미국 건국 초기 공화주의 '교양'과 교육

Abstract

This study discusses the relationship between republican ideology and educational plans in post-Revolutionary America. Freshly independent from Britain, Americans had to define and form an ??American?? culture different from the ??corrupt?? aristocratic British one. Many social thinkers envisioned a new American culture, into every fabric of which republicanism would permeate. For them, education was the primary means by which American citizens could be imbued with republican ??virtues.?? Defining public good and economic independence as the essential republican “virtues,” educational theorists proposed varied plans for training children into republican citizens. Most agreed that, regardless of class and regional origins, all American children should be beneficiaries of a common school education, and that children should be cultivated with the principles of republicanism. Some also argued for the need to teach children “American” English which would both reflect and build up American republican culture. It was also stressed that school education ought to include vocational training, so that children would be able to be independent economically and, thus, politically. Although common and compulsory education opened a possibility that any American citizen could become a leader of the republic, most educational theorists held to a more conservative view. They believed that men were born with different levels of talents, and that the most talented should be political and social leaders. The question was how to tell the talented. The answer was a school system by which the most talented could be “sifted” first at common schools, then at county grammar schools, and then at state colleges. At a national university, the ultimate educational institution for many theorists, the most talented would be prepared to be leaders of the whole republic. In reality, however, most of the republican educational plans did not materialize. It took scores of years before school education became an instrument by which American people achieved “democratic,” not “republican,” aspirations.