A dreary, rigid countenance has been a constant across US schooling history

Evidence

School has never been much fun for children. For parents as well, the school has often seemed an alien world, hostile or indifferent to the con­ cerns of its charges. Indeed, the annals of U.S. education exhibit what amounts to an historical constant: the dreary and rigid countenance of the school. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 463

Categorization

• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
• XREF: connects to: New England Puritan leaders held children in low regard as inherently miserable — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 474