Article 1: Naumburg, Margaret. 1928. "Progressive Education." Nation 126, no. 3273: 344. MAS Ultra - School Edition , EBSCO host (accessed November 24, 2017). Abstract: In this article, Margaret Naumburg, a progressive education leader, explores the ideas discussed during the Eighth Conference on Progressive Education, held in 1928. Although this falls outside of what Historians consider the progressive era, it speaks to what was accomplished during the era, and the effects those accomplishments further down the road. Naumburg first explains how the ideals of progressive education are still being challenged by some, allowing the conference to teach the more conservative minded attendees how progressive education is useful. Then, she goes on to analyzes John Dewey’s speech at the conference . This is what the excerpt below focuses on. After exploring Dewey's ideas on furthering progressive education, Naumburg explores the discussion that took place focusing on The Foreign Movement in new education, and discusses progressive changes in both the Russian and German education system. Finally, she ends the article discussing the closing dinner which focused on college education, and the strides being taken to grant students involved in higher education with more freedom in developing their education. Excerpt: The new schools, he said, had already more than justified themselves as to results when their pupils went to college or out into life. But the moment had come to “raise the intellectual, the theoretical problem of the relation of the progressive movement to the art and philosophy of education.” Very significant was Professor Dewey’s direct attack on the modern obsession with the so -called science of measurement and the abuse of I.Q.’ s and achievement tests in recent school procedure. For, said Dewey: It is natural and proper that the theory of the practices found in traditional schools should set great store by tests and measurements. But that has all this to do with schools where individuality is a primary object of consideration, and wherein the so- called “class” becomes a grouping made for social purposes and wherein diversity of ability and experience rather than uniformity is prized? Quality of activity and of consequence is more important the teacher than any quantitative element...The place of measurement of achievements as a theory of education is very different in a static educational system from what it is in one which is dynamic, or in which the ongoing process of growing is the important thing. If you want schools to perpetuate the present order, with at most an elimination of waste and with such additions as enable it to do better than it is already doing, then one type of intellectual method or “science” is indicated . But it conceives that a social order different in quality and direction from the present is desirable and that schools should strive to educate with social change in view by producing individuals not complacent about what already exists, and equipped with desires and abilities to assist in transforming it, quite a different method and content is indicated educational science.
Article 2: Gaffield, Chad. 2001. “Children, Schooling, and Family Reproduction in Nineteenth - Century Ontario.” Abstract: In this secondary source, Chad Gaffield examines the social, demographic, and economic changes that shaped mass public schooling in Canada. In this source, he discusses several historical perspectives on the causes and effects of mass public schooling during the progressive era. In response to these perspectives, he shapes his own claims as to why mass public schooling occurred in Ontario. His first claim is that land availability in places surrounding Ontario became more attractive to rural families due to the development of the lumber industries, causing more children to be sent to schools in the city or nearby. Next, he claims the growing demand for wage labour emphasized the need for children of families to be educated in trades in growing fields such as mixed farming, dairying, mechanization, and sawmilling and gristmilling while still continuing their formal education when they were not needed for production. Furthermore, the author writes that immigration paved the way for public schooling due to the fact that many Irish immigrants in particular carried over the cultural heritage of public schooling themselves, building institutions as a natural result of cultural transfer. Finally, Gaffield emphasizes the polarization of tradition and ethics within rural communities that called for school officials to create inclusive curriculums of both anglophone children and francophone children, leading to the complete transformation of traditional schooling to public institutions. Excerpt: In the 1970’s, many scholars (notably Houston and Prentice) interpreted the actions of public school promoters in terms of social control nourished by fear dislocated (and thus potentially dangerous) ‘traditional’ mentalities in an emerging modern world of cities and factories. Children and youth were seen to be particularly at risk, and thus schools were designed for the purpose of moral, social, and economic order. In this view, the definition of children as pupils was intimately related to the importance of urban industrialization. The implication was the rural society, and its assumed lack of interest in education, was rapidly declining in the face of increasing metropolitanism, with its enthusiasm for educational reform. The school systems reflected the new social organization of cities, the new demands for industrial workers, and the need to integrate the numerous immigrants into their new society. In other words, traditional educational forms became outmoded by the dawn of modern society as engendered by the Industrial Revolution; the result was massive institution building, beginning with schools. This assumption was the rationale for the urban social history projects that were undertaken by certain educational historians to examine the type of new industrial city dictation ideas and behaviour by 1850.
Article 3 Theodore Roosevelt and the Golden Age of Children’s Literature Abstract: Theodore Roosevelt has been marked in history for his involvement in children’s educati on and literature. He even had a toy, the “Teddy Bear” named after a story of when he saved a bear while hunting. Roosevelt read literature from an early age. His parents provided him with books through his schooling and his childhood. One of his favorite authors was Mayne Reid, the author of adventure books such as, The Boy Hunters: Adventures in Search of a White Buffalo. Roosevelt’s later interest in nature and the outdoors may have stemmed from his love of Reid’s books. He also enjoyed children’s magazines, such as Our Young Folks , a subscription his parents provided for him as a child. This love of literature, and especially children’s literature continued into his adulthood. He provided books, and children’s magazines for his six children as a parent. He also had interest in poetry fo r his children, with poets such as Laura E. Richards, and Joel Chandler Harris. When he took office, he continued to admire children’s literature authors, even inviting them to the White House. Excerpt: Roosevelt’s involvement in children’s literature oc curred during a period often known as the ‘‘Golden Age’’ of childre n’s literature, which began around 1860 and ended by 1930. Roger Lancelyn Green coined this term in an essay published in 1962, and Humphrey Carpenter popularized it in his book Secret Gard ens: The Golden Age of Children’s Literature, which came out in 1985. Both Green and Carpenter applied this term mostly to British children’s literature, but it has since been applied to American children’s literature from the same period (Chaston 2– 3). One of the points that Greene, Carpenter, and others 124 The Journal of American Culture Volume 33, Number 2 June 2010 have made about children’s literature from this period is that some of the most prominent authors of the time wrote for children as well as adults. Examples include Louisa May Alcott, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Kenneth Grahame, Rudyard Kipling, A. A. Milne, Robert Lewis Stevenson, and Mark Twain. Because these authors were so highly regarded, the overall stature of children’s literature was enhanced by the fact that these authors wrote children’s books. There was, however, another factor that enhanced the stature of children’s literature during this ‘‘Golden Age,’’ and that was the fact that many adults openly read and promoted children’s lit erature. Perhaps the most prominent example of such an adult promoter of children’s literature was President Theodore Roosevelt.
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