Popular education in nineteenth century St. Louis

It is both encouraging and gratifying to the members of this Board to witness the unexampled success of our school system, and the great popularity of the schools. This is still the more gratifying, when we feel a consciousness that this popularity is deserved; and that the more our schools are tried and the closer their operations are examined, the greater will be their popularity, and the confidence reposed in them.¹ So Isaiah Forbes concluded his annual report as president of the St. Louis Board of Public Schools in 1855. Mid-nineteenth-century school directors, superintendents, and heads of departments universally echoed this confidence in the success of the schools and their continued growth. Moreover, they attempted to substantiate their claims with an impressive array of statistics that both summarized yearly operations and placed them in historical perspective. Beginning with Forbes’ report, successive Boards published through the end of the century, in English and German, an average of five to seven thousand copies for local and national distribution to broadcast the triumphs of the public schools.