AMERICAN PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION, 1875-1930

236 Pages·013.63 MB·English

by  BECK, ROBERT HOLMES

This dissertation has been 65—63
m icrofilm ed exactly as received
BECK, Robert Holmes, 1918—
AMERICAN PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION,
1875-1930.
Yale U niversity, Ph.D., 1942
Education, psychology
University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan
lir
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Cooyright by
ROBERT HOLMES BECK
1965
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AMERICAN PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION, 1875 - 1930
I A Dissertation
£
| Presented to
i the Faculty of the Graduate School
f*
| of Yale University
I
| in Candidacy
|
| for the Degree of
| Doctor of Philosophy
Robert Holmes Beck
June 1942
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\ AMERICAS PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION, 1875 - 1930
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i
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| This study endeavors to portray a "progressive movement" in
I American education unfolding for somewhat more than half a century.
| As many of the persons whose experimentation fashioned the progres-
| sive education movement are still alive, an important part of the
I data on the progressive education movement has been their testimony
\ on sources of inspiration, personal background, and trials with ex-
\ perimental departures from conventional educational procedures.
I "Wherever possibl > this data has been supplemented with such informa-
■ tion as could be gleaned from school bulletins, brochures, and
| announcements as well as available secondary sources*
| In sketching the movement, in telling its story, the writer
s' has not strained to remove the educational scene to a professional
realm of discourse apart from the culture or environment in which
| the experimenters lived. (This is not a study of progressive theory.
It is not a study of the philosophy of progressive education.) The
1 problem studied was the possibility of describing-.a movement of pro-
\ gressive education in its oultural milieu. As ah hypothesis it was
! supposed that this movement stemmed from the efforts of many persons
; working independently of each other to create something better than
| traditional education had to offer* As more data was collected,
; the existence of a movement patterned according to this hypothesis
I became increasingly evident*
J "
■ Oh the basis of these data specific conclusions have been
| posited as to the nature of the progressive education movement in
| America from about 1875 to 1930* The movement has "been indigenous
j and not an importation from abroad. Drawing upon a great variety
| of sources — biology, psychology, child-study, art, philosophy, re-
| ligion, political theory, and still others — the movement has had
I no one leader nor any one platform. For many years it was a movement
of revolt, on many fronts, against traditional education but by 1930
it had become more unified in its espousal of an activity theory* of
education, a definitely democratic educational program, and freedom
for children’s development in .the several facets of their personali­
ties and organisms.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study m s completed under the direction of Professor
Bessie Lee Gambrill and Professor John S. Brubacher of Yale Univer­
sity’ s Department of Education. The writer had every opportunity
of consultation with Professors Gambrill and Brubacher ?iho, over a
period of two years, gave the most considered attention to the multi­
tude of problems of research and composition that occurred. Professor
Ralph Henry Gabriel of Yale University’s History Department assisted
the writer in shaping the thesis problem at its conception and directed
him to the sources of the progressive education movement’s cultural
background*
We would also take this occasion to thank Frederick L. Redefer,
Director of the Progressive Education Association, for his valuable
suggestions and the generous loan of invaluable but unpublished
materials kept in the Association’s files.
There are many others to whom the writer is similarly indebted*
In seeking first-hand data on the progressive education movement, the
writer visited with several persons who, in one way or another, had
actually contributed to the movement of progressive education. These *
persons were uniformly kind, patient, and cooperative. Among these
we would mention particularly: Miss Caroline Pratt of the City and
Country School in Hew York City; Miss Hannah Falk, Principal of the
TTalden School in New York City; Miss Margaret Naumburg, founder of
the vfelden School; Mrs* Lucy Sprague Mitchell of the Bureau of Educa­
tional Experiments in New York City; Mrs* Sidonie Gruebberg of the
Child Study Association in New York City; Mrs. Mary K. Simkovitch of
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the Greenwich House in New York City; Miss Elizabeth Irwin, founder
and Principal of The Little Red School House in New York City; Miss
Florence Cane, formerly the art instructor in the Walden School; Miss
Flora J. Cooke of Chicago: Professor Reisner of Teachers College,
Columbia University; Professor Merle Curti of Teachers College,
Columbia University; Mr. Stanwood Cobb, who led in establishing the
Progressive Education Association; Mr. Hans Froelicher, Jr., Principal
of the Park School in Baltimore; Mr. Eugene R. Smith, I—incipal of
the Beaver Country Day School in Boston; and Dr. Vivian Thayer,
Director of the Ethical Culture Schools of New York City.
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TABLE 0? CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
:
I. INTRODUCTION......................... 1
II. FELIX ADLER AND THE ETHICAL CULTURE SCHOOLS ............ 16
III. COLONEL FRANCIS 7JAYLAND PARKER.......................... 52
IV. JOHN DEWEY . .......................................... 78
f V. ORIGINS OF THE PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION . . . . 113
VI. THE PLAY SCHOOL....................................... 146
VII. THE CHILDREN’S SCHOOL................................. 165
f= ■
VIII. "THE NEW EDUCATION TEH YEARS AFTER".................... 179
[ IX. CONCLUSION.............................................. 212
BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................... 218
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
John Dewey has recently written that the time may soon come
■when the word "progressive" will disappear from the vocabulary of edu­
cation*^ There are probably a great many educators who would approve
the demise of a term occasioning so muck controversy* Used sometimes
as a label, often as a libel, the term "progressive education" may
be -on its way to extinction. It is safe to assume, however, that
should the term progressive no longer be employed to denote a favored
type of school practice and educational theory, a great man-: .i -es
in schooling effected by progressives not only will continue, but will
continue to be hotly debated* ' Indeed, very little is to be looked for
by dropping the word? "progressive" until educators are generally clear
as to what it means *
The very word "progressive" is much to blame for the indis­
criminate manner in which it is employed. Everyone who has a proposal
to make, whether it be in social thinking, automobile design, or edu­
cation, persuades himself and attempt's to persuade others that this
idea is forward-looking, promising, or new. Such an emotive connota­
tion of "progressive" is not conducive to scientific or scholarly
understanding. Two views can be utterly contradictory or, to speak
logically, "mutually exclusive" while advertising themselves as "pro­
gressive". Recognizing that both are entitled to be called "progressive"
John Dewey, "Introduction," Agnes De Lima, The Little Red
School House (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1942), p. ‘I.
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unless there is same agreement as to -what is the "progressive” view­
point, attempt has been made to uncover an accurate, delimited defi­
nition of progressive education. The viewpoint of progressive education
implies for some a philosophy with which one may order the ideas into
a system at once consistent* coherent, and comprehensive. Given such
a philosophy, it is argued, the befuddled student may better steer a
straight course in deciding what is and what is not progressive educa­
tion.
Professor Brubacher of Tale University has attempted to formulate
2
such philosophical ori .tenia* At the heart of his philosophical analy­
sis is an interpretation of the idea of progress with its historical
implications for education. In reviewing the history of the idea of
progress, Professor Brubacher postulates Darwin*s conception of change
to be at the foundation of progressive education. Darwin, of course,
denied the old Greek idea that all change indicated degeneracy. He
denied, too, Aristotle’s portrayal of change as cyclical, productive-^
of no novelty. Change in natural hi story comes, in Darwin’s scheme
of evolution, through a slow process of adaptation. Organisms that
are unable to sustain themselves in their environment die off and those
who can meet the problems of life successfully live on. That man is
so able to "conquer his environment," to adapt it to his needs, is a
consequence Darwin attributed to his "intelligence," which natural
function emerged in the process of evolution.
The Darwin of education in Professor Brubacher*s estimation is
John Dewey vho was born, to mention the coincidence, in the year
^ John S. Brubacher, "A Proposal for Judging TThat is and "What
is Hot Progressive Education," School and Society, 48*509-519, October
22, 1938.
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Darrin published the Origin of Species* As an educator, claims Pro­
fessor Brubacher, Dewey brought Darwin*s theory into focus on education
and set forth the principles of progressive education in his philosophy
of experimentalism. It is not Our concern to outline Dewey’s educa­
tional philosophy here, but merely to remark that Professor Brubacher*s
l.ysis led him to believe that the history and philosophy of the
icic^. of progress takes the student of progressive education directly
to the door of John Dewey. One needs but read Dewey’s Democracy and
I Education to find progressive- education’s foundation detailed in full.
* The answer to any dispute as to what validly goes by the name of a
m progressive practice may then be referred to John Dewey.
I
Let us note, however, that Professor Brubacher goes beyond the
I
analysis of "progress" when he ascribes the philosophy of progressive
| education to John Dew^y. He is under the necessity, for one thing,
to connect John Dewey with the actual movement of progressive education.
And this Professor Brubacher does by noting that progressive education
was a term coined by the Progressive Education Association in 1918-1919*
Since Dewey was the philosopher of progress, Professor Brubacher assumes
that the Association came into being as the organized expression of
this philosophy and that the progressive movement dates from this
time. "In 1918," Professor Brubacher writes, "was formed an associa­
tion -which had the avowed purpose of encouraging a type of schooling
based on a very distinctive educational philosophy. The patron saint
of this movement, although perhaps never formally canonized as such,
was John Dewey. "When this association took unto itself a name, it
selected the word ’progressive*. Prom that time forth, the word ’pro­
gressive* has derived its content very largely, if not exclusively,
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