PROGRESS AND EDUCATIONAL ADVANCE 543 



THE RELATION BETWEEN RECENT INDUSTRIAL 

 PROGRESS AND EDUCATIONAL ADVANCE 



BY FRANK T. CARLTON, Ph.D. 



ALBION COLLEGE. MICH. 



WRITERS and students who have turned their attention to 

 educational problems have almost without exception given ad- 

 herence to what may be called the " great-man " theory of educational 

 progress. They have maintained the thesis that educational advance 

 has been chiefly, if not wholly, due to the efforts and the perseverance 

 of certain great personalities, who have pushed their particular con- 

 tribution upon a reluctant public, by the sheer force of personal ability 

 and merit. During the first period of great educational activity in 

 the United States, according to this theory, our educational progress 

 was attributed to Horace Mann, Henry Barnard, James G. Carter, 

 Samuel Lewis and others. Without in any way depreciating the value 

 of the labors of these able and earnest men, it is just and proper that 

 recognition be given to the underlying social and economic conditions 

 which produced the situation that enabled them to carry their propa- 

 ganda to a more or less successful issue; and which, indeed, indicated 

 to them the heed of such works and filled them with the zeal and ardor 

 necessary to carry them out in the face of determined and powerful 

 opposition. Mann and his associates exercised a " directive," as Lester 

 Ward expresses it, influence; but a further search must be made for 

 the " impelling " forces. Only when the student comes to the more 

 recent period of manual, scientific and commercial training, and of 

 recreational education, does he find any important recognition of the 

 underlying influence of social and industrial changes. Even in this 

 period little has been done except to point out in a general and casual 

 way, the fact that industrial progress and the growth of cities have 

 led to many hap-hazard additions to the curriculum, and have been 

 the real cause of bitter conflicts between the " reformers " or " f adists," 

 and the " conservatives." The reformer, educational or otherwise, is 

 a product of his time; if he is successful, it is because he has, in a 

 measure, correctly interpreted the hitherto vague and undefined de- 

 mands of the classes of people which are rapidly rising in influence and 

 importance. 



The many striking and important social and industrial changes 

 which have occurred during the last two or three decades, make many 

 new demands upon our educational system. In recent years the broad 



