1815-1850: Education: Publications

Henry Barnard, Normal Schools, and Other Institutions, Agencies, and Means Designed for the Professional Education of Teachers (Hartford, Conn.: Case, Tiffany, 1851)—argued for the development of institutions to train teachers;

Barnard, School Architecture (New York: Norton, 1848)—called for the reform of school-building construction;

Catharine Beecher, An Essay on the Education of Female Teachers (New York: Van Nostrand, 1835)—provided information on the training of women for teaching;

Beecher, The Moral Instructor for Schools and Families (Cincinnati: Truman & Smith, 1838)—proclaimed the centrality of women as moral leaders in the domestic and educational spheres;

Beecher, Suggestions Respecting Improvements in Education (Hartford, Conn.: Packard & Butler, 1829)—an early call for school reform;

John Goldsbury, The American Common-School Reader and Speaker (Boston: C. Tappan, 1844)—a popular textbook;

Horace Mann, Lectures on Education (Boston: W. B. Fowle & N. Capen, 1845)—a compilation of Mann’s ideas and arguments for school reform;

Mann, Tenth Annual Report Covering the Year 1846 (Boston: Dutton & Wentworth, 1847)—one in a series of reports that Mann published on public school reform;

William H. McGuffey, Fourth Eclectic Reader (Cincinnati: Winthrop B. Smith, 1844)—part of the most widely used textbook series;

Lewis Samuel, Report of the Superintendent of Common Schools (Columbus, Ohio: Samuel Medary, 1839)—an influential report on the state of public schools;

Delazon Smith, A History of Oberlin or New Lights of the West (Cleveland: S. Underhill, 1837)—a history of the nation’s first coeducational institution of higher learning;

John Orville Taylor, The District School; or, National Education (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard, ±835)—describes the author’s experiences teaching in district schools;

Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (New York: S. Converse, 1828)—the first American dictionary, which helped to standardize American English;

Emma Hart Willard, A Plan for Improving Female Education (Albany, N.Y.: I. W. Clark, 1819)—described Willard’s ideal female seminary and how it would operate;

Yale College, Reports on the Course of Instruction in Yale College (New Haven, Conn.: Hezekiah Howe, 1828)—this report, published in slightly abbreviated form as “Original Papers in Relation to a Course of Liberal Education” in American Journal of Science and Arts, 15 (January 1829): 297–351, was one of the major defenses of the classical curriculum.