Among the objectives that Chapter 3 seeks to achieve are these:
Students should understand the contrasts between the political economy of Jefferson's agrarian Virginia and the urban centers in Massachusetts, and how each created different conditions for the growth of common schools.
Readers should understand how a wide range of components interacted in the political economy of Massachusetts during the common school era. They should understand that a combination of Irish immigration, the beginnings of industry, the Jacksonian revolution, and other factors created fertile ground for common school legislation.
Readers should seek to understand the ideological framework of religion, republicanism, and capitalism within which the school reformers operated.
Students should become acquainted as much as possible with the mind and career of Horace Mann to understand the dominant ideology of his historical setting. They should evaluate how Mann's ideological orientation, particularly toward democracy, was or was not consistent with Jefferson's democratic ideals.
Readers should understand and evaluate how Mann and others thought the specific curriculum of the common schools would address the cultural needs of Massachusetts at that time.
Students should assess the degree to which Mann's conception of the teacher and teacher education were adequate for that time and for ours.
Finally, this chapter is designed to help readers critically interpret the primary source reading at chapter's end.
