A HISTORY OF THE PROBLEM OF GENERAL EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES ON THE SECONDARY LEVEL A D issertation Presented to the Faculty of the School of Education The U niversity of Southern C alifornia In P artial Fulfillm ent of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Education by Alfred Ehrhardt June 1950 UMI Number: DP25777 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI DP25777 Published by ProQuest LLC (2014). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest' ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 This dissertation, written under the direction of the Chairman of the candidate*s Guidance Committee and approved by all members of the Committee, has been presented to and accepted by the Faculty of the School of Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education. Date..I) t Guidance Committee Chairman TABLE OP CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE PART I THE RISE OF GENERAL EDUCATION I. Introductions The Problem of General Education in the United States . ........................ 1 II. The Greco-Roman Birth of General Education (3500 B. C. - 65 A. D . ) ................................................ 12 III. The Persistence of Humanistic General Education through European Culture (65 - 1600) 25 PART II THE RISE AND DECLINE OF GENERAL EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES IV. The Rise of General Education in the United States (1635 - 1900) ......................................................... 37 V. The Influence of S cien tific Research and Industrial E fficiency on General Education (1900 - 1930) ............................................................. 54 VI., The Period of Chaos, Courses of Study, and Experimentation: The Collapse of General Education (1930 - 1935) 79 PART III THE RISE OF THE GENERAL EDUCATION MOVEMENT VII. The Quest for'Unity* The Evolution of the Core Course for General E d u ca tio n ........................ 122 V III. The Growth of the General Education Movement: The D elineation of Issues (1935 * 1940) . . . 159 IX. General Education In the War and Post-War Eras: The Great Dichotomy (1940 - Present). . 229 iii CHAPTER PAGE PART IV SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND SUGGESTED STUDIES X. Summary, Conclusions, and Suggested Studies. . ...................................................................... 306 BIBLIOGRAPHY....................... 330 APPENDIX.................................................................................................... 338 PART I THE RISE OF GENERAL EDUCATION “But we have not as yet spoken, 0 illu strio u s guardian of education, of the manner in which your pupils are to use those strains which are w ritten in prose, although you have been informed what m artial strains they are to learn and p ractice; what relates in the fir s t place to the learning of le tte r s, and secondly, to the lyre, and also to calcu lation, which, as we were saying, is needful for them a ll to learn and any other things which are required with a view to war and the management of the house and e ity . • • •” --P lato CHAPTER I INTRODUCTIONS THE PROBLEM OF GENERAL EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES Today, as a people, Americans are experiencing what scholars consider the most tran sition al period in human history.^ A devastating economic depression, a second and more awful global co n flict, and a period of post-war re­ construction fraught with a 11 cold11 war, fear of atomic abuse, and politico-soeio-econom ic tensions have crowded the la st quarter of a century in rapid succession. The year of this d issertation , 1950, ushers in the second h alf of the twentieth century under conditions interesting as w ell as strange* They are interesting because 1950 finds humanity “at the zenith of its sc ie n tific and economic progress,11 and strange because “with a ll th is progress the world feels so afraid p and so uncertain of the future*M In the fie ld of science man has reached new summits, at the same time that he is fearfu l le st his very progress destroy both him and a ll the civ ilized world* And the explanation of a ll th is confusion is 1 Barnes, H. E* Society in T ransition, New York, Prentice-H all, 1939? pp* 659-6&0. 2 Polyzoides. “Mankind Fearful of Own Progress, 11 Los Angeles Times * January 1, 1950 2 that 11 our p o litic a l thinking has not kept pace with that of scien ce.“3 Truly, in the sp irit of Dickens1* it might be said that th is is the best of tim es, it is the worst of tim es, it is the age of wisdom, it is the age of foolish n ess, it is the epoch of b e lie f, it is the epoch of in cred ulity, it is the season of Light, it is the season of Darkness, it is the spring of hope, it is the winter of despair. It is to be expected that in such a c r isis the schools generally would be one of the fir s t social in stitu tion s to be the object of scrutiny and criticism . P articularly is th is true of the high school since it deals with a period of education closest to the actual tensions of society and serves as term inal education for the vast m ajority of youth.5 Yet it is equally true that the secondary program has ever lagged behind cultural and so cia l changes despite repeated efforts at reconstruction and revision . B ell concludes from his Maryland Youth Survey that his data ”. . . reveal the a c tiv itie s and the thinking of a generation that is s t i l l making an effort to adjust its e lf 3 Loc. c it . ^ Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two C ities,. Mew York, Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, 19*+o, p. 3. 5 A lberty, Harold. Reorganizing the High School Curriculum. New York, the Macmillan Company, 19**7* P* 3* 3 to the educational, so c ia l, vocational r e a litie s of an era that is p a st.11^ The Regent’s Inquiry in Mew York State points outs The school work for hoys and g irls has not been re­ designed to f i t them for the new and changing work opportunities which they must face in modern economic lif e . . . . The educational system has not been re­ planned to meet the new conditions of modern life and the new ways of living . . .7 Barnes is even more caustic when he says: If we are r e a listic about the m atter, we must admit that our educational program has not even attained the horse-and-buggy stage. It is more compatible with the days of horseback riding and medieval chivalry. Our curriculum is a strange mosaic, a compound of contribu­ tions made somewhere between the Stone Age and the days of Rousseau. . . . Our educational offering is inade­ quate to train our youth to liv e su ccessfu lly in our own age, to say nothing of being able to build a better future for their descendants. 8 For sixty years (1890-1950) there have been a series of investigations by and reports from deliberative councils on the reconstruction of the high-school curriculum, and repeated attempts have been made to formulate objectives and plans which would put the high-school pupil in touch with contemporary lif e . But whatever contributions to the recon­ struction of the secondary program may have been effected , 6 B ell, Howard M. Youth T ell4Their Story. American Council on Education, 1938, p. 6. 7 Gulick, Luther H ., et a l. Education for American L ife. Mew York, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1938, pp. ^-5* 8 Barnes, H. E ., op. c i t . , p. 659.