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“Holding High the Standard”: The Influence of the American Education Society in Ante-Bellum Education

For the self-preservation of the nation, Eliphalet Pearson warned in 1815, “an immediate and universal effort must be made to provide religious instruction.” Pearson, a former professor at Harvard College and president of the board of trustees of Phillips Academy and Andover Seminary, was preaching at the organizational meeting of the American Society for the Education of Pious Youth for the Gospel Ministry. To Pearson, America seemed to be plagued by a “common degeneracy in religion and morals” with hundreds of thousands bereft of religious instruction. Religion and education were to be the means of salvation for both the individual and the nation. Pearson exhorted, “Schools are to be multiplied, Bibles distributed; and, above all, thousands of pious young men must be educated for the ministry; and this speedily.” Thus, the American Education Society (AES) was formed in Boston as part of a Protestant crusade to save the nation.