Compare and contrast four reform movements of the mid-1800s (nineteenth century), such as temperance and public education.

Public Education:

Government schooling is a recent phenomenon.  Formerly, schooling was in the home from tutors if the family was well off, and in store-loft and old-field academies if the family was not well off.  The leaders who raised this country to greatness came from the old method of schooling, while it has been placed in its present state by leaders who come from the new method.

If you take Thomas Jefferson's argument for separation of church and state and substitute "school" every place that that argument says "church," you will have a very good argument for separation of school and state.

Here are some citations: two about the old way of schooling, one about the rigor of the curriculum, and one about education without schooling.

Joynes, Edward Southy. 1902. "School Training in the Early Days," extract from "The ‘Old Field’ School," in The Educational, May, 1902, reprinted in Library of Southern Literature, VII, 2870-2872, The Martin & Holt Company, 1907 & 1909.

Poe, Edgar Allen. 1836. "The Classics," Southern Literary Messenger, 2, 4 (Mar.), 221-233.  This one is on the Internet at a University of Michigan site.

Pudner, H. Peter. 1971. "People Not Pedagogy: Education in Old Virginia," Georgia Review, 25 (Oct.), 263-285.

Zettler, B. M. 1912. "School Days" in War Stories and School-Day Incidents for the Children. New York: The Neal Publishing Company, 23-31.  This one is on the Internet.