History of Education

Abstract

IN THIS REVIEW certain terms appear which need to be clarified beforehand. History of education at times is used to signify the entire range of historical writings about education. At other times it is used to denote historical writings about education by professional educators. And lastly it is applied to those historical writings about education by professional educators who specialize in educational theory. This last group can be divided into those scholars whose primary discipline is and those who are primarily educational philosophers, social theorists, and the like. Inasmuch as labeling the various usages of the term history of education 1, history of education 2, and history of education 3 would be confusing, the reader is left to derive the particular sense of the term's meaning from the context. A distinction is also made between the academic educational historian and the professional educational historian. No value judgment is implied. An additional distinction is made between the related concepts, the new and pragmatic history, the difference being that the new stems from the academic tradition whereas pragmatic is a term that applies rather to the work of the professional educational historian. In the main, this review regards the literature in the ol education as illustrative of the place holds in shaping educational means and ends. Initially the major theoretical emphases in the field are critically analyzed in terms of trends in current writings. This analysis is followed by an assessment of the difficulties facing the historian of education because of the new movements in theory. Finally, an effort is made to point up some of the areas of concern in which intensive historical study would be particularly fruitful.