This review discusses one portion of the education system of England and Wales. It does not consider Scotland which for educational purposes is quite independent and has a rather different system.

Bias is a hard word to take, and I do not think that its use is justified in Professor Ralph W. Jones's review of my book, The History of Education (History of Education Quarterly, March, 1965, page 70). The instance he quotes is: “It is pertinent therefore to assert that Dewey rejects any such thing as a spiritual soul and a personal God. His notion of self-realization consequently must be assessed in this context.” This is a statement of fact, not a biased interpretation. The fact is of importance and deserves inclusion in the narration.

One fine summer's day in 1749, a solitary walker on the road from Paris to Vincennes had, so the story goes, a vision. The solitary walker was Jean Jacques Rousseau. The vision occurred to him as he read a newspaper advertisement about an essay contest sponsored by the Academy of Dijon. The subject proposed for the essay was “Has the progress of the arts and sciences contributed more to the corruption or purification of morals?”

From Reformation times it was not uncommon for the successful businessman or merchant at the end of his life to make material provision for the benefit of his birthplace. Perhaps he left money to alleviate the burdens of the aged poor, or he sought to assist those at the start of life by some form of educational endowment. Alas, many such legacies suffered from the hazards of time, from declining money values, and from inefficient trusteeship. The Dick Bequest, applicable to education in the rural parishes of North East Scotland from the early years of the nineteenth century, was one of the most remarkable and rewarding of endowments. Shrewdly administered, it was through the years adapted to changing circumstances to nourish and sustain the best traditions of the past.

For many public spirited men in Massachusetts, 1837 was a turning point. After more than a decade of agitation for common school reform, the venerable and cumbersome General Court had finally consented to establish a State Board of Education. At the time there was some confusion as to what this new body might accomplish, but it was generally acknowledged that its most important act would be to select the right man as its executive secretary. The establishment of the board was the result of collective effort on the part of various reformers throughout the state, but if there was any man who could claim it as a personal triumph, that man was James Gordon Carter of Lancaster, teacher, editor, and legislator.

It was a cool, blustery, but beautiful, clear November 4, 1863, when the Union Steamer Arago lifted anchor and headed south out of New York Harbor. The deck was crowded with Yankee soldiers and some civilians, departing for the South Carolina Sea Islands, where the Union, two years earlier, had established the Department of the South. Listed among the passengers were William Francis Allen and his wife Mary, both teachers, hired to educate the abandoned sea island slaves. After graduating from Harvard in 1851, Allen served as a tutor in New York for three years, then journeyed to Europe where he studied language and the classics at Gottingen, Berlin, Rome, Naples, and Greece. In 1856 William returned to Boston where he accepted the position of associate principal at the English and Classical School at West Newton, Massachusetts. While working in this capacity, Allen met, courted, and married Mary Lambert and remained on at West Newton during the war's early years. Hoping to do something for the war effort, William and his wife hired on as instructors and were part of a new teachers group heading for the islands to do their part.

Venus and Adonis (ca. 1682), said to be the first complete English opera, includes an episode likely to be of more than aesthetic interest to historians of education. For, in addition to the musical and poetic charm of the opera as a whole, a scene in it called the “Cupids' Lesson” reflects some significant features of seventeenth century educational theory and practice. These are clothed in mythical guise, but the opera's first audience would have had no difficulty in recognizing correspondences between the fanciful Cupids' Lesson and what were common teaching-learning patterns. To identify and interpret these correspondences is the purpose of this essay.

The development of education in the British penal colony of New South Wales must be viewed against the background of a penal establishment, the convict population, shortages of food and equipment, stock losses, lack of experienced farmers and craftsmen, the growth of a free element among the settlers, the struggle for economic and political power in the colony, and the forbidding physical limitations of the site of settlement The colony was established, as a receptacle for offenders, on the shores of Port Jackson, described by the first governor, Phillip, as “the finest harbour in the world in which a thousand of the line may ride in the most perfect security.” The Blue Mountains hemmed in the colony to a strip of unsatisfactory farming land, the confines of which were not breached until 1813. Stores were provided for the First Fleet to enable cultivation to commence on arrival, but untold and unanticipated difficulties impeded the attainment of self-sufficiency. The whole establishment Governor included was on short rations for several years.

Many contemporary disputes about higher education have their origins in the nineteenth century, and it may well be the case that closer attention to these earlier controversies would help to clarify our own thinking on what are basically the same problems. My purpose here is to follow the fortunes of the family of concepts and theories relating to the university curriculum to bring out both the persistence of the problems and the varying strategies which have been adopted in the attempts to resolve them. Questions of this nature can never be finally answered but it is most important that they be constantly discussed. One of the most striking features of current talk about the universities is the absence of any widespread awareness of the historical background to the debate: the extensive nineteenth century literature on higher education has been largely forgotten and traditional issues are canvassed in a manner which suggests that they are a product of the mid-twentieth century.

The thirteenth century was a period of centralization and reform in the Church, spearheaded by Pope Innocent III and the Lateran Council of 1215. This movement together with the rise of the universities led, among other things, to the encouragement of a new type of bishop—the scholar-bishop, a man who made a name for himself in the schools, and, as a result of his educational achievements, was called to an episcopal office.

History has many uses; unfortunately, polemics is not the least of them. But when argument for argument's sake, or to screen vested positions, repeats simplistic views of human nature, distorts the operations of professional politics, and generally plays fast and loose with the science of evidence, who then has gained? Certainly not historians, nor the non-historians who read history unless it is to reaffirm for many of them the well-established conviction that historians as a group are a rather addle-headed lot.

The American Revolution brought with it years of hardship for higher education in the new nation. Almost from the outset of hostilities the small colonial colleges suffered in one form or another from the conflict. At Harvard College, dormitories were converted into barracks during Washington's seige of Boston. Princeton's Nassau Hall was damaged in a notable skirmish, and the building was later used as a hospital for the Continental Army. In Virginia, a handsome Christopher Wren building at William and Mary was partially destroyed by accidental fire. Beside such physical damages, collegiate institutions also were beleaguered by interrupted school terms, departures of students and faculty, food shortages, and the steady inflationary price spiral caused by the war. When the peace settlement finally approached in 1782 and 1783, most of these institutions found themselves in tenuous circumstances.

The role of the Teachers' Institute in the history of American education has been documented by a succession of competent scholars who indicated the impact of Institutes in furthering the cause of education within the states through the expedient of a grassroots teacher-training program. Institutes were popular in various states at different times; in Michigan they attained popularity during the decades after 1840. While the story of the nineteenth-century struggle to augment teacher capabilities through Institutes is generally well known to the student of educational history, rarely does one have the opportunity to examine the actual proceedings of one of those early Institutes to see exactly what was taking place. It well may be asked: What actually occurred at these meetings? What was the nature of the training which the teachers received, and did it have any real utility? How did the sponsoring authorities attempt to inspire teachers toward a greater professional dedication? These are all legitimate questions worthy of an answer.

In W. G. Walker's article in the December, 1964, issue of this publication a number of statements relating to the so-called Northwest Ordinances of 1785 and 1787 were made. The Ordinances and the relevant subjects surrounding the Ordinances cause a great deal of confusion. This confusion is present in Walker's article as well as in a sizable segment of the literature dealing with the history of Education. Its diffuseness and variety is sufficient cause for the following commentary. It is the hope of this writer that the following remarks will eliminate some of the muddle surrounding the relationship that exists between the Northwest Ordinances; the contract of the Ohio Company of Associates with the Board of Treasury; and Manasseh Cutler's connection with the Ordinances, the contract, and the Ohio Company of Associates.