Scarcely had American independence been won in 1783 than a flood of articles, pamphlets, and books asked what should be the functions of education in a republic? The American Philosophic Society offered a prize for the best proposal of a liberal education suited to the genius of the new American nation. George Washington, Robert Coran, Benjamin Rush, William Smith, Francis Hopkinson, and Jonathan Trumball all called for a new education for the new republic. Regarding higher education, they all agreed that education must be more than a mere adornment; it must have a practical bent. Benjamin Rush wrote:

One of the most crucial needs in education in the twentieth century has been that of precision in meaning of its fundamental terminology. Many curriculum scholars have taken note of the problem and in their writings called for greater care in definition of terms. Briggs in his panoramic view of the secondary school in 1951 contended that “one of the greatest weaknesses in our professional literature … is the failure adequately to define terms.” Shane and Yauch, as well as Statemeyer, et al., referred to the current chaotic condition of curriculum terminology as a “verbal jungle.” Beauchamp noted that “a first and very important [curriculum] theory building activity is the definition and consistent use of technical terminology.”

When some as yet unborn historian of education takes it upon himself to examine and assess the story of American public education, he may be both comforted and astounded. He will find the number of landmark events staggering and the dramatis personae diverse. The unraveling of local-state-federal relationships will try his patience and the conflicting views on the definition and discharge of educational responsibilities may nag at his preference for clarity and order. Plagued though he may be by the nature and significance of what he surveys, this historian will no doubt realize, among other things, that public education in the twentieth century became a kind of common property.

The Department of Superintendence and the National Education Association met in Boston the week of Independence Day, 1893. At the Superintendence meeting, Colonel Francis Weyland Parker introduced the motion which established the Committee of Fifteen on Elementary Education. Parker hoped that the Committee of Fifteen would revise the elementary curriculum as the Committee of Ten was revising the high school curriculum.

John Dewey's first academic appointment was to the department of philosophy at the University of Michigan where he taught from 1884-1894. Toward the end of that period he became engaged in an arduous re-examination of his whole philosophical outlook. One aspect of this process was a transition from a position of religious idealism to the social ethic of democracy. We wish to call attention to two papers in this early phase of Dewey's career which indicate this shift: “Christianity and Democracy” (1893) and “The Ethics of Democracy” (1888).