On the Origins Of the Term and Meanings Of "Adult Education" In the United States

Abstract

Despite modem and 1920s era assertions that the term "adult education" was practically unknown in the United States prior to 1924, American usage dates at least to the late nineteenth century. By 1899 at least four influential people had used the term. Melvil Dewey, the inventor of the book cataloging system, had even offered a typology of adult education in 1904. Other terms, such as continuation education, home education, popular education, university extension, and educational extension, all dealt with learning by adults. But Henry M. Leipziger's indefatigable advocacy of New York City's Free Lectures program as an "institute of adult education" offered a context in which liberal adult education prospered. More than any other, Leipziger is responsible for the early advocacy and diffusion of the new term.