The History of Education

The present volume, as well as the companion volume of Readings, arose out of a practical situation. Twenty-two years ago, on entering Stanford University as a Professor of Education and being given the history of the subject to teach, I found it necessary, almost from the first, to begin the construction of a Syllabus of Lectures which would permit of my teaching the subject more as a phase of the history of the rise and progress of our Western civilization than would any existing text. Through such a study it is possible to give, better than by any other means, that vision of world progress which throws such a flood of light over all our educational efforts. The Syllabus grew, was made to include detailed citations to historical literature, and in 1902 was published in book form. In 1905 a second and an enlarged edition was issued, [1] and these volumes for a time formed the basis for classwork and reading in a number of institutions, and, though now out of print, may still be found in many libraries. At the same time I began the collection of a series of short, illustrative sources for my students to read.

It had been my intention, after the publication of the second edition of the Syllabus, to expand the outline into a Text Book which would embody my ideas as to what university students should be given as to the history of the work in which they were engaged. I felt then, and still feel, that the history of education, properly conceived and presented, should occupy an important place in the training of an educational leader. Two things now happened which for some time turned me aside from my original purpose. The first was the publication, late in 1905, of Paul Monroe's very comprehensive and scholarly Text Book in the History of Education, and the second was that, with the expansion of the work in education in the university with which I was connected, and the addition of new men to the department, the general history of education was for a time turned over to another to teach. I then began, instead, the development of that introductory course in education, dealing entirely with American educational history and problems, out of which grew my Public Education in the United States.

The second half of the academic year 1910-11 I acted as visiting Lecturer on the History of Education at both Harvard University and Radcliffe College, and while serving in this capacity I began work on what has finally evolved into the present volume, together with the accompanying book of illustrative Readings. Other duties, and a deep interest in problems of school administration, largely engaged my energies and writing time until some three years ago, when, in rearranging courses at the university, it seemed desirable that I should again take over the instruction in the general history of education. Since then I have pushed through, as rapidly as conditions would permit, the organization of the parallel book of sources and documents, and the present volume of text.

In doing so I have not tried to prepare another history of educational theories. Of such we already have a sufficient number. Instead, I have tried to prepare a history of the progress and practice and organization of education itself, and to give to such a history its proper setting as a phase of the history of the development and spread of our Western civilization. I have especially tried to present such a picture of the rise, struggle for existence, growth, and recent great expansion of the idea of the improvability of the race and the elevation and emancipation of the individual through education as would be most illuminating and useful to students of the subject. To this end I have traced the great forward steps in the emancipation of the intellect of man, and the efforts to perpetuate the progress made through the organization of educational institutions to pass on to others what had been attained. I have also tried to give a proper setting to the great historic forces which have shaped and moulded human progress, and have made the evolution of modern state school systems and the world-wide spread of Western civilization both possible and inevitable.