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A major problem with Lawrence A. Cremin's The Transformation of the Schoolis the neglect of one aspect of progressive political ideology and one stream of educational thought during the pre-World War I period. The neglect of these two movements was probably caused by a failure to give a coherent statement as to the nature of educational reforms during this period and the use of a rather vague definition of progressive political and social change. What Cremin calls “progressive education” during the pre-World War I period appears to be a conglomeration of educational changes with no particular common bonds except that they represented something new. This lack of clarity gives the impression that a strange combination of people were called “progressive educators.” Under the roof of this title is mixed the free atmosphere of Marietta Johnson's Organic School with the well ordered air of the platoon system of the Gary Public Schools. The title also houses the educational elitist and test-oriented Edward L. Thorndike with Caroline Pratt's Play School. This confused picture of educational change is a function of an equally obscure definition of progressive political and social change. Cremin vaguely defines “American Progressivism writ large” as social and political change designed to improve the lives of individuals, a valueless definition since it literally includes everyone.

C. A. Bower's recent article “The Ideologies of Progresive Education” (H.E.Q., Winter 1967) was a much needed effort to clarify some of the muddied waters flowing from various interpretations of Cremin's The Transformation of the School. Bowers was quite right in distinguishing the social reconstructionists from the other educators Cremin lumped together as progressives. Ironically the one possible flaw in Bowers's argument might have been caused by his reliance upon Cremin's interpretation of the early phases of progressive education. Bowers's basic thesis was that the social reconstructionist educators of the nineteen-thirties represented a new breed of progressive educators. Bowers argued that previous to the nineteen-thirties progressive politicans and educators set as their goal the emancipation of the individual. During the nineteen-thirties social reconstructions rejected this objective for an education that would train the individual to work harmoniously in a collective society. Now the one possible error in this argument lies in calling this a new form of progressivism and progressive education.