Philosophy of education in the twentieth century

Abstract

Educational developments of the twentieth century in the United States are among the most important in all history. During these years elementary education has become universal and compulsory. The high school has come of age, and especially since World War II has become nearly universal as to the enrollment of adolescent youth. Both the junior high school and the junior college are products of the present century, and both institutions have attained a large measure of public and professional acceptance. The growth of higher education during the same period is especially impressive. In approximately 2000 colleges and universities of all types more than 4,500,000 students are enrolled, thus constituting about one-third of those Americans usually referred to as the college-age group. Pursuant to the foregoing statements of fact, it has become almost trite to note that one-fourth of all people in this nation are involved in the educational enterprise. The contrast between the educational situation now, and earlier in America; and the further contrast between this country and most others of the present day is noteworthy. The fact that this is the only large nation in history ever to have promoted a trend toward universality of enrollment above the elementary level-is made more significant by noting that even in the United States, relatively high selectivity was the approved mode until recent years. In trying to account for this uniqueness-a uniqueness violently disparaged by some, the democratic idealisms of the American people cannot be ignored. Such idealisms, however, are not peculiar to America, nor to Americans of the twentieth century. Arrayed with the influence of the concept of equality of opportunity for all children and youth, the large fact of economic and social change is properly to be regarded as largely the source-yet partly the result of the continuous increase of the popularization of education at all levels