We will explore that framework as we turn to a sense of history of American education and the birth of Scattergood Friends School. We still celebrate the birth of the Research University, the Land Grant University, the Urban College and the Public Library in those years. From their creation flowed a host of secondary inventions such as agricultural extension services, vastly expanded student admissions, adult education, home economics and 4-H programs for families and youth, and a new model of the American high school. It was truly a giant step in our national life as we came to believe that education was for every citizen and that knowledge needed to be actively pursued and be useful in furthering the goals of the nation. The driving forces for this marvelous educational giant step came from the shift from an agrarian economy to the mass industrial economy and the concomitant shift of millions of families and citizens from the farm to the city.
Some social inventions take a long time to come to full flower.
Quakers, of course, have an inherited theological commitment to the development of the individual, pursued in the unique Quaker Learning Process implemented in Quaker families and Quaker Meetings. Hence it is not surprising that Iowa Quakers, and indeed Quakers everywhere, saw the need to expand the Quaker Learning Process to include Quaker Schools and Colleges. As we read Scattergood's history it is easy to see the School as an extension of the family and Meeting-centered Quaker Learning Process with exceptionally close ties between family, Meeting and School. Although not as severe we have concluded that the same dynamic is as work in Quaker education. Although there are still ties between Quaker families, Quaker Meetings and Quaker schools the closeness is not what is once was and the distances between them seems to be growing.