J ohann N. N eem . Democracy’s Schools

On the surface, Johann N. Neem’s Democracy’s Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America and Robert N. Gross’s Public vs. Private: The Early History of School Choice in America attack very different subjects in the history of American education. Neem has penned a respectable survey of the rise of the common school in antebellum America, while Gross offers a far more pointed examination of the growth of an educational marketplace in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (an examination relying heavily on legal challenges of Catholic education). Taken together, however, they not only present a wonderful picture of the rise of American education and the conflict that would later engulf it; they also exemplify how educational history may be (and should be) capably integrated into the broader contours of American history. With a solid mix of primary and secondary sources, Neem offers a highly capable interpretive history of antebellum public education. Though the field is crowded with excellent work, Neem’s book stands out for its compact nature, for its readable style, and yet also for Neem’s ability to detail rich examples while situating the growth of the common school within larger historical movements. There are more detailed studies of each of the main elements in his book (education reformers, early normal schools, and accounts of actual teachers), but there are none that weave them together so well in an overview.

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