DOCUMENT RESUME ED 051 002 08 SO 000 860 AUTHOR Wirth, Arthur G. TITLE The Vocational-Liberal Studies Controversy Between John Dewey and Others (1900-1917). Final Report. INSTITUTION Washington Univ., St. Louis, Mo. Graduate Inst. of Education. SPONS AGENCY Office of Education (DHEW), Washington. D.C. Bureau of Research. PUB DATE Sep 70 GRANT OEG -0 -8- 070305 -3662 (085) NOTE 349p.; Report will be published as Education in the Technological Society: The Vocational-Liberal Studies Controversy (1900-1917), International Textbook Co., 1972 EDRS PRICE EDRS Price MF-$0.65 HC-$13.16 DESCRIPTORS Comprehensive High Schools, Democratic Values, *Educatfonal Change, *Educational History, *Educational Philosophy, Educational Policy, Educational Sociology, General Education, *Industrialization, Occupational Guidance, Political Influences, Public Education, School Community Relationship, Social Change, Social Values, Socioeconomic influences, *Vocational Education IDENTIFIERS *Dewey (John) ABSTRACT The present study looks at an example of institutional change directly resulting from the industrialization process --the industrial or vocational education movement. The thesis of this study is that an understanding of the debate over how schools should adapt to industrialization will reveal the nature of basic value choices which the American people were forced to face under the pressures of adjusting to technology. Part I examines some of the origins of educational changes related to the industrialization. Next the responses of selected interest groups are considered: business, as represented by the National Association of Manufacturers; the American Federation of Labor; liberal urban reform forces of the progressive era; and, the formation of typical progressive pressure group--the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education (NSPIE), which worked to promote school reform programs at state and national levels. The reactions of NEA are noted along with resultant innovations --guidance programs and the comprehensive secondary schools. Part II examines the philosophies of education which articulated the value and policy questions at issue including the philosophy of social efficiency. John Deweys complex analyses of the values of science, technology, and democracy for education in a technological world are examined. (Author/SBE) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. EDUCATION & WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO- DUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIG- INATING IT. POINTS OF VIEW OR OPIN- IONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDU- CATION POSITION OR POLICY. FINAL REPORT r-4 LrN Project No. 7 0305 C:) Grant No. OEG 0 8 070305 3662 (085) La THE VOCATIONAL-LIBERAL STUDIES CONTROVERSY BETWEEN JOHN DEWEY AND OTHERS (1900-1917) Arthur G. Wirth Washington University Graduate Institute of Education St. Louis, Missouri63130 September, 1970 The research reported herein was performed pursuant to a grant with the Office of Education, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Contractors undertaking such projects under Government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their professional judgment in the conduct of the project. Points of view or opinions stated do not, therefore, necessarily represent official Office of Education position or policy. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE Office of Education Bureau of Research 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I AMERICAN EDUCATION IN THE TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY: ISSUES AND INITIAL RESPONSES Introduction 1 Chapter I: Industrialization and Education in the Post-Civil War Decades 8 PART II INTEREST GROUP PRESSURES FOR A NEW EDUCATION IN AN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY Introduction 30 Chapter II: The National Association of Manufacturers Takes a Stand on Vocationalism in Education 32 Chapter III: Organized Labor and the Industrial Education Movement 60 Chapter IV: Industrial Education and Progressive Reform 73 PART III PUBLIC SCHOOL RESPONSES TO PRESSURES FOR VOCATIONALIZING EDUCATION Introduction 130 Chapter V: Vocational Guidance 137 Chapter VI: The National Education Association Takes a Position 170 PART IV PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES:EDUCATION AND THE INDUSTRIAL STATE Introduction 198 Chapter VII: Education for Social Efficiency: David Snedden and Charles Prosser 201 Chapter VIII: 'Vocational Aspects of Education' in Dewey's Thought 239 Chapter IX: The "Vocational" as a Means for Liberalizing Education 258 Chapter X: Dewey and the Vocational Education Debate 292 Chapter XI: Summing Up 308 APPENDIX A THE TECHNOLOGICAL AND THE LIBERAL IN GENERAL EDUCATION: EXAMPLES FROM CONTEMPORARY SCHOOL PRACTICE 316 BIBLIOGRAPHY 330 PART I . AMERICAN EDUCATION IN THE TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY: ISSUES AND INITIAL RESPONSES INTRODUCTION The question is whether or not our beautiful libertarian, pluralist and populist experi- ment is viable in modern conditions.' A new world demands new responses from men and institutions. Between the Civil War and the first World War, the United States changed from a rural- frontier culture into a technological-corporate-urban society. In the twentieth century, the American people would be called upon to find out if the old dream of a self-governing, just, and humane social order would be possible under the new circumstances. Difficult though technological revolution has been for all nations who experienced it, the problem for Americans was compounded by the fact that conflicting motivations pulled the country in different directions. On the one hand, technology is power - and Americaus hungered for what technology made available. Ow the other hand, technological, success requires submission to the discipline of the smoothly functioning bureaucratic machine. Society becomes hierarchical, specialized, and socially differentiated. Men, as well as materials, are shaped and utilized according to the logic of technology. In order to make the system funJtion, Americans were forced in the direction of the technocratic society - a society reorganized to produce systems based 1 Paul Goodman, Peoe or Personnel and Like a con uw'ecrincPro e (New York: Knopf, Vintage Books, 19 8, p. 27 . 1 on the findings of technologists, engineers, and efficiency experts. The reward that beckoned if we moved that way was the possibility of winning the ever-rising Standard of Living. But technocratic efficiency had nothing to say about goals and life-values. Americans might produce what our gadfly, Paul Goodman, has called the Empty Society - a system geared only to mindless production and expansion. We confront that possibility now with mixed emotions. The enjoyment of creature comforts, like the gate to Disneyland, is a powerful attraction. To some, it is the fulfillment of the American dream:America is the place where the common man can enjoy amenities hitherto available only to privileged elites. Yet we have other instincts that warn us of the costs of self-indul- gence. At the external level, the warning strikes us sharply as we realize that we may poison and pollute the land so that we shall have no place to stand. The nation's young, whose life is yet to be lived, particularly sense the spiritual losses already incurred. They see that it is possible to forfeit completely the capacity for spontaneity and joy, and to lose the power to influence events through involved participation.The nation has not, however, completely abandoned itself to the sybaritic nightmare; for, as Paul Goodman has put it, Americans have still another dream - the dream of the Decent Society, where men and women relate to each other as persons instead of as objects, where communities are designed to help realize man's creative potential rather than merely to gratify his senses. In Goodman's words, The reality is we are confused. We do not know how to cope with the new technology, the economy of surplus, the fact of One World that makes national boundaries_obsolete,. the unworkability of traditional 1 democracy. 1 Ibid., p. 258. 2 We do not know, in short, whether we can create a social order 7hich combines technological efficiency with democratic values.That is the bedrock issue of our time. If we are to find our way to a satisfying answer, one of the indispensable prerequisites will be the acquisition of insight into our condition. When we are sick and seek health through therapy, we have to know where we have been, and what has happened to us, in order to gain a clearer picture of what we might become. Similarly, social malaise makes it necessary to reflect on history as a means to self-understanding. Industrialization has been the great change agent in American life. The present study looks at an example of institutional change directly resulting from the industrialization process - a phenomenon loosely referred to as the industrial education or vocational education movement, which flared into prominence in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Arrangements which societies make for the formal education of their young reveal much about their basic values and goals. The thesis of this study is that an understanding of the debate over how schools should adapt to industrialization will reveal the nature of basic value choices which the American people were forced to face under the pressures of adjusting to technOlogy. It is not possible to pinpoint exactly when a term like "industrial education" first came into use. It was heard more frequently after the Civil War, and it was marked from the beginning with a happy imprecision of meaning. This points to the fact that