Rice, Joseph Mayer (1857–1934)

Joseph Mayer Rice is viewed as one of the first muckraking journalists to turn his attention to the field of education and describe the deplorable conditions, inept administration, and tedious teaching practices of schools. A knowledgeable educational reformer, researcher, and trained physician, Rice generated public attention to the dismal state of affairs of education in the late 19th century through his magazine articles. His work contributed significantly to school reform in the Progressive era.

Rice, practicing medicine in New York City in the 1880s, became interested in the physical fitness programs offered in the city schools. This led to his decision to leave medical practice and to travel to Germany in 1888 where, for the next 2 years, he studied psychology and pedagogy at the universities in Jena and Leipzig and traveled throughout Europe observing school systems and pedagogical practices. Rice would observe the first laboratory of experimental psychology, directed by Wilhelm Wundt, and learned of Herbartianism as it was taught at the University of Jena and its laboratory schools. Rice returned to the United States in 1890 with strong views for the reform of elementary education. He began writing for the public press and published several articles in The Forum, a New York monthly magazine owned by his brother, Issac Leopold Rice. His recommendations for American education, striking a resonate chord during the late-19th-century Populist and Progressive eras, included better training of teachers, a curriculum based on sound psychological principles, and the scientific management of education in which clearly defined goals and standards mandated the scientific measurement of outcomes.

The editor of The Forum, Walter Hines Page (later editor of The Atlantic Monthly and U.S. ambassador to England during World War I), became intrigued with Rice's German experiences and his critique of American schools and, seeing an opportunity to publicly expose a little-examined system, proposed that Rice conduct a school survey-study tour for The Forum. Rice began the 6-month project in 1892 and traveled to 36 cities, visiting 6 to 8 schools in each city. He observed classrooms, talked to approximately 1,200 teachers, met with school officials and school boards, interviewed parents, and visited 20 teacher-training institutions. Rice's research compared traditional schools, with their narrow curricula and recitation, with that of the progressive “new pedagogy” of modern schools, characterized by an integrated approach to curriculum and instruction. From 1892 to 1893, Rice published a series of nine articles in The Forum, now considered an [Page 770]example of muckraking, which created an outrage among the general public, who had previously maintained faith in the education system.

Rice's articles reported some of the most tedious, pedantic teaching imaginable in the traditional schools. He described unassisted superintendents responsible for the supervision of hundreds of teachers, and he quoted at length from board of education reports portraying the deplorable conditions of schools and the senselessness and ineffectiveness of educational practices. The general public became outraged at educators with each succeeding Forum essay. Lawrence Cremin described professional educators' reactions to Rice as ranging from “chilling disdain to near-hysteria.”

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