In the history of education all issues with which the writer is familiar have originated in what people have thought desirable for education. Thus, the history of issues in American secondary education involves perceptions of, and sometimes debates on, what is desirable. In this discussion, we shall deal with a few crucial issues, which we shall call core issues, plus a very few conjoint issues. Both will be discussed in terms of their respective social and cultural milieus, and within broad periods of time.

Baskin and his imagist colleagues are not sanguine about society. There are no remedies suggested in their art or notebooks, there is no direction for art education in them. But these artistic commentaries can be interpreted by educators seeking in them worthy tasks. The artist who shows himself repulsed by brutality, by emotional frigidity, is urging educators to make a new society peopled by men and women who can love and be compassionate.

The concern of this chapter is the degree to which society and culture in the United States repress, permit, or encourage individuality. For greater specificity, the problem can be worded in terms of questions: Is there evidence of impressive interest among the people of the United States in the opportunities of the talented, the gifted, and the creative?

The purpose of this essay is to describe the congruence between the social and educational philosophies of the New Humanists and of the New Conservatives and to sketch its contemporary significance.

The past decade has witnessed not only a sharp and continuing debate over the merits of progressive education but also a growing interest in what progressive education actually was and what it meant. This is the first of three essays in which the author delineates some of the major intellectual currents in the movement.