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Excluding colleges from the film, though a valid editorial choice, also gives a skewed picture because it suggests that Christians cared little for education beyond the level of a basic catechism. Actually, all major colonial colleges except the College of Philadelphia (now Penn) were founded by Christian groups: Harvard by Puritans, William and Mary and King's College by Anglicans, Yale and Dartmouth by Congregationalists, Princeton by Presbyterians, Brown by Baptists, and Rutgers by Reformed Dutch. Secularization grew as time went on, but Christian influences persisted longer than many people realize. For example, athletic teams at church-founded University of Southern California were proudly called "Methodists" until 1912.

Colonial and college material aside, plenty of religious people and ideas would have appeared in "School" if the producers hadn't imposed the current definition of "public" education on the past. The story of schools in which religion receives no preferential treatment and all funding comes from secular government agencies would have been a short one indeed, so instead the film highlighted only secular aspects of a much broader narrative.

From the Revolution era to the end of the nineteenth century, Common Schools moved west with the population. Though ostensibly supported with public funds and required by state laws to eschew sectarian instruction (the documentary makes much of this), they needed teachers, administrators, facilities, and other resources that new communities often could not or would not provide.

So churches stepped in. Where public schools existed, ministers served on school boards or worked as superintendents. Christian laywomen took on one-room schoolhouses as mission fields. Some church-state partnerships were even more overt. In 1885 the federal government hired Presbyterian missionary Sheldon Jackson to start schools in Alaska; three years later, short of cash, the government split his salary with his mission board. Common Schools certainly educated citizens to strengthen America's democracy, as "School" portrays, but no one pretended that was their only function—until recently.

Public and religious education are pretty well delineated today, but to apply current assessments of the fabled "wall of separation" to the era in which that phrase originated, or any era in between, is anachronistic and misleading. The real story of American education includes Puritan piety, missionary teachers, state-funded church schools, devout parents, and instruction in heavenly citizenship. A documentary that misses all of that while arguing, "Contemporary issues cannot be reasonably discussed outside the context of history," and "To understand where we want to go, we need to first understand how we have come to this point," deserves the mark, "Needs Improvement."

* The Web site for "School" can be found here: School: The Story of American Public Education

* Relevant CH back-issues include 13: Jan Amos Comenius (about a 17th-century Brethren bishop with strong ideas on education), 41: American Puritans, and 66: How the West Was Really Won.

* Helpful books on this subject include A History of Christian Education, by James E. Reed and Ronnie Prevost, and Quality with Soul, by Robert Benne. Both are available at our partner store, Christianbook.com.

* Other interesting perspectives on the history of American education can be found at these sites: Education for a Republic

Family And School In Literacy Training & Education

Thomas Jefferson—Icon or Iconoclast?

Elesha Coffman is managing editor of Christian History, and can be reached at cheditor@christiantytoday.com.

The online issue archive for Christian History goes as far back as Issue 51 (Heresy in the Early Church). Prior issues are available for purchase in the Christian History Store.

Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today International/Christian History magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

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