Following World War One there existed a poor taste in the collective mouths of all the participating combatant nations; as a result, 1927 saw a small rebellion against much of the military training taking place on some U.S. campuses. This article lists a number restrictions that various academic institutions had placed on those military organizations active on college and high school grounds.
‘Learn War No More” (Literary Digest, 1927) Read More »
They enter college as Christians and graduate as atheists or agnostics’, say some whose sons and daughters come home with a sheepskin showing proficiency in the arts and sciences and little, or none at all, in religion. The college is repeatedly blamed for this vital lack, and is not infrequently defended of the charge of failing to establish a religious background for the student.
Out of the Mouths of Babes: Girl Evangelists in the Flapper Era
The Lure of College Atheism…(The Literary Digest, 1923) Read More »
When the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, in the Autumn of 1957 it shocked the American people and set in motion an event that was quickly labeled the Sputnik Crises. Almost at once, school boards all across the fruited plane resolved to improve their math and science programs in order to ensure the blessings of liberty for generations yet unborn.
One of these institutions was Laguna Beach High School in Southern California and the attached article, Turning Bad Schools into Good Schools, will tell you about the various steps they had taken in order to alter their curriculum and the prevailing campus culture as well.
We were gratified to learn that some fifty-odd years later, Laguna Beach High is still one of the finest schools in the country.
How One School Turned Itself Around (Pageant Magazine, 1961) Read More »
This article charts the decline of Latin as an academic study in American schools. The disappearance of Latin began in the Thirties and steadily snowballed to such a point that by 1952 its absence was finally noticed.
Is Latin on its way out in high schools? The answer is a confident ‘NO.’
It’s hard to see how it can go any lower,’ declares Dr. John F. Latimer, head of Latin studies
at George Washington University.
Whither Latin? (Pathfinder Magazine, 1952) Read More »
Written in 1958 with the aid of the Educational Testing Service, (Princeton, New Jersey), the article attempted to persuade America’s high school students to get used to standardized tests because they’re a really cool idea and they’ll make your life better. Illustrations are provided to indicate how the testing work and how well such tests had proved useful to the Air Force in weeding out sub-standard candidates for flight training. The journalist seemed to imply throughout these columns that the egg-heads were really doing us all a big, big favor by creating these tests.
The Onslaught of Standardized Tests (World Week, 1958) Read More »
Although the author of this article, educator Cedric Fowler, does not offer a name for the subject he is proposing, it will not take you very long to recognize it as social studies. Fowler argued that the text books available at that time were more suited to the Nineteenth Century than the tumultuous Thirties, ignoring all the various hot topics of the day that would have made subjects such as history, geography and civics come alive for those students who were enrolled at the time of the Great Depression.
Life has become more complex for young Americans since the time of their fathers and grandfathers, and educational method has become more complex and more comprehensive with it… The work of Dewey, Thorndike and a score of other authorities has liberated the schoolroom from its stuffy atmosphere, has made it possible for it to become an ante-room to adult life.
The Case For Social Studies (New Outlook Magazine, 1933) Read More »
Attached is a 1921 account of the Hampton Institute; it’s past, present and future is entirely outlined in this magazine article that was written by a celebrated journalist of the time, Mr. Talcott Williams (1849 – 1928).
Click here for the Ku Klux Klan Archive.
Educating the Negro (The Independent, 1921) Read More »
A minor dust-up between Florida and New York as to which of the two had the oldest schoolhouse.
Oldest Schoolhouse in America? (Pathfinder Magazine, 1950) Read More »
The Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School in Chicago turned some heads when it first opened. As you read the attached column you will learn about the unorthodox approach they bring to the subject of educating the autistic and the emotionally disturbed. With the fullness of time it has been revealed that they must be doing something right – it has been in business since 1944.
‘The O School” (Pathfinder Magazine, 1950) Read More »
One can’t but help but cry a little when reading that the Americans of 1947 actually believed that their public school system was substandard; they had no idea the depths this same system would be thrust just thirty years hence. The Forties was a time when most school teachers believed that the school’s biggest problem was talking in the classroom or lingering in the halls. However, this article lists the ten firsts that both state and Federal governments had initiated in order to make a fine education system better.
Spotlight on U.S. Schools in the Late Forties (Pathfinder Magazine, 1947) Read More »
