Education and Progressivism

A MAJOR PROBLEM with Lawrence A. Cremin's The Transformation of the School is the neglect of one aspect of political ideology and one stream of educational thought during the preWorld War I period. The neglect of these two movements was probably caused by a failure to give a coherent statement as to the nature of educational reforms during this period and the use of a rather vague definition of political and social change. What Cremin calls progressive education during the pre-World War I period appears to be a conglomeration of educational changes with no particular common bonds except that they represented something new. This lack of clarity gives the impression that a strange combination of people were called progressive educators. Under the roof of this title is mixed the free atmosphere of Marietta Johnson's Organic School with the well ordered air of the platoon system of the Gary Public Schools. The title also houses the educational elitist and test-oriented Edward L. Thorndike with Caroline Pratt's Play School. This confused picture of educational change is a function of an equally obscure definition of political and social change. Cremin vaguely defines American Progressivism writ large as social and political change designed to improve the lives of individuals, a valueless definition since it literally includes everyone. What I would like to do in this paper is to clarify some of these relationships by suggesting one possible link between the social and political movement called progressivism and educational reform. In doing this I will attempt to be more specific about the goals of