Reprint of the original, first published in 1872.

Americans today choose from a dizzying array of schools, loosely lumped into categories of "public" and "private." How did these distinctions emerge in the first place, and what do they tell us about the more general relationship in the United States between public authority and private enterprise? In Public vs. Private, Robert N. Gross describes how, more than a century ago, public policies fostered the rise of modern school choice. In the late nineteenth century, American Catholics began constructing rival, urban parochial school systems, an enormous and dramatic undertaking that challenged public school systems' near-monopoly of education. In a nation deeply committed to public education, mass attendance in Catholic schools produced immense conflict. States quickly sought ways to regulate this burgeoning private sector and the competition it produced, even attempting to abolish private education altogether in the 1920s. Ultimately, however, Gross shows how the public policies that resulted produced a stable educational marketplace, where choice flourished. The creation of the educational marketplace that we have inherited today--with systematic alternatives to public schools--was as much a product of public power as of private initiative. Gross also demonstrates that schools have been key sites in the development of the American legal conceptions of "public" and "private". Landmark Supreme Court cases about the state's role in regulating private schools, such as the 1819 Dartmouth v. Woodward decision, helped define and redefine the scope of government power over private enterprise. Judges and public officials gradually blurred the meaning of "public" and "private," contributing to the broader shift in how American governments have used private entities to accomplish public aims. As ever more policies today seek to unleash market forces in education, Americans would do well to learn from the historical relationship between government, markets, and schools.

This volume examines the evolution of higher education opportunities for African Americans in the early and mid-twentieth century. It contributes to understanding how African Americans overcame great odds to obtain advanced education in their own institutions, how they asserted themselves to gain control over those institutions, and how they persisted despite discrimination and intimidation in both northern and southern universities. Following an introduction by the editors are contributions by Richard M. Breaux, Louis Ray, Lauren Kientz Anderson, Timothy Reese Cain, Linda M. Perkins, and Michael Fultz. Contributors consider the expansion and elevation of African American higher education. Such progress was made against heavy odds—the "separate but equal" policies of the segregated South, less overt but pervasive racist attitudes in the North, and legal obstacles to obtaining equal rights.

City normal schools and municipal colleges in the upward expansion of higher education for African Americans / Michael Fultz. -- Nooses, sheets, and blackface: white racial anxiety and black student presence at six midwest flagship universities, 1882-1937 / Richard M. Breaux. -- A nauseating sentiment, a magical device, or a real insight? Interracialism at Fisk University in 1930 / Lauren Kientz Anderson. -- "Only organized effort will find the way out!": faculty unionization at Howard University, 1918-1950 / Timothy Reese Cain. -- Competing visions of higher education: the College of Liberal Arts, faculty and the administration of Howard University, 1939-1960 / Louis Ray. -- The first black talent identification program: The National Scholarship Service and Fund for Negro Students, 1947-1968 / Linda M. Perkins.

Despite claims that written exams narrowed the curriculum, ruined children’s health, and turned teachers into automatons, once tests took root in American schools their legitimacy was never seriously challenged. William Reese puts today’s battles over standards and benchmarks into perspective by showcasing the history of the pencil-and-paper exam.