The United States experience with bilingual schools falls into two periods: from 1840-1920 and from 1963 to the present. Bilingual schooling may be said to have originated in Cincinnati in 1840, where a large minority of the population was German-speaking. During this first period, perhaps a million American children received a part of their instruction in German as well as in English. Despite the extent and historical importance of this early bilingual schooling, however, it failed to provide an authoritative curriculum model for bilingual education. The bilingual program, often only a language program, was rarely integrated into either the philosophy or the practice of the school or society. Bilingual schooling disappeared from the U.S. scene from the time of World War I until 1963, when the Dade County bilingual program was initiated in Miami, Florida. A Ford Foundation grant provided for instruction in both English and Spanish for Spanish- and English-speaking children. Before the enactment of the Bilingual Education Act in 1968, the number of federally supported bilingual programs was probably less than 100; at present writing, there are 131 programs supported by federal grants. (In addition to discussing the contributions of various educators and linguists, the author includes an extensive bibliography of recent and forthcoming works.) (AMM)