James L. Heft S.M.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199796656
- eISBN:
- 9780199919352
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199796656.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter examines several historical and cultural developments necessary for understanding the current challenges that face educators in today's Catholic schools. During the colonial period ...
More
This chapter examines several historical and cultural developments necessary for understanding the current challenges that face educators in today's Catholic schools. During the colonial period religion and education were seamlessly woven together. By the middle and late nineteenth century, however, waves of immigrants posed new threats to Americans who thought that the greatest need was to “Americanize” the “unwashed” immigrants. Many Americans, therefore, welcomed the common school movement, begun by Horace Mann (1796–1859), a Unitarian minister, who designed the schools to provide a common socialization for all citizens. Mann's educational program promoted a generic Protestantism, beginning with daily readings from the King James Bible. In response, the Catholic bishops felt they had to establish their own educational system. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the high school movement gained great momentum, but had little effect on most Catholic high schools, that is, until the 1960s, when it became more and more difficult to sustain Catholic schools in the ways they had been sustained for most of the first half of the twentieth century.Less
This chapter examines several historical and cultural developments necessary for understanding the current challenges that face educators in today's Catholic schools. During the colonial period religion and education were seamlessly woven together. By the middle and late nineteenth century, however, waves of immigrants posed new threats to Americans who thought that the greatest need was to “Americanize” the “unwashed” immigrants. Many Americans, therefore, welcomed the common school movement, begun by Horace Mann (1796–1859), a Unitarian minister, who designed the schools to provide a common socialization for all citizens. Mann's educational program promoted a generic Protestantism, beginning with daily readings from the King James Bible. In response, the Catholic bishops felt they had to establish their own educational system. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the high school movement gained great momentum, but had little effect on most Catholic high schools, that is, until the 1960s, when it became more and more difficult to sustain Catholic schools in the ways they had been sustained for most of the first half of the twentieth century.
Dan C. Christensen
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199669264
- eISBN:
- 9780191748745
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199669264.003.0049
- Subject:
- Physics, History of Physics
This chapter confronts and compares the educational ideas of Ørsted and Grundtvig which came to dominate the educational debate till today. Ørsted believes in man's rationality and considers the ...
More
This chapter confronts and compares the educational ideas of Ørsted and Grundtvig which came to dominate the educational debate till today. Ørsted believes in man's rationality and considers the university teacher's vocation to be ‘to strike divine sparks in the minds of his pupils’. Grundtvig, on the other hand, considers the natural sciences materialistic and alien to man's cultural life. In 1838 ‘the great natural law of the effect and dissemination of the real spirit dawned upon him’, he declares deliberately twisting Ørsted's metaphor to mean that ‘the living word’ (not physical forces) exchanged between ordinary people will empower them. Both are partly inspired by the British Mechanical Institutes. Grundtvig's ideas of establishing an Academic Union of Scandinavia and a folk high school at Sorø and Ørsted's meritocratic policy of prioritizing the University of Copenhagen including his Polytechnic Institute, by appropriating the fortune of Sorø Academy is explained.Less
This chapter confronts and compares the educational ideas of Ørsted and Grundtvig which came to dominate the educational debate till today. Ørsted believes in man's rationality and considers the university teacher's vocation to be ‘to strike divine sparks in the minds of his pupils’. Grundtvig, on the other hand, considers the natural sciences materialistic and alien to man's cultural life. In 1838 ‘the great natural law of the effect and dissemination of the real spirit dawned upon him’, he declares deliberately twisting Ørsted's metaphor to mean that ‘the living word’ (not physical forces) exchanged between ordinary people will empower them. Both are partly inspired by the British Mechanical Institutes. Grundtvig's ideas of establishing an Academic Union of Scandinavia and a folk high school at Sorø and Ørsted's meritocratic policy of prioritizing the University of Copenhagen including his Polytechnic Institute, by appropriating the fortune of Sorø Academy is explained.
