Writing in 1962, Phillippe Aries argued that an initial step in the movement to establish schools for children in Europe took place during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when moralists and artists began portraying children as different from adults. According to Aries, the portrayal of childhood as a unique period enabled the family and…

This article will consider the career of Massillon Alexander Cassidy, a Progressive Era school superintendent in Lexington, Kentucky, 1886-1928. The authors' review of school board records, personal letters, newspapers, and scholarly accounts, presents a rich outline of one man's career in public education that is illustrative of how progressive…

Many scholars have argued that history education during the antebellum period in the United States supported conservative values and sought to produce close-minded citizens. History textbooks of that era, they frequently posit, cast Americans as God's chosen people and present the past in a style that reaffirms established social conventions. Ruth…

A majority of American students have taken the journey through schools that progressed from first to twelfth grade. So by the 1913 Committee on the Economy of Time in Education, American education featured a twelve-grade system quickly evolving from the forces of consolidation and corporate efficiency. Such was not the reality in Texas schools.…

Over the past few months, news about the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) has made national headlines and not in a good way: "Large SAT Score Decline Shows Failure of No Child Left Behind and State High-Stakes Testing Strategy" (FairTest 2011); "Eshaghoff, Emory University Student, Allegedly Took SAT For Other Students" (Huffington Post 2011); and…

The March 24, 2008, edition of "National Review" (NR) was dedicated to the memory of its founder: William F. Buckley, Jr., who had passed away on February 27, 2008. It included thirty two different memorials about him written by prominent authors, editors, social commentators, fellow journalists, politicians, and historians. Then NR…

In this article, the author shares the potential applications of Paul Ricoeur's philosophies of history, memory, and narrative to the interpretation of educational histories, and those histories' life spans: moving cyclically from early conception, to evidentiary construction, to published dissemination; and ultimately to death or immortality. Her…

John Lawrence Childs was born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin on January 11, 1889, the second child of John Nelson Childs and Helen Janette (Nettie) Smith. In childhood Childs absorbed the values of industry, democracy, and a traditional, but socially conscious, religion. Childs was a Methodist and an intensely private person not given to talking about…

In the progressive era, the distinguished political scientist Robert Putnam explains, progressives invested heavily in "social capital," that is, in the stock of active connections, social networks, shared values, norms of reciprocity, trustworthiness, and friendship that bind people together (Putnam 2000, 395). They were, he argues, wise to do so…

The purpose of this article has been to set the record straight as to the extent to which education of the mind and hands was prevalent in the United States prior to the 1880s. This effort is necessary since the proponents of the manual training curriculum that surfaced in the United States in the 1880s created a misperception that no prior form…

One of the most remarkable developments in American education in the past half century has been the creation and rapid growth of the nation's community colleges. Built on the curricular pillars of vocational education, transfer programs, and community education, community colleges today are considered the "engines of statewide economic growth"…

During the twentieth-century, American engineers harnessed the atom, sent men to the moon, and literally reshaped the world. They re-routed rivers to create giant hydroelectric dams, created a massive and interconnected highway system, and designed skyscrapers, jets, computers, and the internet. As a modern profession, engineering boasted strong…

About 50 miles east of Topeka, Kansas, in what is now the suburban town of Merriam sits South Park Elementary School. Built in 1947 for white children at a cost of $90,000, the school at that time showcased eight modern classrooms, a multi-purpose auditorium, a lunchroom, and playground. Today, the building serves as a monument to a struggle for…

Recent scholarship has suggested that: "A Nation at Risk" had put education on the national agenda," that it "catapulted education near to the top of the national political agenda," and that it started "an ambitious and well-publicized elementary and secondary education reform ... that has already lasted for more than a quarter of a century." The…

The role of federal involvement in education has, in recent years, become more and more prevalent. Such an involvement was not part of the historical origins of education at virtually any level. Whether it was for economic reasons, defense of the nation, the accountability of American taxpayers, or the pursuit of better civic-minded individuals,…