In the last fifteen years revisionists have attacked the ascendency of Ellwood P. Cubberly, and his pietistic picture of the public school, with historical perspectives that relegate public education to being one of many educational functions in American culture and with the view that public schools "miseducate" the American people.…

Seven historical purposes have been proclaimed in American education since the turn of the century. The four familiar purposes are the American "quadrivium." They lead in different directions: one leads to academic discipline, one to social efficiency, a third to individual development, and the fourth to vocational competence. The three more…