The Struggle Over Knowledge Control

Abstract

In the early days of the country, one cannot fully understand U.S. history “without some appreciation of the centrality of education” (Perkinson, 1968, p. 1) and the principal objective of education was “to convert men into republican machines” (Rush, 1965, p. 16). In a nation of immense fertile territory (Verplank, 1836), a “thoroughly American curriculum would help unify the language and culture of the new nation and wean America away from a corrupt Europe” (Kaestle, 1983, p. 6). The increasing population density increased social tensions as well, stigmatizing certain groups and creating festering social sores, thus allocating to the school the function of inculcating morality in the hope of maintaining social order. Hence, the school was to play a profound role in the diffusion of discipline and behavior models: As Kaestle (1983) writes:

The emphasis on school discipline to influence adult behavior overlooks the purposes of discipline in childhood. There were two compelling reasons for training children to be obedient, punctual, deferential and task-oriented. The first is simply that discipline was needed for the orderly operation as a school… The second reason for encouraging childhood discipline is that most parents wanted children to behave in a deferential and obedient manner. (p. 69)