History of education in Missouri

The History of education in Missouri deals with schooling Over two centuries, from the settlements In the early 19th century to the present. It covers students, teachers, schools, and educational policies.

The small historically French settlements that became part of the United States in 1803 have limited schooling. schools were established in several Missouri towns; by 1821, they existed in the towns of St. Louis, St. Charles, Ste. Genevieve, Florissant, Cape Girardeau, Franklin, Potosi, Jackson, and Herculaneum, and in rural areas in both Cooper and Howard counties. They were proprietary schools run by itinerant teachers who catered to boys of families who could pay small stipends, and usually provide room and board for the teacher. A few coeducational schools existed in some rural areas by the 1830s. Eleven schools for girls also operated during the territorial period, but these focused on basic literacy and homemaking practices.

When Louis William Valentine Dubourg became the Catholic bishop of St Louis in 1818 he began numerous projects. A Catholic academy, St. Louis Academy (later Saint Louis University), was established in 1818 as the first college west of the Mississippi River.

Before the Civil War, Missouri followed the southern pattern that downplayed public schooling, as well-to-do families patronized local private academies. Ambitious but poor parents pooled their resources to hire part-time teachers for their children. During Reconstruction in the 1860s, the Radical Republicans in power strongly favored modernization through the rapid growth in public schools. Their 1865 Constitution, and numerous state laws, called for a large network of public schools, including ones for black children. The plan was to require four months terms of schooling every year for children. Under the aggressive leadership of state superintendent of schools Thomas A. Parker, the number of public schools jumped from 48,000 in 1867 to 75,000 in 1870, as enrollment grew from 169,000 to 280,000. The 1870 totals included 9100 black students. About 59 percent of the eligible white children attended school annually in 1870, along with 21 percent of the eligible black children. Parker built up organizations of teachers at the county level, as well as the state level, holding numerous clinics to provide the pedagogical education the teachers lacked. New normal schools, to train teachers, were opened at Kirksville and Warrensburg in 1870. A new state university was founded in Columbia, with land-grant federal aid. However it had to share some of that aid with the new school of mines at Rolla. The public school system across the state was heavily oriented toward providing the three Rs of elementary education. High schools were rare outside the major cities. Families that could afford to have children attend school rather than hold a paying job patronized 45 academies in 1870, most of which were attached to the 37 small private colleges. Most were run by religious denominations. St. Louis, under the leadership of William Torrey Harris as superintendent of schools 1868-1880, developed one of the nation's outstanding public school system, complete with the first public kindergartens. Once the conservatives returned to power in 1872, however, public schooling became again a low priority matter in rural Missouri.

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