy 2, 25. 56. Magie, Spring-Time, 231, 60; Clark, Lectures, 29; Arthur, Advice to Young Men, 67; Sigourney, Letters to Young Ladies, 118; Muzzey, Fireside, 314. See also J. W. Bulkley, “Self-Culture and Self Reliance,” American Institute of Instruction (hereafter, AII) (1857): 79, 93. 57. Chapin, Duties, 56; Sigourney, Letters to Young Ladies, 55; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 102; MacLeod, Moral Tale, 80; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 106.

8. Socializing Society 1. Horace Mann, Annual Reports on Education (Boston, 1868), 689. 2. Muzzey, Fireside, 50; Catherine E. Beecher, Suggestions Respecting Improvements in Education (Hartford, Conn., 1829), 7. 3. Ryan, Cradle, 17; Zevedei Barbu, Problems of Historical Psychology (New York, 1960), 217. 4. Ruth H. Bloch, Gender and Morality in Anglo-American Culture, 1650–1800 (Berkeley, 2003), 58. 5. Julie M. Walsh, The Intellectual Origins of Mass Parties and Mass Schools in the Jacksonian Period: Creating a Conformed Citizenry (New York, 1998), 259, 252, 33. 6. Ibid., 252, 260. 7. David Tyack, “The Kingdom of God and the Common School,” Harvard Educational Review 36 (1966): 448– 49, 469; Timothy L. Smith, “Protestant Schooling and American Nationality, 1800–1850,” Journal of American History 53 (1967) 683, 680; Tyack, “Kingdom,” 469. 8. Lawrence A. Cremin, The American Common School: An Historic Conception (New York, 1961), 45– 46 (Benjamin Labaree). 9. J. Orville Taylor, The District School; or, National Education (Philadelphia, 1835), frontispiece, 32; Common School Journal 1 (1839): 4; Rush Welter,

Notes to Pages 197–200

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15. 16. 17.

18.

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Popular Education and Democratic Thought in America (New York, 1962), 79 (Orville Dewey). S. C. Phillips, “On the Usefulness of Lyceums,” in The Introductory Discourse and the Lectures Delivered Before the American Institute of Instruction in Boston, August, 1831 (Boston, 1832) (hereafter cited as Institute and by date of lectures), 102; Joshua Bates, “On Moral Education” (Institute, 1837), 68; George Bancroft, “Common School Education,” North American Review 47 (1838): 288; Horace Mann, Lectures on Education (Boston, 1855), 68, 262, 148. David Tyack and Elisabeth Hansot, Managers of Virtue: Public School Leadership in America, 1820–1980 (New York, 1982), 9; Stanley K. Schultz, The Culture Factory: Boston Public Schools, 1789–1860 (New York, 1973), x. See also Carl Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780–1860 (New York, 1983), 66; Donald H. Parkerson and Jo Ann Parkerson, The Emergence of the Common School in the U.S. Countryside (Lewiston, Me., 1998), 13–14, 31–36. Tyack and Hansot, Managers, 9; Kaestle, Pillars, 161; David Nasaw, Schooled to Order: A Social History of Public Schooling in the United States (New York, 1979), 82. Tyack and Hansot, Managers, 24; Lee Soltow and Edward Stevens, The Rise of Literacy and the Common School in the United States (Chicago, 1981), 193, 21–22; William J. Reese, The Origins of the American High School (New Haven, Conn., 1995), xvi, 66. Cf. Schultz, Culture Factory, 258. Sidney L. Jackson, America’s Struggle for Free Schools (New York, 1965), 173; Walsh, Intellectual Origins, 251; Frederick M. Binder, The Age of the Common School, 1830–1865 (New York, 1974). 10; David Hogan, “ ‘To Better Our Condition’: Educational Credentialing and ‘the Silent Compulsion of Economic Relations’ in the United States, 1830 to the Present,” History of Education Quarterly 36 (1996): 253. David Tyack, Seeking Common Ground: Public Schools in a Diverse Society (Cambridge, Mass., 2003), 10, 41. Kaestle, Pillars, 79. Common School Journal (Boston) 1 (1839): 7; John H. Hopkins, “The Defect of the Principle of Religious Authority in Modern Education” (Institute, 1849), 22; “Innovations in Education” (Institute, 1834), 169; Alonzo Potter, The School and the Schoolmaster. A Manual for the Use of Teachers, Employers, Trustees, Inspectors, &c., &c., of Common Schools: Part I (New York, 1842), 65, 64; Bancroft, “Common School Education,” 300, 297. Phillips, “Lyceums,” 68– 69; William Sullivan, “Introductory Lecture” (Institute, 1833), 5; Charles White, “On the Literary Responsibility of Teachers” (Institute, 1838), 18, 17; Mann, Lectures, 124–25.

388

Notes to Pages 201–204

19. Kaestle, Pillars, 71; Mann, Lectures, 19, 148, 150; “Note” (Institute, 1833), 36; Sullivan, “Introductory Lecture,” 25; Caleb Cushing, “Introductory Lecture” (Institute, 1834), 25; Rev. Elipha White, “Introductory Discourse” (Institute, 1837), 3. 20. Mann, Lectures, 19; “Note,” 37; Phillips, “Lyceums,” 99; Francis C. Gray, “Introductory Discourse” (Institute, 1832), 4; B.  F. Tweed, “Claims of Teaching to the Rank of a Distinct Profession” (Institute, 1855), 23; Mann, Lectures, 142. 21. Mann, Lectures, 156; Cushing, “Introductory Lecture,” 6; Mann Reports, 563; C. White, “Responsibility,” 27; Bates, “Moral Education,” 68; Mann, Lectures, 157. 22. Jacob Abbott, The Teacher: or Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and Government of the Young (Cooperstown, N.Y., 1839), 152; C. White, “Responsibility,” 20–21. 23. E. White, “Introductory Discourse,” 19; Mann, Lectures, 53, 93, 27; Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 87; Samuel R. Hall, Lectures on School-Keeping (Boston, 1829), 22–23. 24. Mann, Lectures, 157, 216; Benjamin Labaree, “The Education Now Demanded by the Peculiar Character of Our Civil Institutions” (Institute, 1849), 32–33, 39. 25. Labaree, “Education,” 34; Frederick Adolphus Packard, Thoughts on Popular Education in the United States. By a Citizen of Pennsylvania (n.p., n.d.), 3; Labaree, “Education,” 34; Mann, Reports, 455); Taylor, District School, 10. Cf. Packard, Thoughts, 36. 26. Schultz, Culture Factory, 290 (Boston Primary School Board); Phillips, “Lyceums,” 81; Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 156; T. Dwight Jr., “On the Management of a Common School” (Institute, 1835), 206; Taylor, District School, 109; David P. Page, Theory and Practice of Teaching: or, The Motives and Methods of Good School-Keeping (Syracuse, N.Y., 1847), 31. 27. Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 189; Taylor, District School, 26n; Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 158; Packard, Thoughts, 37; Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 156; Packard, Thoughts, 31; S. R. Hall, Lectures on School-Keeping, 20. See also Samuel R. Hall, Lectures to Female Teachers on School-Keeping (Boston, 1832), 20–21. 28. Schultz, Culture Factory, 57 (Boston Transcript editorial); Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 133; Nehemiah Cleaveland, “On Lyceums and Societies for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge” (Institute, 1830), 149; Mann Lectures, 13. See also George B. Emerson, “On Moral Education” (Institute, 1842), 18.; Sedgwick, Poor Rich Man, 154; Taylor, District School, 207. 29. Common School Journal 3 (1841): 15; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 14, 100; Muzzey, Fireside, 28.

Notes to Pages 205–209

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30. Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 112, 103; Sedgwick, Poor Rich Man, 42. 31. Common School Journal 2 (1840): 330; Bancroft, “Common School Education,” 287; Jacob Abbott, “The Duties of Parents, in Regard to the Schools Where Their Children Are Instructed” (Institute, 1834), 98; S.  R. Hall, Lectures on School-Keeping, 10; Samuel R. Hall, “On the Necessity of Educating Teachers” (Institute, 1833), 251. 32. Taylor, District School, 26; Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 198, 261; Taylor, District School, 10; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 84– 85; Mann, Reports, 100. 33. Bancroft, “Common School Education,” 304; Common School Journal 3 (1841): 8, 15; Taylor, District School, 284; Mann, Lectures, 262; Labaree, “Education,” 58. 34. Mann, Lectures, 69; Bancroft, “Common School Education,” 300; Taylor, District School, 296; Common School Journal 3 (1841): 8, 9; Tweed, “Teaching,” 24. 35. C. White, “Responsibility,” 21; J. Blanchard, “On the Importance and Means of Cultivating the Social Affections among Pupils” (Institute, 1835), 176; Hopkins, “Defect,” 18; C. White, “Responsibility,” 21. 36. Charles Brooks, “School Reform or Teachers’ Seminaries” (Institute, 1837), 169; Daniel Clark, “Journal of Proceedings” (Institute, 1857), xvi; Labaree, “Education,” 37; S. Goodrich, Fireside Education, 111; Muzzey, Fireside, 48; Todd, Young Man, 27. 37. Mann, Reports, 706; Mann, Lectures, 196, 69; Packard, Thoughts, 37; Taylor, District School, 70; E. White, “Introductory Discourse,” 17; Cushing, “Introductory Lecture,” 25; Kaestle, Pillars, 102 (George Hillard). 38. Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 12; Mann, Reports, 456; Joshua Bates, “Intellectual Education in Harmony with Moral and Physical” (Institute, 1840), 26; Bancroft, “Common School Education,” 303; William Russell, “The Infant School System of Education and the Extent to Which It May Be Advantageously Applied to All Primary Schools” (Institute, 1830), 98; Taylor, District School, 113, 112. 39. Taylor, District School, 257, 70; G. Reynolds, “The Moral Office of the Teacher” (Institute, 1855), 50; Mann, Reports, 428, 427; Mann, Lectures, 50, 53; Elisha Bartlett, “On the Head and the Heart” (Institute, 1838), 35; Mann, Lectures, 232. 40. Mann, Reports, 650, 534, 10; “Preface” (Institute, 1830), vi; Samuel M. Burnside, “On the Classification of Schools” (Institute, 1833), 94; George S. Boutwell, “The Intrinsic Nature and Value of Learning, and Its Influence Upon Labor” (Institute, 1856), 50, 51. 41. Charles Northend, The Teacher and the Parent; A Treatise upon CommonSchool Education Concerning Practical Suggestions to Teachers and Parents

390

42. 43. 44.

45.

46.

47. 48. 49.

50.

51. 52.

53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59.

Notes to Pages 209–214

(New York, 18530, 11; Taylor, District School, 70; Common School Journal 1 (1839): 60; Schultz, Culture Factory, 306 (Boston School Committee Report); Mann, Reports, 420; Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 157; Mann, Lectures, 56. R.  C. Waterston, “On Moral and Spiritual Culture in Early Education” (Institute, 1835), 249. Mann, Lectures, 55–56, 259. Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 13; Packard, Thoughts, 27; Mann, Lectures, 259; Schultz, Culture Factory, 259 (Common School Journal); Mann, Lectures, 263, 63. See also Cushing, “Introductory Lecture,” 4. Tyack and Hansot, Managers, 62 (Horace Mann); Alpheus Crosby, “Journal of Proceedings” (Institute, 1856), xxxi; Thomas D. James, “On Model Schools” (Institute, 1838), 88; David P. Page, “On the Mutual Duties of Parents and Teachers” (Institute, 1838), 158, 144. Page, “Duties,” 145; Crosby, “Journal,” xxxii; Page, Theory and Practice, 250; Mann, Lectures, 199, 189, 185; Gardner Braman Perry, “On Primary Education” (Institute, 1833), 111–12; Mann, Reports, 757. Mann, Reports, 578, 576, 619, 588. Mann, Lectures, 58–59, 201, 202, 110. Cf. Mann, Reports, 83. John N. Bellows, “The Duty of the American Teacher” (Institute, 1844), 257, 256; Mann Reports, 100; Cremin, Common School, 54 (Doane); Mann, Reports, 100, 116; Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 158. Mann, Lectures, 199–200; Mann, Reports, 547; Theodore Edson, “On the Comparative Merits of Private and Public Schools” (Institute, 1837), 102–3. See also Kaestle, Pillars, 118–21; James Walker, “Introductory Lecture” (Institute, 1856), 9–11; “Journal of Proceedings” (Institute, 1857), xxx–xlv. Edson, “Schools,” 98; Mann, Reports, 92; Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 123. Mann, Reports, 455; Jacob Batchelder, “The Co-Operation of Parents and Teachers” (Institute, 1848), 60; David Mack, “The Claims of Our Age and Country Upon Teachers” (Institute, 1839), 146; Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 167; Page, Theory and Practice, 37; Northend, Teacher, 291, 292. Mann, Reports, 688; Mann, Lectures, 150; Mann, Reports, 670, 92, 625. Mann, Reports, 542. Ibid.; Binder, Age of the Common School, 33 (Working Man’s Advocate). Welter, Popular Education, 76 (Edward Everett), cf. 74– 87. Roth, Democratic Dilemma, 280 (Seth Arnold). Welter, Popular Education, 108 (Horace Bushnell). C. White, “Responsibility,” 26; Mann, Reports, 632, 638; Tyack and Hansot, Managers, 30, 73.

Notes to Pages 215–220

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60. Kaestle, Pillars, 135; Thomas H. Palmer, “On the Evils of the Present System of Primary Instruction” (Institute, 1837), 238. See Binder, Age of the Common School, 58–76; Welter, Popular Education, 100–102. 61. Tyack and Hansot, Managers, 28.

9. Educating the Agent as Liberal Citizen 1. Francis Wayland Jr., “Introductory Discourse” (Institute, 1830), 23. 2. S. R. Hall, Lectures on School-Keeping, v; Mann, Lectures, 123. 3. Bartlett, “Head and Heart,” 34; William A. Alcott, Word to Teachers: or, Two Days in a Primary School (Boston, 1833), xii; Mack, “Claims,” 148. 4. Bates, “Moral Education,” 59, 60. 5. Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 157; J. O. Taylor, District School, 97; S. R. Hall, Lectures to Female Teachers, 28; Page, Theory and Practice, 86. 6. Russell, “Infant School System,” 117; Rodman, “Comparative Results” (Institute, 1834), 191; Mann, Lectures, 196; Bellows, “Duty,” 239. 7. Perry, “Primary Education,” 107; Mann, Lectures, 119; E. White, “Introductory Discourse,” 9; Common School Journal 1 (1839): 4. 8. Mann, Lectures, 118; Joseph Story, “On the Science of Government as a Branch of Popular Education” (Institute, 1834), 250; Mann, Lectures, 155; Mann, Reports, 542; Mann, Lectures, 127; Common School Journal 1 (1839): 5; Blanchard, “Social Affections,” 155. 9. Roth, Democratic Dilemma, 255 (Mary Trask). 10. J. O. Taylor, District School, 271. 11. Mann, Lectures, 259; Page, Theory and Practice, 10; Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 22; James G. Carter, “On the Development of the Intellectual Faculties, and on Teaching Geography” (Institute, 1830), 62. 12. Thomas M. Clark, “The Education Required by the Times” (Institute, 1856), 103; G. Emerson, “Moral Education,” 9; J. O. Taylor, District School, 96; H. R. Cleaveland, “On the Influence of Intellectual Action on Civilization” (Institute, 1836), 157; George H. Calvert, “Moral Education” (Institute, 1857), 7, 17, 21. See also Bulkley, “Self-Culture,” 96–97. 13. Abijah R. Baker, “On the Adaptation of Intellectual Philosophy to Instruction” (Institute, 1833), 276; Mann, Lectures, 123; Northend, Teacher and Parent, 119; Common School Journal 2 (1840): 294; Page, Theory and Practice, 9. 14. Russell, “Infant School System,” 110; Gray, “Introductory Discourse,” 8– 9; S.  R. Hall, Lectures on School-Keeping, 51; Mann, Lectures, 263; C. White, “Literary Responsibility,” 17–18. 15. Newcomb, How to Be a Man, 46– 47; Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 67n (Frances Lieber); Northend, Teacher and Parent, 107. Cf. Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 125.

392

Notes to Pages 220–223

16. Mann, Lectures, 22; Warren Burton, “On the Best Mode of Fixing the Attention of the Young” (Institute, 1834), 55; Bates, “Intellectual Education,” 2; J. Gregg, “On the Importance of an Acquaintance with the Philosophy of the Mind to an Instructor” (Institute, 1835), 118; Jacob Abbott, The Teacher, 100; S. R. Hall, Lectures to Female Teachers, 15. 17. Bates, “Intellectual Education,” 2; A.  B. Muzzey, “On the Objects and Means of School Instruction” (Institute, 1840), 70; Russell, “Infant School System,” 97. 18. Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 26; A. B. Alcott, “On the Nature and Means of Early Intellectual Education, as Deduced from Experience” (Institute, 1832), 129; Burton, “Attention,” 51; S. R. Hall, Lectures to Female Teachers, 30; G. Emerson, “Moral Education,” 25; A.  B. Muzzey, “The School-Room as an Aid to Self-Education” (Institute, 1842), 129; S.  R. Hall, Lectures to Female Teachers, 28–29. 19. Mann, Lectures, 136; J. O. Taylor, District School, 96; Bancroft, “Common School Education,” 287; Burton, “Attention,” 61; Common School Journal 2 (1840): 331; Bates, “Moral Education,” 57, 61. 20. J. O. Taylor, District School, 95; Russell, “Infant School System,” 101; Henry S. McKean, “On the Ends of School Discipline” (Institute, 1835), 141. 21. Mann, Reports, 456; Mann, Lectures, 21; Muzzey, “Self-Education,” 125. 22. Page, Theory and Practice, 119; Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 19, 27. 23. Gray, “Introductory Discourse,” 5; Palmer, “Evils,” 238; Muzzey, “Objects and Means,” 66; Jacob Abbott, Teacher, 14; Bates, “Moral Education,” 59; Gray, “Introductory Discourse,” 5, 6; Labaree, “Education,” 37, 40. 24. Common School Journal 2 (1840): 330; Common School Journal 3 (1841): 5; Page, Theory and Practice, 78, 79, 82; Burton, “Attention,” 64; Mann, Lectures, 21; C. Cushing, “Introductory Lecture,” 12, 22; Palmer, “Evils,” 213. 25. S.  R. Hall, Lectures to Female Teachers, 109; Russell, “Infant School System,” 118; Mann, Lectures, 203. See also J. O. Taylor, District School, 97; Russell, “Infant School System,” 99. 26. J. O. Taylor, District School, 95; McKean, “School Discipline,” 149; Page, Theory and Practice, 171; S. R. Hall, Lectures on School-Keeping, 116. 27. S. R. Hall, Lectures to Female Teachers, 48; McKean, “School Discipline,” 144; Mann, Lectures, 86; Horace Mann, “On the Best Mode of Preparing and Using Spelling-Books” (Institute, 1841), 16. 28. Mann, Lectures, 111, 86; S.  R. Hall, Lectures on School-Keeping, 120; J. Henshaw Belcher, “Incitements to Moral and Intellectual Well-Doing” (Institute, 1836), 75; Mann, “Spelling-Books,” 18; Mann, Lectures, 140. 29. Burton, “Attention,” 43; Carter, “Geography,” 60; Jacob Abbott, “Moral Education” (Institute, 1831), 58; A.  B. Alcott, “Nature and Means,” 145; S. R. Hall, Lectures on School-Keeping, 120.

Notes to Pages 223–227

393

30. Mann, Lectures, 20, 97, 94; Jacob Abbott, Teacher, 12–13; John L. Parkhurst, “On the Means Which May Be Employed to Stimulate the Student without the Aid of Emulation” (Institute, 1831), 129. 31. Muzzey, “Objects and Means,” 76; Jacob Abbott, Teacher, 98; Jacob Abbott, “Moral Education,” 58; Page, Theory and Practice, 85. 32. E. White, “Introductory Discourse,” 7; Perry, “Primary Education,” 119. See also, Mann, Lectures, 32; Baker “Adaptation,” 277; Mann, Reports, 515–17. 33. Page, Theory and Practice, 85; S. R. Hall, Lectures on School-Keeping, 121; Northend, Teacher and Parent, 95; S. R. Hall, Lectures to Female Teachers, 99; Page, Theory and Practice, 99; 50, 62, cf. 84. 34. Carter, “Geography,” 62; Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 101–2, 179; S. R. Hall, Lectures to Female Teachers, 31; Jacob Abbott, Teacher, 60. 35. Jacob Abbott, “Moral Education,” 59. 36. Belcher, “Incitements,” 99; Bancroft, “Common School Education,” 286. 37. T. Cushing Jr., “The Results to Be Aimed At in School Instruction and Discipline” (Institute, 1840), 41; Perry, “Primary Education,” 109; E.  D. Sanborn, “The Duties of Examining Committees” (Institute, 1845), 62; Mann, Lectures, 73; A. B. Alcott, “Nature and Means,” 162. 38. Belcher, “Incitements,” 99; Perry, “Primary Education,” 99; William H. Wood, “On the Moral Responsibility of Teachers” (Institute, 1842), 157; Heman Humphrey, “The Bible in Common Schools” (Institute, 1845), 7. 39. Kaestle, Pillars, 124 (Barnas Sears); C. Beecher, Duty, 65, 64; Mann, Lectures, 74. See also C. Beecher, Education of Female Teachers, 18. 40. J. O. Taylor, District School, 109; J. Batchelder, “Co- Operation,” 32; Page, Theory and Practice, 32; Rev. Nathan Munroe, “The Qualifications of the Teacher” (Institute, 1848), 95; Mack, “Claims,” 143; Common School Journal 2 (1840): 330. 41. Bancroft, “Common School Education,” 318; Common School Journal 1 (1839): 4; E. White, “Introductory Discourse,” 4; Mann, Lectures, 259; Blanchard, “Social Affections,” 177–78. 42. Jacob Abbott, Teacher, 17; J.  O. Taylor, District School, 56; Joseph Hale, “On School Discipline” (Institute, 1844), 190; Russell, “Infant School System,” 110; M.  M. Carll, “On Maternal Instruction and Management of Infant Schools” (Institute, 1834), 123. 43. J.  O. Taylor, District School, 94; Jacob Abbott, Teacher, 105; Northend, Teacher and Parent, 125; S. R. Hall, Lectures on School-Keeping, 51; George Emerson, The School and the Schoolmaster. A Manual for the Use of Teachers, Employers, Trustees, Inspectors, &c., &c., of Common Schools: Part II (New York, 1844), 523.

394

Notes to Pages 227–231

44. Page, Theory and Practice, 122; Burton, “Attention,” 50–51; Russell, “Infant School System,” 110; Northend, Teacher and Parent, 94; Burton, “Attention,” 62. 45. A. B. Alcott, “Nature and Means,” 129; McKean, “School Discipline,” 135; Jacob Abbott, Teacher, 144; S. R. Hall, Lectures to Female Teachers, 32; Burton, “Attention,” 64; Hall, Lectures to Female Teachers, 52; Crosby, “Journal of Proceedings,” xl; John D. Philbrick, “On School Government” (Institute, 1848), 107. 46. S. R. Hall, Lectures on School-Keeping, 47; Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 125; S. R. Hall, Lectures to Female Teachers, 26; Mann, Lectures, 190, 46; Mann, Reports, 446. 47. A. B. Alcott, “Nature and Means,” 162; G. Emerson, School and Schoolmaster, 525; Bates, “Moral Education,” 61, 60; G. Emerson, “Moral Education,” 14; Mack, “Claims,” 143; G. Emerson, “Moral Education,” 14; Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 58, 111; Rufus Putnam, “The Essentials of a Common School Education and the Conditions Most Favorable to Their Attainment” (Institute, 1846), 57. 48. Mann, Lectures, 193; Page, Theory and Practice, 332; Phillips, “Lyceums,” 96; Moses T. Brown, “The Necessity of Education in a Free State” (Institute, 1860), 122; Mann, Reports, 657; Mann, Lectures, 105; Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 111. 49. Mann, Reports, 697, 698; Northend, Teacher and Parent, 53; Jacob Abbott, Teacher, 157; Dwight, “Management,” 227. See also Mann, Reports, 717, 720–21; Mann, Lectures, 263. 50. Mann, Reports, 754, 744, 723; Page, Theory and Practice, 31; Jacob Abbott, Teacher, 157; R. Park, “On Religious Education” (Institute, 1835), 109. 51. McKean, “School Discipline,” 150; Joel Hawes, “Dignity of the Teacher’s Office” (Institute, 1845), 24; Calvin E. Stowe, “The Religious Element in Education” (Institute, 1844), 5; Rev. B. G. Northup, “Journal of Proceedings” (Institute, 1859), ix, x. 52. Mann, Reports, 700; Packard, Popular Education, 10; C. White, “Responsibility,” 19; S. R. Hall, Lectures on School-Keeping, 72; Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 103. 53. Bates, “Intellectual Education,” 15; E. White, “Introductory Discourse,” 17; Parkhurst, “Emulation,” 135; G. Emerson, School and Schoolmaster, 507, 508; Muzzey, “Objects and Means,” 68. 54. Waterston, “Culture,” 235; Mann, Lectures, 94; Phillips, “Lyceums,” 68. 69; Mann, Lectures, 240; Mann, Reports, 9, 422. 55. Thomas H. Palmer, “The Essentials of Education” (Institute, 1849), 111– 12; Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 22; Labaree, “Education,” 44. 56. H. R. Cleaveland, “Civilization,” 157; Mann, Lectures, 219–20; G. Emerson, “Moral Education,” 28; Russell, “Infant School System,” 110.

Notes to Pages 231–245

395

57. Mann, Lectures, 97, 198, 197. 58. Ibid., 198; S. R. Hall, Lectures to Female Teachers, 41; Wayland, “Introductory Discourse,” 12, 6; Potter, School and the Schoolmaster, 11; William C. Fowler, “Influence of Academies and High Schools on Common Schools” (Institute, 1831), 189. 59. Gregg, “Philosophy of Mind,” 113; Baker, “Adaptation,” 267; A. B. Alcott, “Nature and Means,” 138; G. Emerson, “Moral Education,” 5; Jacob Abbott, Teacher, 16. 60. Baker, “Adaptation,” 285; Wayland, “Introductory Discourse,” 13; S. R. Hall, “Educating Teachers,” 255; Fowler, “Influence,” 191, 189. 61. Baker, “Adaptation,” 268; A.  B. Alcott, “Nature and Means,” 138; Gray, “Introductory Discourse,” 7; T. D. James, “On Model Schools,” 78; A. B. Alcott, “Nature and Means,” 163; E. White, “Introductory Discourse,” 9; Mann, Lectures, 37; Bellows, “Duty,” 241. 62. Baker, “Adaptation,” 275; Carll, “Maternal Instruction,” 106–7. 63. Carll, “Maternal Instruction,” 107; A. B. Alcott, “Nature and Means,” 162; Carll, “Maternal Instruction,” 106; Mann, Lectures, 38, 80, 94. 64. Thomas P. Rodman, “On the Appropriateness of Studies to the State of Mental Development” (Institute, 1847), 28, 24. 65. Ibid., 36– 42. 66. Bulkley, “Self-Culture,” 83, 84, 91, 74, 83, 77; Rev. E. Davis, “On Mind and Its Developments” (Institute, 1839), 66, 67; Joseph Haven, “Mental Science as a Branch of Education” (Institute, 1856), 69. 67. Parker, “Essentials,” 79; Francis Wayland, “Introductory Lecture” (Institute, 1854), 20–21 (emphasis added); C. Cushing, “Introductory Lecture,” 23; Wayland, “Introductory Lecture,” 28. 68. Tweed, “Claims of Teaching,” 7; Haven, “Mental Science,” 67, 74. 69. Bates, “Intellectual Education,” 13; Mann, Lectures, 197; Parkhurst, “Emulation,” 127, 129; Common School Journal 1 (1839): 4; Gregg, “Philosophy of Mind,” 117. 70. Welter, Popular Education, 103; Kaestle, Pillars, 35, 36, 78, 100; Welter, Popular Education, 119, 122; Wayland, “Introductory Lecture,” 18. 71. J. D. Bradley, “Address of Welcome” (Institute, 1861), vi–vii. 72. Mr. White, “Journal of Proceedings” (Institute, 1861), lix.

10. The “Self-Made” Citizen and the Erasure of Socialization 1. George M. Fredrickson, The Inner Civil War: Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union (New York, 1968), 218 (Oliver Wendell Holmes). See also Fredrickson, Inner Civil War, Chapter 12; David E. Shi, Facing Facts: Realism in American Thought and Culture, 1850–1920 (New York, 1995), 45–52.

396

Notes to Pages 245–247

2. Vernon Louis Parrington, The Main Currents of American Thought, vol. 3, The Beginnings of Critical Realism in America: 1860–1920 (New York, 1930), 23, 4; Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (New York, 1953), 71, 72. 3. William James, “The Importance of Individuals,” in The Will to Believe and Other Essays on Popular Philosophy (New York, 1956), 260; William James, “The Energies of Men,” in Essays in Religion and Morality (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), 131; William James, “The Moral Equivalent of War,” in Essays, 165; James, “Energies,” 136; Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (New York, 1915), 2:191, 1:239. 4. Charles P. Sumner, “Are We a Nation?” in The Works of Charles Sumner (Boston, 1877), 12:197, 241; John Higham, Hanging Together: Unity and Diversity in American Culture (New Haven, Conn., 2001), 163, 164; Charles Francis Adams Jr. and Henry Adams, Chapters of Erie (Ithaca, N.Y., 1956), 11–12; Sumner, “Are We a Nation?” 235. 5. Hans Kohn, American Nationalism: An Interpretive Essay (New York, 1961), 133 (James Russell Lowell); Sumner, “Are We a Nation?” 193, 198; Henry Ward Beecher, “The Advance of a Century,” in Alan Trachtenberg, ed., Democratic Vistas, 1860–1880 (New York, 1970), 79, 70. 6. Evarts, “Oration,” 12–12; H. W. Beecher, “Advance,” 77, 79. 7. James Bryce, The American Commonwealth (Indianapolis, 1995), 2:927, 1485, 928. 8. Henry James, The American Scene (Bloomington, Ind., 1969), 75, 104–7. 9. Nancy Cohen, The Reconstruction of American Liberalism, 1865–1914 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2002), 25 (Horace Greeley), 1 (James Russell Lowell); Walt Whitman, “Collect,” in Complete Prose Works (New York, 1908), 326; John Tipple, “Robber Barron in the Gilded Age: Entrepreneur or Iconoclast?” in H. Wayne Morgan, ed., The Gilded Age: A Reappraisal (Syracuse, N.Y., 1963), 32 (Walt Whitman); Whitman, “Collect,” 332, 326; Walt Whitman, “Good Bye My Fancy,” in Complete Prose Works, 524. 10. Kohn, American Nationalism, 133 (Edwin Lawrence Godkin). 11. Ibid., 134 (Rev. Elisha Mulford); Fredrickson, Inner Civil War, 185 (James Russell Lowell). 12. William James, “Robert Gould Shaw: Oration by Professor William James,” in Essays, 74; Kohn, American Nationalism, 195 (President Ulysses S. Grant); Whitman, “Collect,” 326; Whitman, “Good Bye My Fancy,” 524. 13. Whitman, “Collect,” 326; W. James, “Oration,” 66; H. W. Beecher, “Advance,” 74, 75. 14. Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age (New York, 1982), 57; Evarts, “Oration, 13; Parrington, Critical Realism, 23.

Notes to Pages 248–251

397

15. Sherwood Anderson, A Story Teller’s Story: Memoirs of Youth and Middle Age (New York, 1969), 85; Sherwood Anderson, Windy McPherson’s Son (Urbana, Ill., 1993), 111, 113, 76; Bayard Taylor, John Godfrey’s Fortunes; Related by Himself. A Story of American Life (New York, 1865), 109; Hamlin Garland, The Rose of Dutcher’s Coolly (New York, 1899), 148; Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie (New York, 1961), 14, 13. 16. Henry F. May, The End of American Innocence (Chicago, 1964), 9; Shi, Facing Facts 123 (William Dean Howells); William Dean Howells, “Criticism and Fiction,” in Criticism and Fiction and Other Essays (New York, 1965), 47– 48; Robert Falk, The Victorian Mode in American Fiction 1865–1885 (East Lansing, Mich., 1964), 64 (Henry James). 17. Fredrickson, Inner Civil War, 206 (Charles Francis Adams); Richard Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Thought (Boston, 1955), 40 (Herbert Spencer). 18. Charles A. Briggs, Whither? A Theological Question for the Times, in William R. Hutchison, ed., American Protestant Thought: The Liberal Era (New York, 1968); Henry Ward Beecher, Yale Lectures on Preaching, in Hutchison, American Protestant Thought, 39, 42; Arthur Cushman McGiffert, “The Historical Study of Christianity,” in Hutchison, American Protestant Thought, 73, 75; William Dean Howells, A Modern Instance (Boston, 1957), 18; McGiffert, “Christianity,” 75, 76; Paul F. Boller Jr., “New Men and New Ideas: Science and the American Mind,” in Morgan, The Gilded Age, 239 ( John Fiske). 19. Dreiser, Sister Carrie, 19; Shi, Facing Facts, 83 (Dreiser); Sumner, “Are We a Nation?” 248; Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark (New York, 1991), 130, 176, 130; Garland, Rose, 149, 169, 179– 80, 177; Theodore Dreiser, Dawn (New York, 1931), 156, 293. 20. Anderson, Windy McPherson’s Son, 25. 21. Garland, Rose, 175, 192. 22. Dreiser, Dawn, 581. 23. Theodore Dreiser, Genius (New York, 1923), 108, 149, 107. 24. Jack London, Martin Eden (New York, 1964), 61. 25. Abraham Cahan, The Rise of David Levinsky (New York, 1966), 87, 97; Jacob Riis, The Making of an American (New York, 1923), 21. 26. Kohn, American Nationalism, 160 (Schurz); W. E. B. Du Bois. Black Reconstruction, in Walter Wilson, ed., The Selected Writings of W. E. B. Du Bois, (New York, 1970), 207, 211, 195. 27. Howells, “Criticism,” 62; Cohen, Reconstruction, 31; Sumner, “Are We a Nation?” 242. 28. Sumner, “Are We a Nation?” 239– 40; H. W. Beecher, “Advance,” 75, 82. 29. Irvin G. Wyllie, The Self-Made Man in America (New York, 1954), 34; William D. Howells, The Minister’s Charge; or, The Apprenticeship of Lemuel

398

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

45. 46. 47. 48. 49.

Notes to Pages 251–258

Barker (Boston, 1887), 259, 248; Kohn, American Nationalism, 164– 65 ( Josiah Strong); Cahan, David Levinsky, 101; Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery (New York, 1968), 202. Sumner, “Are We a Nation?” 247– 48; Sidney Fine, Laissez Faire and the General-Welfare State: A Study of Conflict in American Thought, 1865–1901 (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1964), 97. Judy Hilkey, Character Is Capital: Success Manuals and Manhood in Gilded Age America (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1997), 48– 49; Edward W. Bok, Successward: A Young Man’s Book for Young Men (New York, 1895), 19; William Mathews, Getting On in the World; or, Hints on Success in Life (Chicago, 1879), 83, 84. Orison Swett Marden, Pushing to the Front (Santa Fe, N.M., 1997), 2:476, 475; William D. Owen, Success in Life, and How to Secure it; or, Elements of Manhood and Their Culture (Chicago, 1882), 103; P.  T. Barnum, Dollars and Sense, or, How to Get On (Chicago, 1890), 56, 25. Wilbur F. Crafts, Successful Men of To-Day and What They Say of Success (New York, 1883), 31; Russell Conwell, Acres of Diamonds (New York, 1978), 10, 49; Crafts, Successful Men, 113. Owen, Success in Life, 50; Bok, Successward, 13, 20; Owen, Success in Life, 49, 50; W. Mathews, Getting On, 84; Barnum, Dollars and Sense, 83; Owen, Success in Life, 23. Dreiser, Sister Carrie, 8; Robert Herrick, The Memoirs of an American Citizen (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), 41; Anderson, Windy McPherson’s Son, 139; Anderson, Story Teller’s Story, 84, 100, 209; Garland, Rose, 180; Henry Adams, Democracy (New York, 1968), 14, 13. Dreiser, Genius, 59. Cather, Song of the Lark, 207, 209. Dreiser, Dawn, 98, 279. Garland, Rose, 147. Edgar Lee Masters, Skeeters Kirby (New York, 1923), 124. Anderson, Story Teller’s Story, 15. E. W. Howe, The Story of a Country Town (New York, 1964), 35. Horatio Alger Jr., Ragged Dick and Struggling Upward (New York, 1985), 7. Bok, Successward, 899; Owen, Success in Life, 102–3; Rev. F. E. Clark, Danger Signals. The Enemies of Youth, From the Business Man’s Standpoint (Boston, 1885), 186; Owen, Success in Life, 102–3. Bok, Successward, 68 Mathews, Getting On, 89, 201, 86, 88; Bok, Successward, 122, 21. Florence Hull Winterburn, Nursery Ethics (New York, 1895), 220. Ibid., 107, 139. Charlotte Perkins (Stetson) Gilman, Concerning Children (Boston, 1901), 255–57.

Notes to Pages 258–263

399

50. Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 77, 100; Nora Archibald Smith, The Children of the Future (Boston, 1898), 8, 16; Emilie Poulsson, Love and Law in Child Training: A Book for Mothers (Springfield, Mass., 1899), 43, 15, 16; Louis Faugeres Bishop, “The Relation of Growth to Education,” Babyhood 12 (June 1896): 202; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 160. 51. Mrs. Theodore W. Birney, Childhood (New York, 1905), 69; Poulsson, Love and Law, 72; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 139; N. A. Smith, Children, 125; Poulsson, Love and Law, 17, 78. 52. Kate Douglas Wiggin, Children’s Rights: A Book of Nursery Logic (Boston, 1893), 167; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 99; Gilman, Concerning Children, 68; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 192; Mrs. A. Loughridrge, “Educated Women and Home Life,” Mother’s Nursery Guide (Babyhood) 9 (October 1893): 340. 53. Poulsson, Love and Law, 71, 121, 122 (Froebel); Mrs. Frank Malleson, Notes on the Early Training of Children (Boston, 1898), 22 (emphasis added); Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 66; Poulsson, Love and Law, 142; Wiggin, Children’s Rights, 168. 54. Wiggin, Children’s Rights, 178, 183; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 241; Wiggin, Children’s Rights, 185. 55. Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 144; Malleson, Notes, 103; Wiggin, Children’s Rights, 164, 149; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 41; Wiggin, Children’s Rights, 167; Birney, Childhood, 83; Poulsson, Love and Law, 133, 146, 147. 56. Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 229, 13; Birney, Childhood, 70; Gilman, Concerning Children, 22, 47; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 225; Poulsson, Love and Law, 133. 57. Poulsson, Love and Law, 70. 58. W. James, “Oration,” 73–74; William James, Talks to Teachers: On Psychology; and to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals (New York, 1958), 57, 55. See also W. James, “Energies,” 13–32; W. James, “Moral Equivalent,” 165– 66. 59. William James, Psychology: Briefer Course (New York, 1962), 453. 60. Arnold L. Gesell and Beatrice Chandler Gesell, The Normal Child and Primary Education (Boston, 1912), 16. 61. Ed. Claparede, Experimental Pedagogy and the Psychology of the Child, (London, 1913), 70; Charles Everett Strickland, “The Child and the Race: The Doctrines of Recapitulation and Culture Epochs in the Rise of the Child-Centered Ideal in American Educational Thought 1875–1900” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 1963), 86. 62. Gesell and Gesell, Normal Child, 2; James Sully, Studies of Childhood (New York, 1898), 2; G. Stanley Hall, “Educational Needs,” North American Review 136 (1883): 286; G. Stanley Hall, Educational Problems (New York, 1911), 1:2; G. Stanley Hall, “The Training of Teachers,” Forum 10 (1890): 19; Dorothy Ross, G. Stanley Hall: The Psychologist and Prophet (Chicago, 1972), 124.

400

Notes to Pages 263–267

63. Gesell and Gesell, Normal Child, 20, 21; G. Stanley Hall, “Child-Study: The Basis of Exact Education,” Forum 16 (1893): 439; G. Stanley Hall, Life and Confessions of a Psychologist, in Charles E. Strickland and Charles Burgess, eds., Health, Growth, and Heredity: G. Stanley Hall on Natural Education (New York, 1965), 29–33. See Gesell and Gesell, Normal Child, 20; Arnold Gesell, “Arnold Gesell,” in Edwin G. Boring, Herbert S. Langfeld, Heinz Werner, and Robert M. Yerkes, eds., A History of Psychology in Autobiography (Worcester, Mass., 1952), 127. 64. Ross, Hall, 94 (Hall); G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence (New York, 1905), 1:vii. 65. G. S. Hall, Adolescence, 1:vi; G. Stanley Hall, “Evolution and Psychology,” in Fifty Years of Darwinism: Modern Aspects of Evolution, Centennial Addresses in Honor of Charles Darwin (New York, 1909), 255, 256; G. S. Hall, Life and Confessions, 33; G.  S. Hall, “Evolution and Psychology,” 255, 262; G.  S. Hall,, Adolescence, 1:vii; G. S. Hall, “Evolution and Psychology,” 261, 263. 66. Ross, Hall, 58 (Hall), 74 (Hall), see also 152. 67. G. Stanley Hall, “The Early Sense of Self,” American Journal of Psychology 9 (1897): 382; G. Stanley Hall, “The New Psychology II,” Andover Review 3 (1885): 247; G. S. Hall, “Early Sense,” 382; G. S. Hall, “New Psychology II,” 247; G. S. Hall, “Early Sense,” 382; G. S. Hall, “New Psychology II,” 247; G. Stanley Hall, “The New Psychology,” Andover Review 9 (1885): 134; Ross, Hall, 259– 60 (Hall), 47 (Hall). 68. G. Stanley Hall, “The Education of the Will,” Princeton Review 10 (1882), 318; G. Stanley Hall, “The Moral and Religious Training of Children,” Journal of Social Science 15 (1882): 75, 59, 58; G. S. Hall, “Education of Will,” 321; G. S. Hall, “Moral Training,” 76, 66. 69. G. S. Hall, “Education of Will,” 309; G. S. Hall, “Moral Training,” 67, 69, 70, 72; G. S. Hall, “Education of Will,” 314, cf. 309. 70. Strickland, “Child and Race,” 80; G.  S. Hall, “Moral Training,” 74, 76; G. S. Hall, “Education of Will,” 317; G. S. Hall, “Moral Training,” 61– 63; G. S. Hall, “Education of Will,” 320. 71. James Dale Hendricks, “The Child-Study Movement in American Education 1880–1910: A Quest for Educational Reform through a Scientific Study of the Child” (PhD diss., Indiana University, 1968), 127 (Francis Parker); Ellwood P. Cubberley, “Introduction,” in Charles W. Waddle, An Introduction to Child Psychology (Cambridge, Mass., 1918), v; Waddle, An Introduction, 21. 72. A.  K. Bond, “The Era of the Child,” Babyhood 14 (1898): 105; Gilman, Concerning Children, 199; “A Western Mother,” “Home Training of Children from Three to Six Years,” Babyhood 14 (1898): 302. 73. “Circular of April, 1881,” Journal of Social Science 15 (1882): 49; W.  T. Harris, “The Education of the Family, and the Education of the School,” Journal of Social Science 15 (1882): 6; G. Stanley Hall, “Child-Study and

Notes to Pages 267–270

74. 75.

76.

77.

78. 79.

80.

81. 82. 83.

84. 85. 86.

87.

88.

401

Its Relation to Education,” Forum 29 (1900): 697; G. Stanley Hall, “New Departures in Education,” North American Review 140 (1885): 149; N. A. Smith, Children, 21, 46, 154. G. S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:158; G. S. Hall, “Early Sense of Self,” 392, 282; G. S. Hall, “Child-Study and Education,” 700. G. S. Hall, “Child-Study and Education,” 700–701; G. S. Hall, “Evolution and Psychology,” 263; G. S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:177; G. S. Hall, Adolescence, 1:x; G. S. Hall, “Early Sense of Self,” 382; G. S. Hall, “Evolution and Psychology,” 262. G. S. Hall, “New Psychology,” 121; G. Stanley Hall, “The New Psychology as a Basis of Education,” Forum 17 (1896): 717; G. S. Hall, “New Departures,” 150. G. S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:39; G. Stanley Hall, “A Study of Fears,” American Journal of Psychology 8 (1897): 147; G. S. Hall, Adolescence, 1:ix. See also Ross, Hall, 300–303; G. S. Hall, “New Directions,” 150. G. S. Hall, “New Psychology and Education,” 718; G. S. Hall, “Child-Study and Relation,” 694; Ross, Hall, 307, 311; G. S. Hall, Adolescence, 1:vii–xi. G. S. Hall, “New Psychology and Education,” 719; G. Stanley Hall, “Some Social Aspects of Education,” Pedagogical Seminary 9 (1902): 91; G. Stanley Hall, “Civilization and Savagery,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, second series, 17 (1903): ll; G. S. Hall, “New Psychology,” 130. G.  S. Hall, “Civilization and Savagery,” 10–11; G.  S. Hall, “New Directions,” 147; G. S. Hall, “New Psychology,” 130; G. S. Hall, Life and Confessions, 35; G. S. Hall, “New Psychology,” 135. G. S. Hall, Adolescence, 1:x–xi, 232, 207, 231–35, 350–51. Ibid., 1:ix. Ibid., 1:300; G. Stanley Hall, “Boy Life in a Massachusetts Country Town Forty Years Ago,” in G. Stanley Hall and Some of His Pupils, Aspects of Child Life and Education (Boston, 1907), 301, see 300. G. S. Hall, Adolescence, 2:73, 1:xiv, 2:71, 1:xv, 315, 189. Ibid., 1:215, 349, 2:84, 83, 377, 70, 81– 83, 123, 135. Ibid., 1:xviii, 2:85, 301; G. Stanley Hall, “How Far Is the Present HighSchool and Early College Training Adapted to the Nature and Needs of Adolescents?” School Review 9 (1901): 650, 651; G.  S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:140; G. S. Hall, Adolescence, 2:352. G. S. Hall, “Child-Study and Relation,” 696; G. S. Hall, “Early Sense,” 383, 391; G. S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:222, 341. 139; G. S. Hall, Adolescence, 1:xvii. G. S. Hall, “New Psychology and Education,” 719, 713; G. S. Hall, “New Psychology,” 122; G.  S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:181; G.  S. Hall, “Child-Study and Relation,” 696; G. S. Hall, “Evolution and Psychology,” 267, 256.

402

Notes to Pages 273–275

11. A Superfluous Socialization? 1. “Note,” Babyhood 1 (1885): 197; Clara W. Robinson, “Training for Maternity,” Babyhood 3 (1887): 295; N. A. Smith, Children of the Future; Poulsson, Love and Law, 149; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 190; Gilman, Concerning Children, 35; Wiggin, Children’s Rights, 20; Gilman, Concerning Children, 35. 2. Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 95, 82. 3. Christopher Lasch, among others, has treated this as a determined grab for power that undermined family self-sufficiency. “Having first declared parents incompetent to raise their offspring without professional help,” he writes, “social pathologists ‘gave back’ the knowledge they had appropriated . . . gave it back in a mystifying fashion that rendered parents more helpless than ever, more abject in their dependence on expert opinion.” Christopher Lasch, Haven in a Heartless World: The Family Besieged (New York, 1977), 18. In fact this is but one more variant on the myth of a sustainable self-reliant family. 4. Wiggin, Children’s Rights, 19, 20; C. W. Robinson, “Training,” 295; Marion Harland, “Familiar Talks with Mothers,” Babyhood 1 (1885): 131; Marion Harland, “Familiar Talks with Mothers,” Babyhood 2 (1885): 338. 5. Florence Knapp, “Muttergartens—A Suggestion,” Babyhood 3 (1887): 57, 56; Martha Ogden Inglis, “Our Baby, and How We Undid Her,” Babyhood 2 (1886): 167; Knapp, “Muttergartens,” 56; “Note,” Babyhood 1 (1885): 196. 6. Charlotte Ellis, “The Spoiling of Children,” Babyhood 2 (1885): 6; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 23, 27; Malleson, Early Training, 27; Gilman, Concerning Children, 39; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 36, 152. 7. Gilman, Concerning Children, 35; Knapp, “Muttergartens,” 56; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 20; “A Physician,” “Stray Leaves from a Baby’s Journal, No. VIII,” Babyhood 2 (1885): 24–25. 8. Gilman, Concerning Children, 163, 166; “One Who Found It So,” “Obedience Made Easy,” Babyhood 10 (1894): 108; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 146. 9. Grace C. Kempton, “The Kindergarten at Home—I,” Babyhood 2 (1886): 388; Christine Ladd Franklin, “The Development of the Infant’s Character I,” Babyhood 2 (1886): 88; “L,” “The Authority of Experience,” Babyhood 5 (1889): 221; Ellis, “Spoiling,” 6; “Physician,” “Stray Leaves,” 22; Poulsson, Love and Law, 117; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 33, 5. In an article entitled “Nursery Literature,” the author points to a widespread view that “the world has never known how to educate its children, in fact, has never understood them.” Babyhood 14 (1898): 226. Gilman, as most others, foresaw with the new parenting a “higher step in racial growth” for American society. Gilman, Concerning Children, 177.

Notes to Pages 275–277

403

10. Babyhood 2 (1886): 89. 11. C. L. Franklin, “Development I,” 88; S. E. K., “Early Impressions,” Babyhood 1 (1885): 185; C. L. Franklin, “Development I,” 89; Christine Ladd Franklin, “The Development of the Infant’s Character II,” Babyhood 2 (1886): 125; Ellis, “Spoiling,” 7; Emma W. Babcock, “A Mother’s NoteBook,” Babyhood 1 (1885): 151. 12. Gilman, Concerning Children, 176; Poulsson, Love and Law, 73, 70; N.  A. Smith, Children of the Future, 26–27; W. F., “The Will and the Way,” Babyhood 4 (1888): 84; A. D. Fogg, “Early Lessons in Kindness or Cruelty,” Babyhood 9 (1892): 22; Clara Robinson, “What Not to Do,” Babyhood 4 (1888): 147. 13. Lucy White Palmer, “Boys and Girls. I.— Our Girls,” Babyhood 2 (1886): 119; C. Robinson, “What Not to Do,” 148; Gilman, Concerning Children, 61– 62; Bishop, “The Relation of Growth to Education,” 202; C. L. Franklin, “Development I,” 90. 14. Edwin Swisher, “The Rights of Babyhood,” Babyhood 2 (1886): 162; C. L. Franklin, “Development I,” 90; Babcock, “Note-Book,” 150; Ellis, “Spoiling,” 6. 15. Mary E. Allbright, “Amusements Which Do Not Amuse,” Babyhood 4 (1888): 249; Gilman, Concerning Children, 93, 47; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 137; Gilman, Concerning Children, 101, 96. 16. Swisher, “Rights of Babyhood,” 162; “L,” “Authority,” 219; Kempton, “Kindergarten—I,” 388; Louis A. Chapman, “Children’s Habits,” Babyhood 2 (1886): 355. 17. “R,” “Happy Little Ones,” Babyhood 1 (1885): 184; C. L. Franklin, “Development II,” 123; Emma W. Babcock, “Self-Reliance in the Nursery,” Babyhood 4 (1888): 119; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 198; Poulsson, Love and Law, 126; Wiggin, Children’s Rights, 165; Babcock, “Self-Reliance,” 119–22; Mrs. J. H. Walworth, “ ‘Mother Is Ner vous Today,’ ” Babyhood 3 (1887): 369. 18. N. A. Smith, Children of the Future, 90; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 198, 111, 101; “A Mother,” “Our ‘Home Class.’ II. Where To Have It,” Primary Teacher 1 (1878): 168; N. A. Calkins, “The Teacher’s Work in the Development of Mental and Moral Power,” Education: An International Magazine 2 (1882): 38; Ellen Hyde, “Moral Character the End of Education,” AII (1883), 210. 19. “One Who Found It So,” “Obedience,” 109; Birney, Childhood, 5; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 167; Gilman, Concerning Children, 40; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 232, 163, 228. 20. Malleson, Early Training, 53; Poulsson, Love and Law, 68, 147; Wiggin, Children’s Rights, 157 (William T. Harris); Poulsson, Love and Law, 166; Malleson, Early Training, 54. 21. Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 236; Poulsson, Love and Law, 140, 139; Birney, Childhood, 227.

404

Notes to Pages 278–284

22. Malleson, Early Training, 19 (emphasis added), cf. 50. 23. Chapman, “Habits,” 352; Kesiah Shelton, “ ‘So Soon As It Is Old Enough,’ ” Babyhood 2 (1886): 315; “Note,” Babyhood 2 (1886): 407; Knapp, “Muttergartens,” 57; Poulsson, Love and Law, 160, 161; Mrs. George Archibald, “The Mother’s Recompense,” Babyhood 10 (1894): 364– 65. 24. Jacob Abbott, Gentle Mea sures in the Management and Training of the Young (New York, 1871), 11, 95, 29. 25. Ibid., 30, 22. 133, 136, 30, 32, 41. 26. Ibid., 32, 295, 124, 319. 27. Ibid., 124, 319–20, 32. One indication of the originality of this discourse is Abbott’s admission that “remarkabl[y] . . . we have no really appropriate name” for this projective transfer of authority (319). 28. H. Clay Trumbull, Hints on Child-Training (Philadelphia, 1891), 16, 19, 30, 72, 41. 29. Trumbull, Hints, 49, 80– 82, 74–75. 30. Marden, Pushing, 2:708–19. 31. Trumbull, Hints, 75. 32. Poulsson, Love and Law, 41. 33. Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 55, 57; Birney, Childhood, 10; “One Who Found It So,” “Obedience,” 109; Gilman, Concerning Children, 17, 24, 27, 144. At the same time, parents were never to reveal dependence on the child. To avoid any hint of bribery, “inducements” were not to appear calculated or premeditated efforts to reward through a “candy-paid silence,” but as the natural response of satisfaction at good conduct, that is, emerging from the child’s obedience rather than parental deference. Trumbull, Hints, 91, 97. 34. “A Western Mother,” “Home Training—I,” Babyhood 14 (1898), 302; N. A. Smith, Children of the Future, 7; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 11; Poulsson, Love and Law, 43; Gilman, Concerning Children, 63. 35. Birney, Childhood, 83; Poulsson, Love and Law, 112 (Miss Peabody); Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 229; “Western Mother,” “Home Training—I,” 303. 36. Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 166, 54–55; Malleson, Early Training, 37; Gilman, Concerning Children, 61; “Western Mother,” “Home Training of Children from Three to Six Years—III,” Babyhood 15 (1899): 62; Poulsson, Love and Law, 112; N. A. Smith, Children of the Future, 155. 37. “One Who Made It So,” “Obedience,” 109; Wiggin, Children’s Rights, 149; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 163, 43; “One Who Made It So,” “Obedience,” 109. 38. Poulsson, Love and Law, 83; Malleson, Early Training, 38; Eleanor Kirk, “Grandmothers,” Babyhood 2 (1885): 23; Gilman, Concerning Children, 106, 192; “Western Mother,” “Home Training—I,” 303. 39. See Poulsson, Love and Law, 73.

Notes to Pages 284–290

405

40. N. A. Smith, Children of the Future, 87; Malleson, Early Training, 20; Poulsson, Love and Law, 71. 41. Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 229; Malleson, Early Training, 63 (emphasis added); Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 74–75, 162, 229; Wiggin, Children’s Rights, 163; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 77; Gilman, Concerning Children, 107; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 77, 164. 42. Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 231; Poulsson, Love and Law, 13; Malleson, Early Training, 63, 52; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 203; Birney, Childhood, 69; “Western Mother,” “Home Training—III,” 63; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 203. 43. “Western Mother,” “Home Training—III, 63; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 161– 62; “Western Mother,” “Home Training—I,” 303; Poulsson, Love and Law, 40– 42. See also Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 203. 44. Poulsson, Love and Law, 101; Elaine Goodale Eastman, “Educational Methods,” Babyhood 14 (1898): 200; Nellie F. Danziger, “Self-Direction in the Child,” Babyhood 12 (1895): 261; Malleson, Early Training, 108, 50; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 114. See also Bishop, “Relation,” 204. 45. Gilman, Concerning Children, 69; Malleson, Early Training, 39; Poulsson, Love and Law, 111; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 98. 46. Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 233, 234; “M,” “Home Training versus School Methods,” Babyhood 14 (1898): 136; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 211. 47. N. A. Smith, Children of the Future, 75; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 203; N.  A. Smith, Children of the Future, 90; Poulsson, Love and Law, 145; “Western Mother,” “Home Training—III,” 62; Gilman, Concerning Children, 108; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 77. 48. Poulsson, Love and Law, 147, 135 (Boston Public School Document), 130; Gilman, Concerning Children, 55; Birney, Childhood, 215; N. A. Smith, Children of the Future, 18; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 79; “Nursery Literature,” 226; Poulsson, Love and Law, 26; Anne Howes Barus, “A Few Words on Child-Study,” Babyhood 12 (1895): 17. 49. Gilman, Concerning Children, 225; Bishop, “Relation,” 204; Malleson, Early Training, 29; Wiggin, Children’s Rights, 14; Poulsson, Love and Law, 114 (Miss Peabody), Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 111; Gilman, Concerning Children, 68, 97; Birney, Childhood, 8. 50. Poulsson, Love and Law, 83; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 148, 238; Malleson, Early Training, 105, Birney Childhood, 153; Winterburn, Nursery Ethics, 209.

12. Educating the Voluntary Citizen in an Organizational Age 1. Anderson, Story Teller, 85, 81, 220, 281. 2. Henry Sabin, “The New American Education,” Journal of Education (hereafter JE) 11 (1880): 324.

406

Notes to Pages 290–295

3. Marden, Pushing, 2:717. 4. Anderson, Story Teller, 213; W. Mathews, Getting On, 214; Marden, Pushing, 1:25, 239. 5. Jacob Wilson, Practical Life and the Study of Man (Newark, N.J., 1882), 228. 6. Willa Cather, A Lost Lady (New York, 1972), 106. 7. Anderson, Story Teller, 127, 301, 300, 85. 8. Henry F. May, Protestant Churches and Industrial America (New York, 1967), 37, xvii, 63. 9. Donald Meyer, Positive Thinkers (New York, 1980), 154. 10. Anderson, Story Teller, 195, 197. 11. Trachtenberg, Incorporation of America, 57. 12. Anderson, Story Teller, 219; Anderson, Windy McPherson, 140, 139– 40. 13. H. W. Beecher, “Advance,” 72. 14. Dreiser, Dawn, 293. 15. Dreiser, Sister Carrie, 26–27, 12. 16. Dreiser, Dawn, 199; Howells, Minister’s Charge, 140, 260. 17. Cahan, David Levinsky, 101. 18. Garland, Rose, 265. 19. Dreiser, Genius, 444, 725. 20. Sinclair Lewis, The Job (Lincoln, Neb., 1945), 42– 44. 21. W. Mathews, Getting On, 180, 127, 184, 304, 178, 120, 186, 178–79, 141, 142. 22. Jacob Wilson, Practical Life, 53, 52, 267, 122, 7. 23. Halttunen, Confidence Men, 193, 117, 166, 167, 186. 24. John Kasson, Rudeness and Civility: Manners in Nineteenth-Century Urban America (New York, 1990), 168 (Gentle Manners), 112, 180. 25. Jacob Wilson, Practical Life, 259, 200, 326, 260. 26. Horatio Alger Jr., Struggling Upward, in Ragged Dick and Struggling Upward (New York, 1985), 136. See also Halttunen, Confidence Men, 198–204. 27. Marden, Pushing, 1:247, 287, 136. 28. Owen, Success, 30; Matthew Hale Smith, Successful Folks. How They Win (New York, 1878), 10; Barnum, Dollars and Sense, 54; Bok, Successward, 18. 29. Marden, Pushing, 2:538, 539; 1:203; 2:536. 30. Welter, Popular Education, 141. 31. John Eaton, “American Education Progressive,” AII (1871): 184, 153, 185, 184; “The Old and the New School-House,” JE 14 (1881): 291. 32. Frances C. Sparhawk, “Seeds of Modern Republicanism—(II),” JE 22 (1884): 165; Anna C. Brackett, “Examinations as a Test of Education—

Notes to Pages 295–296

33. 34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39. 40.

407

(I),” JE 8 (1878): 351; Franklin R. Hough, “Education at the Centennial,” JE 2 (1875): 205; Eaton, “American Education Progressive,” 179; J. W. Patterson, “Influence of Education upon Labor,” AII (1872), 93; “Discontented with His Sphere,” JE 13 (1881): 323. “The Educational Crime,” JE 16 (1882): 184. Theodore Dwight Woolsey, “The Teaching of Moral and Political Duties in the Public Schools,” AII (1865), 128; Mr. Adams, “Education and Reconstruction,” AII (1866), 46; “Common and Uncommon Schools,” JE 16 (1882): 121; Woolsey, “Moral Duties,” 128; John Bascom, “The Means and Manner of Popular Education,” AII (1868), 158; Eaton, “American Education Progressive,” 179; J. W. Allen, “The Teacher Is an Agent, Not a Servant,” AII (1864), 48, 50. Hyde, “Moral Character,” 203; Rev. A. J. F. Behrends, “What Place, If Any, Is Religion Entitled to, in Our System of Public Education?” AII (1882), 301; Anna Garlin Spencer, “Moral Teaching in the Public Schools,” AII (1882), 132; A. D. Mayo, “Conscience-Training in School—(I),” JE 6 (1877): 282; Clarence E. Meleney, “The True Object of Early School Training,” Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the National Educational Association (hereafter NEA)(1885): 313; Bascom, “Means,” 158; E. E. White, “The True Education,” AII (1872), 74; Albert G. Boyden, “The Teacher as Educator,” AII (1875), 85. A.  D. Mayo, “The American Character and the Common School,” JE 4 (1876): 122; Gen. Thomas J. Morgan, “Education and Freedom,” Education 8 (1888): 573. Roger B. Sprague, “High School Education,” JE 5 (1877): 170; J. W. Patterson, “President’s Address,” AII (1885), 23; J. W. Allen, “Teacher,” 37; Jas. E. Vose, “Qualifications for Primary Teaching,” JE 4 (1876): 184; “Mechanism vs. Mind,” JE 13 (1881): 373; Allen Andrews, “The Force of Education,” Education 4 (1883): 125; A.  D. Mayo, “Object Lessons in Moral Instruction in the Common School,” NEA (1880), 9; E. H. Capen, “Needed Reforms in Grammar Schools,” AII (1892), 97, 99; Mayo, “Object Lessons,” 9. Andrews, “Force of Education,” 125; Thomas B. Stockwell, “The Political Function of the Public School,” AII (1889), 181; Hattie Louise Jerome, “The Spiritual Influence of the Teacher,” Education 15 (1894): 561; “Education and Human Nature,” JE 38 (1893): 225; Hyde, “Moral Character,” 209; Frances Bellamy, “Americanism in the Public Schools,” NEA (1892), 66. Welter, Popular Education, 141; Paul E. Peterson, The Politics of School Reform 1870–1940 (Chicago, 1985), 22; Welter, Popular Education, 210. N. M. Wheeler, “The Machine in Education,” JE 2 (1882): 300–302.

408

Notes to Pages 296–298

41. L. P. Hopkins, “School Discipline,” JE 9 (1879): 324. 42. “The Spirit of the New Education,” JE 10 (1879): 213; Grace C. Bibb, “Pedagogics as Science and as Art,” JE 10 (1879): 239– 40. 43. L. P. Hopkins, “Oral Lessons,” JE 9 (1879): 4; Anna C. Brackett, “Examinations as a Test of Education—III,” JE 9 (1879): 84; “The Schoolmasters and the People,” JE 9 (1879): 104; William A. Ayers, “Thorough Work,” JE 9 (1879): 408. 44. “C. F. Adams Jr., and the Quincy Schools,” JE 10 (1879): 197; “The Children’s New Year,” JE 8 (1881): 45; William Morton Payne, The New Education: Its Origins, History, Principles, Methods, and Results (Boston, 1884), 9; Mayo, “Object Lessons,” 11. 45. Payne, New Education, 7. 46. “What Is the New Education?” JE 11 (1880): 136; B. G. Northrup, “The Quincy Method,” AII (1881), 20; Charles F. King, “How to Interest Boys— (II),” JE 11 (1880): 357. 47. Mayo, “Object Lessons,” 11; “The New Education,” JE 16 (1882): 12; Charles F. King, “How to Interest Boys,” JE 11 (1880): 277. 48. W. P. Atkinson, “Dynamic and Mechanic Teaching,” AII (1865), 213; E. E. White, “True Education,” 88; Sabin, “New American Education,” 323; “A Mother,” “Our ‘Home Class.’ IV. How It Began,” Primary Teacher 1 (1878): I, 233; “The Schoolmasters and the People,” 104; William M. Thayer, “Facts, Not Theories, the Basis of Education,” Education 12 (1891): 155–57; Albert C. Perkins, “Methods, Their Use and Abuse,” AII (1886), 90; N. A. Calkins, “How Children Get Knowledge of Objects,” JE 21 (1885): 132; James M. Green, “Data of Method,” NEA (1897), 68; Wheeler, “Machine,” 300. 49. Payne, New Education, 33, 30. 50. Ibid., 36. 51. Meleney, “True Object,” 319; A. E. Winship, “The Essentials of Psychology,” JE 30 (1889): 165. 52. Atkinson, “Dynamic,” 219–20; J. C. Greenough, “Methods and Results, AII (1881), 149; Florence Dix, “Objective Teaching in Elementary Schools,” JE 11 (1880): 261; Erastus Otis Haven, “The Indirect Benefits of School Education,” AII (1865), 153; Meleney, “True Object,” 319; Calkins, “Teacher’s Work,” 47; “What Is the New Education?” 137; N. A. Calkins, “Objective Teaching: Its Value, and the Extent of Its Adaptation to School Instruction,” NEA (1872), 131; Rebecca Rickoff, “Notes of a Lecture and Outline of an Object-Lesson.—(I),” JE 8 (1878): 288; Bascom, “Means,” 170; Calkins, “Objective Teaching,” 131. 53. Albert G. Boyden, “The Art of Teaching: Putting Things Distinctly before the Mind of the Learner,” JE 17 (1888): 196; J. Baldwin, “Methods of Conducting Recitations—No. I,” JE 4 (1876): 254; Rev. J.  M. Gregory, “The

Notes to Pages 298–300

54.

55. 56. 57.

58. 59. 60.

61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74.

409

Law of the Teaching Process,” JE 1 (1875): 27–28. See Charles Northend, “Recitations,” JE 10 (1879): 95. “Learn to Do by Doing,” JE 25 (1887): 136; Payne, New Education, 13; Mary R. Alling, “The New Movement in Education,” JE 12 (1880): 4; N. A. Calkins, “Educational Value of Manual Training,” JE 26 (1887), 375, 376; “The Educational Fulcrum,” JE 22 (1885): 289; R. R. Bird, “Let Us Study the Children,” Primary Teacher 4 (1881): 307. Greenough, “Methods,” 148. C. F. King, “How to Interest Boys,” 277; Thomas W. Bicknell, “The President’s Address,” NEA (1884), 45. Jerome Allen, “Have We a Science of Education?” Education 2 (1881): 285; “In Loco Parentis,” JE 9 (1879): 168; A. D. Mayo, “The New Education and Col. Parker,” JE 18 (1883): 85; “The Schoolmasters and the People,” 104. Bicknell, “Address,” 44; Bibb, “Pedagogics,” 240; Jerome Allen, “Have We a Science of Education?” 284. “The Common School and Their Riders,” JE 10 (1879). 325. Eva D. Kellogg, “How Shall the New Education Be Accepted?” JE 17 (1883): 308; “The Man That Has Come,” JE 18 (1883): 217; “Fogies, Old and New,” JE 18 (1883): 393. “The New and the True,” JE 19 (1884): 358; “The Danger of the New Education,” JE 20 (1884): 280. Wheeler, “Machine,” 300–302. “Machine Education,” JE 18 (1883): 57. “Why the Teaching of the Public Schools Should Have an Industrial Element,” JE 3 (1876): 67; Payne, New Education, 34, 35. William T. Harris, “The Necessity of Free Public High Schools,” JE 11 (1880): 53; George F. Magoun, “Proposed Additions to, and Subtractions from, Our Education,” Education 4 (1884): 501. “Mechanism vs. Mind,” 373; “City Schools and Their Graduates,” JE 16 (1882): 344; “Machine Education,” 57. A. P. Parker, “Better Quality of Teaching,” JE 6 (1877): 254. “Prosperity and Education,” Education 1 (1880): 188. “Self-Made,” JE 16 (1882): 233. Sam B. Todd, “Necessity and Means of Developing Individuality,” JE 34 (1891): 117. Tyack and Hansot, Managers of Virtue, 111. “Common and Uncommon Schools,” 121. J. W. Patterson, “Wealth,” AII (1885), 9, 27; “Industrial Education,” JE 22 (1885): 145; Mary A. Livermore, “The Educational Outlook,” AII (1890), 1. William T. Harris, “Vocation versus Culture; or the Two Aspects of Education,” AII (1891), 15.

410

Notes to Pages 300–302

75. “Industrial Schools,” JE 3 (1876): 127; “Does Education Make People Lazy?” JE 21 (1885): 393; E. Benjamin Andrews, “The Public School as an Instrumentality of Social Advance,” AII (1895), 9, 5; George H. Martin, “New Standards of Patriotic Citizenship,” JE 42 (1895): 176. 76. Mayo, “American Character,” 110, 122. 77. John M. Gregory, “Is There a Science of Education?” Education 1 (1881): 385; Hyde, “Moral Character,” 210. 78. Henry Sabin, “Not Guilty,” JE 17 (1883): 67. 79. “Note,” JE 3 (1876): 126. 80. Atkinson, “Dynamic,” 245; “The Educational Papers,” JE 1 (1875): 7. See also E. A. Steere, “The High School as a Factor in Mass Education,” NEA (1890), 646; A. D. Mayo, “The Demands of the Coming Century on the American Common School,” JE 4 (1876): 63 (“the most characteristic feature of the American mind: its marvelous executive common sense”). 81. J. M. Gregory, “The Basis of an Educational Philosophy,” JE 1 (1875): 74; “Note,” JE 2 (1875): 138; Sabin, “New American Education,” 323. 82. Homer B. Sprague, “An Educational Party Needed,” AII (1885), 190; Homer B. Sprague, “The Public High School and Citizenship,” AII (1883), 94–95; George C. Chase, “What the School Owes the Community,” AII (1895), 204; J. H. Worcester, “The Moral Element in Education,” JE 1 (1875): 158; Mrs. Jennie S. M’Lauchlan, “The Teacher and the Parent,” NEA (1890), 609, 611. 83. Woolsey, “Moral and Political Duties,” 120, 129; “City Schools and Their Graduates,” JE 16(1882): 344; Gen. Thomas J. Morgan, “The Education of the Masses,” AII (1889), 112; Mayo, “Demands,” 63. 84. “An Old Educator,” “Pyramidal Education,” JE 10 (1879): 303, 304; Jerome Allen, “Have We a Science of Education?” 286– 87. 85. W. R. Butler, “That ‘Experiment in Morals,’ ” JE 29 (1889): 195; Charles M. Barrows, “Means and Ends of Pedagogy,” Education 8 (1888): 515; A.  E. Winship, “Essentials,” 181; Gen. T.  J. Morgan, “What Is the True Function of a Normal School?” AII (1885 Supp.), 13. 86. Meleney, “True Object,” 317; F.  B. Dunklee, “Freedom through Lawfulness,” JE 22 (1885): 316. 87. Z. Richards, “Comment,” AII (1885), 169; W.  E. Bissell, “School Discipline,” JE 22 (1885): 268. 88. Wheeler, “Machine,” 302– 4. 89. Sarah Louise Arnold, “The Inevitable Problem,” Education 20 (1900): 467– 69. 90. Anderson, Story Teller, 196, 229. 91. Charles W. Eliot, “Undesirable and Desirable Uniformity in Schools,” NEA (1892), 88.

Notes to Pages 302–305

411

92. F. A. Comstock, “A Plea for Individuality,” Education 16 (1895): 46, 49. 93. C. F. Carroll, “Manual Training and the Course of Study,” NEA (1896), 780– 81. 94. Spencer, “Moral Teaching,” 130; T. J. Morgan, “Education and Freedom,” 573. 95. F. W. Osborn, “Spontaneous Memory,” JE 25 (1887): 344; Albert G. Boyden, “The Art of Teaching—(II),” JE 16 (1887): 228. 96. Albert G. Boyden, “The Art of Teaching—(VI),” JE 16 (1887): 376. 97. Lina E. Troeudle, “Necessity for Moral Culture,” JE 12 (1880): 449; Edward Brooks, “The Fundamental Principles of Mental Culture,” JE 16 (1882): 308. 98. Boyden, “Art of Teaching—(VI),” 376; Albert G. Boyden, “The Art of Teaching—(V),” JE 16 (1882): 345; Henry Sabin, “Organi zation and System vs. Originality and Individuality on the Part of Teacher and Pupil,” NEA (1890), 232. 99. J. A. Reinhart, “Studies in Psychology,” JE 22 (1885): 397. 100. John E. Bradlee, “Application of the Principles of Psychology to the Work of Teaching,” Education 4 (1884): 348– 49. 101. John E. Bradley, “The Personal Element in Education,” Education 6 (1885), 112. 102. William Dewitt Hyde, “The Education of the Will,” AII (1891), 203, 207; A.  G. Boyden, “What Is Education?” Education 3 (1883): 350; Bradlee, “Application,” 348; A. G. Boyden, “What Is Education?” 347. 103. J.  C. Greenough, “Individualism in Teaching,” AII (1887), 102; Larkin Dunton, “Moral Education,” Education 11 (1891): 466; George P. Brown, “The Education of the Will,” JE 34 (1891): 86; A. H. Campbell, “The Discipline of Doing,” JE 34 (1891): 323; Hyde, “Education of Will,” 220; Charles Henry Douglas, “Extension and Intension,” JE 36 (1892), 77; Hyde, “Education of Will,” 220. 104. Larkin Dunton, “Applied Psychology—(VIII),” JE 25 (1887): 116; Worcester, “Moral Element,” 170; Albert G. Boyden, “The Art of Teaching,” JE 27 (1888): 227. 105. Boyden, “Teacher as Educator,” 86, 84. 106. Dix, “Objective Teaching,” 260. 107. Dunton, “Applied Psychology—(VIII),” 116; Boyden, “Art of Teaching— (V),” 345. 108. Jerome Allen, “Have We a Science of Education?” 286; John E. Bradley, “The Training of the Will,” Education 20 (1899): 66; Bradlee, “Application,” 349; Worcester, “Moral Element,” 170; Greenough, “Individualism,” 101; Hyde, “Education of Will,” 207; Gregory, “Science of Education?” 384; Hiram Orcutt, “Recitation,” JE 4 (1876): 38; Calkins, “Teacher’s Work,” 45.

412

Notes to Pages 305–307

109. T. J. Morgan, “Normal School,” 10. 110. Barrows, “Means and Ends” 513; A. E. Winship, “Comment,” AII (1889), 151; A. E. Winship, “Essentials,” 164 (misnumbered as 1 4). 111. Larkin Dunton, “Applied Psychology—(VI),” JE 25 (1887): 51; Albert G. Boyden, “The Art of Teaching—(IX),” JE 27 (1888): 84; Larkin Dunton, “Applied Psychology—(XXX),” JE 27 (1888): 261; E. C. Hewitt, “How Do We Gain Knowledge—(II),” JE 21 (1885): 356. 112. Greenough, “Individualism,” 101. 113. “Editorial,” JE 22 (1885): 80. 114. Boyden, “Art of Teaching,” 227; Calkins, “Manual Training,” 375; Stockwell, “Political Function,” 183. 115. A. E. Winship, “Essentials,” 260; Greenough, “Individualism,” 101–2. 116. Bascom, “Means,” 160; James MacAlister, “The Adjustment of Some Recent Tendencies in Elementary Education,” AII (1889), 148; Worcester, “Moral Element,” 170; Jerome Allen, “Have We a Science of Education?” 284; “The Proposed National Congress of Educators—(I),” JE 10 (1879): 293; John Ogden, “Laws of Human Growth,” Education 12 (1891), 207; Hyde, “Moral Character,” 204. See W. A. Mowry, “The School Curriculum and Its Relations to Business Life,” AII (1881), 28. 117. Boyden, “Art of Teaching—(II),” 228; NEA (1888), 113. 118. Boyden, “Art of Teaching—(V),” 344; Hyde, “Education of the Will,” 208; Charles E. Lowrey, “Discipline the Price of Freedom,” Education 9 (1888): 103. 119. Dunton, “Moral Education,” 467; C.  H. Douglas, “Extension,” 77; Meleney, “True Object,” 314; Henry A. Raab, “Primary Education: What and How,” NEA (1883), 23; Louisa P. Hopkins, “Primary Teaching,” Primary Teacher 6 (1883): 361; Kate L. Brown, “ ‘Great Expectations,’ ” Primary Teacher 6 (1883): 376. 120. E.  E. White, “Desire for Knowledge as an Incentive,” JE 40 (1894): 60; Gregory, “Law,” I, 27; “The Child as a Native Learner,” JE 6 (1877): 30; “Educational Fulcrum,” 289 (misnumbered as 239); John Ogden, “Formation and Reformation.—No. IV,” JE 6 (1877): 37, 38. 121. W. Mathews, Going On, 155; Jacob Wilson, Practical Life, 227; “Educational Fulcrum,” 289 (misnumbered as 239); Joshua Bates, “Unconscious Influences,” JE 21 (1885): 211. 122. Bates, “Unconscious Influences,” 211; Hyde, “Education of Will,” 219; Greenough, “Individualism,” 96; Capen, “Needed Reforms,” 97–98; Metella King, “Mental Force,” JE 38 (1893): 139; Jerome, “Spiritual Influence,” 560– 61. 123. Bates, “Unconscious Influences,” 211; John E. Bradley, “Inspiration in Education,” Education 15 (1894): 129; Bradley, “Personal Element,” 113.

Notes to Pages 307–310

413

124. Bradlee, “Application,” 350, 352; W. H. Payne, “Some Applications of Psychology to the Art of Teaching,” NEA (1884), 256; N. A. Calkins, “How Can Thoughtlessness of Pupils Be Removed?” JE 21 (1885): 36; Barrows, “Means and Ends,” 513; Boyden, “Art of Teaching—(VI),” 376; Walter Quincy Scott, “The Elements of a Liberal Education,” AII (1887), 182; Jerome, “Spiritual Influence,” 560. 125. Albert G. Boyden, “The Art of Teaching.—(III): What Is an Art?” JE 26 (1887): 260; J. E. Bradley, “A Vigorous Personality,” JE 27 (1888): 147. 126. Edward Brooks, “Mental Culture,” 307; Wint. E. Scarritt, “Moral Training in Public Schools,” JE 17 (1883): 339. 127. Meleney, “True Object,” 313; Larkin Dunton, “Applied Psychology— (XXVI),” JE 27 (1888): 68. 128. F. W. Tilton, “The Teacher’s Duty to His Office and to the Community,” AII (1885), 131. 129. Boyden, “Teacher as Educator,” 80, 87; Bascom, “Means,” 158, 159; Atkinson, “Dynamic,” 245; Henry F. Harrington, “What Should Be the Leading Object of American Free Schools?” NEA (1873), 221. 130. Boyden, “Art of Teaching—(V),” 344; Richard G. Boone, “Lines of Growth in Maturing,” NEA (1897), 179. 131. T. J. Morgan, “Education of the Masses,” 112–13; Boone, “Lines,” 178– 81; Payne, “Some Applications,” 250; Boone, “Lines,” 176; Hyde, “Moral Character,” 207; “Responsibility for the School,” JE 30 (1889): 248; Boone, “Lines,” 178– 81; Gregory, “Basis,” 74. 132. Mary E. G. Harrington, “A Theory of School Government,” JE 4 (1876): 121; J. L. Pickard, “School Supervision—(II),” JE 6 (1877): 265; Walter H. Small, “The Problem of School Rights,” AII (1906), 131–2 (list of rights); Col. Nicholas Van Slyck, “The Right and Duty of the State to Educate Its Children,” AII (1886), 197; John Kennedy, “The Rights of Children,” JE 8 (1878): 337. 133. Worcester, “Moral Element,” 182– 83. 134. Bradley, “Training of the Will,” 65. 135. Hiram Orcutt, “Education and Practical Life,” JE 35 (1892): 195; Campbell, “Discipline of Doing,” 323; George H. Martin, “The Unseen Force in Character-Making,” NEA (1899), 276; Orcutt, “Education and Practical Life,” 195; W. H. Payne, “Teaching vs. Lesson-Hearing,” JE 15 (1882): 3. 136. “The Child a Native Learner,” 30; Calkins, “Teacher’s Work,” 40; J. A. Reinhart, “The Inductive Element in the Science of Education,” Education 2 (1881): 173; Frank McMurry, “Self-Activity,” JE 45 (1897): 256; Bradlee, “Application,” 347; D.  H.  H. Goodale, “Mothers as Educators. II.—The Work,” Education 3 (1883): 632; W.  T. Harris, “Psychology of Manual Training,” JE 29 (1889): 212.

414

Notes to Pages 311–314

137. Hyde, “Education of Will,” 203, 204; Larkin Dutton, “Moral Education,” Education 12 (1891), 72. 138. Boone, “Lines,” 179; Charles W. Eliot, “Habit and Education,” JE 48 (1898): 399. 139. Lowrey, “Discipline,” 103; A. D. Mayo, “ ‘The Child Grew,’ ” JE 9 (1879): 392. 140. “Hope Altruist,” “Misdirected Energy,” Education 20 (1899): 167, 173. 141. Henry Sabin, “The Future of the Bureau of Education,” JE 52 (1900): 408. 142. Kennedy, “Rights,” 337; “The Objective Points in Education,” JE 2 (1875): 126; E. Benjamin Andrews, “Patriotism and the Public Schools,” AII (1890), 156; Bellamy, “Americanism,” 63; Andrews, “Patriotism,” 156. 143. Charles F. Pidgin and Frank H. Drown, “Origin and Progress of the Public School System in America—(VII): The American System Criticised and Defended,” JE 51 (1900):228; Marion Brown, “Is There a Nationality Problem in Our Schools?” NEA (1900): 589; Alexis Everett Frye, “Harvard and the Cuban Teachers,” JE 51 (1900): 237; Josiah Strong, “Conditions Confronting the New Century,” JE 52 (1900): 180; Josiah Strong, “New Conditions Confronting the New Century,” AII (1900), 46. 144. A. E. Winship, “The School of the Future,” JE 48 (1898): 139. 145. Lowrey, “Discipline,” 105; Mayo, “ ‘The Child Grew,’ ” 392; Dix, “Objective Teaching,” 260. 146. Edward Brooks, “Mental Culture,” 307. 147. G.  S. Hall, “Early Sense,” 395; G.  S. Hall, Adolescence, 1:xv; G.  S. Hall, “Education of Will,” 321; G. S. Hall, “Social Aspects,” 90; G. S. Hall, “New Psychology II,” 240. 148. G. S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:200; G. S. Hall, “Early Sense,” 394–95; G. S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:200. 149. G. S. Hall, “Moral Training,” 57; G. S. Hall, “New Departures,” 147; G. S. Hall, “Moral Training,” 57; G. Stanley Hall, “Editorial,” Pedagogical Seminary 1 (1891): 119–20; G.  S. Hall, “New Psychology as Basis,” 711; G. Stanley Hall, “Editorial,” Pedagogical Seminary 2 (1892): 7; G.  S. Hall, “Editorial,” 119; G. S. Hall, “Moral Training,” 56. 150. Ross, Hall, 367. 151. G. S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:339– 40; G. S. Hall, “New Departures,” 151; G. S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:xii; G. S. Hall, “Early Sense,” 394– 95; G. S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:199, 187; G. S. Hall, Adolescence, 1:ix. 152. G.  S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1: 153; G.  S. Hall, Adolescence, 2:448; G. S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:186. 153. G. S. Hall, “Editorial,” Pedagogical Seminary 1, 325; G. S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:343– 44, 39– 40.

Notes to Pages 314–320

415

154. G. S. Hall, “New Psychology II,” 248; G. S. Hall, “Training of Teachers,” 19; G.  S. Hall, “New Departures,” 145; G.  S. Hall, “New Psychology as Basis,” 718; G. S. Hall, “Education of Will,” 309–10. 155. G.  S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:1; G.  S. Hall, “Moral Training,” 67; G. S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:4; G. S. Hall, “Education of Will,” 313, 319. 156. G. S. Hall, “Moral Training,” 70; G. S. Hall, “Education of Will,” 311, 319, 310–11; G. S. Hall, “Early Sense,” 387. 157. G. S. Hall, “Moral Training,” 64; G. S. Hall, Adolescence, 2:383; G. Stanley Hall, “The Contents of Children’s Minds,” Princeton Review 11 (1883), 264; G. S. Hall, “Education of Will,” 311. 158. G. S. Hall, “Editorial,” Pedagogical Seminary 2, 7; G. S. Hall, “Social Aspects,” 82; G. S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:235; G. S. Hall, “New Departures,” 144, 145; G. S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:viii–ix; G. S. Hall, “Educational Needs,” 284; G. S. Hall, “Contents,” 270; G. S. Hall, “New Departures,” 150. 159. G. S. Hall, “Educational Needs,” 287; G. S. Hall, “Early Sense,” 391; G. S. Hall, “Child-Study and Education,” 699; G. Stanley Hall, “Notes on the Study of Infants,” Pedagogical Seminary 1 (1891): 135, 136; G. S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:vi. 160. G. S. Hall, Adolescence, 1:xi–xii; G. S. Hall, “Education of Will,” 314–15. 161. G. S. Hall, “Education of Will,” 312–14, 321; G. S. Hall, “Moral Training,” 70. 162. G.  S. Hall, “Social Aspects,” 90; G.  S. Hall, “New Psychology II,” 240; G. S. Hall, “How Far?” 649; G. S. Hall, “Early Sense,” 391; G. S. Hall, Adolescence, 2:377, 72, 314. 163. G. S. Hall, “New Psychology and Education,” 145, 146; G. S. Hall, “Early Sense,” 392; G.  S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:139; G.  S. Hall, “Early Sense,” 387– 88; G. S. Hall, “Social Aspects,” 90, 86. For a fuller picture of the Hobbesian-Newtonian project, see Block, A Nation of Agents. 164. G. S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:293; G. S. Hall, Adolescence, 1:ix. 165. G. S. Hall, “Moral Training,” 62; G. S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:195. 166. Zuckerman, “Epilogue,” 234. 167. G. S. Hall, “New Departures,” 151; G. Stanley Hall, “The High School as the People’s College,” in Strickland and Burgess, Health, Growth, and Heredity 142; G. S. Hall, Educational Problems, 1:xii; G. S. Hall, “Social Aspects,” 90. 168. G. S. Hall, “Social Aspects,” 90. 169. Melvin Konner, The Evolution of Childhood (Cambridge, Mass., 2010), 655. 170. Ross, Hall, 48; G. S. Hall, “The High School as the People’s College,” 143; G. S. Hall, Adolescence, 1:324, viii; 2:362.

416

Notes to Pages 320–328

171. Pidgin and Drown, “Origin and Progress (VII)” 228; Charles D. Hine, “Changes of Fifty Years,” AII (1906), 42– 43; Marion Brown, “Nationality Problem,” 590.

Coda 1. William Allen White, Boys—Then and Now (New York, 1926), 36–38. 2. W. H. Wood, “On the Moral Responsibility of Teachers,” 151; Page, Theory and Practice of Teaching, 156; S.P., “Education,” Common School Journal 2 (1840): 294; J. O. Taylor, District School, 107. 3. G. S. Hall, “New Psychology as Basis,” 714; G. S. Hall, “Editorial,” Pedagogical Seminary 2, 6; Martha V. McLeish, “Child-Study in the Home,” Child-Study Monthly 6 (1900):188; Earl Barnes, “Methods of Studying Children,” in Studies in Education (Stanford, 1896–97), 1:5; Frederick Tracy, “Scope and Bearing of Child Life Study,” in Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1892–93 (Washington, D.C., 1895), 361. 4. Charles W. Waddle, “Criminal Tendencies and the Juvenile Court,” NEA (1904), 799; Kellogg, “New Education,” 308. 5. T. J. Morgan, “Education of the Masses,” 112; Dunton, “Applied Psychology— (VI),” 51; William A. Ayres, “School-Training as a Part of Education,” JE 6 (1877): 110; “The Machine,” JE 22 (1885): 49; J. L. Pickard, “School Supervision—(IV),” JE 7 (1878): 20; Larkin Dunton, “School Discipline,” Education 12 (1892): 327. Grading meant to get “examination averages,” then the “average of these examination averages” into “monthly averages,” followed by the “term average” or “average” of the “monthly averages.” Frederick Allison Tupper, “The Marking System Nightmare,” JE 39 (1894): 3. 6. Albert Prescott Marble, “Learning or Training: Which?” Education 1 (1880): 176; Arnold Tompkins, “Egoism and Altruism as Organic Factors in Education,” Review of Education 7 (1901): 13. 7. Charles B. Gilbert, “The Reconstruction of the Grammar School Curriculum,” NEA (1894), 329; Barnes, “Methods,” 14; Calkins, “Teacher’s Work,” 45; “Methods of Mind Training: A Symposium,” JE 43 (1896): 359; Thomas M. Balliet, “Habit and Education,” JE 48 (1898): 399; Bradley, “Training,” 73; Duncan Brown, “Theme: How Can Our Schools Best Prepare Law-Abiding and Law-Respecting Citizens?” NEA (1888), 104; Balliet, “Habit,” 399, 400. 8. Amy E. Tanner, “Relation of the Child’s Development to Control of Him,” NEA (1905), 738; Amy C. Scannell, “Child-Training,” Child Study Monthly 4 (1899): 593; Tanner, “Relation,” 737. 9. Boone, “Lines,” 179– 80.

Notes to Pages 328–329

417

10. Payne, New Education, 7; J. A. R., “Examination of Teachers: with Reference to the Late Examination by the Supervisors,” JE 7 (1878): 388; Atkinson, “Dynamic Teaching,” 210, 258; Jerome Allen, “Science,” 287, 284; Bibb, “Pedagogics,” 240; Jerome Allen, “Science,” 289. 11. Edward Brooks, “Professional Obligations and Duties of the Teacher,” JE 40 (1894): 107. 12. A. E. Winship, “What Has Modern Psychology Contributed in a Practical Way for the Schools?” JE 41 (1895): 4. 13. Charles H. Judd, “Practical and Theoretical Studies of Mental Development,” AII (1905), 119; Arthur D. Call, “Present Notions about Ethical Instruction in Our Public Schools,” AII (1905), 66, 74; Clarence F. Carroll, “The Mutual Responsibilities of Principal and Superintendent,” AII (1906), 332; Call, “Present Notions,” 81 (Principal Ray). 14. E. E. White, “Fundamentals in Teaching,” JE 41 (1895): 104; F. W. Search, “Individualism in Education,” JE 49 (1894): 339; B. Gilbert, “The New Education,” Education 16 (1895): 154; C. C. Van Liew, “Mental and Moral Development of the Kindergarten Child,” NEA (1899), 557. 15. “The Kindergarten,” JE 36 (1892): 45; Hyde, “Education of Will,” 222; Boone, “Lines,” 180. 16. Committee on Pedagogics, “The Education of the Will,” JE 34 (1891): 86; G. W. A. Luckey, “The Development of Moral Character,” NEA (1899), 134. 17. Newell Dwight Hillis, A Man’s Value to Society: Studies in Self-Culture and Character (Chicago, 1896), 39. 18. Sabin, “Organi zation,” 232; Report of Special Committee, “Pedagogical and Psychological Observations,” NEA (1890), 112. 19. Charles Jacobus, “Character Building in High Schools,” AII (1894), 40. 20. Henry S. Baker, “The Relation of Fatigue to Social and Educational Progress,” AII (1895), 49; Samuel Thurber, “The Response of the Public School to the Demands of the Public,” AII (1895), 172; George C. Chase, “The Individual versus the Class,” AII (1906), 101. 21. Bradlee, “Training,” 65; Hyde, “Education of Will,” 203– 4; Eliot, “Undesirable and Desirable Uniformity” 92; Calkins, “Teacher’s Work,” 46; C. W. Cabeen, “The Place of the Public High School,” Education 10 (1890): 539; Bradlee, “Personal Element,” 112; Bradlee, “Training,” 65. 22. “The Machine,” 49; A. S. Hardy, “The New Departure in Education,” AII (1886), 62. 23. William Kessen, The Rise and Fall of Development (Worcester, Mass., 1990), 22; Florence A. Blanchard, “How to Arouse a Patriotic Spirit in the Hearts of Our Pupils,” JE 33 (1891): 67. 24. Hyde, “Education of the Will,” 217.

418

Notes to Pages 329–333

25. William M. Bryant, “The Freedom of the Will—Does It Concern Spontaneity or Choice?” NEA (1892), 554; George M. Steele, “Education in Its Relation to the Will,” Education 16 (1896): 356. 26. Steele, “Education,” 356, 360, 361. 27. Balliet, “Habit,” 399; Steele, “Education,” 358, 28. André Turmel, A Historical Sociology of Childhood (Cambridge, U.K., 2008), 61, 14. 29. Will S. Monroe, “Development of the Social Consciousness of Children,” NEA (1998), 921–24, 928 (Baldwin). 30. AII (1895), 131; Special Committee, “Observation,” 109. 31. Simon N. Patten, “The Importance of Economic Psychology to Teachers,” AII (1892), 19; Jacobus, “Character Building” 31; B. C. Mathews, “Ethical Instruction through Sociology,” NEA (1895), 624; Laura D. Puffer, “The Claims of Individualism and Their Recognition,” Education 16 (1896): 633. 32. C. C. Van Liew, “Racial Traits in the Group Activity of Children,” NEA (1899), 1060, 1062. 33. B.  C. Gregory, “Social Co-operation,” NEA (1898), 658, 659; Van Liew, “Traits,” 1059, 1062. 34. W. Mathews, Getting On, 120–21. 35. J. Wilson, Practical Life and the Study of Man (Newark, N.J., 1882),327. 36. Ibid., 281, 52–53, 326, 327, 227, 320–21. 37. Newell Dwight Hillis, The Contagion of Character (New York, 1911), 20–21; Marden, Pushing, 2:671. 38. Bradley, “Vigorous Personality,” 147. 39. J. Wilson, Practical Life, 320; Joseph Carhart, “Personality in Teaching versus Individuality,” JE 22 (1885): 347. 40. Carhart, “Personality,” 364; Albion W. Small, “Demands of Sociology upon Pedagogy,” NEA (1896), 175; E.  C. Hewett, “Psychology for the Teacher,” NEA (1899), 436; Greenough, “The Essentials of Good Teaching,” AII (1890), 55. 41. Greenough, “Essentials,” 56; E. B. Andrews, “Patriotism,” 142. 42. “The New Psychology,” JE 40 (1895): 397. 43. William T. Harris, “The Study of Arrested Development in Children as Produced by Injudicious School Methods,” Education 20 (1900): 462; Luckey, “Moral Character,” 128, 134. 44. Chase, “What the School Owes,” 201. 45. Garland, Rose, 91; London, Martin Eden, 48, 53, 19, 53. 46. London, Martin Eden, 70–71, 63; Dreiser, Genius, 531. 47. Dreiser, Dawn, 542. 48. Marden, Pushing, 1:198, 168, 188, 206, 198. 49. Van Liew, “Traits,” 1057, 1062.

Notes to Pages 333–341

419

50. G. W. A. Luckey, “Children’s Interests,” JE 45 (1898): 224; Dreiser, Dawn, 191. 51. Marden, Pushing, 2:677, 678, 751, 678, 673, 679, 1:200–201, 384, 2:674, 662. 52. A. E. Winship, “The Present Educational Crisis. (III),” JE 49 (1899): 280. 53. Hewett, “Psychology,” 436; Raymond E. Callahan, Education and the Cult of Efficiency (Chicago, 1962), 11 (NEA Proceedings). 54. Marden, Pushing, 2:769–70. 55. Floyd Dell, Moon-Calf (New York, 1957), 89, 46. 56. Ossion H. Land, “The Common School as a Social Center,” AII (1900), 60. 57. Joseph M. Hawes, Children between the Wars: American Childhood, 1920– 1940 (New York, 1997), 65. 58. E. B. Andrews, “Patriotism,” 19–20. 59. Marion Brown, “Nationality,” 589–90. 60. Lary May, Screening Out the Past (New York, 1980), 126, 230, 241. 61. William Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (New York, 1993), 79, 91. 62. David Nasaw, Children of the City: At Work and at Play (Garden City, N.Y., 1985), 198. 63. Joseph Hawes, Children, xiii. 64. Robert L. Griswold, “Ties That Bind and Bonds That Break,” in Small Worlds: Children and Adolescents in America, 1850–1950 (Lawrence, Kan., 1992), 259, 260. 65. John Gjerde, The Minds of the West: Ethnocultural Evolution in the Rural Middle West, 1830–1917 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1997), 252. 66. Leach, Land, 148– 49, 92. 67. L. May, Screening, 218, 235, 198. 68. Hewett, “Psychology,” 436. 69. Marden, Pushing, 1:196. 70. Kasson, Rudeness, 116, 116 (Longstreet). 71. Marden, Pushing, 1:246, 249; 2:553, 551, 617, 623. 72. Frances W. Letter, “Educational Equipoise,” NEA (1892), 129; Carrie B. Sharpe, “What, How, and How Better?” Education 3 (1883), 282; Jerome Allen, “Have We a Science of Education?”; “Mechanism vs. Mind,” JE 13 (1881): 373; Steele, “Education,” 356, 360, 361. 73. John Dewey, “My Pedagogic Creed,” School Journal 54 (1897): 79– 80. 74. John Dewey, Democracy and Education (New York, 1966), 3, 10, 39, 24, 25, 13, 118, 13, 24, 11, 87. 75. Ibid., 11, 28, 25, 39, 33, 43, 11. 76. Ibid., 12–22. 77. Ibid., 84, 17, 27, 14, 36, 44, 11, 34. 78. Ibid., 35, 121, 46, 39, 4, 30, 13, 14, 10.

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79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110.

Notes to Pages 341–352

Ibid., 316, 308. Ibid., 132, 136, 197, 132, 196, 197, 51, 47, 51, 46. John Dewey, Freedom and Culture (Amherst, N.Y., 1989), 36. Dewey, Democracy, 33. Ibid., 44. Ibid., 42, 43. John Dewey, “The Need for Social Psychology,” Psychological Review 24 (1917): 217–18. Dewey, Freedom, 21, 13, 12. Ibid., 12, 125. Dewey, Democracy, 3. Dewey, Freedom 12, 14, 34. Daniel T. Rodgers, Contested Truths: Keywords in American Politics Since Inde pendence (New York, 1987). 215. Lowrey, “Discipline,” 105, 104. “A Collection of Mental Tendencies,” JE 38 (1893): 209. Hewett, “Psychology,” 437. See Block, Nation of Agents, Chapter 4 (Hobbes). Stockwell, “Political Function,” 181. Lowrey, “Discipline,” 104, 105. Hillis, Contagion, 61. Ogden, “Laws,” 212, 207; Boone, “Lines,” 176–79. Turmel, Historical Sociology, 253, 277. L. May, Screening, 199, 218; Leach, Land, 16 (Emily Fogg Mead). See David Ciepley, Liberalism in the Shadow of Totalitarianism (Cambridge, Mass., 2006). Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York, 1977), 139. Leach, Land, 127. See Block, Nation of Agents, Chapters 3 and 4. Brigitte Berger and Peter L. Berger, The War over the Family (Garden City, N.Y. 1983). Margaret Mead, The School in American Culture (Cambridge, Mass.), 28, 40, 35. Hannah Arendt, “What Is Authority?” in Between Past and Future: Six Exercises in Political Thought (New York, 1963), 92. S.  B. Todd, “Individuality,” 117; Aaron Gove, “Usurpation of Home by School,” NEA (1899), 183. Mr. Van Sickle, “Comments,” NEA (1899), 393. Keniston, “Prologue,” 20–21. Rodgers, Truths, 179, 182.

Acknowledgments

A book whose origin lies in the distant past incurs many debts to both organizations and individuals along the way. I have been fortunate in both regards. I have been able to present portions of the work-in-progress at a number of universities and conferences in the United States and abroad over the years, and I would like to highlight three academic organizations whose meetings (and participants) have played an important and continuing role in the development of my ideas: the Society for the History of Children and Youth, the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth at the University of Sheffield (with a particularly hearty thanks to director Allison James and to Adrian James), and the History of Education Society. I want to express my gratitude to colleagues, friends, and family whose engaged responses to my often imprecisely formed and insufficiently trimmed enthusiasms have served as a much-needed catalyst in my thinking: Harvey Graff, Michael Zuckerman, Gary Cross, Wayne Carp, Nena Torres, Adrienne Asch, John Rury, David Ciepley, Stephen Skowronek, Eldon Eisenach, Dan Brudney, Bob and Susan Sholtes, Stan Izen, Dianne Strain, John Cawelti, and Rachel Seher; my DePaul compatriots Charles Strain, Rose Spalding, Harry Wray, Mike Budde, Bob Rotenberg, Frida and Roy Furman, Robbie Garner, Wayne Steger, and Mike Edwards; my longtime mentors Martin Marty, Herman Sinaiko, and the late Stephen Toulmin; and family members Ben Braude, Howard Greene, Tam Greene, Daniel Halperin, Dan Schauben-Fuerst, and Glenn Block. I am indebted to the powerful and candid input of students in many courses in which these ideas were explored and tentatively given organi zation, and I want to note in particular Adnan Selimovic, Morgan Shipley, Dave Ritchie, Vanessa Walilko, Mike Moron, Sam Poppe, and Jason Tyszko. A very special thanks is due to Dan Greenstone for never (rarely?) tiring of this topic of mutual interest, to Michael Greenstone for ever sage advice, to Lisa Adams and David Miller for almost mystically unflagging support and counsel, and to Mike Aronson for his commitment to the work and to the deeper strains of the American project. To Leslie Keros, my development editor, who worked closely over the past years to lead me to the water of a readable manuscript and was

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somehow able to get me time and again to drink, my debt is beyond words (thankfully for me). I also want to thank DePaul University and its College of Liberal Arts and Sciences for continued support for my research and academic pre sentations. Finally, a thanks that (includes and yet) swells beyond the bounds of this book and my work life for my life partner, Ruth, and our son, Matt, to whom this work is dedicated.

Index

Abbott, Jacob, 154, 188, 201, 278–279, 280, 281 Abraham Lincoln, the Backwoods Boy (Alger), 150 Acres of Diamonds (Conwell), 253–254 Adams, Charles Francis, 248 Adams, Henry, 254 Adams, John, 52, 53, 54, 58, 95 Adams, John Quincy, 145, 146 Adams, William Taylor, 255 adaptation: consensus on, 326–328; socializing institutions join in organi zation al, 352 Address on the Duties, Dangers and Securities of Youth (Eddy), 109 adolescence: adolescents assume responsibility for self-regulation, 30; origins of concept, 71; orderly assumption of maturity in, 142–143; as release from socialization into society, 184–186; re sistance to coercive upbringing in, 191; self-making adolescents, 255–257; in Hall’s stages of development, 269–270; recedes as period of turbulence, 287; in Hall’s scientific approach to socialization, 314, 316 adults: American liberalism’s approach to managing adult voluntarism, 12; limit of adult constraints, 15–18; contractual obligation of, 18, 19; as merely temporary guardians of their children, 30; passivity and deference of traditional, 33; in literature of foreboding, 72–73; concern about generational conflict, 85– 88; in Locke’s approach to socializing children, 160; and apotheosis of free agency, 243; collapse of idealism in, 353. See also parents

African Americans. See blacks agency: citizens, 6, 22, 36, 65, 90, 115, 129, 318; mainstream agency culture, 6, 154–157; opposition to, 6; emergence of citizen as agent, 12–13; ideals spread throughout colonies and early republic, 13–14; in Hobbes’s political order, 14; United States matures into nation of agents, 14; self-regulation of agents, 15; religious, 17, 18; values, 17, 32, 68, 143, 196, 260, 286, 290; consensual agents, 20; dissenting Protestantism recast in language of, 30; socialization, 31, 119–152, 244, 251, 301, 350; discourse of individual liberty reconciled with underlying values of, 32; self-maturing, 32; shaping citizens to be agents, 33; from birth, 34; framework, 34, 157, 200, 234, 235, 242, 260, 324, 325, 331–332; loss of robust understanding of, 34; families in creation of agents, 34–35; moral agents, 42, 62, 183; New England formulates radical principles and practices of, 42; development, 64, 191, 230–233, 267–270, 272, 313, 344; abandonment of discourse after American Revolution, 64– 65; maturity required for, 84; essential synthesis of, 102; sectarian view of, 106, 107, 108; republic, 120, 157, 242; secularized creed of, 156–157; as new potentiality, 165; national formation shifting to creation of agents, 173; consummate social agent, 181–184; popular education and diffusion of, 194–215; liberals and social historians fail to acknowledge role of, 199; education for an agency nation, 200–201; educating agents as liberal

423

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Index

agency (continued) citizens, 216–237; the self- directing social agent, 227–230; toward a science of agency development, 230–233; proto-science of, 233–235; natural agency childhood, 257–259; in two paths to liberal psychology, 261; Hall’s science of self-evolving agency development, 267–270, 312–314, 316–317; becomes experimental assumption, 270–271; in parenting the natural child, 277; parents’ wish for fulfillment as agents, 281; forms of individualism incompatible with, 282; internalization of, 284; as product of practical education, 302; maintaining sense of personal, 306; empowered and routinized, 308–309; and self-creation, 310–312; identifying with nature, 324; elision of freedom and, 325; influence and, 336–337; in Dewey’s reconstruction of liberalism, 338, 339; Dewey’s reconstruction of, 341–342. See also agency character; agency society; free agency agency character: as neither natural nor assured, 23; agency from birth obviates need for development of, 34; nation thrived without citizenry with mature, 65; popular religious movement disseminates idea of, 131; continuity and compatibility attributed to realization of, 157; parental socializers lack full, 163, 187; and incipient generational reversal, 170; toward natural agency society, 191; anchoring in psyche of the young, 216; educators consolidate balance of individualism and commitment in, 218; seen as natural, 219, 347, 326, 347; new education in construction of, 234; Civil War seen as struggle to vindicate, 237; in natural agency child, 257, 258; alternative psychological explanations of, 261; Hall on, 262, 264, 265, 317; adolescents charged with development of, 269; in religion of education, 295; in scientific intervention in education, 314; realizing does not resolve threats to liberalism, 324; in consensus on adaptation, 326; extroverts compared with, 337; in

Dewey’s reconstruction of liberalism, 338, 343; conservatives on use of pressure for internalizing limits of, 351 agency society: middle-class Protestant creators of, 6; inability to condition adults through religion, 18; dependence on personal and social transformation, 21; records of creation of, 27; versus freedom narrative, 33, 35; and challenge of developmentalism, 84; forming individuals for, 90; and early political divisions, 93; Federalist view of, 102; commitment to common socialization and education bring it within reach, 152; childhood socialization required for creation of, 154; and incipient generational reversal, 170; unresolved state of antebellum, 183; toward a natural, 191–193; educators’ commitment to, 198; immigrants unprepared for demands of, 203; education as key to realization of, 208; ceases to be mere vision, 230; and culture of self-creation, 251; synthesis of freedom and restraint in, 259; Hall on, 268, 270, 318, 320; natural child and emergence of, 277; realizing does not resolve threats to liberalism, 324; potential for long-term stability, 325; refusal to accede to closing of, 326; and emerging society of extroverts, 337; in Dewey’s reconstruction of liberalism, 338, 343; events of 1960s and, 346; and unwinding of consent, 347 Alcott, Bronson, 233 Aldrich, Thomas B., 255 Alger, Horatio, 150, 255, 294 Altschuler, Glenn C., 370n19 American civil religion: common socialization in consolidation of, 120; Lincoln in, 120, 149; birth of, 148–149; common origin of American liberalism and, 152; populist liberalism and nondenominational Protestantism merge in, 242; in national integration, 246 American colonies: agency ideals in challenge to elites, 13; First Great Awakening, 17, 42, 47; cultural revolution in, 42– 43; dependence on generational order in, 43– 45, 54; collapse of genera-

Index

tional control in, 45– 47; new forms of authority sought in, 48– 49; unraveling of colonial relationship, 53–55 American dream, 335, 347 American Revolution: seen as release from history, 41– 42; puzzle of the revolutionary insurgency, 49–50; as against patriarchy, 50–53; unraveling of colonial relationship, 53–55; Lockean liberalism in, 56–57; specter of domestic upheaval after, 60– 61; contested triumph of Lockean story, 61– 63; rethinking the revolutionary legacy, 63– 65; modernizing economic forces accelerated by, 68; Mann on free schools and, 204 Anderson, Sherwood, 248, 254, 255, 289, 291 Andrews, Benjamin, 335 antinomianism, 236 antisocial behavior, 287 Arendt, Hannah, 346, 349 Arthur, T. S., 154, 255 Arthur Mervyn (Brown), 73, 75, 82 Atwater, Jeremiah, 99 Austin, John M., 122, 145–148 authority: conservative concern about declining respect for, 3, 350–351; traditional male figures of, 22; in the family, 27, 49, 168–169, 290; revolutionary critique of generational, 29; adults can no longer expect unquestioned, 30; American Revolution seen as having undone, 42; dissenting Protestants’ opposition to, 42; external, 44, 52, 283, 307, 315, 317, 339; collapse of generational, 45, 46– 47; new forms sought in American colonies, 48– 49; American Revolution as against patriarchal, 50–53; decline of authoritarianism after American Revolution, 61; Lockean perspective on colonial liberation and legitimate, 62; agency citizens as bulwark of, 65; youth challenge and invert, 71; literary turn against, 79– 80; literary imagined return to, 80– 83; self-authority, 82, 90, 251, 282, 324, 337, 347; diminishes with progressive maturation, 86; political unity requires single, 90; socialization to stop assault

425

on, 97– 98; Federalists on demands for leveling, 124; of the Gospel, 133; in Locke’s approach to socializing children, 160; in new parent- child bond, 166; with reciprocity between parents and children, 168; consistent with agency republic, 193; of teachers, 227; disguising parental intervention, 282–283; versus liberal citizen’s capacity for voluntary, 295; of teachers, 306; Hall on individual development and, 317; agency society recognizes supervening, 325; youth seek new opportunities bound by no, 348; moral, 352. See also parental authority Autobiography (Franklin), 85, 104–105, 173, 192 autonomy: liberal will be seen as autonomous, 5; New World citizens committed to, 12; liberalism on consent and, 15; socially designated ends versus, 23; American colonists insist on greater, 52, 61; and challenge of developmentalism, 85; and sectarian discipline, 108; Jeffersonians on, 137; agency framework in preparing Americans for, 157; liberal individualism and, 160; and promotion of reciprocity, 169; education facilitates belief in, 217; systematic regulations seen as expanding, 220; education seen as fulfillment of individual, 221; increasing claims for, 242; socializing institutions seen as impediments to, 243; Trumbull on, 280; assuming obscures emphasis on standardized outcomes, 325; sacrifices after World War II, 346; change in search for, 347; progressive desire for individual, 350; interests versus principled, 352 Axtell, James, 47 Babcock, Emma W.: Self-Reliance in the Nursery, 276–277 Babyhood ( journal), 257 Bailyn, Bernard, 26, 49 Baldwin, James Mark, 326 Bancroft, George, 63 Barlow, Joel, 95 Barnum, P. T., 253 Bates, Joshua, 197

426

Index

Beecher, Catherine E., 110, 122, 138, 142, 154, 211, 226 Beecher, Henry Ward, 150, 188, 245–246, 272, 292 Beecher, Lyman, 100 behaviorism, 338 Bell, Daniel, 350 Bellah, Robert, 149 Berger, Brigitte, 349 Berger, Peter, 349 Berlin, Isaiah, 1 Bible, the, 229, 246, 273 Billy Budd (Melville), 75, 76, 82, 170 Binder, Frederick, 199 Bird, Richard, 75, 89 Birney, Alice McLillan, 257 Black Reconstruction (Du Bois), 250 blacks: slavery, 97; take first steps at liberation, 247; wish to belong in, 250, 251; on education as national panacea, 294; education for, 335 Blanchard, Florence A., 323 Blumin, Stuart M., 370n19 Bobbin Boy, The (Thayer), 188 Bok, Edward W., 253 Boone, Richard G., 289 Bourne, Randolph, 345, 347 Brackenridge, Hugh Henry: Modern Chivalry, 80 Bradford, William, 46 Brown, Charles Brockden: Arthur Mervyn, 73, 75, 82; on new forms of literature, 75; on motives to courage and activity, 79; Memoirs of the Notorious Stephen Burroughs, 81, 82; Wieland, 81, 82, 88 Brown, Clark, 113 Brown, Herbert Ross, 163 Brown, William Hill: The Power of Sympathy, 72, 76, 81 Bryce, James, 246 Buck, Paul H., 250 Burrows, Edwin, 26, 61 Bush, George W., 2, 3 Bushman, Richard, 44 Bushnell, Horace, 122, 138, 140–143 Cahan, Abraham: The Rise of David Levinsky, 250, 251, 292 Callahan, Raymond, 334

Calvinism, 99, 103, 108, 127 camp meetings, 99 Cartwright, Peter, 109, 115 Cather, Willa, 249, 255 centralization, 341 Chapin, E. H., 154 character: liberalism on, 7, 318; as moldable, 127–128, 141, 162–163; and Federalist-to-Whig shift, 139; Wise on constructing for two worlds, 144; emerging agency mainstream on, 154; as inward foundation of the republic, 157–158; self-reliance as cornerstone of, 180; sustained discipline as ultimate test of, 181; education for transformation of, 207–209; schools attempt to promote perfect, 219; teachers’ mastery of shaping, 231; formation recast as secular liberal self-development, 235; schools become locus of building, 301, 302–303; emphasis on power versus, 309; Hall on education and, 313, 314; wish to institute a model, 324. See also agency character charisma, 307 Chevalier, Michael, 68 Child, Lydia Maria, 154, 158, 175, 177 Childhood (Birney), 257 Childhood (magazine), 257 child labor, 213 child psychology, 243, 253, 262–266 children: hidden dynamic of childhood consent, 9–37; winning the child’s will, 20–22, 174–193; childhood as locus of citizen formation, 21; paradox of child rearing, 21; conundrum of selfdevelopment, 23; child rearing removed from historical process, 24–25, 32, 34; increasing scholarly attention to child rearing, 25–27; in American turn to socialization, 27–29; social pressure in child rearing, 28; difficulties with growing emphasis on child rearing, 29–30; literature on child rearing, 30–31, 32, 120, 154; as agents from birth, 34; dependence on generational order in American colonies, 43– 45, 54–55; willfulness of, 44; collapse of generational control in American colonies, 45– 47; in more affective model of family,

Index

48; Britain sees American colonies as, 51–53; in American revolutionary rhetoric, 58–59; filial piety, 98, 114; transformation of childhood, 111–112; character seen as moldable, 127–128, 141, 162–163; Bushnell on the republican child, 140–143; toward a child-centered family, 153–173; ideal of the voluntary child, 158–161; the new child, 163–165; new parent-child bond, 166–167; reciprocity between parents and, 167–170; incipient generational reversal, 170–173; new strategies for child rearing, 175–179; natural agency childhood, 257–259; shaping the self-realizing, 272–288; parenting the natural child, 275–277; parents look to for guidance in child rearing, 278–280; parents’ strategies for (non)intervention in development of, 283–286; constraints arising from other children, 286; normal child, 286–287, 330; Dewey on plasticity of, 342. See also education; youth Children of the Future, The (Smith), 257 Children’s Rights (Wiggin), 257 child study movement, 266–267 Christian Nurture (Bushnell), 138 cities: fear of urban disorder, 17; young adults congregate in, 68, 70; as nightmare worlds in literature, 76; urbanization, 194, 204, 314; educational systems emphasize standardization and social discipline, 241; as built on status and success, 292 citizenship: as foundation of populist society, 1–2; institutions responsible for shaping future citizens, 5; agency citizens, 6, 22, 36, 65, 90, 115, 129, 318; creation of consenting citizenry, 6; breakdown of consensus over liberal citizen formation, 7; emergence of citizen as agent, 12–13; free and self-containing citizen of liberal theory, 14–15, 16, 20; shaping the modern citizen from birth, 18–20; childhood as locus of citizen formation, 21; extending, 31; public schools as crucible for consenting citizenry, 31; republican, 31, 58, 79, 80, 97, 115, 173, 191; naturalizing process of

427

citizen development, 32; new discourses for voluntary liberal, 32; shaping citizens to be agents, 33; new form required for republic, 92; reimagining required for, 101; good citizens, 105, 181, 184, 199, 229; educating agents as liberal citizens, 216–237; history of contestation over formation of, 326. See also liberal citizenship civil religion, American. See American civil religion Civil War: American civil religion born after, 148–149; as teachers’ war, 237; quest for normalcy after, 242; as victory for national unity, 245; as extension of revivalism, 247 Clark, John Bates, 291 Clark University, 313 Clay, Henry, 151 clothes, 336 coercion: liberal regimes use, 4, 15, 22; internalizing liberal character without overt, 31; youth reject, 71; by parents, 125; with reciprocity between parents and children, 168; adolescent re sistance to, 190; common school movement eschews, 209; natural agency childhood evolve without, 257; and Dewey’s restoration of consent, 340; freedom seen as absence of, 343; organi zation al self lives in denial of, 345; in child- shaping institutions, 353 cognitive models of mental functioning, 319 cohesion, social. See social cohesion colonial America. See American colonies Common School Journal, 197 common schools. See public education Common Sense (Paine), 16, 50, 54–55 comparative psychology, 263 Comstock, F. A., 302 Concerning Childhood (Gilman), 257 Confidence Man, The (Melville), 75–76, 81, 89 conformity: child rearing insulated from obsession with, 25; as challenge to freedom narrative, 34, 36; nonconformity, 71; Federalist support for, 104; adolescents choosing from personal

428

Index

conformity (continued) desirability rather than, 185; schools emphasize, 199, 200–201; mainstream culture begins to exert pressure for, 246; internal wish to conform, 252; image of natural, 288; liberal citizen’s capacity for voluntary, 295; habit as producing conformable conduct that felt unconstrained, 306; inexorable demands of, 329; organi zation al self accepts, 345; progressive response to pressures of, 350 consent: America as first consensual nation, 1; as fundamental political question, 1, 3, 9–10; is it credible, 1– 8; consensual democracy, 2; questioning as basis of American system, 2– 4; creation of consenting citizenry, 6; hidden dynamic of childhood, 9–37; unconditioned, 11; liberalism as anchored in, 14–15; consensual agents, 20; voluntary, 20, 153–154; self-regulation and embrace of, 22; public schools as crucible for consenting citizenry, 31; commitments to the collective and, 33; as taken for granted, 34; Lockean view of establishment after American Revolution, 62– 63; Federalist view of, 102; willingness to, 153–154; socializing institutions as unspoken source of, 272; ordered, 310–311; in Dewey’s reconstruction of liberalism, 338, 339–342; crisis of, 345–348; cultural conservatives on, 351; in crisis of agency foundation, 352; sustainable modern society requires real, 353 Constitution: “We, the People,” 1; protecting popular government from unconstrained populace, 11; as inadequate foundation for citizen investment, 95–96 constraints: limits of adult, 15–18; external, 44, 78, 272, 283, 284; freedom and, 217–218; self- development as selfcontainment, 220–221; love as, 227; and apotheosis of free agency, 242–243; children’s free development without, 272, 283; disguising parental controls as, 284; from other children, 286; habit as producing conformable conduct that felt

unconstrained, 306; increasing, 326; wish to belong leads to ignoring, 336; consent seen as entailing acceptance of, 351 consumer activity, 347 Conwell, Russell, 253–254 Cooper, Samuel, 87 Coquette, The (Foster), 81 Coram, Robert, 99 corporal punishment, 278 Course of Popular Lectures (Wright), 109 Craft, Wilbur F., 253, 254 Crèvecoeur, Hector St. John de, 15–16, 41, 56, 95, 312 culture: and human development, 318–320; freedom as cultural influence for Dewey, 342–343; politics adopts rhetoric of, 345 culture war, 326 Darwinism, 248–249, 260, 262, 263 Declaration of Independence: on social contract based on consent, 1, 10; maintaining order versus expansive rhetoric of, 4, 12; Jefferson’s draft of, 41, 55, 85; “When in the course of human events,” 41; on freedom, 50; rhetorical shift away from developmental narrative, 55; “new beginning” rhetoric in, 56; “All men are created equal,” 138 Defoe, Daniel: Robinson Crusoe, 17, 48, 85, 87, 173, 218 Dell, Floyd, 255 democracy: consensual, 2; doubts over health of American, 2; rhetoric covers decline of agency, 35; populist attempts to establish in American Revolution, 59; Jeffersonian-Jacksonians on, 95; Jeffersonians on education and, 105, 106; Jacksonians on education and, 123; Jeffersonians on, 134, 135, 137; socialization for egalitarian, 135–136; Declaration of Independence provides principles of, 138; Federalists on true, 139; versus mounting pressures for adaptation, 291; Dewey on, 323, 343; agency society required institutional democratization, 325; progressive desire for institutional democratization, 350 Democracy and Education (Dewey), 339

Index

Democrats, on education, 196, 213. See also Jacksonians development: seen as inevitable, 7, 24, 34, 35, 55, 141, 191, 243, 260, 266, 272, 282–283, 287; without socialization, 34, 252–253, 272, 282; agency, 64, 191, 230–233, 267–270, 272, 313, 344; challenge of developmentalism, 84– 85; toward a science of agency, 230–233; impaired, 233, 287; agency science of child, 234; Hall’s child psychology on, 262–266; child study movement on, 266–267; Hall’s science of self- evolving agency, 267–270, 312, 313, 317; parents’ declining role in children’s, 273–275; parenting the natural child, 275–277; arrested, 276, 317, 332, 350; parents’ strategies for (non)intervention in, 283–286; culture and, 318–320; in organi zation al society, 344. See also self- development Dewey, John: new discourses for institutional socialization in, 32; responses to concerns about freedom and agency, 34; social behaviorism stemming from work of, 261; on moral nature of democracy, 323; nostalgia for work of, 324; shift from theological to liberal discourse by, 325, 338, 339; reconstruction of liberalism of, 337–339, 342–343; “My Pedagogic Creed,” 338; Democracy and Education, 339; restoring consent, 339–342; Freedom and Culture, 342; freedom as cultural influence for, 342–343; distracted by totalitarianism, 345; centrist liberals seek to restore consensus of, 351 Dewey, Orville, 197 discipline: conservative means for preserving, 3; coercive methods of, 15; in early American Republic, 15, 18; individual success compounds problems of, 19; establishing in the young, 27; and revolutionary critique of generational authority, 29; New England parents lack leverage to enforce, 43; Puritan theology on, 44; collapse of generational control, 45, 47; challenge of developmentalism for, 84; sectarians perceive lack of moral, 94; Federalists on, 103; sectarian, 108;

429

more nurturing attitude toward young and, 112–113; transitional Federalists on, 129; family, 132–133; with new parent-child bond, 167; sustained discipline as ultimate test of character, 181; school, 197, 198, 199; industrial, 198; urban school systems emphasize standardization and social, 241; play imposes natural, 285; organ i zation al society requires increased, 290; New Education movement on, 296; criticism of New Education movement on, 299; merging pleasurable activity with, 305; in internalization, 351. See also self- discipline dissenting Protestantism: norms and practices for new society, 6; in conditioning of liberal will, 12–14; as marketplace of doctrinal and institutional variants, 17–18; limits of, 27–28; liberal consensus recasts, 30; in cultural revolution in American colonies, 42– 43; dependence on generational order in, 43; Puritans, 44, 45, 47, 61, 85, 93; new forms of authority sought by, 48– 49; on personal agency virtue, 65; challenge of developmentalism for, 84; in common lineage of early parties, 102; Lincoln in synthesis of Whig, Jacksonian, and dissenting ideals, 120, 150; the new child and, 164, 190; educators employ assumptions of, 233–234; and Hall’s child psychology, 265; Hall influenced by, 317; and emerging society of extroverts, 337; Dewey on agency society and, 338 District School, The (Taylor), 197 Doane, George W., 211 Dreiser, Theodore: Sister Carrie, 248, 254, 292; on call to self-realization, 249; on wish to belong, 250; on self-made individual, 254–255; on personality, 333; on desire, 347 dress, appropriate, 336 Du Bois, W. E. B., 250 Duche, Jacob, 53 Duty of American Women to Their Country, The (Beecher), 226 Dwight, Theodore, 109–110, 122

430

Index

Eaton, John, 294 Eddy, A. D., 109, 111 Eddy, Daniel C., 111, 138, 192 education: new methods for “preparation for liberty,” 31; more rigorous schooling for industrialism, 32; and collapse of generational control, 46, 349; Emerson calls for, 91, 154; calls for development of institutions of, 98– 99; early socialization paradigms, 100–109; Federalist approach to, 102–104; Jeffersonian approach to, 104–106; Jacksonians on, 106, 123; sectarian approach to, 106–109; religious, 107, 132, 196; well-to- do receive the best, 134; of Lincoln, 150–151; Locke on, 159; for construction of character, 162–163; self-education, 170, 187, 188, 192, 220–221, 227, 282, 285, 303, 315; and diffusion of agency, 194–215; for freedom, 197–200; for an agency nation, 200–201; turn to, as primary site of citizen formation, 201–204; educators make case for, 204–207; for social transformation, 207–209; compulsory, 208–209; mobilizing national constituency for, 209–214; benefits of, 211, 212; educating agents as liberal citizens, 216–237; for freedom and constraint, 217–218; winning the child to (natural) self- development, 218–219; internalization of, 221–222; new pedagogic techniques, 223–225; educators as facilitators of new nation, 225–226; self- directing social agents as goal of, 227–230; sectarian controversy avoided in, 228–229; toward a science of agency development, 230–233; scientific approach to, 231–235, 328; assumptions of dissenting Protestantism in, 233–234; urban systems emphasize standardization and social discipline, 241; parents emphasize building practical knowledge base, 241–242; parents’ division of labor with educators, 272–273; begins at birth, 275; educating the voluntary citizen in an organi zation al age, 289–321; as national panacea, 294–296; New Education movement, 296–299, 314; the

turn to practice in, 300–302; of the will, 302–306; science and pedagogy of the will, 303–306; as empowering, 308–309; Hall on, 313–316; as instituting a higher nature, 323–324; consensus on adaptation in, 326–328; and influence, 333–334; pedagogy and personality, 333–336; universal, 334–335; Dewey on, 338–339, 341; in organi zation al society, 344; paradigm of adjustment in pedagogy, 344; and precocity of American youth, 350. See also public education; teachers Education in the Forming of American Society (Bailyn), 26 Education of Children (Hall), 110 Edwards, Jonathan, 42, 45 electoral participation, 2, 3 Eliot, Charles William, 302 Eliot, William G., 154, 187 elites: progressive concern about growing dominance of, 3; challenges to colonial, 13, 45; Locke’s socialization intended for, 22; appeal for return to political parentage during American Revolution, 59; Federalists and, 59, 94, 102, 114, 123; generational turmoil after American Revolution, 61; sectarian opposition to, 106; natural inequality versus selfinterested, 134; schools seen as imposing elitism, 198; in Dewey’s restoration of consent, 341; in organi zation al liberalism, 343; liberalism’s growing sympathy for, 352 Emerson, Ralph Waldo: on individuals excommunicating the church, 16; on youth becoming leaders, 66, 67; on frontier as place of youth, 70; on Young America movement, 86; on call for education of the people, 91, 154; on national integration, 246 English Revolution, 14, 18, 42, 93, 106 Enlightenment, 145, 146, 317 equality: of opportunity, 30, 139; Jeffersonians on, 106, 133, 134; Jacksonians on education and, 123; natural, 134; socialization for egalitarian democracy, 135–136; Declaration of Independence on “all men are created equal,” 138; market competition erodes claims to radical,

Index

138; agency reconciled with spread of, 156; of rights versus inequality of conditions, 190; blacks’ determination to take their place as equal citizens, 250; Roosevelt’s egalitarianism, 345 Erikson, Erik, 350 “Essay on the Education of Female Teachers, An” (Beecher), 226 Evans, Israel, 99 Evarts, William M., 148–149, 246 Everett, Edward, 91 evolution, 248–249, 260, 263, 264 experimental psychology, 260, 261, 265 extroverts, 336, 337, 346 faculty psychology, 303 family: modern constructions of, 8; affective, 22; increasing scholarly attention to, 25, 26; authority in, 27, 49, 168–169, 290; as hierarchical, 27, 29, 51; revolution’s impact on, 29; in creation of agents, 34–35; dependence on generational order in American colonies, 43– 45, 54–55; collapse of generational control in American colonies, 45– 47; more affective model of, 48, 113; American revolutionaries replace familial model of politics, 57, 63; postpatriarchal, 96; religious outreach to, 99–100; Federalists on government of, 103–104, 114; in sectarian approach to socialization, 106, 108–109; discipline within, 132–133; toward a child-centered, 153–173; industrialization and urbanization erode nuclear, 194; as limited as primary site of citizen formation, 203–204; versus school as director of child formation, 204–207, 334; education continues work begun by, 230; as invisible presence in child rearing, 272; reframed as free institution, 273; and narrative of reversal, 347. See also children; parents Father’s Book (Dwight), 109–110 fear, 187, 352 Federalists: as precursor agency tradition, 6; partisanship of, 30; and elitism, 59, 94, 102, 114, 123; party spirit opposed by, 91; in early political divisions, 93–94, 95; common lineage of early parties, 102; on

431

hierarchy, 102, 103, 124, 130, 136, 139; on socialization, 102–104, 122; on social mobility’s impact on hierarchies, 110; failure to shape republic in their image, 114, 119; in transition, 123–125; on socialization for a virtuous populace, 125–129; and convergence of agendas on socialization, 136; Federalist-to-Whig shift, 138–140; Bushnell on the republican child, 140–143 filial piety, 98, 114 Finney, Charles Grandison, 100, 130 First Great Awakening, 17, 42, 47 Fiske, John, 60 Fliegelman, Jay, 26, 41, 67 Forgie, George B., 27, 98 Foster, Hannah W.: The Coquette, 81 Founder fashion, 96 Fourth of July, 96 Franklin, Benjamin: self-reliance of, 16; independent youth of, 17; capitalizes on good appearance, 81; Autobiography, 85, 104–105, 173, 192; on developmentalism, 85; on education, 98, 104–105; humble beginnings of, 147; Lincoln compared with, 150; as example to youth, 162, 188; on self-made individuals, 192 free agency: becomes axiomatic, 23; and challenges to freedom narrative, 34, 35, 37; socialization required to bring about, 34; and generational antagonism, 35, 37; in cultural revolution in the colonies, 43; in socialization for egalitarian democracy, 136; socialization reformers enable liberalism to go beyond, 190; versus education for an agency nation, 200; temptation of free agent ideal, 235–236; apotheosis of, 242–245; making plausible despite socializing institutions, 244; normal child attains, 287; will at once natural and conditioned resolves contradictions of, 310; contemporary trials of, 324–326 freedom: ordered, 5, 20, 21, 133–134; free society of free individuals, 7, 9, 13, 20, 35, 36, 65, 248, 320; rhetoric versus reality of, 10; social regularity’s compatibility with, 11; conditional

432

Index

freedom (continued) individualism challenges notion of free society, 12; fragmenting implications of narrative of, 14; free and self- containing citizen of liberal theory, 14–15; difficulties with freedom narrative, 16; liberty of conscience, 17; children being prepared for, 21, 22; self-regulation promoted as, 21; fears of social fragmentation accentuated by rhetoric of, 29; challenge to narrative of, 33–36; American Revolution seen as establishing asylum of, 41; “contagion of liberty” in American Revolution, 49, 50; narrative in ascendance after American Revolution, 63, 64; reconciling social cohesion with, 102; Federalist conception of, 104; to be virtuous, 145; agency framework and, 157, 190; freely chosen obligation, 190–191; education for, 197–200; and constraint, 217–218; human energies multiplied by, 219; family reframed as free institution, 273; for natural child development, 276; play accustoms child to, 285; merging with right activity, 305; Hall on slowly widening margin of, 316; rendering the young compliant versus, 318; elision of agency and, 325; rhetoric intensifies to offset erosion of agency practices, 325; social integration seen as true, 335–336; as cultural influence for Dewey, 342–343; all-pervasiveness of rhetoric of, 343; seen as absence of coercion, 343; permissiveness reinforced by rhetoric of, 345; passive populace beneath rhetoric of, 346; progressives and conservatives challenge liberal, 351; versus nonconsensual organ i zation al compliance, 352. See also free agency Freedom and Culture (Dewey), 342 Freud, Sigmund, 57 Froebel, Friedrich, 263, 268, 297 Fromm, Erich, 346, 350 frontier, the, 17, 70, 76, 294 Fuller, Margaret, 71 functionalism, 338 Furstenberg, François, 370n19

Garland, Hamlin: The Rose of Dutcher’s Coolly, 248, 249, 250, 254; on youth leaving home, 255; on desire, 347 generations: antagonisms between, 35–36, 85– 88, 310, 324, 326, 346, 348–352; American Revolution seen liberating from generational dominance, 42; dependence on generational order in American colonies, 43– 45, 54–55; collapse of generational control in American colonies, 45– 47; hierarchies of, 46, 58, 86, 349; in discourse of American Revolution, 51–53, 58–59; specter of domestic upheaval after American Revolution, 60– 61; Lockean framework used to stem rebellion, 62; inversion of relations between, 71; literary turn against generational authority, 79– 80; incipient generational reversal, 170–173; upheavals at point of release from socialization, 185; accorded equal access of developmental maturation, 243; 1950s as golden age of harmony of, 349. See also children; parents Gentle Mea sures in the Management and Training of the Young (Abbott), 278–279 Gesell, Arnold, 263, 344 Getting On in the World (Mathews), 253 Gilded Age, 245, 246 Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 257, 258 globalism, 7– 8 Godfrey, John, 248 Goodman, E. L., 247 Goodrich, Elizur, 99 Goodrich, Samuel G., 120, 121, 154, 167, 174, 176, 204 Grant, Ulysses, 247 Gray, Francis, 232 Great Awakenings: First, 17, 42, 47; Second, 68, 99–100, 132 Greeley, Horace, 246 Greven, Philip, 26, 48 Griswold, Stanley, 57 habit: in new child-rearing strategies, 178–179; of self-control, 180; of industry, 182; in natural agency society, 191; and pressures for standardization, 299; law of, 304; of self-reliance, 304–305; as

Index

producing conformable conduct that felt unconstrained, 306; simply enhances initial voluntary conformance, 311; Hall on development of, 312; scientific understanding of how child grows into, 328, 329; common social, 330 Hall, G. Stanley: on self-maturing agency, 32; “It is as if God had come to consciousness in the human brain,” 241; in new naturalism, 244; James as teacher of, 261; in two paths to liberal psychology, 261, 262; on child psychology, 262–266; in child study movement, 266–267; criticisms of, 267–268; science of self-evolving agency development, 267–270; on education and republicanism, 289; on science and socialization, 312–314; on art of scientific intervention, 314–316; power of vision of, 316–317; on culture and human development, 318–320; tragic dimension of theoretical project of, 328; Dewey compared with, 338 Hall, John, 110 Hall, Samuel, 202, 216, 217 Halttunen, Karen, 293, 294 Hansot, Elisabeth, 198, 214 Harte, Bret, 255 Hartz, Louis, 119 Hawes, Joel, 112, 138 Hawthorne, Nathaniel: on populace as mob, 17; “Young Goodman Brown,” 73, 80, 89; world of, 74–75; The Scarlet Letter, 76, 81, 82, 88, 89; “My Kinsman, Major Molineux,” 80 Hegelianism, 260, 264, 281, 319, 347 Herbart, Johann, 263 Herrick, Robert, 254, 255 hierarchies: rising economic classes challenge traditional, 13; Hobbes on dissolution of traditional, 14; families as, 27, 29, 51; liberalism rejects, 27; in industrialism, 32; American society accommodates, 33; American colonists seek freedom from, 41, 45, 51; Edwards attempts to revitalize ecclesiastical, 42; generational, 46, 58, 86, 349; erosion of authority of domestic, 48– 49; American Revolution’s challenge to political, 60;

433

literary imagined return to, 80– 81, 83; Federalists on, 102, 103, 124, 130, 136, 139; social mobility’s impact on, 110, 114; cease to be able to be counted on, 112; Wise on persistence of, 144; schools seen as teaching, 198; the young become sustainers of socializing, 279; myth of dissipation of, 326; quest for private fulfillment outside of, 336; in Dewey’s restoration of consent, 341; liberalism’s growing sympathy for, 352 Higham, John, 245 high schools, 212 Hillard, George, 207 Hints on Child Training (Trumbull), 278, 280 Hobbes, Thomas: on reinforcing promises of compliance, 11, 18; on social contract, 14–15; on state of nature, 16, 27, 160; on narratives of origin, 24; on children requiring taming, 159; organi zation al liberalism returns to concepts of, 344; on logic of desire, 347; on fear’s results, 352 Hofstadter, Richard, 368n1 Hogan, David, 199 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 245 Hone, Philip, 67 Hopkins, Stephen, 53–54 Howe, Daniel Walker, 10–11, 93, 151 Howe, Julia Ward, 255 Howells, William Dean, 250, 251, 255 Hulbert, Ann, 26 Hume, David, 4–5 Humphrey, H. H., 119, 122, 126 hypothetical voluntarism, 4 idealism, collapse of, 353 immigrants, 203, 215, 247, 250, 251, 294 incentives, 23 individualism: America’s unprecedented, 2; rhetoric of leads to misunderstanding about liberal society, 4; free society of free individuals, 7, 9, 13, 20, 35, 36, 65, 248, 320; sovereign role for individual choice in American liberalism, 11; conditional, 11–12; self-regulation in liberal society, 15; social disorder associated with, 15, 16–17, 27, 29, 89–90; dynamic of self-realization merged with expectations of liberal, 23; education in

434

Index

individualism (continued) shaping of, 26; liberal, 27, 160, 174, 184, 290; as unachievable without conditioned development of the young, 34; rhetoric covers decline of agency, 35; postindustrial shifts alter conditions for, 37; in American colonies, 45; popu lar emergence of, 48; economic, 68; hyperindividualism, 85, 244; early political factions’ concern with, 101; Jeffersonians and, 102, 104, 135–136, 140–141, 145; socialization affected by, 109; Federalists on, 123, 125; emerging agency mainstream on, 154, 156; Locke on child rearing as basis of modern, 161; moves beyond Locke, 163; parents unprepared to foster, 165–166; in new strategies for child rearing, 176; and balance in agency character, 218; groundwork for polity rooted in becomes discernible, 230; temptation of free agent ideal, 235–236; transformation of social foundations of, 241–242; mainstream culture begins to exert pressure on, 246; Hall on, 270, 271; forms incompatible with agency, 282; self- authorizing, 282; organ i zation al society and discourse of, 290; versus mounting pressures for adaptation, 292–293; seen as compatible with new American order, 295; standardized education and, 299–300; preoccupation with order seen as foreclosing, 306; Hall on specialization as undermining, 314; seen as independence from institutions and socialization, 325; psychology undercuts importance of, 330; and advent of personality, 331–333; corporate and organ i zation al liberals reject, 338; logic of desire as threat to, 347 industrial education, 299 industrialism: socialization affected by, 32; Jeffersonian-Jacksonian response to, 110; family influence eroded by, 194; free society narrative challenged by, 198; Anderson on social impact of, 289; standardized education for, 300; Hall’s concern about, 314

influence: external, 141, 243, 304, 336, 342; triumph of, 306–308; revaluation of importance of, 330–331; versus personality, 332; education affected by, 333–334; and agency, 336–337; and Dewey’s restoration of consent, 340; freedom as cultural influence for Dewey, 342–343; beyond, 352–353 Inglis, Martha Ogden: “Our Baby, and How We Undid Her,” 273 Ingraham, J. H., 255 internalization: of self-regulation, 21; of collective norms, 28; of liberal character, 31; of obedience, 44, 174; of controls, 128; of common values, 160; of external social obligations, 163; socializers promote, 165–166; new parent-child bond required for, 166; with reciprocity between parents and children, 169–170; of judgment, 179–180; of common purpose, 181; adolescence as ultimate test of, 184; of agency character, 187; of education, 221–222; of agency, 284; of child’s ideal, 286; of values, 287; of restraints that appear to be selflegislated, 310; Hall on development and, 317; of socialization, 327; use of pressure and discipline in, 351 Irving, Washington: “Rip Van Winkle,” 60– 61 Israel Potter (Melville), 72, 80 Jackson, Emily Chubbuck, 255 Jacksonians: on education, 106, 123; failure to shape republic in their image, 114–115; Lincoln in synthesis of Whig, Jacksonian, and dissenting ideals, 120, 150. See also Jeffersonian-Jacksonians James, Henry, 74, 246, 248, 255, 264 James, William, 245, 247, 261–262, 326, 328 Jefferson, Thomas: on American Republic arising from state of nature, 10; and conditioning of consenting liberal will, 12, 14; defenders of order concerned about, 16; skepticism about call to freedom of, 27; draft of Declaration of Independence, 41, 55, 85; “When in the course of human events,” 41; British conception of imperial relationship

Index

rejected by, 54; “Summary View,” 54; Common Sense lays groundwork for, 55; on twin dangers of political extremes, 92; “Founder fashion,” 96; on child rearing, 98; multifaceted legacy of, 145; Austin on, 145–146; Lincoln and, 151; and idea of will at once natural and conditioned, 310; Dewey on renewing abiding faith in democracy of, 343 Jeffersonian-Jacksonians: as precursor agency tradition, 6; in early political divisions, 93, 95; on individualism, 101; lose struggle for minimal institutions, 145 Jeffersonians: partisanship of, 30; on Federalists as elitists, 59, 91; distrust of institutions, 65; party spirit opposed by, 91; in early political divisions, 93, 94; common lineage of early parties, 102; and individualism, 102, 104, 135–136, 140–141, 145; on socialization, 104–106; on public education, 105–106, 135–136; failure to shape republic in their image, 114–115, 119; in transition, 133–134; and convergence of agendas on socialization, 137; accommodation with institutional society of, 145–148; defeat of agrarianism of, 245. See also Jeffersonian-Jacksonians Journal of Education, 305 Judd, Sylvester, 154 Kaestle, Carl, 236 Kasson, John, 293 Keniston, Kenneth, 26 Kerber, Linda, 101 Kett, Joseph, 71, 85– 86 kindergartens, 296–297 Kohlberg, Lawrence, 319, 350 Labaree, Benjamin, 197 Langdon, Samuel, 99 Lasch, Christopher, 350, 402n3 Laski, Harold, 9, 10 Lawrence, D. H., 86 Lawyer, or Man as He Ought Not to Be, The (Watterston), 73, 81, 82 “Learn to Do by Doing” motto, 298 Lectures Delivered before the American Institute of Instruction (Phillips), 197

435

Lectures on School-Keeping (Hall), 216 Lee, Charles, 98–99 Leggett, William, 110, 134, 197 Leonard, Daniel, 49–50 Lewes, Daniel, 47 Lewis, Jan, 48 liberal citizenship: choices seen as rational, 5; socializing youth to see as self-created and self-directed, 7; tension between voluntarism and compliance in, 20; coercive dimension of formation of, 22; erasure of formation of, 23; new discourses in, 31, 32; socialization campaigns produce, 36; Federalist-Whigs on, 142; toward a natural agency society, 191; seen as voluntary, 193, 295; dissemination of formula for, 195; educating agent as liberal citizen, 216–237; conservatives on selfcontainment necessary for, 351 liberalism: on consent as fundamental political question, 3, 9–10; coercion used by liberal regimes, 4, 15, 22; hypothetical voluntarism in, 4; rhetoric of individualism leads to misunderstanding about liberal society, 4; autonomy of liberal will, 5; liberal socialization, 5, 8, 31, 35, 36, 174, 185, 231, 252, 337, 339, 342, 347; rationality of choices of liberal citizen, 5; breakdown of consensus over liberal citizen formation, 7; on character, 7, 318; process of citizenship formation becomes seen as inevitable in, 7; myth of unconditioned will, 10–12; sovereign role for individual choice in American, 11; dissenting Protestantism in conditioning of liberal will, 12–14; origins of, 14; as anchored in consent, 14–15; free and self-containing citizen of liberal theory, 14–15; limit of adult constraints as challenge for, 15–18; supplementing adult compliance required for, 18–19; shaping the modern citizen from birth, 18–20; child rearing removed from historical process, 24–25; liberal individualism, 27, 160, 174, 184, 290; and American turn to socialization, 27–29; emerging consensus of, 30; responses to concerns about freedom and agency, 34;

436

Index

liberalism (continued) central conundrum of liberal society, 36; American revolutionaries adopt Lockean, 56–57, 60; contested triumph of Lockean story, 61– 63; challenge of developmentalism for, 84– 85; in American civil religion, 120, 242; common origin of civil religion and American, 152; the new child as historical step in, 164; free agency framework for society in, 190; educating agents as liberal citizens, 216–237; character formation recast as secular liberal self- development, 235; consolidation of norms and social processes of, 242; two paths of liberal psychology, 260–262; drive to consolidate liberal society, 295–296; realizing agency character and society does not resolve threats to, 324; and contemporary trials of the free agent, 324–326; Sparta taken as model for, 329; revaluation of importance of influences, 330–331; advent of personality, 331–333; Dewey’s reconstruction of, 337–339, 342–343, 346; warning signs of organi zation al, 343–345; crisis of consent in, 345–348; discord of 1960s, 348–350; as jostle of interests, 352–353. See also liberal citizenship liberty. See freedom Liberty Boys, 58 Lienesch, Michael, 56 Life and Public Ser vice of John Quincy Adams (Austin), 145 Lincoln, Abraham: on Young America movement, 67; in American civil religion, 120, 149; as the American, 149–151; internal gyroscope of, 183; educational leaders employ vision of, 237; as model of self-made individual, 254; school in story of, 334 Lippard, George: The Monks of Monks Hall, 76 literature: of foreboding, 71–73; idyll unmasked in, 73–77; as world of projections and self-exposure, 77–79; turn against authority in, 79– 80; imagined return to authority in, 80– 83; juvenile fiction, 188; mythology of

self-creation in youth, 243–244; wish to belong in, 249–251; self-made individuals in, 253–255; self-making adolescents in, 255–256; on social expectations to get ahead, 292–293; school ignored in, 334; on overcoming generational limits, 350 Locke, John: on self-regulation, 15; on supplementing adult compliance, 18; on progression from natural freedom to contractual obedience, 19; Second Treatise on Government, 19, 54, 160–161; Some Thoughts Concerning Education, 19; class-based socialization of, 21; on danger of learning how freedom and consent arose, 24; on social contract, 55, 56, 60; American revolutionaries adopt liberalism of, 56–57, 60; contested triumph of Lockean story, 61– 63; problems with narrative of, 64; on constructing voluntarism in the child, 158–161; culture of individualism moves beyond, 163 London, Jack: Martin Eden, 250; on desire, 347 Love and Law in Child Training: A Book for Mothers (Poulsson), 257 Lovell, C. R., 123 Lowell, James Russell, 246 Lowi, Theodore, 4 Madison, James, 11, 92–93 Magie, David, 157, 192 Malleson, Mrs. Frank, 257 Mann, Horace: on making a republic of facts, 194; in common school movement, 195, 197; on education producing thinking citizens, 197; on free schools and American Revolution, 204; on parental opposition to public education, 206; on education for social transformation, 208; mobilizing national constituency for public education, 209, 211–212; as “fluid sort of man,” 210; on making republicans, 216; on precedents, 216; on methods of external imposition, 222; on love in teacher-student relation, 227; on nation’s millennial aspirations, 230–231; on natural laws of development of the faculties, 233; on temptation of free agent ideal, 236

Index

Marcuse, Herbert, 350 Marden, Orison Swett, 253, 333 market society, 35, 68, 69, 138, 139, 291 Martin Eden (London), 250 mass society, 324, 343, 345 Masters, Edgar Lee, 255 master-slave dialectic, 281 Maternal Solicitude (Watkins), 113 Mather, Cotton, 44, 45 Mather, Moses, 53 Mathews, William, 253, 254, 293, 307 maturation: dissenting Protestantism on achievement of, 1; immaculate, 11; winning the child’s will in, 22; Locke on forgetting of process of, 24; seen as independent of child-rearing impositions, 31; Hall on self-maturing agency, 32; developmental difficulties set to rest by predictable and accessible markers of, 37; colonial insurgents express selfconfident sense of, 53; Paine on colonial maturity, 54; challenge of developmentalism for, 84, 85; authority diminishes with progressive, 86; generational differences in, 87, 88; reinforcing personal efforts at, 127; new institutional principles make framing easier, 139; of the new child, 163, 164; agency, 164, 243, 271; new child-rearing strategies for, 178; toward a science of agency development, 232, 233; temptation of free agent ideal, 235; and apotheosis of the free agent, 243, 244; new science of, 243; natural development and scientific inquiry into, 260; child study movement on, 267; of natural child, 276; will at once natural and conditioned in, 310; agency nature required internal, 318; agency character seen as naturally emerging in, 326; and emerging society of extroverts, 337; as smooth acquisition of adaptational skills, 337; in organi zation al society, 344, 345 May, Henry F., 248, 291 Mayhew, Jonathan, 54, 60 Mead, Margaret, 349 Mead, Sidney, 148 Melville, Herman: fear of frontier and urban disorder in, 17; on the young as rascals, 66; Israel Potter, 72, 80; on

437

Western spirit as American, 72; Redburn, 73, 82; on “brother stranger,” 74; Billy Budd, 75, 76, 82, 170; The Confidence Man, 75–76, 81, 89; Moby-Dick, 77, 78, 79, 80, 82– 83, 88– 89 Memoirs of an American Citizen, The (Herrick), 254 Memoirs of the Notorious Stephen Burroughs (Brown), 81, 82 Memorial Day, 148 Meyer, Arnold, 291 Miller, Perry, 17 Mills, C. Wright, 346 Milton, John, 347 “Mind Training,” 327 Minister’s Charge, The (Howells), 251 Mintz, Stephen, 26 mobility, of youth, 68. See also social mobility Moby-Dick (Melville), 77, 78, 79, 80, 82– 83, 88– 89 Modern Chivalry (Brackenridge), 80 money making, 182 Monks of Monks Hall, The (Lippard), 76 moral sense, 84, 145, 256, 277, 301, 328–329 Morrison, Toni, 74, 87 mother’s love, 168, 175 Munroe, Kirk, 255 Munsey, Frank, 255 Münsterberg, Hugo, 326 Muzzey, A. B., 154, 167, 187, 204, 206, 384n38 “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” (Hawthorne), 80 “My Pedagogic Creed” (Dewey), 338 Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, The (Poe), 75 narrative of reversal, 347 Nash, Gary, 59 national formation: institutional mechanisms of, 5; absence of systematic coordination in, 11; systems of social control in, 12; new story of American, 29–32; relation among generations and, 42; collective discourse abandoned regarding, 65; broader framework guiding, 68; political divisions regarding,

438

Index

national formation (continued) 93; shifting to creation of agents, 173; preliberal values in, 199; educators’ role in, 216; contestation of official narrative of, 326; bifurcation of narrative of, 343; generational dynamic marginalized by, 350 national integration: sectarians resist, 130; drive toward, 245–251 nationalism, religion for Christian, 131–133 Nation of Agents, A (Block), 1, 6, 12, 18, 131, 346–347 nativism, 203 natural rights, 57 networks, social. See social networks Newcomb, Harvey, 154, 220 New Education movement, 296–299, 314 Niebuhr, Reinhold, 145 nonconformity, 71 normal child, 286–287, 330 North American Review, 197 Notes on the Early Training of Children (Malleson), 257 Nursery Ethics (Winterburn), 257 obedience: to government, 9; rising English economic classes refuse to tender deferential, 13; self-regulation and, 15; Hobbes on voluntary, 18; progression from natural freedom to contractual, 19; gaining child’s willing, 20–21, 128, 129, 174; in education, 31, 197, 198, 205, 227; dissenting Protestantism on, 44, 64; search for new models of authority, 48; in family model of imperial relationship, 51, 53; colonists become disobedient, 58; in liberal political rhetoric, 62– 63; youth challenge institutions’ right to demand, 71; in liberal developmental narrative, 85; in reimagining of citizenship, 101; in Federalist approach to socialization, 102, 103; sectarian, 108; to parents, 113, 125, 161; establishing persevering, 133; to national mission, 156; transformed into project of structuring one’s social identity, 163; developing child’s love of, 278; avoiding mandating overt, 282, 404n33; to child’s demand, 284; in normal child,

286; standardized education and mechanical, 299; active, 308 object-teaching, 297 obligation: freely chosen, 190–191; schools teach, 197; as agency value, 290 Oliver, Peter, 58 “On the Appropriateness of Studies to the State of Mental Development” (Rodman), 233 organi zation al society: structured socialization required by, 32; notion of self-made citizenry and, 33; new challenges of organi zation al age, 37; educators respond to, 289–291; influence in preparing children for, 308; realizing agency character and society does not resolve threats to liberalism from, 324; language of freedom used to obscure dangers presented by, 325; Dewey on education for, 339; warning signs of organi zation al liberalism, 343–345; socializing institutions join in organi zation al adaptation, 352 Organization Man (Whyte), 346 original sin, 141, 162 “Our Baby, and How We Undid Her” (Inglis), 273 Owen, William D., 253 Packard, Frederick A., 210 Paine, Thomas: Common Sense, 16, 50, 54–55; on empowering capacities of individual judgment, 16; on beginning world over again, 41, 56; on colonists’ understanding causing Revolution, 50; on filial understanding of imperial relationship, 54–55; national and personal independence correlated by, 60; developmental framework of, 85; on embracing youthfulness, 173 parental authority: Puritan theology on, 44; collapse of generational control, 46– 47; Britain claims over American colonies, 51; Federalists on, 104; erosion of, 112–114; shift to socialized virtue from traditional, 126; socialization for Christian nationalism and, 132–133; project of internalization and, 165–166; new parent-child bond and, 166–167;

Index

eclipse of the family and, 273, 274; in parenting the natural child, 275; affective bond for replacing, 278–279; shift in generational relations and, 280–282; gradual weakening for, 288; educators take over socializing role from, 290 parents: as enablers of self- development, 31; dependence on generational order in American colonies, 43– 45, 54–55; will of, 44; collapse of generational control in American colonies, 45– 47; new conception of parental duty, 46; in more affective model of family, 48; Britain sees itself as indulgent parent, 51–53; in American revolutionary rhetoric, 58–59; in sectarian approach to socialization, 108–109; and changes child-rearing requirements, 112; obedience to, 113, 125, 161; manuals for, 127; in FederalistWhig socialization, 143; toward a child-centered family, 153; in preparing children for release, 161–163; new parent-child bond, 166–167; reciprocity between children and, 167–170; incipient generational reversal, 170–173; new strategies for child rearing, 175–179; socialization outreach campaign directed at, 189–190; versus schools as directors of child formation, 204–207; mobilizing to support public education, 210; educators scrutinized by, 218; division of labor with educators, 272–273; declining role in child rearing of, 273–275; parenting the natural child, 275–277; look to the young for guidance in child rearing, 278–280; disguising intervention by, 282–283, 288; strategies for (non)intervention in development for, 283–286; cede educational role to educators, 301; in Hall’s scientific approach to socialization, 315; youth as repository of dreams of, 335. See also parental authority Parker, Francis, 266, 297 Parker, Theodore, 71 Parrington, V. L., 245 partisanship: concerns about, 30; opposition to party spirit, 91; partisan subcultures of early republic, 96; common lineage of early parties, 102;

439

Lincoln in synthesis of Whig, Jacksonian, and dissenting ideals, 120; convergence of agendas on socialization, 136–137; beyond factions regarding education, 195–196, 213–214; educators on effects of, 202. See also Federalists; Jacksonians; Jeffersonian-Jacksonians; Jeffersonians; Whigs paternalism: challenge of revolutionary generation to, 29; collapse of generational control, 45; early republican literature bolsters, 88; of Federalists, 103 Path of Life, The (Wise), 143 patriarchy: American Revolution as against, 50–53, 67; decline after American Revolution, 61; postpatriarchal family, 96; breaking of patriarchal circle, 127 perfectibility, 248, 329, 345 permissiveness, 316, 334, 345, 349, 350, 353 personality: advent of, 331–333; pedagogy and, 333–336; Dewey on, 342; equal access to, 348 Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich, 263, 297 Phillips, S. C., 197 Pickering, Thomas, 113 Plan for the Establishment of Public Schools and the Diffusion of Knowledge in Pennsylvania (Rush), 100 play, 224, 268, 269, 277, 284–285 “Plea for Individuality, A (Comstock), 302 Poe, Edgar Allan: fear of frontier and urban disorder in, 17; The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, 75 politics: electoral participation, 2, 3; early divisions and republican dissensus, 92–95; concern about political pandering, 101; political socialization, 196; schools take middle course regarding, 229; insulating child shaping from, 235; adopts rhetoric of culture, 345. See also partisanship Potter, Alonzo, 202 Poulsson, Emilie, 257, 272 power: education in development of, 308–309; free will as empowered will, 310–312; Hall on empowered agents, 312; pervasive feelings of personal disempowerment, 346

440

Index

Power of Sympathy, The (Brown), 72, 76, 81 pragmatism, 313 Price, Richard, 56 private schools, 195, 205, 212 Prodigals and Pilgrims (Fliegelman), 26 Progressive era, 247 Protestantism: Calvinism, 99, 103, 108, 127; in American civil religion, 120, 242; as national culture religion, 196; public education reflects moral agenda of, 214. See also dissenting Protestantism; revivalism; sectarians Protestant Temperament, The (Greven), 26 psychology: child, 243, 253, 262–266; experimental, 260, 261, 265; two paths of liberal, 260–262; educators in age of organi zation al society draw on, 290; faculty, 303; teachers required to know, 305; and enculturation, 319; consensus on adaptation in, 326–327; physiological basis of mental activity provided by, 328–329; on influences, 330; on personality, 332 public education: common school movement, 31, 195, 197, 209, 214, 225; Jefferson calls for, 98; Jeffersonians call for, 105–106, 135–136; antebellum rise of, 195–196; for freedom, 197–200; educators make case for, 204–207; mobilizing national constituency for, 209–214; opponents of, 214–215; science of agency as foundation of, 234; pressure for standardization in, 299–300 punishment: and erosion of parental authority, 112–113; corporal, 278; natural, 284 Puritans, 44, 45, 47, 61, 85, 93 Pushing to the Front (Marden), 253 Ramsay, David, 56, 98 rebellion (youthful): American Revolution compared with, 58, 62; in specter of uncontainable youth, 70, 72; in literature, 72, 80, 89; of Franklin, 87; in specter of generational conflict, 87; paternalistic submission as provocation to, 108; and transition to agency individuality, 142; seen as result of injudicious management, 287

reciprocity, 167–170 Reconstruction, 245 Redburn (Melville), 73, 82 Reese, William, 198–199 relativism, 262 religion: social bond drawn away from, 19, 20; religious virtue, 30, 93; concern about religious rifts, 91; outreach to families in, 99–100; Sunday schools, 100, 108, 195; religious education, 107, 132, 196; socialization for Christian nationalism, 131–133; Wise on temporal advantages of, 144; recalibrated as practical morality, 181; limits as primary site of citizen formation, 202; the Bible, 229, 246, 273; education assumes mantle of forger of common ideals from, 230; self-made adolescents and, 257. See also American civil religion; Protestantism; religious populists religious populists: on socialization, 122–123; in transition, 129–131; Jeffersonians on accommodating, 133–134, 146–147; and convergence of agendas on socialization, 136–137; direct their aspirations to nation as a whole, 143–145 repetition, 178 republicanism: republican citizens, 31, 58, 79, 80, 97, 115, 173, 191; early search for republican attachment, 95–97; socialization and realities of, 109–111; agency republic, 120, 157, 242; transition to socializing republic, 121–123; Christian, 130–131; Bushnell on the republican child, 140–143; Austin’s The Source and Perpetuity of Republicanism, 146; bringing agency perspective to, 156; character as inward foundation of the republic, 157–158; the new republican child, 163–165; Hall on education and, 289 Republicans, 246 revivalism: development becomes rite of passage in, 84; outreach to youth in, 99; and pursuit of wealth, 110; failure of revivalists to shape republic in their image, 114; quest to be holy people in, 130; drift from religion between revivals, 131; indwelling spirit in, 145; socializa-

Index

tion movement based on, 187; common school movement follows model of, 209; Civil War as extension of, 247; anxious seat in, 301; freely conditioned will as goal of, 303; preachers’ influence, 307; Hall calls on spirit of, 313–314. See also Great Awakenings Revolution, American. See American Revolution Rieff, Philip, 350 Riesman, David, 33, 183, 346 Riis, Jacob, 250 “Rip Van Winkle” (Irving), 60– 61 Rise of American Democracy, The (Wilentz), 93 Rise of David Levinsky, The (Cahan), 250, 251, 292 Robinson Crusoe (Defoe), 17, 48, 85, 87, 173, 218 Rodgers, Daniel, 343 Rodman, Thomas P., 233 Rose of Dutcher’s Coolly, The (Garland), 248, 249, 250, 254 Rothman, David J., 88 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 263, 268, 317 routinization, 36, 273, 303, 308–309, 311, 326, 330 Rush, Benjamin, 96, 100 Russell, William, 208 Scarlet Letter, The (Hawthorne), 76, 81, 82, 88, 89 Schneider, A. Gregory, 123 Schultz, Stanley, 198 Schurz, Carl, 250 science: toward a science of agency development, 230–233; of education, 231–235, 328; proto-science of agency, 233–235; of maturation, 243; political agendas in shaping of, 260; Hall’s science of self-evolving agency development, 267–270; and pedagogy of the will, 303–306; Hall on socialization and, 312–314; Hall on art of scientific intervention, 314–316; scientific child-study, 327; scientific mea surement of the mind, 328; paradigm of adjustment in, 344. See also social sciences Second Great Awakening, 68, 99–100, 132

441

Second Treatise on Government (Locke), 19, 54, 160–161 sectarianism, 17, 228–229 sectarians: in early political divisions, 93, 94; outreach to youth by, 99; on socialization, 106–109; on pursuit of wealth, 110; failure to shape republic in their image, 114, 119; direct their aspirations to nation as a whole, 143–145; on public education, 214 Sedgwick, Catharine, 167, 180, 205 self-advertising, 330–331 self-containment, 14–15, 22, 220–221, 236 self-control: Federalists on, 128; in socialization for Christian nationalism, 131, 180; in system of internal regulation, 170; and affirming self-development, 180; habitual, 180; parents admonished to develop, 189; and self- development as self-containment, 220; internalization of education for, 221; new pedagogic techniques for promoting, 224–225; avoiding unreasonable expectations for early, 285 self-creation: socialization for producing, 7, 271; in conundrum of self- development, 23; and individuals defined as agents from birth, 34; early formulations of, 192; ethos of, 243–244; culture of, 251–253; in literature, 254; in adolescence, 255, 256; in the natural child, 277; parents’ support for, 281; and child willing his own compliance, 283; play as rehearsal for, 285; wish for idyll of, 286; increasing rhetoric of, 288; challenge of rigorous training compounded by culture of, 290; versus mounting pressures for adaptation, 292; standardized education and, 300; teachers’ authority and preparing the young to believe in their, 306; paradox of, 310; agency and, 310–312; Hall on, 315, 318; assuming obscures emphasis on standardized outcomes, 325, 349; marketing narrative of, 335; in organi zation al society, 345; narrative of reversal and, 347 self- determination: in dissenting Protestantism, 1; in organi zation al behavior, 9; education for inculcating belief in, 20;

442

Index

self- determination (continued) versus adaptiveness, 21; and shift of responsibility to youth, 187; in natural agency child, 259; and self-authorizing individualism, 282; freely conditioned will and, 303; and power, 308, 309 self- development: conundrum of, 23; parents and teachers as enablers of student, 31; affirming, 179–181; winning the child to (natural), 218–219; as self-containment, 220–221; character formation recast as secular liberal, 235; as educators’ stated objective, 272; framing intervention as support for, 284; will at once natural and conditioned in, 310; and scientific understanding of what the child ought to do, 328 self- direction: socialization for producing, 7; agency ideals and, 13; conundrums of self- development, 23; Franklin’s Autobiography on, 104; in ideal of the voluntary child, 160; new child-rearing strategies for, 176; in rhetoric of socializers, 186; path from being guided by others to, 188; promoting in students, 217; winning the child to (natural) self- development, 218, 219; internalizing education, 221; new pedagogic techniques for promoting, 224; the selfdirecting social agent, 227–230; in culture of self-creation, 252; play accustoms child to, 285; freely conditioned will and, 303, 304, 305; narrowing of opportunities for, 306; power and, 308; scientific understanding of what the child ought to do and, 328; society of extroverts and, 336; struggles against barriers to, 346 self- discipline: in sectarians, 94; Federalists on parents and, 125; in system of internal regulation, 170; self- development as self-containment, 220, 221; will at once natural and conditioned in understanding, 310 self- discovery, 341, 346 self-empowerment, 309 self-government: winning child’s will for, 22, 174; development and capacity for, 84, 85; Jeffersonians on, 104, 105, 106,

147; Federalists on, 127, 142; sectarians on, 145; emerging agency mainstream on, 156; Locke on self-governing voluntarism, 159; education for, 170, 207, 217; in system of internal regulation, 170; affirming self- development, 181; release from socialization into society, 186; self- development as self-containment, 220; in the natural child, 277; in Hall’s view of development, 319 self-improvement, 170, 198, 227, 234, 227, 234 self-interest: agency ideals versus, 13; narrative in ascendance after American Revolution, 63– 64; natural inequality versus self-interested elites, 134; virtue seen as pursuit of, 139; Federalist-Whigs on riddle of, 142; identifying with expectations of others, 175; seeking moral capacity to rise above, 353 self-made individuals: emergence as outgrowth of liberal socialization, 31; and organi zation al society, 33; and the new child, 164; as demonstrating responsible independent agency, 192; and the erasure of socialization, 241–271; in culture of self-creation, 251–253; in literature, 253–255; adolescents, 255–257; persuading the young that they were, 271; education’s value mea sured by production of, 300; education contrasted with, 310 self-realization: expectations of liberal individualism merged with dynamic of, 23; in the new child, 163; schools and achievement of, 219, 220; temptation of free agent ideal, 236; in literature, 249; in Hall’s adolescent stages of development, 269; theories of continual development and, 271; shaping the self-realizing child, 272–288; in Hall’s scientific approach to socialization, 316; institutional discourses perpetuate rhetoric of, 326; Dewey’s restoration of consent and, 341; seeking greater levels in 1960s, 348 self-regulation: in liberalism, 15; winning child’s will for, 21, 22; discouraging questioning of, 23; incentives for increasing, 23; adolescents assume

Index

responsibility for, 30; in Federalist approach to socialization, 103; in Jeffersonian proprietary individualism, 104; growing capacity to direct one’s own life, 181; and self- development as self-containment, 220–221; new pedagogic techniques for promoting, 224; Hall on, 265, 316 self-reliance: dissenting Protestantism on achievement of, 1; in liberalism, 15, 20; popular rhetoric promotes, 16; early submission as inconsistent with, 21; authority and children’s incapacity for, 27; in pursuit of social integration, 29; transitional period for assuming responsibility for, 30; extending lessons of disciplined, 31; willingly pursued, 32; New England churches grapple with, 43; early exercise in American colonies, 46; becomes goal of child rearing, 48; in developmental narrative, 84, 85; in reimagining of citizenship, 101; in sectarian approach to socialization, 109; punitive methods ineffective at generating, 112; parenting manuals promote, 127; internalized controls required for, 128; emerging agency mainstream on, 154; Locke on reconciling with common ends, 159; in England and America contrasted, 161; character formation requires more than rhetoric of, 163; children more advanced than parents in, 170; in system of internal regulation, 170; in new strategies for child rearing, 177; as cornerstone of character, 180; schools promote, 198, 199, 200, 215, 217, 218–219; in law of endless growth, 234; Barnum on, 253; as creation of constant external expectations, 288; versus organi zation al integration, 289; educators’ discourse affirms, 290; habit of, 304–305; retaining sense of acting, 306; will at once natural and conditioned in understanding, 310; self-reliantly reproducing appropriate conduct, 311 Self-Reliance in the Nursery (Babcock), 276–277 Sennett, Richard, 350 Seward, William H., 145

443

Shaw, Peter, 58 Sheppard Lee (Bird), 75, 89 Sigourney, Lydia: on truest kindness, 153; in emerging agency mainstream, 154; on mothers in project of internalization, 165; on mother-child bond, 167; on mother’s love, 168; on parents remaking themselves, 172; on access to family advice books, 204; on home as the best school, 204–205 Sister Carrie (Dreiser), 248, 254, 292 Skeeters Kirby (Masters), 255 slavery, 97 Small, Albion, 291 Smalley, John, 61 Smith, Elizabeth, 255 Smith, J. W., 255 Smith, Nora Archibald, 257 Smith, Samuel Harrison, 99 social cohesion: child rearing insulated from social concern with, 25; Americans claim exceptional degree of consensus, 35; earlier child-rearing patterns and, 37; religion as basis of, 43; agency virtue as key to agency, 65; early search for principle for, 95; reconciling freedom with, 102; Federalists on individualism undermining, 123; freely chosen obligation in, 190; education for, 207; wish to belong, 250 social contract: Declaration of Independence on, 1; as origin of consent, 3, 10–11; colonial and early republican experience as test of, 14; Hobbes on, 14; adult contractual obligation, 18, 19; tenuousness of adults’ commitment, 18; supplementing adult compliance required for liberalism, 18–19; Locke on, 55, 56, 60; in revolutionary parable of origins, 56; and reconstituted authority after American Revolution, 62 social integration: American commitment to, 14; freedom and impulsion toward, 20; winning will of the child for, 21, 29, 174, 183, 184, 186; willing and selfreliant pursuit of, 29; postindustrial shifts lead to new forms for, 37; and challenge of developmentalism, 84; sectarians on, 143; Jeffersonians on, 148;

444

Index

social integration (continued) in liberal individualism, 160; limits on immigrant, 215; new pedagogic techniques for, 225; temptation of free agent ideal, 235; and apotheosis of free agency, 243; drive toward national integration, 245–251; in Hall’s adolescent stages of development, 269; parental strategies for (non)intervention in, 285; mounting pressures for adaptation, 291–294; in Hall’s scientific approach to socialization, 316; seen as true freedom, 335–336; and emerging society of extroverts, 337; and Dewey’s restoration of consent, 340, 342; Dewey on liberal self as amenable to, 343; journey from release to, 346–347; and crisis of consent, 347; conservatives on fear of disorder as basis for imposing, 351 social intercourse, 182–183 socialization, 5–7; Hume on cultivation of compliance in young, 4–5; liberal, 5, 8, 31, 35, 36, 174, 185, 231, 252, 337, 339, 342, 347; mainstream model of child rearing, 6– 8; shaping the modern citizen from birth, 18–20; winning the child’s will, 20–22, 174–193; conundrum of self- development, 23; child rearing removed from historical process, 24–25, 32, 34; increasing scholarly attention to, 25–27; American turn to, 27–29; new model from 1820s, 30; agency, 31, 119–152, 244, 251, 301, 350; erasure of, 32, 241–271, 344–345; new discourses for institutional, 32; versus children as agents from birth, 34; development without, 34, 252–253, 272, 282; social disorgani zation attributed to failure of, 35; for absorbing and dampening generational tension, 36; for providing social cohesion, 37; in colonial America, 43, 44; initial turn to, 91–115; turn to, 97–100; early paradigms for, 100–109; Federalist approach to, 102–104; Jeffersonian approach to, 104–106; sectarian approach to, 106–109; republican realities and, 109–111; search for national model of, 114–115, 119–121; transition to socializing republic,

121–123; for a virtuous populace, 125–129; for Christian nationalism, 131–133; for egalitarian democracy, 135–136; convergence of agendas on, 136–137; in Federalist-to-Whig shift, 138–140; Bushnell on the republican child, 140–143; Wise on, 145; toward a child-centered family, 153–173; emerging agency mainstream on, 154–157; as preparation for release, 161–163; release into society from, 184–186; popular education and diffusion of agency, 194–215; political, 196; scientific approach to, 231; split between ideals and practice after Civil War, 241–242; the “self-made” citizen and the erasure of, 241–271; natural agency childhood versus, 257, 260; shaping the selfrealizing child, 272–288; parents look to the young for guidance in child-rearing, 278–280; normal child as goal of, 286–287, 330; as restating the opposite, 287; organi zation al society and push for more rigorous, 290; experience of self-willing arises from, 304; Hall on science and, 312–314; Hall on art of scientific intervention in, 314–316; Hall on formative role of, 317; fi rst great age of, 320; on instituting a higher nature, 323–324; individualism seen as independence from institutions and, 325; internalization of, 327; seen as revealing universal and necessary principles, 328; two incompatible directions for, 334; Dewey on liberal, 339–341, 342; crisis of consent and, 347; join in organi zation al adaptation, 352. See also education social learning models, 319 social mobility: socialization affected by, 109–111; stable communities affected by, 111; business houses become locus for, 293; exemplary cases of, 326 social networks: modernizing societies suffer disruption in, 7; agency ideals spread to, 13; voluntary basis of New England, 43; in populist religion, 130; Jeffersonians on childhood training for, 148; as incentives for appropriate behavior, 183; education for learning to

Index

operate within, 218; advice literature authors acknowledge impact of, 292–293; Dewey’s pedagogy for navigating, 338 social sciences: on natural perfectibility, 248; behaviorism and functionalism in, 338. See also psychology Soltow, Lee, 198 Some Thoughts Concerning Education (Locke), 19 Song of the Lark, The (Cather), 249 Sons of Freedom, 58 Sons of Liberty, 58 Source and Perpetuity of Republicanism, The (Austin), 146 Southworth, E. D. E. N., 255 Spartans, 329, 337 specialization, 314 Spencer, Herbert, 248–249 Stamp Act, 52, 54 standardization: Anderson on calls for, 291; pressures for educational, 299–300; of agency socialization, 301; of pedagogy, 302; assuming self-creation obscures emphasis on standardized outcomes, 325, 349; and consensus on adaptation, 328; educators seek to facilitate, 329 Stephens, Edward, 198 Stoddard, William O., 255 Storr, Richard J., 9, 21 Story Teller’s Story, A (Anderson), 289 “Stray Leaves from a Baby’s Journal” (magazine column), 274 Success in Life (Owen), 253 Successward: A Young Man’s Book for Young Men (Bok), 253 Sullivan, William, 200 “Summary View” ( Jefferson), 54 Sumner, Charles, 245 Sunday schools, 100, 108, 195 Susman, Warren, 331–332 Taylor, Bayard, 255 Taylor, J. Orville, 197, 206, 208 Taylor, John, 110 Teacher, The (Abbott), 201 teachers: as craftsmen, 222; new pedagogic techniques, 223–225; as facilitators of new nation, 225–226; noble selfforbearance required of, 226–227;

445

sectarian controversy avoided by, 228; scientific knowledge of, 231; Civil War as teachers’ war, 237; psychological knowledge required of, 305; authority of, 306; influence employed by, 306–308; Hall calls on people to become, 314 Thayer, William M., 154, 188 Thorndike, Edward, 261, 326 Tocqueville, Alexis de: on social regularity of American life, 11; on “constitution of man,” 24; on equilibrium in apparent disorder, 63, 64; on American Revolution creating world without limits, 67; on emancipated youth, 68; on release from hierarchical authority, 83; education for equality proclaimed by, 290; on oscillating movement of American society, 344; and narrative of reversal, 347 Todd, John, 154, 187, 192, 207 totalitarianism, 343, 345 tracts, 100 Trowbridge, John T., 255 Trumbull, H. Clay, 278, 280 Turmel, André, 330 Turner, Frederick Jackson, 70, 294 Twain, Mark, 241, 245, 255 Tweed, B. F., 194 Tyack, David, 198, 214 urbanization, 194, 204, 314 Veblen, Thorstein, 245 virtue: inculcating, 20; religious, 30, 93; agency, 65; Smith on education for, 99; Rush on education for, 100; civic, 101; Jeffersonians on education for, 104; public, 105, 123; parents should cultivate positive, 113; Federalists on success and, 124–125; Federalists on socialization for a virtuous populace, 125–129; limits of discourse of, 128–129; as pursuit of self-interest, 139; Bushnell on Jeffersonian individualism and, 140–141; parents for creating society permeated with Christian, 143; Wise on worldly, 144; freedom to be virtuous, 145; Locke on education as producing, 159; new liberal child as more virtuous, 163; in struggle, 328

446

Index

voluntarism: American liberalism’s approach to managing adult, 12; tension between compliance and, 20; voluntary consent, 20, 153–154; importance of conditioning child’s will for, 25; new discourses for voluntary liberal citizenship, 32; in dissenting Protestantism, 43; of Jeffersonian-Jacksonians, 95; Federalists on adult, 140; ideal of the voluntary child, 158–161; transition to adulthood seen as voluntary, 185; freely chosen obligation, 190–191; agency dynamic based on ordered, 200; establishing educational system requires, 209–210; social discipline becomes voluntary, 221; temptation of free agent ideal, 235; the voluntary collective, 246–249; play accustoms child to, 285; natural conformity seen as, 288; educating the voluntary citizen in an organi zation al age, 289–321; latenineteenth-century discourses in defense of, 290; versus mounting pressures for adaptation, 291; New Education movement on severe discipline versus, 296; educators seek voluntary action from the child, 302–303; charisma revolves tension between control and, 307; and will to power, 309; in Hall’s scientific approach to socialization, 315, 320, 328; membership of liberal society seen as voluntary, 336; society of extroverts and, 336, 337; in Dewey’s reconstruction of liberalism, 338, 339, 346 Waldstreicher, David, 96 Wall, Helena M., 42 Wallace, Michael, 26, 61 Ward, Lester, 291 Warner, Dudley, 245 Warner, Lloyd, 148, 149 Washington, George, 59, 96–97, 150, 188 Watkins, Mary, 113 Watterston, George: The Lawyer, or Man as He Ought Not to Be, 73, 81, 82 Watts, Edward, 74, 77 Wayland, Francis, 231, 234, 237 Webster, Noah, 99, 104

Wells, David, 291 Welter, Rush, 236–237 Wharton, Edith, 347 What Hath God Wrought (Howe), 93 Whigs: as precursor agency tradition, 6; partisanship of, 30; Federalists and, 93; on social mobility’s impact on hierarchies, 110; Lincoln in synthesis of Whig, Jacksonian, and dissenting ideals, 120, 150; on ordered liberty, 133; Federalistto-Whig shift, 138–140; Bushnell on the republican child, 140–143; on education, 196, 213–214 White, William Allen, 323 Whitman, Walt, 197, 246, 247 Whyte, William H., 346 Wiebe, Robert H., 119 Wieland (Brown), 81, 82, 88 Wiggin, Kate Douglas, 257 Wilentz, Sean, 93, 151 will, the: liberal myth of unconditioned, 10–12, 243, 271, 320; dissenting Protestantism in conditioning of liberal, 12–14; winning the child’s, 20–22, 174–193; parental, 44; free, 140, 304, 305, 310, 329; as basis of character, 141; Wise on conditioned nature of, 144–145; willingness to consent, 153–154; emerging agency mainstream on controlling, 154; submitting to reason of others, 160; James on social processes and, 261; child willing his compliance, 283; self-will, 285, 311; education of, 302–306; science and pedagogy of, 303–306; influencing, 306–308; emphasis on power versus, 309; crisis of, 328–329; personality contrasted with, 331. See also voluntarism Wills, Garry, 2 Wilson, Jacob, 290, 307, 332 Winterburn, Florence Hull, 257 Wise, Daniel, 122, 143–145 Wolin, Sheldon, 56 women: increasing role in child rearing by, 113; Federalists counsel on selfknowledge and self-government, 127; mother’s love, 168, 175; as educators, 226; beginning to be free, 273; education for, 335

Index

Wood, Gordon, 49, 50, 63– 64 Wright, Frances, 109, 115 Wundt, Wilhelm, 264 Young America movement, 67, 86 “Young Goodman Brown” (Hawthorne), 73, 80, 89 Young Man’s Counsellor, The (Wise), 144 youth, 66– 90; independent, 17; unfettered republican, 67– 69; specter of uncontainable, 69–71; in literature of foreboding, 71–73; idyll unmasked in literature, 73–77; unanticipated consequences of propelling them into culture-bearing

447

role, 83– 88; movements of twentieth century, 87, 185; fear of revolt by, 97– 98; as targets for religious outreach, 99–100; socialization outreach campaign directed at, 187–188; marketing of products to, 335; as repository of parents’ dreams, 335; culture of 1920s, 345; seeks new developmental possibilities despite society’s rigidities, 348; collapse of idealism in, 353. See also adolescence; children Zuckerman, Michael, 24, 318