Nineteenth-century reformers framed compulsory schooling of immigrant children as purification through coercion

Evidence

Will it, like the muddy Missouri, as it pours its waters into the clear Mississippi and contaminates the whole united mass, spread ignorance and vice, crime and disease, through our native population? If … we can by any means purify this foreign people, enlighten their ignorance and bring them up to our level, we shall perform a work of true and perfect charity, blessing the giver and receiver in equal measure… . W ith the old not much can be done; but with their children, the great remedy is education. The rising generation must be taught as our own children are taught. We say must be because in many cases this can only be accomplished by coercion. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 379

Categorization

• CANDY: The muddy-Missouri metaphor for Irish immigration contaminating native stock is vivid and quotable.
• DEFINE: Shows the original meaning of compulsory attendance: ‘must be taught… can only be accomplished by coercion.’
• XREF: connects to: Compulsory schooling was coercive, backed by threat of imprisonment; US educational reform responded to the social unrest of new wage laborers — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 617

Broader Connections

• Compulsory schooling was coercive, backed by threat of imprisonment #expands (0.85)
• US educational reform responded to the social unrest of new wage laborers #corroborates (0.75) — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 617