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BOOK REVIEWS59 The Culture Factory: Boston Public Schooh, 1789-1860. By Stanley K. Schultz. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. Pp. xiii, 394. $10.00.) Since the earliest days of the Republic, Boston has revelled in its nicknames , "Athens of America," and "Hub of the Universe." In this study, a volume in The Urban Life in America Series under the general editorship of Richard C. Wade, we get some idea of how well-deserved such titles are. Although the period covered is roughly the same as Van Wyck Brooks treated in his famous Flowering of New England, the reader does not get the impression that the two authors are writing about the same city. Whereas Brooks concerned himself with belleslettres , Schultz discusses the much more prosaic problem of imparting mere literacy. Strangely, the famous literary figures of the period did not concern themselves with the problems of education. In a city changing so rapidly as Boston did during the first half of the nineteenth century, every aspect of public education was almost insuperable, such as getting money to run the system, where to build schools, as well as their size and organization. Boston might well have been more generous and idealistic than other communities, but more than good-will was needed. There were no precedents to serve as guide-posts. European experience was not a suitable model. As Professor Wade points out in his foreword, "Almost every issue now part of the contemporary educational 'crisis' was found at the very beginnings of the nation's urban school system. Race, taxes, goals, religion, recruitment, and criticism were on the [School Committee's] daily agenda." The author himself takes a pessimistic view of Boston's efforts, emphasizing the difficulties and failures of the system. He offers the thesis that the factory system served as the model for Boston's public schools, which were to be under the control of an urban elite. The children were to be processed, as if stamped out of a mold, "prepared, indeed conditioned, for life in the new urban America." A "factory mentality" underlay the common school movement in Boston and the rest of New England, which explains the title of the book. The object of the system was to be the security of the social order and its stability. One of the limitations of the author's approach is that it ignores the idealism of the social reformers who devoted their lives to the improvement of their community, and creates, perhaps unwittingly, the impression that the movement for public education was almost a conspiracy designed to keep the lower classes in their place. The Abolitionists come in for their share of criticism also as men more interested in power than in social justice. With such an approach, one is damned if one does, and damned if one doesn't. My own research has led me to have a high regard for Boston's social reformers. They were more than just status-seekers. I cannot accept so glib a dismissal of their motives as we are offered in this volume. 60CIVIL WAR HISTORY The book is marred by frequent typographical errors and bad writing . One example of the latter will have to suffice. Early in the volume, (p. 15), Schultz writes that the Act of 1789 "provided that girls were to go to school with boys and to study the same subjects." From this, I assumed that a coeducational system was established. In a later chapter (p. 117) one reads that girls "had to leave the schools in the middle of October to make room for boys returning from agricultural and industrial pursuits." Evidently, girls were taught separately. A word of caution should also be offered about an outline map of the city which is reprinted several times to illustrate various data. During the period covered by this book, Boston did not have the contours which it has now. It was practically an island attached to the mainland by a narrow isthmus, the present-day Washington Street. Back Bay was built to the west of the isthmus. On this map, Back Bay is located on either side of Washington Street. The outline of Back Bay appears as...

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