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This it seemed started in Scotland as a free schooling for poor children who had no hope of education of any sort... Apart from the name and its stigma wasnt it a big step forward for education for the poor..
It certainly had its place as a step forward towards universal public education for all classes. In Scotland and the UK in general, I believe this was one of the first movement to educate the poor, so it was a "big step forward" there.
However, the American colonies/the United States were very progressive on the issue of public education. As early as 1647 basic public education was required in the Massachusetts Colony. In 1785 the Continental Congress laid the groundwork for "land grant schools/universities" when they sketched out the divisions of the Northwest Territory including reserving land within each township for a public school. In 1790 the Pennsylvania constitution required public education for the children of the poor. In 1805, New York established a chain of public schools. In 1817 Boston created universal, free primary schools. In 1820 the first public high school opened in Boston and by 1827 public education was required for all students across all of Massachusetts. Most other states rapidly followed or already had similar provisions, at least in the case of the poor.
Overall, it really was the model of education pioneered in America that tended to drive the movement in Europe. In the words of Thomas Jefferson who was a big supporter of public education in order to "rake a few geniuses from the rubbish".
Here in Pennsylvania, tthe key figure in the origins of public education was Thaddeus Stevens. The History cirriculum in the days when I was a primary-schooler (over 50 years ago, now) mandated some time devoted to in-state history, and Stevens, who started his push for free public schools back in the 1830's, got plenty of praise.
Ok, I can understand that; but what I didn't learn until I took a post-Civil War American History course in college was that Stevens, now a member of the Hose of Representatives and servig on the powerful Ways and Means Committee, worked very closely with Massachuseets Senator Charles Sumner (the victim of a notorious beating on the Seate floor) to develop the legal framework of the Reconstruction campaign.
Proving, I suppose, that "selective" teaching of History has reached into a few of the backwaters as well as the mainstream.
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