Henry Barnard

American educator

• Born: January 24, 1811
• Birthplace: Hartford, Connecticut
• Died: July 5, 1900
• Place of death: Hartford, Connecticut

Combining a high regard for learning and a strong sense of civic responsibility, Barnard stimulated and directed the development of American public education during its formative years.

Early Life

Henry Barnard was born January 24, 1811, in Hartford, Connecticut. Barnard’s mother, Elizabeth Andrus, died when Henry was four years old; his father, Chauncey Barnard, was a former sailor and prosperous farmer-businessperson. Hartford was little more than a small country town during Barnard’s childhood, but its status as one of Connecticut’s capitals meant that he grew up in an atmosphere of politics and public service.

Ironically, the man who would later be hailed as a founder of the public school so hated his first encounter with that institution that he conspired with a classmate to run away to sea. His father overheard them and the following day offered Henry a choice of leaving the district school and going to either sea or boarding school. Barnard chose the latter alternative and enrolled in Monson Academy, Monson, Massachusetts. Barnard was no bookworm, but he enjoyed his studies at Monson and developed an interest in literature and debating. Returning to Hartford, he received private tutoring and attended the Hopkins Grammar School in preparation for college. In 1826, Barnard entered Yale University, where he not only enhanced his writing and speaking skills but also was suspended briefly for participating in a student food protest.

Having been graduated with distinction from Yale in 1830, Barnard resolved to devote his life to public service. He taught for a year but appears at first to have given little thought of devoting himself exclusively to the field of education. Instead, he became involved in Whig politics and studied law. Barnard was admitted to the bar in 1835, but before beginning his legal practice he spent a year in Europe, where he met and talked with prominent European intellectuals and educators.

A year after Barnard’s return to the United States, Hartford voters elected him to the Connecticut legislature, where he served from 1837 to 1840. He was active in promoting a broad range of social reform legislation, his most notable legislative achievement occurring in 1838, when he wrote and secured passage of a bill creating a state board of school commissioners and a secretary to supervise public education. This event proved to have a decisive influence on his life.

Life’s Work

In 1838, Barnard was appointed one of the board’s eight commissioners. He campaigned for his friend Thomas Gallaudet, a pioneering advocate of education for the deaf, to become secretary of the board. Gallaudet declined the position, however, and Barnard himself was urged to take it. At first he hesitated, partly because the office had been created through his efforts, and partly because he had been offered a partnership in a prestigious law firm. However, in the end, he accepted the position.

As Connecticut’s first secretary of education, Barnard attempted to develop widespread support for school and library reform. He wrote a letter to the people outlining the plans of the new board, distributed questionnaires, and personally visited hundreds of school districts. He presented data on schools to the legislature and the public, founded and edited the Connecticut Common School Journal, and lobbied for changes in school laws. Barnard also emphasized the need for trained teachers and established teachers’ institutes that were among the first, if not the first, in the nation.

Events in Connecticut did not go well for Barnard. His campaign to improve public education awakened public opposition in the state to school reform and disturbed local politicians. In 1842, the Democrats came to power in the state and, in a move aimed at gaining support among voters, called for an end to direct state supervision of schools. Furthermore, Barnard’s past affiliation with the opposition Whig Party did not help matters. After only four years of operation, the State Board of School Commissioners was abolished.

Barnard’s Connecticut experience soured him on politics, but it did not dampen his enthusiasm for school reform. In 1843, he was appointed state school commissioner in Rhode Island. Predictably, Barnard engaged in a whirlwind of activity and in a relatively short time had developed popular support for public education in that state. At his urging, the Rhode Island Institute of Instruction was established in 1845. In that same year, he also secured passage of legislation to support a public education system in the state; when he resigned in 1849 for health reasons, he had already put it into successful operation. Barnard arranged for educational supplements to appear in state almanacs and caused the proceedings of school meetings to be reported in the press. In addition, he edited the state’s school journal, published a book on teachers’ colleges, and completed a volume on school architecture.

By the time of his marriage in 1847, Barnard was widely known and in great demand as a speaker. He was offered at least two professorships and four city school superintendencies, all of which he declined. When his home state of Connecticut again sought his leadership, however, he could not refuse. During his term of service as Connecticut’s superintendent of common schools, Barnard drew up a revised code of school legislation, prepared a history of public school legislation in the state, and served as delegate to the International Exposition of Educational Methods in London, England. Still plagued by ill health, Barnard resigned as superintendent in 1855 to edit and publish the American Journal of Education , a monumental work that eventually comprised thirty-two volumes of more than eight hundred pages each.

Although the journal received most of Barnard’s attention during the remainder of his life, he briefly held three additional administrative posts. From 1858 to 1860, he was chancellor of the University of Wisconsin and agent of the board of regents of the normal school fund. In 1866, Barnard was named president of St. John’s College, resigning the following year to become the first commissioner of the newly created United States Department of Education. From the outset, Barnard’s tenure as commissioner was plagued with problems. In 1868, growing criticism of the Department of Education and Barnard led Congress to downgrade it to a bureau (later, office) within the Department of the Interior. Two years later, he was unceremoniously removed from office by President Ulysses S. Grant.

Photographs of Barnard in the latter years of his life reveal a man perfectly suited for the role of reformer. His long white beard, white hair, and benign facial features gave him a patriarchal appearance. Deeply humiliated at his dismissal by Grant, he left Washington and returned to Hartford, where he continued to edit the American Journal of Education until 1881. Barnard lectured frequently, continued a voluminous correspondence, and in countless other ways attempted to keep busy until his death in the same house where he was born on July 5, 1900. Such activities, however, belied his true feelings. Despite the accolades he received from citizens and friends for his contribution to school reform, Barnard died doubting that his labors were sufficiently appreciated.

Significance

Barnard’s contribution to the development of American education was manifold. The changes he introduced to public education in Connecticut and Rhode Island were of lasting importance and, in some degree, served as models for school reform in other states. He was always willing to offer advice and encouragement to fellow school reformers. His chief service, however, was rendered as a publicist and propagandist for education. As editor and publisher of the American Journal of Education, he not only furthered educational scholarship but also helped create the necessary preconditions for the emergence of the modern teaching profession.

Undeniably, Barnard exemplified the best and the worst in nineteenth century American reform. A genuine idealist, he believed in the ability of people properly informed to make the right decision. At the same time, however, confidence in his own moral excellence could deteriorate into a brass-bolted certitude that denied any sense of rightness in others. Indeed, at times Barnard’s methods suggest that he thought the average citizen deserved little voice in school reform, except to rubber-stamp his own ideas.

The transformation which Barnard helped bring to American education is evident everywhere. It is most visible in older school-building architecture, public school systems, and schools of education throughout the United States. Less obvious, but equally important, is his role in supplying a professional literature and raising professional standards for the whole field of education.

Bibliography

Barnard, Henry. Henry Barnard: American Educator. Edited and introduced by Vincent P. Lannie. New York: Teacher’s College Press, 1974. This collection of Barnard’s writings contains excerpts from his personal correspondence, from an annual report of 1841 on public education in Connecticut, and from the American Journal of Education. Of particular note is the introduction by Lannie, which provides a concise biographical sketch of Barnard.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Henry Barnard on Education. Edited by John S. Brubacher. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1931. Comprising some of Barnard’s most important writings, this book presents his thoughts on a variety of educational issues ranging from public interest in education to educational administration. It includes an introductory chapter that discusses Barnard’s life and work.

Brickman, William W. “Early Development of Research and Writing of Educational History in the United States.” Paedagogica Historica 19 (June, 1979): 41-76. Traces early nineteenth century developments in educational historiography and discusses the work of Barnard and others in this area. Includes an examination of European influences and the impact of teachers’ college curricula on writing about the history of American education.

MacMullen, Edith Nye. In the Cause of True Education: Henry Barnard and Nineteenth Century School Reform. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1991. Scholarly study of Barnard’s life and work, including his role in the common school reform movement and his adaptation of European educational philosophy to the United States.

Rothfork, John. “Transcendentalism and Henry Barnard’s School Architecture.” Journal of General Education 29 (Fall, 1977): 173-187. Discusses the intellectual and social climate that led Barnard to advocate Greek Revival architecture for school buildings. Examines the reasons for which this style and its implicit values were popular in the nineteenth century.

Thursfield, Richard Emmons. Henry Barnard’s American Journal of Education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1945. Somewhat dated, this book nevertheless remains indispensable. It not only presents information on the journal’s founding and financing but also attempts to assess the significance of its content and its influence on readers.

Tyack, David B. The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974. This well-documented study mentions Barnard only in passing but provides a detailed account of the social milieu in which he worked and the ideology that guided him and other educational reformers.

Warren, Donald R. To Enforce Education: A History of the Founding Years of the United States Office of Education. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1974. Examines issues surrounding the founding of the Department of Education. Discusses the attempt by Barnard and other reformers to establish a federal bureau of education.