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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2017
The work here explores the voices of Ontario's humanist educators, who advocated for the preservation of a curriculum theory rooted in faculty psychology, mental discipline, and the classics in the face of progressivist revisions to the province's public school organization. A great deal of scholastic sweat has been poured over the subject of progressive education, its meanings, and its purposes. Much less has been said about the critics of progressivist reform, who are referred to here as humanists; this term follows from the work of Herbert Kliebard, who characterized humanists as one of four competing interests in an epic struggle over the curriculum in the United States. Theodore Christou dubbed humanists “foils” to the progressivist reformers who succeeded in overturning Ontario's Programmes of Study for the public schools. Kliebard defined this group as:
the guardians of an ancient tradition tied to the power of reason and the finest elements of the Western cultural heritage… to them fell the task of reinterpreting, and thereby preserving as best as they could, their revered traditions and values in the face of rapid social change and a burgeoning school system.
1 See, for instance, Milewski, Patrice, “Positivism and Post-World War I Elementary School Reform in Ontario,” Paedagogica Historica 48, no. 5 (2012): 729–43 and “The Scientisation of Schooling in Ontario, 1910–1934,” Paedagogica Historica 46, no. 3 (2010): 341–55; Heyking, Amy von, Creating Citizens: History and Identity in Alberta's Schools, 1905–1980 (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2006); Weiler, Kathleen, “The Historiography of Gender and Progressive Education in the United States,” Paedagogica Historica 42, nos. 1, 2 (February 2006): 161–76; Hayes, William, The Progressive Education Movement: Is It Still a Factor in Today's Schools? (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2006); Axelrod, Paul, “Beyond the Progressive Education Debate: A Profile of Toronto Schooling in the 1950s,” Historical Studies in Education 17, no. 2 (2005): 227–41; Brehony, Kevin. J., “A New Education for a New Era: The Contribution of the Conferences of the New Education Fellowship to the Disciplinary Field of Education, 1921–1938,” Paedagogica Historica 40, nos. 5, 6 (October 2004): 733–55; and Reese, William, “American Education in the Twentieth Century: Progressive Legacies,” Paedagogica Historica 39, no. 4 (2003): 415–16; Herbert M. Kliebard, Forging the American Curriculum: Essays in Curriculum History and Theory (London: Routledge, 1992); Stamp, Robert M., The Schools of Ontario, 1876–1976 (Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 1982).Google Scholar
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