Background

William Bentley Fowle was born on October 17, 1795 in Boston, Massachusetts, and was the third son of Henry and Elizabeth (Bentley) Fowle. His father was a man of considerable literary attainment, and a Freemason of high rank whom financial troubles had forced to take up the trade of pump and block maker. His mother was the sister of the eminent divine and scholar, William Bentley, and a woman of rare intellect.

Education

William attended his first school at the age of three and there learned the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism by heart. At six he had memorized Caleb Bingham’s Young Ladies’ Accidence, and at ten he had received the Franklin Medal for proficiency in grammar; but so unconscious was he of the meaning of the words he learned that when he entered the Boston Latin School at thirteen he was unable to give the perfect participle of the verb to love.

Career

William Fowle was prepared for college at fifteen, but due to his father’s financial difficulties he was apprenticed to Caleb Bingham, whose bookstore at 44 Cornhill, Boston, was the favorite resort of school-teachers. There he found ample opportunity to indulge his taste for reading and to discuss the latest educational theories.

In 1821 he was called upon to organize and teach a school of 200 children who were too old for the primary and too ignorant for the grammar schools. By employing the novel monitorial system by which the more advanced pupils aided in teaching the more backward, he gained such success that in a year’s time his school won high commendation from Mayor Quincy.

In this school Fowle introduced blackboards, map drawing, written spelling lessons, and by an act even more radical, he abolished corporal punishment. In 1823, upon the establishment of the Female Monitorial School, Fowle gave up his book business to take charge of it. This was probably the first school in the country to have scientific apparatus adequate to illustrate the subjects taught, and most of it was constructed under Fowle’s supervision. In this school he introduced for the first time such subjects as vocal and instrumental music, calisthenics, and needlework.

Flis leisure he devoted to the compilation of school textbooks, of which he published more than fifty during his life, and to the delivery of scientific lectures to his pupils and their friends. With remarkable versatility he described the mysteries of the atmosphere, the solar system, chemistry, mineralogy, and geology, delivering from fifteen to twenty lectures every season for seventeen years.

In 1842 Fowle undertook the publication of the Common School Journal, which Horace Mann had started four years earlier, and from 1848 to 1852 he edited as well as published it. Throughout his friendship with Mann, Fowle rendered invaluable aid in the many sharp collisions which occurred between his superior and the more conservative teachers of the day. He was one of Mann’s most able assistants in the Teachers’ Institute, conducting over a hundred meetings of the organization in Massachusetts and neighboring states.

His last public activity was to open a monitorial school on Washington St. , Boston, which he conducted until 1860.

He died at his home at Medfield, Massachusetts.

Achievements

• William Fowle was a prominent creative innovator in the area of education whose accomplishments stand out among educators of his time. One of his remarkable achievements was in the organization and teaching of a school of 200 children who were too old for the primary and too ignorant for the grammar schools. By employing the novel monitorial system by which the more advanced pupils aided in teaching the more backward, he gained such success that in a year’s time his school won high commendation from Mayor Quincy. Another achievement came in 1823, upon the establishment of the Female Monitorial School, when Fowle took charge of it. This was probably the first school in the country to have scientific apparatus adequate to illustrate the subjects taught, and most of it was constructed under Fowle’s supervision. In this school he introduced for the first time such subjects as vocal and instrumental music, calisthenics, and needlework. In addition to his fifty published books his written lectures, mostly on scientific subjects, numbered more than sixty, he produced newspaper essays more than five hundred.

Works

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  • Fowle'S Common School Grammar

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • The Common School Journal, Volume 8

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • The Common School Journal, Volume 5

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • The Child's Arithmetick: Or, The Elements of Calculation, in the Spirit of Pestalozzi's Method

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  • The Hundred Dialogues: New and Original; Designed for Reading and Exhibition in Schools, Academies, and Private Circles

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  • The Scholiast Schooled: An Examination of The Review of the Reports of the Annual Visiting Committees of the Public Schools of the City of Boston, for 1845, by 'Scholiast'

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  • Parlor Dramas, Or, Dramatic Scenes: For Home Amusement

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  • The Bible Reader: Being a New Selection of Reading Lessons from the Holy Scriptures : for the Use of Schools and Families

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  • The free speaker: a new collection of pieces for declamation, original as well as selected, intended as a companion to The hundred dialogues.''

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • The Hundred Dialogues: New and Original ; Designed for Reading and Exhibition in Schools, Academies, and Private Circles

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

Views

Although Fowle was by nature kindly and tolerant, his opponents in matters of school administration found him a merciless antagonist. He was also consistently bitter in his denunciation of slavery. He also believed that girls should receive the same education as boys.

Quotations: In later life he said, “It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that I hated grammar; had no faith in the utility of teaching it as it was then taught, and determined to reform the method if I ever had a good opportunity. ”

Membership

Fowle was a member of several learned organizations.

Connections

William Bentley Fowle's first wife, whom he married on September 28, 1818, was Antoinette Moulton, daughter of F. benezer Moulton. On November 26, 1860, he married Mary Baxter Adams, daughter of Hon. Daniel Adams, of Watertown.

Father:

Henry Fowle

Daughter :

Abba Bourne Fowle Mackintosh

1822–1875

Daughter :

Harriet Adams Fowle

1862–1926

Daughter :

Anna C. Fowle Whittelsey

1832–1910

Daughter :

Maria Antoinette Fowle

1819–1863

1st wife :

Maria Antoinette Moulton Fowle

1800–1859

2nd wife :

Mary Baxter Adams Fowle

1832–1893

mother :

Elizabeth Bentley Fowle

1769–1811

Son :

William Bentley Fowle

1826–1902

Brother:

Thomas Patton Fowle

1800–1836

Brother :

George Fowle

1804–1868

Brother :

Henry Fowle

1794–1847

References

• The Diary of William Bentley D.D., Pastor of the East Church, Salem, Massachusetts: 1793-1802