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Michael John Demiashkevich and the Essentialist Committee for the Advancement of American Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Gurney Chambers
Gurney Chambers*
Affiliation:
Western Carolina College
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Extract

Michael John Demiashkevich's professional career in the United States encompassed fewer than ten years. Within this brief period, however, he probably contributed more of lasting significance to American educational theory and practice than most philosophers of education contribute in a lifetime. It was during these years that he, along with a few other educators, laid the foundations of a new philosophy of education-a philosophy that was labeled “Essentialism,” a word Demiashkevich coined in 1935 to refer to his educational point of view.

Type
Notes and Documents I
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , Spring 1969 , pp. 46 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © 1969 by New York University 

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References

Notes

1. Demiashkevich, Michael J. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (New York: American Book Co., 1935), pp. 5–7, 138, 147–49.Google Scholar

2. Who Was Who in America (Chicago: The A. N. Marquis Co., 1942), vol. I, p. 313.Google Scholar

3. Personal communication from Louis Shores, Dean of the Library School, The Florida State University, Tallahassee, and a former colleague and friend of Demiashkevich, February 16, 1967.Google Scholar

4. Johnson, William H. E. Russia's Educational Heritage (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Press, 1950), pp. 277–78.Google Scholar

5. Registration Blank Bureau of Educational Services, Teachers College, Columbia University, May 17, 1929. In the faculty files of George Peabody College, Nashville, Tenn.Google Scholar

6. Personal communication from Louis Shores, February 16, 1967.Google Scholar

7. Blank, Registration Teachers College, May 17, 1929.Google Scholar

8. See Demiashkevich's acknowledgments in his The Activity School: New Tendencies in Educational Method in Western Europe (New York: J. J. Little and Ives Co., 1926), p. vi.Google Scholar

9. Blank, Registration Teachers College, May 17, 1929.Google Scholar

10. See Demiashkevich, Shackled Diplomacy, The Permanent Factors of Foreign Policies of Nations (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1934); The National Mind: English, French, German (New York: American Book Co., 1938). See also, for example, his “The French Reform of Secondary Education,” Educational Administration and Supervision, XVII (January 1931), 52–63; “The Organization and Administration of Universities in Germany,” Peabody Journal of Education, X (May 1933), 342–57; “Ten Years of the Grundschule,” Elementary School Journal, XXXII (April 1932), 577–86.Google Scholar

11. See letter from President Bruce Ryburn Payne to Demiashkevich, May 21, 1929. In faculty files of Peabody College.Google Scholar

12. The Peabody Reflector and Alumni News, XI (November 1938), 380.Google Scholar

13. Cremin, Lawrence A. The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education, 1876–1957 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962), pp. 276, 291.Google Scholar

14. Letter to Fred Alden Shaw from Demiashkevich, October 28, 1937. Carbon copy in the Demiashkevich File, in the George Peabody College Library; hereafter referred to as the Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

15. Letter to Demiashkevich from Bagley, June 11, 1937. This discussion, no doubt, occurred at a meeting in New York City of the editorial board of the Educational Forum, May 14, 1937. Both Bagley and Demiashkevich were members of the board. See letter to Demiashkevich from Alfred L. Hall-Quest, editor of the Forum, April 27, 1937. In Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

16. Letter to F. Alden Shaw from Demiashkevich, October 28, 1937. Carbon copy in Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

17. Letter to William C. Bagley from F. Alden Shaw, November 16, 1937. Carbon copy in Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

18. Letter to Demiashkevich from F. Alden Shaw, November 9, 1937. In Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

19. These Peabody friends included Alfred Leland Crabb, Fremont Philip Wirth, Frank Lynwood Wren and, perhaps, others. See note, n.d., to these men. In Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

20. Letter to F. Alden Shaw from Demiashkevich, November 16, 1937. In Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

21. See letters to Demiashkevich from Shaw, January 19, 1938; from Bagley, February 1, 1938; and from Hutchins, February 7, 1938. In Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

22. Letter to Shaw from Demiashkevich, November 16, 1937. In Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

23. Letter to Shaw from Demiashkevich, December 4, 1937. Carbon copy in Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

24. Educators invited by Demiashkevich and Bagley to serve on the presidium included, among others, Frederick Stephen Breed, Frank Nugent Freeman, Alfred Hall-Quest, Henry Wyman Holmes, Ernest Horn, Robert Maynard Hutchins, Isaac Leon Kandel, Henry Clinton Morison. See letter to F. Alden Shaw from William C. Bagley, November 22, 1937. See also the list prepared by Demiashkevich, n.d. Both are in the Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

25. Letter to Demiashkevich from Shaw, January 5, 1938. In Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

26. Letter to Shaw from Demiashkevich, January 10, 1938. In Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

27. Letter to Demiashkevich from Shaw, February 4, 1938. In Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

28. Letter to Demiashkevich from Shaw, February 9, 1938. In Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

29. Wolfgang Brickman, William “Essentialism Ten Years After,“ School and Society, LXVII (May 15, 1948), 361–62.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., p. 362.Google Scholar

31. Ibid. Google Scholar

32. Thomas Wahlquist, John The Philosophy of American Education (New York: The Ronald Press Co., 1942), p. 122.Google Scholar

33. Barnard, Eunice “Study Row Stirred by ‘Essentialists,’” The New York Times, March 2, 1938, p. 8.Google Scholar

34. Ibid. Google Scholar

35. Ibid. Google Scholar

36. Wahlquist, loc. cit. Google Scholar

37. Who's Who in America (Chicago: The A. N. Marquis Co., 1938), p. 2635.Google Scholar

38. Wahlquist, loc. cit. For a roster of Essentialists as of March 1, 1938, prepared by F. Alden Shaw, see Charles Edward Dyer, “A Study of Essentialism in Contemporary American Education” (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Okla. 1954), pp. 93–96.Google Scholar

39. For a list of these newspapers, see “The Press Views Education,” The School Executive, LVII (May 1938), 416–17, 447.Google Scholar

40. See editorial in the Phi Delta Kappan, XX (March 1938), 209; and “ ‘Essentialist’ Group Urges Pupils Be Coddled Less and Taught More,” Newsweek, XI (March 14, 1938), 26–27.Google Scholar

41. Letter to Demiashkevich from Shaw, March 4, 1938.Google Scholar

42. Letter to Bagley from Demiashkevich, n.d. Rough draft of letter is in Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

43. Letter to Bagley from Demiashkevich, April 29, 1938. Carbon copy in Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

44. Bagley, William C. “An Essentialist's Platform for the Advancement of American Education,“ Educational Administration and Supervision, XXIV (April 1938), 241–56.Google Scholar

45. Letter to Bagley from Demiashkevich, April 29, 1938. Carbon copy in Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

46. Letter to Bagley from Demiashkevich, April 29, 1938. Carbon copy in Demiashkevich File. For more details concerning this point see clauses two and three of the “Tentative Theses of the Essentialist Education Association,” of which Demiashkevich was the principal author. In Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

47. Letter to Bagley from Demiashkevich, April 29, 1938. For more details concerning this point, see clauses four and five of the “Tentative Theses….” In Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

48. Letter to Bagley from Demiashkevich, April 29, 1938. Carbon copy in Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

49. Letter to Bagley from Demiashkevich, April 29, 1938. Carbon copy in Demiashkevich File.Google Scholar

50. Bagley, “An Essentialist's Platform …,“ pp. 241–56. Note that Bagley did change his original phrase, “the present great leader” to “the present outstanding leader …,” p. 245, line 5.Google Scholar

51. News item in the Courier-Gazette (Rockland, Maine), August 27, 1938.Google Scholar