Catholic minds/bodies–souls: Catholic schools and eugenic inspired educational reforms in the United States, 1915–1952

ABSTRACT

Social efficiency shaped much of public schooling in the United States during the early twentieth century. Simultaneously, Roman Catholic schools proliferated and became increasingly regulated by state departments of education. This led to increased influence of public education reform movements on Catholic schools. This article examines the arguments advanced by Catholic educators who questioned the educational measurement movement and eugenic-inspired reforms such as intelligence testing. It follows those debates during the early twentieth century through to the mid-century. American Catholic educators offered arguments beyond self-interest grounded in the principles of Catholic education with a commitment to educating the whole child – mind/body–soul – in the Thomist tradition. This historical case demonstrates how the dualist tradition of the mind/body–soul stood against the pseudo-scientific attempt of eugenicists in attempting to measure minds and bodies–souls.

KEYWORDS:

• Catholic education
• eugenics
• educational measurement
• IQ testing
• Thomism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Francis Galton’s Definition of Eugenics Image #921, circa 1921, Lantern Slides, Black Case, Section 5, 501, The Harry H. Laughlin Papers, Truman State University, http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/list3.pl (accessed May 14, 2018).

² Carol M. Taylor, ‘W.E.B. DuBois’s Challenge to Scientific Racism’, Journal of Black Studies 11, no. 4 (1981): 454; and Christine Rosen, Preaching Eugenics: Religious Leaders and the American Eugenics Movement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 142.

³ Rosen, Preaching Eugenics, 14.

⁴ Ibid., 15.

⁵ Ibid., 20.

⁶ Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, encyclical letter, Vatican website, December 31, 1930, https://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19301231_casti-connubii.pdf (accessed May 13, 2018).

⁷ Ibid., 14.

⁸ Shields, Philosophy of Education, 194; Pope Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris: On the Restoration of Christian Philosophy, encyclical letter, Vatican website, August 4, 1879, http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_04081879_aeterni-patris.html (accessed May 9, 2018). Pope Leo XIII’s 1879 encyclical, Aeterni Patris, re-established St Thomas Aquinas’ philosophy as central to Roman Catholic education.

⁹ Shields, Philosophy of Education, 194.

¹⁰ Ibid., 129.

¹¹ Ralph McInerny and John O’Callaghan, ‘Saint Thomas Aquinas’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, July 12, 1999. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas (accessed May 10, 2018).

¹² Shields, Philosophy of Education, 180.

¹³ Ibid., 412.

¹⁴ Aida Roige, Intelligence and IQ Testing, April 29, 2014, http://eugenicsarchive.ca/discover/connections/535eecb77095aa000000023a.

¹⁵ Debunking Intelligence Experts: Walter Lippmann Speaks Out, 1922, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5172; Taylor, ‘W.E.B. DuBois’s Challenge’, 449–60; Wayne Au, ‘Meritocracy 2.0: High-Stakes, Standardized Testing as a Racial Project of Neoliberal Multiculturalism’, Educational Policy 30, no. 1 (2016): 39–62. In a series of articles in 1922 in the New Republic, Walter Lippman analysed the weaknesses in the intelligence tests used to sort the army for the First World War and the conclusions drawn from it.

¹⁶ John L. Elias, ‘Thomas Edward Shields’, Talbot School of Theology, https://www.biola.edu/talbot/ce20/database/thomas-edward-shields#biography (accessed Feb 3, 2018).

¹⁷ Thomas Edward Shields, ‘Survey of the Field: The Cultural and Vocational Aims in Education’, Catholic Educational Review X, June–December (1915): 54.

¹⁸ Shields, Philosophy of Education, 31.

¹⁹ Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996), 187–8.

²⁰ Don Mitchell, Cultural Geography: A Critical Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), xvi.

²¹ Thomas D. Snyder, 120 Years of American Education: A Statistical Portrait (Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, 1993), 49, https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=93442. In 1920, there were 6551 elementary schools and 1552 high schools recorded. By the 1949–1950 academic year the number of elementary schools increased to 8589 and high schools to 2189; For more on the standardisation of Catholic schools see Ann Marie Ryan, ‘Negotiating Assimilation: Chicago Catholic High Schools’ Pursuit of Accreditation in the Early-Twentieth Century’, History of Education Quarterly 46, no. 3 (2006): 348–81.

²² Catholic Directory, Almanac and Clergy List – Quarterly (Milwaukee, WI: M.H. Wiltzius, 1900), insert; Snyder, 120 Years of American Education, 34, 49.

²³ Ann Marie Ryan, ‘“More than Measurable Human Products”: Catholic Educators’ Responses to the Educational Measurement Movement in the First Half of the 20th Century’, Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice 13, no. 1 (2009): 76–96; Snyder, 120 Years of American Education, 34, 49.

²⁴ Diane Ravitch, The Great School Wars: A History of the New York City Public Schools (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 47.

²⁵ It was originally the National Catholic War Council and established to support the war effort in 1917. With the end of the Great War (the First World War), Catholics repurposed the organisation into a national effort to coordinate themselves in several areas including education, social action, legal issues, lay organisations and press relations. The National Catholic War Council was renamed the National Catholic Welfare Council in 1919 and then eventually became the National Welfare Conference.

²⁶ Ryan, ‘More than Measurable Human Products’, 76–96; Benjamin Justice, The War that Wasn’t: Religious Conflict and Compromise in the Common Schools of New York State, 1865–1900 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005), 156. On this matter, both Justice and Ryan have asserted that more is needed to understand how educators acted on these types of reforms, since they often acted in ways that defied the categories by which they were labelled. Administrative progressives instituted reforms that aimed to sort and track students in the name of efficiency, in contrast to pedagogical progressives, who focused more on child-centred pedagogies that aimed at meeting the needs and interests of the individual child. For more on the difference between administrative and pedagogical progressives, see David Tyack, The One Best System: A History of Urban American Education (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), 126–129, 196–198.

²⁷ Piercev. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/268/510 (accessed Jan 6, 2018); The Pierce decision built upon Meyerv. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923), which served as precedent, since it allowed for state regulation of private schools. The case itself dealt with the teaching of German in 1919 at a Lutheran school and whether that was allowable under state law. The US Supreme Court ruled that it was during a time of peace.

²⁸ Ryan, ‘Negotiating Assimilation’, 348–81.

²⁹ Ibid., 356.

³⁰ Ibid., 348–81. In my previous work, I have used sociologist Milton Gordon’s notion of structural assimilation along with cultural pluralism to demonstrate how Catholics navigated their assimilation into American society – remaining separate within parallel Catholic institutions. Gordon argued that structural assimilation, which included full integration into the formal social, political, economic and cultural institutions of the dominant society, was critical to the complete assimilation of a minority group. See Milton M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Race, Religion, and National Origins (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), 71, 81, 158.

³¹ Sharon Leon, An Image of God: Catholic Struggle with Eugenics (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2013), 24–6.

³² Rosen, Preaching Eugenics, 139.

³³ Leon, An Image of God, 27.

³⁴ Ibid., 25; Ryan, ‘More than Measurable Human Products’, 76–96.

³⁵ For a discussion of the debate leading up to the Johnson-Reed Act and the influence of the eugenics movement on this legislation, see John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925, 2nd ed. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998), 300–30.

³⁶ Brother John A. Waldron, S.M., ‘Tests and Examinations’, Catholic Educational Association Bulletin XIX, no. 1 (1922): 217.

³⁷ Ibid., 217–18.

³⁸ Ibid., 222.

³⁹ Reverend Joseph A. Dunney, ‘Discussion’, Catholic Educational Association Bulletin XIX, no. 1 (1922): 229.

⁴⁰ Ibid.

⁴¹ Ibid., 230.

⁴² Brother Aubert, C.F.X., ‘Discussion’, Catholic Educational Association Bulletin XIX, no. 1 (1922): 231.

⁴³ Reverend Francis P. Donnelly, S.J., ‘The Philosophic Basis of Mental Tests’, Catholic Educational Association Bulletin XX, no. 1 (1923): 173.

⁴⁴ For a discussion of the history of the IQ in the United States and its introduction into public schools see Paula Fass, ‘The IQ: A Cultural and Historical Framework’, American Journal of Education 88, no. 4 (1980): 431–58. To better understand the introduction of IQ testing into Catholic schools see Ryan, ‘More than Measurable Human Products’, 76–96.

⁴⁵ Leon, An Image of God, 62–3. Leon notes that between 1923 and 1930 the American Eugenics Society had two Catholic members on its Committee on Cooperation with Clergymen: Reverend John A. Ryan and Reverend John Montgomery Cooper. Both left the Committee in 1930 stating they could not continue being part of the organisation due to the lack of scientific foundation for their policies. This also coincided with Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Casti Connubii, published in December 1930.

⁴⁶ At this time, Catholic educators would have been almost exclusively teaching sisters, brothers and priests.

⁴⁷ Reverend Thomas S. Bowdern, S.J., ‘Do You Take after Your Father?’ Catholic School Journal 30, no. 2 (1930): 52.

⁴⁸ Ibid.

⁴⁹ Ibid., 51.

⁵⁰ Ibid., 51–2.

⁵¹ Ibid., 51

⁵² Sister Mary Janet Miller, Catholic Secondary Education: A National Survey (Washington, DC: National Catholic Welfare Conference, 1949), 54.

⁵³ For more on this particular topic see Richard T. Ognibene, ‘Catholic and Public School Commonalities: A Historical Perspective’, Journal of Catholic Education 19, no. 1 (2015): 27–60.

⁵⁴ Miller, Catholic Secondary Education, 138.

⁵⁵ Ibid.

⁵⁶ Ibid., 138–9.

⁵⁷ Rita Watrin, ‘The IQ and the Secondary School’, Bulletin for Secondary Schools of the Catholic University of America XIV, no. 4 (1952): 2. (Available from the Secondary School Bulletin: October 1950–May 1960 Alternate file, Box 33. Affiliation VII Publications, American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC).

⁵⁸ Mitchell, Cultural Geography. Catholic educators’ debates over the use of educational measurement and other public education reforms of the early twentieth century demonstrated what Don Mitchell has characterised as a culture war derived from the social relationships, institutions and spaces that govern people’s lives.

⁵⁹ Ann Marie Ryan and Alan Stoskopf, ‘Public and Catholic School Responses to IQ Testing in the Early-Twentieth Century’, Teachers College Record 110, no. 4 (2008): 894–922.

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Notes on contributors

Ann Marie Ryan

Ann Marie Ryan is an associate professor in the School of Education at Loyola University Chicago. Her research concentrates on the history of Catholic education in the United States from the early to mid-twentieth century. Within this field she examines movements such as standardisation, educational measurement and accreditation.