Patricians, professors, and public schools
Subtitle: the origins of modern educational thought in America
By: by Allan S. Horlick.
Series: Brill's studies in intellectual history,; v. 53
Publisher: E.J. Brill
Published: 1994
Place of publication: Leiden; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 264
Subjects: Education -- United States -- Philosophy -- History.; Educational sociology -- United States -- History.; Public schools -- United States -- History.; Educational change -- United States -- History.; Social institutions -- United States -- History.
Description: Patricians, Professors, and Public Schools argues that the thinking behind efforts to reform American schools in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries emphasized two new ideas - that economic growth and the opportunity it created were more limited than had earlier been thought, and that popular aspirations should be revised downward accordingly.

After discussing the thinking that reformers reacted against in the first chapter of the book, later chapters examine those most responsible for these new ideas, especially Felix Adler and John Dewey. These chapters argue that reformers' fears about the social dislocation stemming from economic growth makes the most sense of the educational redirection they promoted.

This is a new interpretation of developments that have long been debated by American historians, and should be of interest to a wide variety of readers.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [243]-257) and index.