PREFACE
The present volume, as well as the companion volume of _Readings_, arose
out of a practical situation. Twenty-two years ago, on entering Stanford
University as a Professor of Education and being given the history of the
subject to teach, I found it necessary, almost from the first, to begin
the construction of a Syllabus of Lectures which would permit of my
teaching the subject more as a phase of the history of the rise and
progress of our Western civilization than would any existing text. Through
such a study it is possible to give, better than by any other means, that
vision of world progress which throws such a flood of light over all our
educational efforts. The Syllabus grew, was made to include detailed
citations to historical literature, and in 1902 was published in book
form. In 1905 a second and an enlarged edition was issued, [1] and these
volumes for a time formed the basis for classwork and reading in a number
of institutions, and, though now out of print, may still be found in many
libraries. At the same time I began the collection of a series of short,
illustrative sources for my students to read.
It had been my intention, after the publication of the second edition of
the Syllabus, to expand the outline into a Text Book which would embody my
ideas as to what university students should be given as to the history of
the work in which they were engaged. I felt then, and still feel, that the
history of education, properly conceived and presented, should occupy an
important place in the training of an educational leader. Two things now
happened which for some time turned me aside from my original purpose. The
first was the publication, late in 1905, of Paul Monroe's very
comprehensive and scholarly _Text Book in the History of Education_, and
the second was that, with the expansion of the work in education in the
university with which I was connected, and the addition of new men to the
department, the general history of education was for a time turned over to
another to teach. I then began, instead, the development of that
introductory course in education, dealing entirely with American
educational history and problems, out of which grew my _Public Education
in the United States_.
The second half of the academic year 1910-11 I acted as visiting Lecturer
on the History of Education at both Harvard University and Radcliffe
College, and while serving in this capacity I began work on what has
finally evolved into the present volume, together with the accompanying
book of illustrative _Readings_. Other duties, and a deep interest in
problems of school administration, largely engaged my energies and writing
time until some three years ago, when, in rearranging courses at the
university, it seemed desirable that I should again take over the
instruction in the general history of education. Since then I have pushed
through, as rapidly as conditions would permit, the organization of the
parallel book of sources and documents, and the present volume of text.
In doing so I have not tried to prepare another history of educational
theories. Of such we already have a sufficient number. Instead, I have
tried to prepare a history of the progress and practice and organization
of education itself, and to give to such a history its proper setting as a
phase of the history of the development and spread of our Western
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