CHAPTER 2 : Current Conceptions of the Function of the School

Society's concept of the function of the public school determines to a great extent what kind of curriculum
schools will have. Yet, in a complex culture with a pluralistic value system, it is difficult to establish a single central
function for any agency. In a democratic society these formulations are further complicated by the fact that
different layers of society participate in the process of determining what education in general and public schools
specifically should be and do. It is, therefore,more difficult to determine the central function of schools in a
democracy than in a totalitarian society where a small power group decides both what society should be and
what role schools shall play in it.

Our society today has by no means agreed about what the central function of the school should be. One
could even say that "the great debate about schools and their function" is in effect a debate about many of the
issues our society faces: the balance between freedom and control and between change and tradition, whether
the elite should be of power or of intellect, who should participate in shaping the public policy, and many others.
It is generally agreed that the main outlines of the "crisis in education” are shaped and complicated by the
convergence of two phenomena: the transformative effects of science and technology on society and the
emergence of Communist totalitarianism as an expanding imperialist power. In the light of this setting the
examination of the functions of the public school is highly pertinent, but extremely difficult, because the issues
tend to be confused and the viewpoints somewhat less than objective.

Whatever the specific viewpoints regarding the functions of the public schools, there seems to be little
disagreement about the importance of the role education. American society has always expected a great deal of
education and, in Walter Lippmann's phrase, has expressed great faith in it as the "life-giving principle of national
power." Historically the American people have assumed that education has the power to reduce poverty distress,
to prevent child delinquency and crime, and to promote the well-being of the individual, the intelligent use of
suffrage, and the welfare stability of the state. Indeed, even today education, if not the public school is
considered an antidote againt evils in the minds of men and an ally in achieving all good causes. The very attacks
on the schools express the faith of the American public that the schools matter because of their influence not only
on individuals, but on society as well. Some critics, for example, seem to reason that the strength of our current
enemies is the result of their education and, correspondingly, that the weakness in our position is the fault of our
education.

These high expectations and the naïve faith in the power of education are at once a curse and a blessing. No
doubt they have given American education a certain vigor by insisting that it respond to social ideologies and
needs. They have also made it more subject to passing hysterias and changing moods of the public than may have
been good for a healthy development. Anyone tracing the various "trends" in curriculum development in the
United States will note a zigzag movement in which one "trend" swallows and annihilates the preceding one with
an almost unbelievable discontinuity in theoretical thought. When education is overly sensitive to public opinion,
changes are bound to be made thoughtlessly. Continuity in capitalizing on past achievements is jeopardized in the
heat of hastily formulated reforms and changes. It is no wonder, then, that in periods of crisis the question of the
central function of schools in society becomes a subject of heated controversy, with the nature of the
relationships of education to society at the very core of that controversy. It is no wonder also that there are many
variations in the conceptions of what the essential function of the public school is.

There is relatively littie disagreement also about the idea that schools function on behalf of the culture in
which they exist. The school is created by a society for the purpose of reproducing in the learner the knowledge,
attitudes, values, and techniques that have cultural relevancy or currency.* There is generally also no quarrel with
the idea that of the many educative agencies of society, the school is the one which specializes in inducting youth
into the culture and is thus responsible for the continuity of that culture.
 However, opinion is divided about the precise nature of this function. The differences range from
conceptions which assume a strong cultural determination of everything schools do and should do to postulations
about ideals of individual development which are quite independent of cultural norms. This division of opinion
extends also to views on the extent to which the program of the school is or should be subject to the values and
norms of the culture, and in what measure the materials it uses and the ideologies that control its shaping should
be drawn from the life of the culture. While in all concepts it is accepted that schools must transmit culture, there
are sharp differences about what should be transmitted and the manner in which it is to be done. Some
conceptions emphasize education as an agent of change, while others stress its preserving functions.

Sometimes, especially in theoretical discussion, these devisions of views appear as rather strak and even
unrealistic alternative. Speaking of the function of general educational, Conant states one states one such
alternative neatly.

Roughly speaking, the basic argument about general education turns on the degree to which the
literary and philosophical traditions of the western world, as interpreted by scholars and connoisseurs
before World War I, should be the basis of the education of all American youth. The watershed between
fundamentally opposed positions can be located by raising the question: For what purpose do we have a
system of public education? If the answer is to develop effective citizens of a free democratic country, then
we seem to facing in one direction. If the answer is to develop the student's rational powers and immerse
him in the stream of our cultural heritage, then we appear to be facing in the opposite direction. By and
large, the first position represents the modern approach to education; the latter the more conventional
view. Those who look down one valley regard conventional "book learning" as only one element in the
landscape; those who look down the other believe that developing the "life of the mind" is the primary aim
of civilization and this can be accomplished only by steeping youth in our literary and philosophical heritage.

All the same, the overlappings in these conceptions are too great to make possible a refined classification of
concepts of the function of education. This chapter, therefore, summarizes views on the functions of education
under only three large headings: education as preservation and transmission of cultural heritage, education as an
instrument for transforming culture, and education as the means for individual development. Within each
concept there are variations, some significant enough to cause sharp conflicts regarding the nature of a desirable
curriculum. In the emphasis on individual development, for example, there are differences as to whether
education should stress intellectual development exclusively or should also stress social and emotional
development, and as to how much the socialization of the individual is also within the purview of the public
school. The conceptions of the social role of education divide according to whether the major emphasis is on
serving social needs and social change or on a planned reconstruction of society.

EDUCATION AS PRESERVER AND TRANSMITTER OF THE CULTURAL HERITAGE

One group of theorists stresses the preserving function of education: the preserving of the cultural heritage,
especially that of the Western culture. This group argues that since all cultural traditions have roots, cultural
continuity is possible only if education preserves e heritage by passing on the truths worked out in the past to the
new generation, thus developing a common cultural background and loyalties. The specific ideas regarding what
this heritage consists of are not always clear. In the main the transmission of the accumulated wisdom of the race
and of basic truths and values is emphasized.

The Harvard Report on General Education is one example of an emphasis on the importance of preserving
tradition and maintaining roots from the past. This report argues that education can develop a. unifying purpose
and idea only as it develops this sense of heritage, which in turn requires a common ground in training and
outlook. This heritage is basic to education because it uses the past to clarify or even to determine what is
important in the present. The report points out that it is the function of education to pass on the inherited (italics
mine) view of man and society, and that its main task is to perpetuate such ideas as the dignity of man and
common beliefs in what is good. "Classical antiquity handed on a working system of truths which relied on both
reason and experience and was designed to provide a norm for civilized life." It is the business of education to
instill a commitment to these truths.

This assertion of the necessity for imparting the common heritage is, however, modified by a certain
recognition of the role of new experience and change. The report attempts to reconcile the necessity for common
belief with the equally obvious necessity for new and independent insight by pointing out that a certain tough-
mindedness in reaching conclusions by scientific methods of thought, a curiosity, and a readiness for change are
also neces- sary; that education cannot be wholly devoted to the commitment to tradition or to the view that
means are valuable apart from ideals; that it upholds at the same time the tradition and the experiment, the ideal
and the means, and, like our culture itself, change within the commitment. While the report makes a bow to
experiment and change, it seems to say that the basic ideals of what constitutes a good man in our society come
from tradition. In other words, since the modern society is only an extension of the traditional one, changes will
come from applying the ancient truths to the modern scene. Because the common heritage is a way of building
unity in culture, and since the classical tradition has handed down a norm for civilized life, the task of education is
to "shape the student" to "receive" this ideal (Report of the Harvard Committee, 1945, pp. 44-51).

This preserving or conserving function of education is still more strongly accentuated by a group of theorists
philosophicaily classified as rational humanists and classicists. (See, for example, Hutchins, 1936, and Adler and
Mayer, 1958.) Their conception of the function of education is intimately bound up with and derived from their
conception of human nature, which has as its major premise that the essence of human nature is its rational
character. Rationality is a common characteristic of all men, apart and independent of the culture in which they
exist. The world can be understood by the exercise of this faculty of rationality. Therefore, the chief function of
education is intimately bound up with and derived from their conception of human nature, which has as its major
premise that the essence of human nature is its rational character. Rationality is a common characteristic of all
men, apart and independent of the culture in which they exist. The world can be understood by the exercise of
this faclty of rationality. Therefore, the chief fuction of education is to develop this rationality, and the
understanding of the ein truths revealed by these rational faculties. "Education, if it is rightly ual stood, is the
cultivation of the intellect. Only this is what belongs to man man, and his individuality is only his caprice, self-will,
and unique propensities" (Hutchins, 1936, pp. 66-71).

Being preoccupied with the essence of things, this viewpoint also insists learning should be concerned with
essentials, that is, the first principles articulated in the great books and the classical tradition. Since rationality is
essential, the subjects of greatest rational content should also have prioriy in the curriculum. These subjects are
the liberal arts and, among the liberal arte the humanities (Brubacher, 1950, pp. 316-19)

This viewpoint does not deny that societies differ, that education must train citizens for its own society, or
that problems of societies vary. However it insists that these differences are ephemeral idiosyncratic and that
these problems must be understood and interpreted in the light of the universal eternal truths embodied in the
classical literature of great books. Such truths are our main cultural heritage, which education must transmit.
They constitute the liberalizing education. Further, liberalizing education is the same everywhere, because "truth"
is the same everywhere. Thus is set the case not only for of education, but also for the requirements for the
"essentials" and for the uniformity of curriculum.

A rejection of technical subjects and of vocational education of any sort as a narrowing influence is the
logical consequence of this viewpoint. That type of "education" is considered to be not education, but training. It
is an uncalled-for "encroachment" on the essential task of liberal education (Griswold, 1959).

While this view of the function of education was originally put forth in reference to college education,
recently the same orientation has been applied to criticism of and proposals for the public-school curriculum by a
group organized around the concept of basic education. (See, for example, Koerner, 1959.) This group insist also
that the transmission of cultural heritage is the chief function of public schools. This heritage is defined by stress
on three points, each of which has consequences on what may be proposed for the curriculum.

First, a strong case is made for intellectual development as the distinctive function of public schools. As
defined by Bestor this intellectual development must stress the understanding of principles and the ability to
handle and to apply complex ideas, to make use of a wide range of accurate knowledge, and to command the
means of effective communication. No one would quarrel with this definition. But there is reason to quarrel with
another assumption Bestor makes-namely, that because education has been extended to classes and groups
which have hitherto been deprived of it, any "weakness" in intellectual training creates a void into which steps
anti-intellectualism. In order to prevent this from happening, the case for this intellectual purpose of the
preserving group insists also that the transmission of cultural heritage is the school must be made clear that the
anti-intellectual masses cannot distort it (Bestor, 1955, pp. 7-9; 1959, pp. 76-78).

Second, this type of intellectual training is possible only by centering the educational effort on basic skills
and disciplines: reading, writing, and arithmetic on the lower level, and logic, history, philosophy, mathematics,
science, art, and philosophy on the higher levels. These lead the hierarchy of subjects, or the "basics" of
education. The assumption that there is a hierarchy of subjects according to "their power to enhance intellectual
development" and that the traditional liberal arts subjects are at the top of that hierarchy runs through most of
the writings of the basic educators (Bestor, 1955, pp. 7-21).

This belief that certain subjects are superior to others as means for intel- lectual training is made perfectly
clear by Clifton Fadiman (1959, pp. 6-10), who argues that since the cultural tradition includes many more things
than can be handled in schools "without running into chaos," men in the past have imposed on cultural tradition a
form and a hierarchy which is constituted into the disciplines of liberal arts, as encompassed in a New York City
public school he attended. It is interesting to compare this simple view of basic subjects with the analysis of the
complexities in deciding what knowledge is worth most described by those who have examined the recent
explosion of knowledge and of its specialization. (See chapter 3 for some ideas.)

The third characteristic of "basic education" is a complete rejection of certain current functions of the
schools, among them education for democratic citizenship, for moral values, and for ability to deal with social
problems, and the concern for the "whole child" or any form of "life adjustment”. Including education for
vocations. These functions put basic educators in an especially aggressive and combative mood. According to
Bestor, modern education suffers from an enormous extension of functions which schools have no business tion
and to the development of intelligence. This extension also unnecessarily pre-empts the functions of other
agencies. Thus, job training is the problem of industry. Training in cultural traits, mores, and the ethical to the
family and the church. Neither should the school be concerned about "social conditioning," partly because it
works against tremendous odds and therefore hese bich in assuming: In this extension there is peril to basic
educa- systems belongs is ineffectual, partly because the socialization of the individual is the very means of
squelching the creativity and independence of the intellect. A thoughtless transfer of functions from one agency
to another only creates problems: this transfer should be resisted, even though pressures exist for it (Bestor,
1959, pp. 80-87).

In other words, basic education is a case against any goals for schools beyond those for intellectual
development, for a return to the pure form of disciplines as defined by classical tradition, and for limiting general
education to those who show a certain level of intellectual promise.

There are, of course, many criticisms of and questions about this definition of the function of the public
school. One criticism pertains to the validin the assumption that, since men are rational and truth is everywhere
the of education everywhere must be uniformly addressed to these truths and me, exclusive task of developing
the rational powers. The recent explosion knowledge seems to have disestablished many truths that were
considered perennial. Rational powers scems to be interlocked with cultural conditions personal factors in a way
that forces reinterpretation of ancient truths and "Ancient truths" are not always applicable to the realities and
the needs of modern society except in a sense so general as to be unachievable short ot lifetime of study. Further,
modern social analysis seems to indicate a greater break with tradition than any of the basic educators are willing
to admit, and therefore the transmission of outdated wisdom might even be dangerous. It seems more likely that
society today needs to create its own image of the true, thebeautiful, and the just.

It is questionable also whether intellectual development can take place effectively in such a grand isolation
from the cultural milieu as the advocates of this viewpoint seem to assume. This assumption contradicts the tenor
of many studies which point to the relationship between the development of an individual and while there is a
general agreement about the central iniportance of intellectual development, the weight of recent knowledge
about learning points to the fact that intellectuality cannot be neatly separated from other aspects of personality
development without the danger of cultivating an academic intelectuality instead of a functioning intelligence.

Finally, the argument for the purified liberal arts disciplines as a sole way to wisdom is strongly contradicted
by the very developments in these disciplines. Often so-called practical application of what is known becomes the
very mainspring of theory, or "pure" thought.

EDUCATION AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR TRANSFORMING CULTURE

An opposing view is held by many educators and social analysts who maintain, in effect, that education can
and does play a creative role in modifying and even reshaping the culture in which it functions, that education and
public policy are intimately related, and that progress in one is limited without progress in the other. They
maintain that education must deal with the needs of current culture and even help to shape the future.

The idea that education has a constructive role to play in shaping the society has deep roots in American
tradition. It is implicitly expressed in the general public faith in the power of education to deal with problems of
culture. It is also articulated in much of educational writing over a long period of time. Horace Mann underscored
the integral relationship between popular education and social problems, such as freedom and the republican
government. This theme resounds through his twelve reports: "A nation can- not long remain ignorant and free.
No political structure, however artfully devised, can inherently guarantee the rights and liberties of citizens, for
freedom can be secure only as knowledge is widely distributed among the populace" (Cremin, 1957, p. 7). Facing
the social reality of the times, the public discord of a nation not yet unified, and "Fearing the destructive pos-
sibilities of religious, political and class discord," he sought a common value system which might undergird
American republicanism and within which a healthy diversity might thrive. His quest was for public philosophy, a
sense of community which might be shared by Americans of every variety and persuasion. His effort was to use
education to fashion a new American character out of a maze of conflicting cultural traditions. And his tool was
the Common School. The common school for him was the instrument for his limitless faith in the perfectibility of
human life and institutions (Cremin, 1957, p. 8). In this sense, then, Horace Mann regarded education as an arm
of public policy and an instrument for dealing with the problems facing the nation at that time.

A flowering of the idea that education is a social process, the primary and most effective instrument of
social reconstruction, came with the work and writings of Dewey and his followers. The main thesis of this group
was that the school is not merely a residual institution to maintain things as they are: education has a creative
function to play in the shaping of individuals and through them in the shaping of the culture. Dewey consistently
saw the func- tion of the school in both psychological and social terms. As early as 1897 he wrote:

I believe that: all education proceeds by the participation of the individuals in the social consciousness
of the race. This process... is continually shaping the individual's powers, saturating his consciousness,
forming his habits, train- ing his ideas, and arousing his feelings and emotions.... The most formal and
technical education in the world cannot safely depart from this general process... one sociological and...
neither can be subordinated to the other, or neglected, without evil consequences ... knowledge of social
 conditions of the present state of civilization is necessary in order to properly interpret the child's pow- ...
and that the school is primarily a social institution [Dewey, 1929, . This educational process has two sides-
one psychological, and Pp. 3-6].

In subsequent development one fork of this dual orientation of Dewey on the function of education
matured into an elaboration of the social re- sponsibilities of the school, while the other centered more
emphatically on individual development.

Dewey's concept of democracy was that of an intentionally progressive society, committed to change,
organized as intelligently and as scientificaly as possible. The role of education in such a society is to inculcate the
habit that would make it possible for individuals to control their surroutiosor rather than merely to submit to
them. A progressive society would to shape the experience of the young so that instead of reproducing curreny
habits, better habits shall be formed, and thus the future aduit society an improvement on their own.... the
potential efficacy society, from realizing that it represents not only a development of children and youth but also
of the future society of which they will be the constituents" (Dewey, 1928, p. 92).

This viewpoint dictated priorities for curriculum. Dewey was concerned that essentials be placed first and
refinements second, but he defined essentials the things which are most fundamental socially, which have to do
with experience shared by the widest groups. He was also deeply critical of dualism be We are doubtless far from
realizino education as a constructive agency of improvine of between culture and vocation and concerned with
the effects on the democracy of a scheme of education in which there is education for one class of people and a
broad liberal education for another (1928, p. 225). In addition to insisting on the cultivation of the "method of
intelligence" and of scientific inquiry as the first tasks of the curriculum, he also stressed the necessity of
introducting vocational subjects not merely to build utilitarian skills but as "points of departure" for increasingly
intellectu- alized ventures into the life and meaning of industrial society. (For a fuller narrow utilitarian summary
see Cremin, 1961, pp. 117-26.)

The subsequent elaborations of the social function of the school took on everal different shadings, which
ranged from emphasis on changing society by changing individuals to stress on planned reconstruction of the
social system.

Some of the elaborations stress primarily the responsibility of the school to meet current social needs. The
deeper interpretation of this responsibility involves shaping the school program according to a long-term
perspective on the realities of the changing society, and an adequate study of a whole range social needs. A
shallower interpretation makes demands on the school on behalf redoubled study of mathematics and physical
science, growing in part out of the "somewhat adolescent feeling of national humiliation" at Soviet advances of of
immediate difficulties and problems. The current insistence on missile technology and in part out of temporary
anxieties regarding man- power needs in these fields, illustrates the shallow perspective.

Others see the social function of education as one of promoting a critical orientation toward the current
scene. This interpretation has led to an emphasis on problem solving in the social sciences and to the introduction
of problem courses. An emphasis on an understanding of the social forces that generate cultural lag and
dislocation is part of this orientation. (See Brubacher, 1950, p. 186-201, for an analysis of the relationship of
school to social progress.) Some educators interpret the social function of education chiefly as an instrument for
social change, either through gradual reform by reshaping the outlook of the oncoming generation or through
planned effort at reconstruction.

But whatever the variations in concepts of the social functions of education, certain fundamental ideas tend
to run through all. One is the understanding that education must, and usually does, work in the cultural setting of
a given society, at a given time, in a given place, shaping the individual in some measure to participate in that
society. All decisions about education, includ- ing those about curriculum, are made within the context of a
society. The values and forces of that society determine not only what manner of man exists but also to some
extent what manner of man is needed. The decision-makers themselves are immersed in the culture and
therefore subject to the culturally conditioned conceptions of how education is to serve that society. As Childs
puts it (1935, p. 2), the schools are doubly social in nature. They are the arm instituted by society for the
education of the young. But the very materials which constitute the program of the school are also drawn from
the life of that society.

This concept means that not only is intellectual training to be directed to understanding the forces of the
culture and to mastering the intellectual tools necessary for that understanding, but also that there is a
fundamental responsibility for training in the culture's essential values and loyalties. In this view, then, social
cohesion depends not so much on transmission of the common knowledge as the sharing of common values and
concerns.

A second important element in these concepts is the profound apprecia- tion of the fact of change in
modern culture and of the meaning of social change. If the society and the culture are changing, then it is the task
of schools to play a constructive role in that change. Education must adjust its aims and program to changing
conditions, and, if possible, foreshadow them, especially under the conditions of rapid change introduced by
modern technology. Without a continual reorientation to changing conditions, educa- tion becomes unreal and in
a sense useless because it does not prepare youth for life's problems and responsibilities. To meet changing
conditions means, of course, that both the aims of education and the programs devised to implement these aims,
including the orientation brought to bear on mate- rials used, must be changed also. It is of central importance to
use critical intelligence (not intellectuality as described in the preceding section) and scientific attitudes in
understanding and solving human and social prob- lems. These qualities of mind can be cultivated to the extent
that the "subject matter" of education is significant to the ongoing experience and concerns of the culture, and
that experience is used as the key for giving meaning to knowledge and for translating subject matter into
behavior and action (Dewey, 1937, pp. 235-38; Kilpatrick, 1935, 1926).

The third important element of this concept is the idea that education is a moral undertaking. It begins and
ends with value decisions. Educational decisions, whether regarding aims or curricular selections, always involve
value judgments. For this reason education always will involve an elemen of prescription. Although scientific
inquiry will determine what is, it will prescribe what should be. Education is a moral enterprise also in that selects
which parts of the culture, what wisdom, which values, what ideals to transmit. No school in any society can be
completely neutral; the difference lies in whether the basis for selection is made clear and whether the selection
is made with some degree of rational method and scientific inquiry (Childs, 1935, pp. 1-9: 1959, p. 91).

The concept of education as a reconstruction of society goes further than any of the above. The proponents
of this view speak of education as manage. ment and control of social change and as social engineering, and of
educators as statesmen. The idea that education should not only foster changes in so- ciety but should change the
very social order was first expressed by Counts (1932). It was later reiterated in The Educational Frontier, the
thesis of which was that the task of education is "to prepare individuals to take part intelligently in the
management of conditions under which they live, to bring them to an understanding of the forces which are
moving, to equip them with the intellectual tools by which they can themselves enter into the direc- tion of these
forces" (Kilpatrick, 1933, p. 71). To implement such an educa- tion it would be necessary to launch a massive adult
program that would build political and educational support for a radically different school cur- riculum, to develop
a public which is education conscious and wise in the realities of industrial civilization, to reorient professional
education, and to alert teachers to the pressing social issues of the day (Cremin, 1961, p. 230).

More recently a group of educators who call themselves the "reconstruc- tionists" have argued in a similar
vein and with the same sense of urgency about the social mission of education. In analyzing the orientation
needed for developing a curriculum theory, B. Othanel Smith concludes by observ- ing: "It is clear that the time
for building a comprehensive social perspective is here. We are now living in a time when we can no longer
depend upon custom and unconscious control to regulate our social existence. There is no longer any substitute
for human management of the vast social machine. As a people we have much knowledge of and techniques for
social engineering. The question is: can we learn to use it rapidly enough to control the so- cial machine before it
either enslaves us or destroys us?" (B. O. Smith, March 1950, p. 16).

The main theses of the reconstructionist position are somewhat as follows: the transformation of society by
technological and scientific revolution is so radical as to require a new moral and intellectual consensus capable of
mold- ing and directing this transformation. It is the task of educators to analyze the social trends, to discern the
problems society is facing, to speculate on the consequences of the current social dynamics, and to project the
values and the goals which need to be sought to maintain a democratic way of life. Be- cause social changes today
are rapid and radical, and because there blind consequences to the technological revolution which seem to
endanger the democratic way of life, tradition is a poor guide. A continuous critical re- examination of the
meaning of the democratic way of life under the altered social conditions is needed. Critical examination and
reconstruction of the cultural heritage-or social ideas, beliefs, and institutions-in the light of current problems and
conditions, rather than inculcation of traditional ideas. must constitute the core of the educational program of
today. In addition, educators must be statesmen, and in cooperation with other agencies must study and discuss
the implication of the new "intellectual and moral order" for the "institutional structure of society" (B. O. Smith,
Stanley, and Shores, 1957, pp. 574-82).

In this scheme a rather exalted role is allotted to education and the schools. Educators must take close
account of social forces, of the social institutions, and of their educative effects. They must translate this
knowledge of culture and society into "educational policy," that is, a curriculum which will aid students in
understanding these forces and in developing the techniques and attitudes necessary for participation in
democratic reconstruction. The total educative impact of the school must encompass and coordinate changes in
beliefs, personality structures, and social arrangements. Educators must carry the rest of the con Stanley, and
Shores, 1957, pp, 580-82). Curriculum planning needs to focus on building "social goals" and a "common social
orientation." Individual goals and diverse group goals must be integrated into a system of social ends. Curriculum
development in this sense becomes a way of making public pol- icy (B. O. Smith, March 1950, p. 10).

The capacity of education in general and of public schools in particular to assume a leading role in changing
the society and particularly the social structure has been seriously questioned. To sociologists concerned with the
relationship of school and society it seems altogether unrealistic for schools to be animated by goals which differ
radically from those of the culture in which they work. They point out that usually the aims of education are con-
servative-that is, they are consonant with the conceptions of the ideal adult which society wishes to produce-and
educational institutions can pur- sue only those aims that society considers desirable. Historically, the aims of
education have shifted, but these shifts have followed, not preceded, the changes in society's ideals of a desirable
adult. It is therefore somewhat utopian to think of education as a means for a radical reconstruction of society,
such as a new social order (Brim, 1958, pp. 16-17).

Other critics suggest, in addition, that it is casy to exaggerate both the actual and the potential ability of any
formal institution, including the schools, to contribute to consensus in society, whether the means to achieve this
consensus be the formation of basic personality or inculcation of a common set of values. This is especially so in
industrial societies with their mass patterns of educational service, in which instruction looms large than
education, and in school settings in which it is impossible except under extreme conditions either to isolate or to
exclude from its personnel those grops who do not share the dominant goals of the institution (Floud and Halsey,
1959, pp. 293-94). It is possible, of course, that the sociologists and other critics may because of their own limited
insight into the dynamics of the educational process underestimate what schools can do. The conditions under
which creative educational aims can be conceived and implemented might well form the subject of further
serious study and research.
 EDUCATIONAL FOR INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT

The other fork from Dewey's philosophy led to an emphasis on individual development as a chief function
of education. A large part of the progressive education movement emphasized the creative role of education in
society by stressing the development of a creative individual. This point of view was implemented by centering
educational effort on the development of all the powers of the individual, and especially on his creative
imagination, freedom, independence, right to seif-discovery, and physical and emotional powers-in other words,
on the "whole child." In the extreme this view led to a conception of the "child-centered school," with its concern
for creative self-expression, individuality, activity, freedom from imposition "from without," and growth from
within. The counterpart of this conception was experimentation with curriculum built up solely to meet the needs
and interests of children. The chief tenet of the child-centered concept of education was to preserve the "whole"
child and especially what is creative spontaneous in him. The idea was to move the child into the center of
educational activity and to allow him freedom to develop as a unique personality. (Rugg and Shumaker, 1928, is
perhaps the classical expression of this view).

A more moderate conception of individual development included concern with the needs of the individual
and with his fullest opportunity for self-realization in an intellectual as well as emotional sense, while recognizing
that this development needs to combine social and intellectual discipline and freedom in a reasonable balance.
The programs generated by this moderate view had a tremendous vitality for several decades and set in motion
numerous studies of individual needs and of patterns of development as well as many experiments in educational
practice, such as the Eight Year Study (Advertures in American Education Series, 1942-43).

This interpretation of individual development probably has influenced the school programs and practices to
a far greater extent than have the concepts of the social function of education. Data on developmental sequences
have greatly influenced the grade placement of subjects. The emphasis on the important role of emotional
development has led to introduction of guidance practices as well as to a more discerning shaping of the
conditions for learning, such as the "permissive" climate and regard for motivation. The intellectual
understanding of emotional development has been implemented by introducing the study of personal
development into the curriculum. And the concept of individual differences has been expanded to include
emotional and social maturity in addition to ability and achievement.

A somewhat exclusive emphasis on education as chiefly an instrument of individual development hold sway
even today and is discernible even in the work of the groups which start their thinking from an analysis of the
impact of social problems and needs on education. The 1950 White House Conference, for example, started with
an analysis of factual data regarding changes in family structure, in population trends,and in technology, and of
the social problems created by these changes. Their final report to the president, however, concludes with a
statement of goals almost entirely in terms of individual development: "The order given by the American People
to the schools is grand in its simplicity: in addition to intellectual achievement, to foster morality, happiness, and
any useful ability. The talent of each child is to be sought out and developed to the fullest. Each weakness is to be
studied and so far as possible, corrected” (Committee for the White House Conference, 1956, p. 9).

Today, however, the conception of individual development is likely to include a concern with the social
origins of individual powers, with the differences in backgrounds and capacities that these social origins or the
social milieu are likely to impose, and with the problems of equalizing opportunity for development for all youth
by using the school as a socializing agent. One theme of this conception is that education, among other things, is a
gateway to mobility, an arm of equalization society uses in democratizing its in-evitably hierarchical structure of
economic, social, and intellectual oppor tunity. One function of the school, therefore, is to fill the gaps and correct
the deficiencies in socialization which occur because of the limitations imposed on opportunities by the social
structure. It is the task of the school to select and nurture ability that may be stultified by the limitations imposed
by social background.
 According to this concept the school must not only introduce the students to the skills and powers
necessary for survival or for self-realization in our culture; it must also act as an integrating force in shaping
beliefs and attitudes to make them coherent with the requirements of the democratic way of life. It needs to act
as an integrator of the pluralistic and contradictory values and expectations engendered in a stratified society. In
this sense the school functions at once as a conserving force on behalf of human democracy and as an innovating
force by helping individuals rediscover democracy in an environment which is in large measure undemocratic.

IMPLICATIONS OF THESE CONCEPT FOR CURRICULUM

The arguments about the relative importance of the social orientation and child-centered orientation were
acrimonious enough to split the progressive education movement into two camps, one emphasizing the
psychological slant of individual development and the other the slant of social reconstruction. This division helped
perpetuate the many versus arguments that have plagued education ever since, such as argu- "individual versus
social needs." and "the child-centered versus the community-centered school”. The rather unrealistic
elaborations of these extremes and the black and white contradictions they engendered have provided grist for
the mill of current criticisms of progressive education.

Time will show these arguments to have been largely semantic. For example, one of the most literate and
vehement champions of the child-centered school, Harold Rugg, has also written voluminously on the analysis of
American society and stressed continually the need for studying the society in order to set the goals for
education. The fact that the so-called child-centered school was always in a measure also a society-centered
school seems to have escaped the later critics of the progressive movement.

But, semantics aside, these variations in the conceptions of the function of education are not idle or
theoretical arguments. They have definite concrete implications for the shape of educational programs, especially
the curriculum. They determine the definitions of needs to be served. They illuminate the controversies over such
curriculum practices as studying contemporary problems rather than ancient and world history. They provide the
theoretical basis for deciding whether the classics or modern literature should dominate the reading diet in high
schools. They are also relevant to the whole problem of guidance and its role in the curriculum, and to the
questions of individualization of the curriculum content and methods of teaching. If one believes that the chief
function of education is to transmit the "perennial truths," one cannot help but strive toward a uniform
curriculum and teaching. Efforts to develop thinking take a different shape depending on whether the major
function of education is seen as fostering creative thinking and problem solving or as following the "rational"
forms of thinking established in our classical tradition. And such differences in these concepts naturally determine
what are considered the "essentials" and what the dispensable "frills" in education.