World War I marked an important turning point in progressive education. With the founding of the Progressive Education Association (PEA) in 1919 advocates had an organization that stood against pedagogical formalism. This essay provides a discussion of this new approach to education, the possibilities of the contributions progressive schools made to social transformation, the contribution of the progressive schools and the increased opportunities they provided children to engage in creative, self-expression, and the other side of this debate namely the reduction of the importance of subject matter.