The Influence of Progressivism on Music Education, 1917-1947

Abstract

M USIC EDUCATION, along with the whole of education, was profoundly affected by the movement which arose in the schools immediately preceding the First World War and exerted its greatest influence between the two great Wars of 1917, 1945. The progressive education movement, which has been described by historians as a revolt against formalism in education, began as an attempt to cast the school as a lever of social reform in the struggle for equality.' Cremin offers insight into the movement when he says: Actually, progressive education began as a part of a vast humanitarian effort to apply the promise of American life . . . to the puzzling new urbanindustrial civilization that came into being in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The word Progressive provides the clue to what it really was; the educational phase of American Progressivism writ large. In effect, progressive education began as progressivism in education: a many sided effort to use the schools to improve the lives of individuals.2