History of Character Education

Greek rhetorician Isocrates expresses an educated person is one who demonstrates: accurate judgment, decency, goodness, honor, and good-nature.
(Edmonson, Tatman & Slate, 2009)

Greek philosophers Aristotle and Plato believed the true purpose of education was to train good and virtuous citizens who will contribute to society (Edmonson, Tatman & Slate, 2009).

Colonial schools taught values based on Christian principles. In 1776, school textbooks were exclusively limited to morals and religious content (Mulkey, 1997).

One of our Founding Fathers, Franklin took a strong position regarding the need to teach morality in public schools. He pushed the need for morals to be taught within the context of history. He felt students needed to learn about character within themselves, their families, and their society (Watz, 2011).

Horace Mann was known as an educational reformer. He was a strong supporter of universal education (education should be universal and free to all students in society). He felt that character should be a pivotal element of public education, and teachers need to be educated on how to teach morality. One of the surprising parts of Mann's philosophy, is that he felt females should be educated especially in character to benefit children (Watz, 2011).

McGuffey was a college president who knew that morality was crucial to education. Values and education were inseparable in his mind, and character education would be reflected in the health and happiness of American society. McGuffey, pushed using literature to help teach important societal values and visualize morality examples (Watz, 2011).

John Dewey believed that the child's moral character should develop naturally in the school environment. He criticized the separate acquisitions of knowledge and character growth (Mulkey, 1997).

In 1870, free tax supported schools banned Bibles from public classrooms. This led to arguments over whether moral training can be implemented without religious instruction (Mulkey, 1997).

The Young Mens Christian Association was brought to the US. This was available to middle class youth, and seemed to develop mental, physical, social and religious aspects of American Youth (Watz, 2011).

The Boy Scouts of America was implemented based on 12 scout laws, which were character traits. They aimed to provide a step by step system for middle class youth directing them to be morally sound (Watz, 2011).