CHALLENGING THE SYSTEM: THE ADULT EDUCATION
MOVEMENT AND THE EDUCATIONAL BUREAUCRACY OF THE 1920s
Amy D. Rose
Adult education is a practical field, and, as such,
most of its research has focused on the improvement of practice rather than on
what are traditionally referred to as "foundations" areas of study.
This is not to say that historians have ignored the history of educational
programs or institutions for adults. In fact, such studies have proliferated,
fueled by the convergence of interests of the new social and labor history.
Educational historians have also shown interest sparked first by Bailyn's
admonishment to look beyond schooling for the sources of education, and later
by Cremin's work on the configurations of education. In addition, adult
educators themselves have taken a more reflective look at history and attempted
to critically examine the past. But as the body of work grows, it becomes more
important to define exactly what historical questions are being asked and
answered.(1)
One of the problems of working in the history of
adult education is that a definition is elusive. Adult education has come to
mean so many different things to so many people that it is difficult to develop
a common terminology. This is particularly true in historical inquiry. Part of
the problem is that the lens used to approach this history of adult education
is usually exceedingly narrow. Outside of questions dealing with the beginning
of the field, most of the studies have been used simply to show that adult
education (or the education of adults) has always existed and to enumerate its
many manifestations. Too often the interrelationship between views of the
education of children and developments within adult education have been
overlooked in an attempt to establish adult education as a unique area of study.(2)
The development of a movement of adult education
followed a period of expansion of schooling. Ironically as the definition of
the functions of the school broadened, the concept of education itself
narrowed, moving inexorably toward becoming a synonym with schooling. Adult
education in the 1920s represented a movement on the part of an odd array of
progressives and conservatives to take the concept of education out of the realm
of the school. Building on Dewey's idea that education takes place throughout
life, adult educators sought to identify those influences (outside of the
schools) which made life "educative." The reasons behind this
movement were complex and involved several factors. Of primary importance was
dissatisfaction with children's education and the feeling that society needed
to depend on more than this if democracy were to be maintained.
Yet, when historians of adult education have looked
at the intellectual roots of the movement, they have stressed the various
aspects of the meanings and goals of adult education. While often implicit, the
explicit link between concern over the state of children's education and the encouragement
of the adult education movement has not been addressed. Not only will such an
exploration improve our understanding of the professional adult education
movement in the United States during the 1920s, but it will also add to our
understanding of educational reform in general during this period. The
development of adult education was not an isolated phenomenon, but rather part
of a more complex movement to broaden educational impact as a whole, while
narrowing the influence of the educational bureaucracy.
This initial effort will begin an examination of some
of the attitudes of the prime movers who worked to establish the American
Association for Adult Education (AAAE) in 1926. In particular, it will examine
the aims of the Carnegie Corporation and its views toward public education.
This examination will demonstrate that the movement to build adult education
involved an inherent critique of the system of public and higher education which
had developed during the postwar period. Finally, some of the views towards
adult learning will be discussed within the context of a critique of public
education.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ADULT
EDUCATION
Although the education of adults has certainly always
existed, until the late 19th century there was little idea that adult education
was any different from children’s' education. In fact, the term adult
education, itself, was first used in the United States in the 1890s.(3) In the
early part of the 20th century, the institutions for the education of adults
expanded along with all other educational agencies. Thus, we see the expansion
of public adult education programs, university extension, and urban evening
colleges during this period. In addition, the influx of immigrants beginning in
the 1880s had led to the development of the settlement houses with their
expanded educational programs. The education of adults touched many different
areas and was closely allied with the nascent social work and public health movements,
applied sociology, and the more progressive elements of the traditional
academic disciplines. These were all concerned with the problem of how academic
knowledge could be conveyed to the public and how behavior could be changed as
a result of this new knowledge. The Americanization movement brought these
issues to a head as various groups developed conflicting philosophies of
acculturation and cultural pluralism.
The Carnegie Corporation entered the discussion on
Americanization with a study of the process by which individuals became
assimilated. The study, commissioned in 1918 and carried out over the following
years, went beyond a study of Americanization classes to encompass an
examination of the family, the community, the arts, the media, and other
interactions between American and immigrant life in order to uncover which
forces encouraged the process and which ones acted negatively.(4)
In many ways, the Americanization study stands as a prototype for future
Carnegie interest in the education of adults. In its search for the educative
aspects of all forms of social interaction, the study went far beyond the
strictures normally associated with educational agencies.
In the 1920s the Carnegie Corporation developed a
more thorough and systematic policy towards adult education. In 1924 the
foundation began to explore the possibility of funding projects in adult
education and, in fact, establishing it as a priority area for future grants.
Because of a policy mandated by its new President, Frederick P. Keppel, the
Corporation set out to consult with leading educators of adults before
embarking in its new direction. After a series of meetings held throughout the
country, the AAAE was founded in 1926 by a group of adult educators with the
blessing of the Carnegie Corporation. While ostensibly an independent
organization, it was headed by Morse Cartwright, Keppel's former assistant, and
had as its clear purpose the task of making funding recommendations to the Corporation
about adult education projects.(5)
While the development of this organization has
usually been tied to professionalizing imperatives within the field itself, it
is clear that the Carnegie Corporation had other concerns. While some of these
related to internal organizational and fiscal pressures, much of the Carnegie
focus centered on dissatisfaction with the current system of education within
the United States. Adult education was seen as a movement which could rectify some
of the problems and shift the educational system away from an ever-increasing
bureaucratic structure.
THE CRITIQUE OF SCHOOLING
A principal dynamic behind the growth of adult
education in the 1920s was a criticism of the expanded educational systems of
the postwar period. While criticism of the schools came from various quarters,
some of the strongest came from those who later advocated the movement for
adult education. Henry Pritchett, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching and Keppel's predecessor as Acting President of the
Carnegie Corporation, emerged as a sharp critic of the educational system of
the postwar period. Pritchett's views are important because as Acting President
he laid the foundation for the eventual Carnegie interest in adult education.
Since the background of the Carnegie interest in adult education has not been
adequately explored, many of the reasons for this interest have become
obscured.
Pritchett's principal objections to postwar education
stemmed from concern with the overexpansion of the school system and the
concomitant cost of additional services and programs. These were closely allied
to worries about who was attending the nation's schools and colleges as well as
what they were learning and whether society would ultimately benefit from the
emphasis on mass education. These concerns were echoed in statements
emphasizing the loss of local control over education, the denigration of the
individual, and the loss of a liberal emphasis in all educational efforts.
Pritchett's critique of the schools was based on a
fundamental questioning of the optimistic greeting initially given the
expansion of the schools. He viewed the notion that education could solve
social problems with disdain. Not only were these problems eluding solution,
but the entire educational system was being destroyed in the process. There
were too many enrollments, an overemphasis on vocational training, and overspecialization.
In addition, expansion had created a massive bureaucratic structure which
inhibited creativity and reduced learning to the mere counting of credit.(6)
In two essays included in the
Annual Reports of the Carnegie Foundation, Pritchett, laid out the essence of
his argument. He was concerned about the rising cost of education and
identified what he considered to be the reasons for the current situation. The
public education system had become over organized, diffuse and superficial, and
unable to teach children what they needed to know to become effective American citizens.
New programs funded at a steep cost had added nothing to general learning, but
only contributed to what he termed the "intellectual dyspepsia" of
schoolchildren.(7)
The basic problem was that the school had taken on
too many functions, calling them all "education." Pritchett traced
the origins of this phenomenon to the time of the dropping of the classical
curriculum and the influx of new students. At heart, the problem of the schools
was the fault of the movement toward universal education. This movement had "transformed
education." Schools, which had initially prepared the "exceptional
boy," had now become the chief agency "for the training of human
beings." According to Pritchett, this shift had resulted in a less
adequate preparation for the truly exceptiona1.(8)
A principal outcome of this influx of new students
was the gradual "bureaucratization" of the school. As a result, the
nature of the teacher pupil relationship had changed, as the teacher had ceded
primary responsibility for what happened within the classroom. The schools had developed
bureaucratic structures antithetical to the notion of the teacher as "the
source from which the training and improvement of the pupil is sought." In
particular the ability of the teachers to teach had been undermined as the
teachers became "submerged" in a bureaucratic structure within which
they could not adequately perform their appointed tasks.(9) This transformation
had resulted in a loss of individuality and a reliance on such outside
techniques as testing, as opposed to individual judgment. In this way, the
school had been transformed from a "personal direct agency for the few
into a great machine for the many."(10)
Pritchett felt that professional organizations for
teachers had added to the bureaucratic turmoil. In his view, teachers' unions
undercut the unique responsibility of the teacher, and he urged teachers to
recall that "evil in the past has been wrought in other fields by over
organization."(11)
In addition, the new bureaucracy with its attendant
curriculum and mandatory education requirements had encouraged mediocrity.
Pritchett was not totally against universal education; he simply felt that
greater attention needed to be paid to its consequences. "If all the
children of a nation are to be educated--as they certainly should be--no other
plan can be adopted than that of extensive organization. The system involves,
however, certain inherent dangers which we should frankly recognize."(12)
The expansion of the schools had led to a great
diversity of function. As the schools took on more and more tasks previously
performed outside of educational institutions, they became increasingly superficial.
The schools had lost sight of what could be accomplished within their
boundaries. Through what Pritchett characterized as the "exaggerated
enrichment" of the curriculum, students had come to believe that a
superficial knowledge of many things replaced a true education. Most important,
such an approach gave students "the impression" that they could solve
their problems in life and in the country "by the same superficial
processes" that had been learned in schoo1.(13)
The crisis was greatest in the high schools and in
higher education where expansion had been most dramatic during the postwar
period. Such growth resulted in a lack of thorough teaching and learning on
many levels. Pritchett was particularly disparaging about the trend toward vocational
studies within the high schools. "The notion that trade school
training could be made a part of general high school work has served to make
soft and flabby the general conception of our people as to what kind of skill
and energy are needed for the prosecution of an honorable trade.”(14) Pritchett
felt that the movement of vocational studies into the high schools had done a
great disservice to the crafts and led adolescents to unrealistic expectations of
what they could do with such a diploma. IS He stated his position most unequivocally:
It is not too much to say that the vocational
training offered in the high schools has so little of the sharp accurate
responsibility of the well-trained technician, and is so poorly related to the
facts and circumstances of these vocations, that it is in great measure an
educational farce. The teaching of vocations in the high schools is a mistake.
These vocations should be taught through trade schools in which the whole
spirit and technique of the training partakes of the accuracy, the sharpness,
and the skill that alone can give them significance.(16)
According to Pritchett this move to high school vocational
training had a devastating effect on labor within the United States. It created
a hardship for boys who could not begin to learn a trade until the age of 18
and for the crafts which needed to wait before they could begin an adequate training
program.(17)
This dilution of the curriculum had led to a general
weakening of intellectual discipline in American society. The schools
were no longer able to perform their primary educational functions. The schools
had taken on the added responsibilities which heretofore had been in the
province of the family. Not only were they inadequately performing their new
tasks, but they were also failing to perform their traditional tasks of
providing a good basic education.(18)
Most important, all of this had led to an exorbitant
increase in the cost of public education. According to one study, carried out
by the American Council on Education (ACE) and funded in part by the Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the cost of public education rose
from $500 million in 1910 to $1,200 million by 1920. At the same time that
expenditures were increasing in absolute numbers, the percentage of absolute
cost paid by the federal and state governments was decreasing. The only area of
education which showed a substantial increase in state and federal support was
higher education, with a slight increase in the cost of educational
administration. As a result, local governments saw their percentage costs
increase and were being forced to increase their indebtedness in order to
finance education. While the ACE report itself called for greater funding for
education as a solution to financial problems facing the nation's education
systems, Pritchett drew other conclusions.(19)
Drawing on the data from this study, Pritchett voiced
his concern with the heavy tax burden emerging from this growth. He saw the increase
in cost as a symptom of a general malaise and felt that the situation would change
if the schools returned to an emphasis on "fundamentals."(20) He was not
alone in his concern. Pritchett felt that the only way to lessen expenditures
was to curtail the functions of the school. Part of the problem lay in
fundamental disagreements over the role and purpose of the school. Should
children learn a little about everything or learn how to learn? Pritchett
strongly emphasized the latter position. Children did need to learn some
basics. These included elementary mathematics, government, and knowledge of
one's "rights and obligations as a citizen." Education at all levels
should emphasize thorough mastery of whatever material was being studied.(21)
Fundamentals most emphatically did not include the
acquisition of knowledge. Since education was a form of "intellectual
discipline" it included the ability "to bend the mind to a given
problem.”(22) Since the schools could not be expected to provide everything,
limits on what could be accomplished needed to be set.
PRITCHETT'S PROPOSALS
Pritchett advocated no less than a total
restructuring of the educational system. Vocational instruction needed to be
routed back to the trade schools where it belonged. The schools needed to go
back to discipline and not teach "culture." In other words, the role
of the school was not socialization-this should be gotten from the family and
the environment--but rather the disciplining of the mind so that further study
would be possible. For example, the study of music in the elementary schools
added little to the cultural life of the nation and should be dropped.
"This is a subject which can flourish only as it takes root in the
cultural life of the people themselves.”(23)
Public education had failed to prepare children for
living. By foisting subject-oriented learning on young minds, the schools
misrepresented the importance of continuously learning throughout one's life.
Pritchett lamented the abandonment of the traditional 19th century curriculum
which had emphasized disciplining the mind. This curriculum had been slowly eroding
since the late 19th century. The final death knell had been Thorndike's
research into the psychology of learning which had raised questions about the
possibility of transferring knowledge of one subject to another and thus had,
in Pritchett's mind, moved education from an emphasis on learning to one which
advocated the study of specific content matter instead. Pritchett felt that
this was an inappropriate response to the problems of the traditional
curriculum and that the new approach to curriculum neglected the process of
learning and ultimately the importance of learning throughout the lifetime. He
maintained that a further shift toward lifelong learning was essential.
But this presented an additional problem. If the
focus of children's education was to be on the process of learning, how was
society to encourage a national culture? Pritchett believed that other
institutions could aid in helping to develop the "cultural life of the
nation," and the burden on the public schools would be lessened. If
children's education was such a failure, it was because the schools could not
overcome the environment. The environment itself therefore had to be made more
educative. In terms of proposed Carnegie activities, these concerns could be
translated into three related areas of concentration: the arts, local community
projects, and adult education.
Pritchett was not completely rejecting the
contemporary reforms of the educational system-he was merely pushing some of
them forward for adult use. Adults, as fully functioning members of society,
would not incur the enormous debt that children did in their pursuit of
education. Adult education became, in effect, both the embodiment of, and the
answer to, progressive reforms. It would include all learning outside of an
institutional framework. The education of adults would move into the vacuum
created by the limiting of public and university education. Elementary
education would be organized around the basic knowledge needed to function
within a democracy. These would include English, math, and citizenship. The
high school would continue this emphasis, fostering the ability to think and to
learn rather than specific content areas. Vocational training would take place
in technical institutes and through apprenticeships, and the universities would
serve as the training ground of the professions. Once settled into a life
pursuit, the adult would be free to pursue knowledge. This then became the
function of adult education.
The role of the Carnegie Corporation was to encourage
experimentation. Adopting the outlook of progressive education--that education
was lifelong and took place under many different
circumstances-the first task was to identify those aspects of life's
experiences which were indeed educative. The second step would be to decide
what methods worked best in encouraging such learning. The third would be to
encourage more experimentation and the development of model projects. Such an
approach would identify educational experiences well outside of the traditional
purview of the school. Individuals would regain control over their own
learning. The role of the Foundation in such a situation was to select, and
then aid, the exceptional individual with vision who would be able to implement
this truly radical change in the educational system.
One important benefit of such an approach would be
the reconsideration of the local community as the primary educative agency
within society. From the Carnegie perspective, understanding the nature of experience
and how individuals learn from particular types of educational events was
closely connected with the goal of returning the locus of control over
education to the local community. Since "our education is the product of
all our experiences . . . ,”(24) it was important to
encourage those kinds of experiences which would have the greatest values. From
the Carnegie perspective, communities were an important educative agency which
had not been previously utilized. "We have gone far enough to realize that
it is the community which is the real unit with which we have to deal and not
the type of study in which the individual may be interested."(25) Thus,
projects with a distinctly local cast were often funded. These included studies
of adult education in rural communities, local drama leagues, and town self
surveys. Local councils of adult education such as those in Buffalo, Cleveland,
and Brooklyn were also considered to be models and were funded accordingly. (26)
ADULT LEARNING
Underlying the Carnegie support of adult education was the basic belief that adults would be better able than children to manage and synthesize new areas of study to which they were exposed. Even those with seemingly quite different approaches to education and its meaning agreed that adults' ability to learn was significantly different from that of children. This belief was predicated on the notion that true learning came from experience.(27)
Contemporary trends in schooling had turned this idea
on its head. Traditionally, learning had been in the province of adults; only
in modern times had it been made the prerogative of children. The traditional
view had held that the more experienced adult mind was better able to
assimilate and understand "truth." It was assumed that this truth
would reach children and adolescents through the environment. The new approach
to learning portrayed knowledge as a seed which could be planted in young minds
and would grow over time. This psychology of learning seemed to be
inappropriate to many who advocated adult education.(28)
According to the Carnegie leaders' psychology of
learning, adolescents, and children were unable to synthesize and thus make
sense of the curriculum. Adults, on the other hand, were better able to
understand and move beyond the sometimes arbitrary divisions of the curriculum.(29) This ability to synthesize was really the fusion of
learning with the experience of living to form a unity, an experience of which
the child was incapable.(30) Thus the key to learning, both the adult's and the
child's, lay in individual experience. Only adults, however, had the depth of
experience necessary to fully deal with all aspects of learning.
Such a discussion boiled down to the argument that
only adults could gain from a study of liberal education. For this reason, the
true purpose of adult education was not remediation, but rather the prevention
of "adult starvation.”(31) The growth of leisure time was perceived as
allowing for the possibility of adult education. Whereas previously the
structure of work had not allowed most adults the opportunity to overcome the
obstacles in the way of learning, the increase in leisure time had brought
about an unprecedented possibility. "By adult education we shall in the
end create a lay public with a sense of greatness and our science and art will
rise to heights hitherto unattainable."(32)
While the process of uniting experience and knowledge
was unclear, individuals with quite different points of view could unite under
the banner of promoting this liberal form of adult education. For Lindeman, a
liberal was a relativist. "The liberal . . . , views life in terms of
change, flux, evolution; to him all goals, ends, and values are relative. . . .
His interest therefore centers upon means rather than ends.”(33) Yet,
inevitably, such an approach focused on method rather than on content, and in
so doing, reverted to the criticisms leveled at progressive education in the
first place. In addition, the debate created a tension within the field that
has still not been resolved.
CONCLUSION
This has been an admittedly cursory attempt to examine some of the underlying issues affecting the Carnegie Corporation's interest in adult education. By focusing on the inherent critique of children's education, it is hoped that some of the misconceptions concerning the rise of the AAAE can be clarified. While the connections are not completely clear at this point, it is important to understand that the adult education movement did not arise because of reasons relating to the development of a field of practice, but rather as a reaction to and a criticism of the current state of public and university education. We cannot understand the meaning of adult education if we do not see its rise as intimately connected to the concerns of children's education. By concentrating on the adult, the Carnegie Corporation hoped to circumvent the problems of children's education.
Adult education would serve as a creative outlet for
those workers who were consigned to the boredom of industrial and technological
repetition. No one would be refused the opportunity to learn; yet it would also
serve as a reminder that, as Russell stated, "Most doors are closed.”(34) The
education offered self-improvement, inner growth, and further understanding,
not social mobility.
As time would show, some of the goals of adult
education as it emerged were quite clearly contradictory. They represented the
Carnegie attempt to synthesize its individualistic philosophy with
technological innovation and progressive reform. Emphasis on the individual
effort and cooperative action on the local level were part of an effort to
counter the growth of governmental bureaucracy. The goals of progressive
education remained constant, but they were transposed onto the education of
adults, an arena that would be both more conducive to true learning and far
cheaper.
NOTES
1. Bernard Bailyn, Education in the Forming of the
American Society (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960);
Lawrence Cremin, The Transformation of the School Progressivism in American
Education, 1876-1957 (New York: Random Books, 1964); Lawrence Cremin, Public
Education (New York: Basic Books, 1976); Harold Stubblefield, Towards A
History of Adult Education in America (London: Croom Helm, 1988).
2. Malcolm Knowles, The
Adult Education Movement in the U.S., rev. ed. (Huntington, N.Y.: Robert E.
Krieger, 1977); C. Hartley Grattan, In Quest of Knowledge (New York:
Association Press, 1959).
3. David Stewart, Adult Learning in America: Eduard
Lindeman and His Agenda for Lifelong Education (Malabar, Fla.: Robert E.
Krieger, 1987).
4. Carnegie Corporation, Minutes of the Meeting of the
Board of Trustees, 12 March 1918. Carnegie Corporation
Archives, New York City.
5. Amy D. Rose, "Towards the Diffusion of
Knowledge: Professional Adult Education in the 1920s." (Ed.D.
diss., Columbia University, Teachers College, 1979).
6. "Annual Report of the AAAE," Journal
of Adult Education 1 (1929): 333.
7. Henry Pritchett, "The Rising Cost of
Education," 17th Annual Report of the President of the Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1921-1922 (New York: Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1922), 95.
8. Henry Pritchett, "The Teacher's
Responsibility for Our Educational Integrity," 18th Annual Report of
the President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching,
1922-1923 (New York: Carnegie Foundation, 1923), 78.
9. Ibid., 79.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., 91.
12. Ibid., 79.
13. Pritchett, "The Rising Cost," 102
(first quote); 105 (second quote).
14. Ibid., 102.
15. Pritchett, "The Teacher's Responsibility," 86.
16. Pritchett, "The Rising Cost," 102.
17. Pritchett, "The Teacher's
Responsibility," 86. 18. Ibid., 82.
19. Mabel Newcomer, Financial Statistics of Public
Education in the United States, 1910-1920 (New York: Macmillan,
1924), 10.
20. Pritchett, "The Rising Cost," 107.
21. Ibid., 104.
22. Ibid., 107.
23. Pritchett, "The Teacher's
Responsibility," 88.
24. Glenn Frank, "On the Firing Line of
Democracy," Journal of Adult Education 1 (February 1929): 24.
25. Frederick P. Keppel, "Adult Education, Today and
Tomorrow," in Education for Adults and Other Essays (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1926), 38.
26. "Annual Conference Synopsis, 1929," Journal
of Adult Education 1 (1929): 306.
27. Eduard Lindeman, "After
Lyceums and Chautauquas What?" Bookman
65 (May 1927): 246-50.
28. Alvin Johnson, "Vitality in Teaching, New School
Interpretations of Adult Education," Journal of Adult Education (February
1929): 49; Alvin Johnson, Deliver Us From Dogma (New York: The American Association
for Adult Education, 1934), 53.
29. Johnson, Deliver Us From Dogma, 39.
30. A. E. Heath, "Books and Adult
Education," Journal of Adult Education 1 (October 1929): 395.
31. Philip Youtz, "The
Reader's Round Table, Experimenting with the Library as an Education
Center," Journal of Adult Education 1 (April 1929): 162.
32. Johnson, Deliver Us From Dogma, 36.
33. Eduard Lindeman, "The Future of
Liberalism," American Review, 4 (May 1926): 268-71.
34. Carnegie Corporation Office Memorandum, (15 December 1925), Series II, Adult Education, No. 18, Digest of Regional Conference on Adult Education, 24. Carnegie Corporation Archives, New York.
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