The War That Wasn't : Religious Conflict and Compromise in the Common Schools of New York State, 1865-1900

Finalist for the 2006 History of Education Society's Outstanding Book AwardWinner of the 2005 Annual Archives Award for Excellence in Research Using the Holdings of the New York State Archives presented by the Board of Regents and the New York State ArchivesHistorians of religion and public schooling often focus on conflict and Bible Wars, pitting Catholics and Protestants against one another in palpitating narratives of the embattled development of American public schooling. The War That Wasn't tells a different story, arguing that in nineteenth-century New York State a civil system of democratic, local control led to adjustments and compromises far more than discord and bitter conflict. In the decades after the Civil War, New Yorkers from rural, one-room schools to big city districts hammered out a variety of ways to reconcile public education and religious diversity. This book recounts their stories in delightful and compelling detail. The common school system of New York State managed to keep the peace during a time of religious and ethnic pluralism, before sweeping educational reforms ended many of these compromises by the turn of the twentieth century. Explaining The History Of Religion In Public Schools -- Democracy Trumps Theocracy : The Secular Origins Of The Common School System In New York -- Religion In Post-bellum State And Local Governance -- Politics, Religion, And District Schooling -- Religious Use Of The District Schoolhouse -- Religious Exercises In District Schools -- Local Control, Religion, And Urban Schooling -- Religious Exercises In Urban Schools -- Public Funds For Religious Schools -- Explanations And Implications. Benjamin Justice. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 275-280) And Index. In the mid-nineteenth century, Americans in the northern United States created an unrivaled system of mass education: publicly funded, democratically controlled, and largely secular "common schools."