Frederick Gunn's The Gunnery

Frederick Gunn, who founded The Gunnery in 1850, was an outspoken man for his time. He spoke up about issues that weren’t to be spoken about then, he believed that students and teachers should have equal power, and felt that in order to teach students properly you have to understand the students personally.

Mr. Gunn had moral courage, which means he spoke up for what he believed in despite the consequences. Women in the 1850s had it rough. Women today still live in a male dominant world but it was much worse back in the 1850s. Women were not allowed to vote, women were only recently allowed the right to own land but only in Oregon, etc. However Mr. Gunn stood up for the equal rights of women, and felt that women should be privileged the right to vote. He said in a speech, “You will pardon me, I was asked to speak of confidence between boys and their teacher, but, properly speaking, an ideal school should be composed about equally of boys and girls.” Even though he was working on creating a boarding school for boys, he wanted to make a school where girls would be involved. However since the first co-ed boarding school was created over a 100 years later after The Gunnery was founded, proving the chances of Mr. Gunn making a co-ed boarding school in the 1850s. He was also an abolitionist, which

was unpopular for a white, male to be at that time. He believed that African Americans should have the right of getting an education as well. He believed in the equality of all genders and races, which was a radical thing to believe in the 1850s.

Frederick Gunn also felt that teachers and their students should be equal and not having the teacher act more superior than the student.

He said himself, “This doctrine is the devils own gospel, and, so far as accepted, blunts the moral sense of its victim, makes him a slave of the worst elements in school, and mars and destroys that sympathetic, generous, loving confidence which must always exist between ingenuous youth and a teacher whom they love.” He is stating that there should be an equal relationship between a student and a teacher and not a power trip of the teacher to the student. He again believed in equality however this time between students and their

teachers.

Lastly he wanted there to be a personal bond between the student and teacher in order to create a healthy teaching environment. He said in the same speech, “The child should look into the teacher’s face and find his heart’s-home there.” He wanted the students to feel comfortable with the teachers and to have a person the boy could go to when there was no one else there for him. He also stated, “For one, I am not ashamed to have been and to be a boy among boys.” He admits that he becomes one of the boys because he can relate to them, since he himself was a boy himself.

Frederick Gunn was a man very much ahead of his time with the idea of equality of the genders and races. He also was a man who wanted the possible best for his students to achieve the education he wanted his students to have.