I have often argued to students, only in part to be perverse, that one cannot understand the history of education in the United States during the twentieth century unless one realizes that Edward L. Thorndike won and John Dewey lost. The statement is too simple, of course, but nevertheless more true than untrue and useful for several reasons. First, it suggests that, even if Thorndike and Dewey both spoke and wrote in the “progressive” idiom, the differences of view that separated them were large and significant. Beyond that, it calls attention to differences in the way each man's ideas were received. If Dewey has been revered among some educators and his thought has had influence across a greater range of scholarly domains—philosophy, sociology, politics, and social psychology, among them—Thorndike's thought has been more influential within education. It helped to shape public school practice as well as scholarship about education. Finally, the observation that Thorndike won and Dewey lost has value because it can open new questions about the Deweyan legacy, which, despite the many extant studies (some of which are excellent), remains richly suggestive and worthy of further exploration.

One of the most vigorous debates in the history of education in recent years has been about the relation of education to industrialization, in particular how since the early nineteenth century, industrialization has influenced the development of state-supported systems of education requiring universal, compulsory school attendance. Interest in these issues has not been confined solely to historians of education. Sociologists and political scientists have also joined the fray in attempts to advance understandings of the roots of mass education systems. The result is a wealth of studies on the development of many important aspects of state education systems on three continents, with North American work being by far the most prominent.

Public high schools in Australia rose on the waves of economic expansion during the first and the second halves of the twentieth century. The earliest establishments, including the ill-fated few that were founded in New South Wales under the Public Instruction Act of 1880, shared some of the features of the American high school as established in Massachusetts in 1827. Open to all children who had successfully completed elementary school, they were intended to play a broad role by offering both vocational and academic or university-preparatory courses. But they were not free; they were administered by the state, rather than by a local authority; and there were very large regional differences in provision. Moreover, it was not long before they shed their “comprehensive” or multi-sided character and focused on academic training.

The publication of Roy Shuker's The One Best System? has stimulated debate concerning “revisionist” interpretations of the history of New Zealand schools. The essays below help to introduce our readers to these controversies, which concern both methodological and ideological issues in the study of history of education. Three prominent historians offer their criticisms of this important volume, and Shuker provides a detailed response and reflection upon current scholarship in New Zealand. N. D. Daglish is a member of the Education Department, Victoria University of Wellington; Gary McCulloch is senior lecturer in Education, University of Auckland; Pavla Miller is a member of the Department of Sociology and Politics, Phillip Institute of Technology, Bundoora, Victoria; and Roy Shuker teaches at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand, in the Department of Education.