The kindergarten : its encounter with educational thought in America

A decade ago, Bernard Bailyn presented a stinging critique of the writing of American educational history. In essence, Bailyn claimed, the past had been misused, had become a prologue to the present written by individuals more concerned with contemporary educational practices than with the distinctiveness of historical events. The debate that emerged still divides us: on the one side, the house historians trained in schools of education teach­ ing professional educators; on the other, the liberal arts historians com­ mitted to the graduate seminar and their own brand of professionalism. Oc­ casionally lines are crossed as individuals try to integrate dual allegiances and seek to understand contemporary problems through legitimate histori­ cal analysis. Evelyn Weber's book on the kindergarten is clearly a house history. Pro­ fessor Weber teaches future kindergarten practitioners, and, while critical of their practices, identifies with today's preschool educators. As history, her work is oversimplified and schematic. The past is too linear. We always feel in stages of transition. Too much time is spent on curricular changes, as if these define the nature of an educational institution. Individuals— Patty Smith H i l l , G . Stanley Hal l , John Dewey, Edward L . Thorndike, Arnold Gesell—pass through the story working changes we never fully un­ derstand. Most striking, conflict is invariably internal. Disputes occur among the kindergarten professionals; the issues she emphasizes are the stuff out of which certification requirements and curricular orthodoxy emerge. The kindergarten, despite Professor Weber's best efforts, comes out an abstraction. Yet with all these faults—serious to the practicing historian—there is much of importance in this book, for the story of preschooling offers excel­ lent insights into the history of American education. The kindergarten fo­ cused attention on the child—how he grew and learned, what interested him —and with the later nursery schools provided an institutional base for de­ velopmental studies of the young. I t brought physical activity and the notion of experiential learning into the classroom and legitimized happiness in learning. I t introduced the concept of teacher as guide, reinforcing the growing concern with pedagogy. By focusing on noncognitive growth, on socialization, and habits of behavior, the kindergarten heightened the move­ ment away from books and academic criteria, and turned us toward the contentless curriculum. Moving from a philanthropic base into the public