A Window to the Past - What an Essay Contest Reveals about Early American Education

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Pentious

Explores how an essay contest question posed by the American Philosophical Society in 1795 illuminates the founders’ ambitions and anxieties about early American education. Translates the 18th-century prompt into modern terms, then discusses the challenge of building a liberal education system for diverse communities and distant settlements. Describes pressures and dilemmas around women’s education, slavery, and racial status, and shows how intellectuals and governments pursued public schooling through laws, institutions, and funds.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages6

Reading Time15 min

AccessFree to download

Essay contest origins

1795 APS prompt and prize

Reframing the education question

Design for wealthy and poor

Post-Revolution context

Government, knowledge, and virtue

Challenges to mass education

Diversity, geography, and religion

Unresolved social questions

Women, enslaved people, and free people of color

A Window to the Past What an Essay Contest Reveals about Early American Education ILLUSTRATIONS BY GIANNI DE CONNO By Benjamin Justice P encils ready? [Write] an essay on a system of liberal education, and literary instruction, adapted to the genius of the government, and best calculated to promote the general welfare of the United States; comprehending, also, a plan for instituting and conducting public schools in this country on principles of the most extensive utility. ¨is was the question posed by America’s premier scholarly association, the American Philosophical Society (APS), in 1795. Benjamin Justice is an associate professor of education in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University. He is the author of ¨e War ¨at Wasn’t: Religious Conﬂict and Compromise in the Common Schools of New York State, 1865–1900 (2009). is article is excerptedfrom his edited book, ¨e Founding Fathers, Education, and “the Great Contest”: ¨e American Philosophical Society Prize of 1797 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan), which won the 2014 Critics Choice Book Award of the American Educational Studies Association. Copyright 2013. Reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan. All rights reserved. In a list of seven contest questions on various subjects, this education question came §rst, and had the largest prize, including $100 (in 1795 dollars, which is about $1,400 today) and publication by theAPS.1 ¨e winners were chosen two years later, in 1797. In today’s English, the question would mean: Design the best system of education for the United States, appropriate for the wealthy as well as the poor, including secondary and higher education as well as elementary schools, reaching people in remote areas as well as cities, promoting the common good and strengthening our republican form of government. No easy task in any era. But these were no ordinary times. ¨e nation’s leaders had just completed their political revolution, with the states ratifying the Constitution (in 1788) and Bill of Rights (in 1791) . Despite their monumental failures to end chattel slavery, honor the land rights of indigenous people, or abolish the subordination of women, the men referred to as the Founding Fathers had nevertheless achieved a rare moment in history: applying ancient and modern theories of government to the creation of a new country. 32 AMERICAN EDUCATOR | SUMMER 2015 ¨eAPS education prize contest captured the excitement and apprehension that the Founding Fathers felt about that creation. With no king and no state church, the founders believed that only through the virtue and intelligence of its citizens could the American republic survive; and in federal and state law, governments took measures to encourage the spread of useful knowledge and virtue. ¨ey ensured the delivery of mail, protected free speech, encouraged learned societies like the APS and voluntary ones like the Freemasons, formed or reformed colleges and academies, and created funds to subsidize local schooling e©orts. In New England, state governments reaÉrmed colonial laws that required towns to maintain free elementary schools or pay §nes for noncompliance. How to spread learning across the populace was indeed a challenge, if one viewed education as being formal, functional knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic. ¨e very aspects of society that intellectuals celebrated as uniquely American made it diÉcult to educate the masses. America was diverse—culturally, regionally, and religiously. Settlement patterns varied by region, placing many families at signi§cant distance from each other, and from seats of government. Deeply held cultural traditions varied as well, leaving people in some parts of the United States more inclined to value formal education or pay taxes to support it, and people in other parts less inclined. ¨ere were other problems as well, more serious and intractable, that the American Revolution did not resolve. Should women ha

FAQs

What education prompt did the American Philosophical Society present in 1795?

It asked contestants to write an essay on a liberal-education system and literary instruction suited to the U.S. government, including a plan for instituting public schools to promote the general welfare.

How did the article describe the contest’s significance and outcome?

It notes the contest question ranked first among seven questions and offered the largest prize, with winners selected two years later in 1797.

What obstacles made educating the broader population difficult in the late 18th century?

Formal education required reading, writing, and arithmetic, but America’s cultural, regional, and religious diversity—plus families living far from government centers—created uneven commitment and support for schooling.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Pentious