Anne Soulard, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
The present volume, as well as the companion volume of Readings, aroseout of a practical situation. Twenty-two years ago, on entering StanfordUniversity as a Professor of Education and being given the history of thesubject to teach, I found it necessary, almost from the first, to beginthe construction of a Syllabus of Lectures which would permit of myteaching the subject more as a phase of the history of the rise andprogress of our Western civilization than would any existing text. Throughsuch a study it is possible to give, better than by any other means, thatvision of world progress which throws such a flood of light over all oureducational efforts. The Syllabus grew, was made to include detailedcitations to historical literature, and in 1902 was published in bookform. In 1905 a second and an enlarged edition was issued, [1] and thesevolumes for a time formed the basis for classwork and reading in a numberof institutions, and, though now out of print, may still be found in manylibraries. At the same time I began the collection of a series of short,illustrative sources for my students to read.
It had been my intention, after the publication of the second edition ofthe Syllabus, to expand the outline into a Text Book which would embody myideas as to what university students should be given as to the history ofthe work in which they were engaged. I felt then, and still feel, that thehistory of education, properly conceived and presented, should occupy animportant place in the training of an educational leader. Two things nowhappened which for some time turned me aside from my original purpose. Thefirst was the publication, late in 1905, of Paul Monroe's verycomprehensive and scholarly Text Book in the History of Education, andthe second was that, with the expansion of the work in education in theuniversity with which I was connected, and the addition of new men to thedepartment, the general history of education was for a time turned over toanother to teach. I then began, instead, the development of thatintroductory course in education, dealing entirely with Americaneducational history and problems, out of which grew my Public Educationin the United States.
The second half of the academic year 1910-11 I acted as visiting Lectureron the History of Education at both Harvard University and RadcliffeCollege, and while serving in this capacity I began work on what hasfinally evolved into the present volume, together with the accompanyingbook of illustrative Readings. Other duties, and a deep interest inproblems of school administration, largely engaged my energies and writingtime until some three years ago, when, in rearranging courses at theuniversity, it seemed desirable that I should again take over theinstruction in the general history of education. Since then I have pushedthrough, as rapidly as conditions would permit, the organization of theparallel book of sources and documents, and the present volume of text.
In doing so I have not tried to prepare another history of educationaltheories. Of such we already have a sufficient number. Instead, I havetried to prepare a history of the progress and practice and organizationof education itself, and to give to such a