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After the Civil War (1861–1865), the United States faced a problem of “reconstruction” similar to that confronted by other nations at the time and familiar to the US since at least the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). The problem was one of territorial and political (re)integration: how to take territories that had only recently been operating under “foreign” governance and integrate them into an expanded nation-state on common structural terms. This paper considers the significance of education in that process of state (re)formation after the Civil War, with particular attention to its role in federal territories of the US West. Specifically, this paper analyses the role that education-based restrictions on citizenship, voting rights and office-holding played in constructing formal state power in the cases of five western territories: Hawaii, Indian Territory, Oklahoma, Arizona and New Mexico. A focus on the significance of education in these cases both advances and challenges literature on the “hidden” and decentralised structure of national policy-making in the US. It adds to that literature by illuminating how education served as an indirect tool of national policy in the West, effectively shaping the structure of power in other policy domains. At the same time, by focusing on the US West, the present analysis challenges the idea that national governance in the US was particularly “decentralised” or “hidden”. It highlights instead: (1) the role of colonial racialism in shaping national responsibility and authority for education in the US; and (2) the significance of education as both an alternative and a corollary to war in establishing US colonial power. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the way in which psychologists classified immigrant children as feebleminded through the use of intelligence testing and how state organisations consequently segregated them from public schools based on the scientific evidence. First, I show the way in which the psychologist Lewis Terman utilised intelligence testing to identify immigrant children deemed feebleminded. I focus closely on a survey and on his methodology and analysis. I then discuss the possibilities of education for the feebleminded and the segregation of immigrant children from regular classroom of public schools. Through his survey, Terman concluded that the exceptionally high ratio of feebleminded children in the tested region was caused by the large population of immigrant children, although the selection of the sample was often subjective, leading to “miscalculation” in his analysis. Terman’s survey was influential in terms of segregating feebleminded children by stating their incurability; possibilities of education for the feebleminded were thus denied. At his suggestion, special classes and schools, along with a home for the feebleminded, were established. Terman’s psychological survey was a cue for psychologists to enter the school system. The State Board of Education was not only attempting to discover the percentage of feebleminded children but also trying to apply psychology to school training. With the cooperation of the Board, the training of teachers for the feebleminded proceeded. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the wake of developments in France and the United States where early psychiatrists such as Pinel, Esquirol, Belhomme and Séguin advocated ‘moral treatment’ of the insane and classified ‘idiots’ and ‘imbeciles’ as incurable though educable, the Revd C. E. Van Koetsveld initiated his ‘School for Idiots’ in The Hague in 1855. Within two years, he had also opened a boarding facility that accommodated many of his pupils. Legal regulations (the Insanity Act of 1841) demanded a judicial authorization for placing a child in the institution. Thus, the admittance to the first autonomous Dutch institution for the medico-pedagogical treatment of children with mental deficiencies involved a systematic registration of the children’s specific characteristics. A local figure of authority, often a physician, was required to fill in a short questionnaire on the condition of the child nominated for placement in the institution by their legal representative such as a parent or guardian. The first aim of this paper is to outline theoretically how physicians and educationists used medico-pedagogical selection to develop a notion of the mental boundaries they thought could be recognized in children’s minds. The work of E. Séguin was crucial in this development. He considered these boundaries as hindrances to a ‘normal’ life, for example, for participating in education and at work. Based on his work, other physicians and educationists were stimulated to contribute to new interventions in minding and educating ‘idiotic’ children. The second part of the paper offers the Dutch example. It includes the analysis of 187 files on girls and boys who were admitted to Van Koetsveld’s institution during the years 1857 to 1873. The analysis reveals the gender and family characteristics amongst the children, as well as information on medical factors and hereditary properties, which made Van Koetsveld and his staff decide to classify these children as eligible for treatment at the first Dutch ‘School for Idiots’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the USA, authority over teacher education and certification rests with the individual states rather than the federal government. Nonetheless, US mathematics teacher‐education programs bear a strong resemblance in their fundamental structure to one another and to the earliest such programs established in the 1890s. This paper examines an influential early program developed by David Eugene Smith, a pioneer in mathematics education. Smith’s program required preparation in mathematics, specialized training in mathematics pedagogy, exposure to social science perspectives and supervised practice teaching. Three characteristics distinguished Smith’s program: the importance of a historical perspective, the dynamic aspect of the teacher’s role, and the need for an international viewpoint. Smith sought to extend the domain of teacher education into school classrooms through his innovative handbooks for teachers. An examination of Smith’s 1904 arithmetic series and the accompanying handbook reveals how he incorporated the continued education of teachers into school textbooks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]