Sixteen “Creeds” at the Fin de Siècle

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the pedagogic creeds published in New York and Chicago during 1896 and 1897 in The School Journal. The configuration of ideas framing the creeds reveals the dynamics of modernities and transatlantic crossings, mainly the ideas of Georg W. F. Hegel, Herbert Spencer, Friedrich Froebel, Johann Friedrich Herbart, and Wilhelm Wundt and their contextual adaptation. The creeds are analyzed at the interplay of evolutionism and its versions, including Lamarckianism, developments in psychology, the intersection of Protestantism, and the gendered and racial ordering of society. The child study movement and theories of recapitulation also had a presence. The creeds provide a picture of the ideas at the fin de siècle. They were aimed at reform with various agendas that included social reconstruction with a modernist civilizing agenda, segregationism, and residential/boarding schools for Indigenous children. John Dewey's more well-known and influential creed brought its own unique avenues through his embracement of pragmatism.