It is strange in these days of increasing demands on the school that voices from an age of unlimited faith in the power of schooling—such voices as that of George Counts in the 1930's, Lester Frank Ward in the 1890's, or William Maclure in the 1830's—sound strangely archaic. In some respects our age expects more of the schools than did theirs; in others—particularly in the domain of social reform—vastly less. When set against their hopes and dreams, ours are trivial. Perhaps so are our efforts.

A valuable perspective on William Maclure's unique approach to education for a good society is provided by Professor Burgess' study. Although the spread of the essentially “enlightenment faith in education” of the nineteenth century to which the paper refers is well known and emphasized by historians of education, the specific contribution of Maclure is perhaps less well recognized. Thus we are provided with an insight into his work and thought that goes beyond the usual account of his experiment with Robert Owen at New Harmony, to a trenchant analysis of the design of his plan for social reform through education.

This paper was written from the standpoint of three broad general assumptions: (1) that a study of the history of education has much to contribute to the upgrading of the quality of the profession of teaching; (2) that the future of education in the United States calls for a deeper sense of historical reality; and (3) that the root of much of our confusion in educational policy today is to be found in the area involving the quality of the relation between religion and politics. Dr. Robert Ulich has stated our problem quite well:

Professor Drake's paper begins by suggesting that more careful study of the historical relation between religion and education would help both to upgrade the teaching profession and to clarify the confusion in present-day educational policy. Many of us would, I think, agree. The footnote references in the body of the paper, however, indicate that it rests upon only three volumes dealing with the facts of educational history: John Brubacher, History of the Problems of Education; Adolph E. Meyer, The Development of Education in the Twentieth Century; and William Gellemman, The American Legion As Educator. For religious history, Professor Drake rests his case on three or four such works as Florence Simmonds, Orpheus, A History of Religions and Salo W. Baron's Modern Nationalism and Religion. The analysis of the “roots of the God-state idea,” and indeed the definition of that idea in both Biblical and historical terms seems to be drawn from Herbert Muller's Uses of the Past, George P. Grant's Philosophy in the Mass Age, and the volumes by Brubacher and Simmonds. The source documents he cites beyond Hegel's Logic are essays by the Reverend Billy Graham and the not very reverend Harold Lasswell, two items from the Congressional Record for 1960 and 1962, and a volume by J. P. Bang, published in 1917 under the title Hurrah and Hallelujah. The last he recommends as “excellent primary source material for the Protestant point of view.”

Comparison of Dewey and Jefferson as to philosophy and philosophy of education promises a fruitful field of research which it is hoped will occupy some scholar in the near future. Many have suggested it, not the least of them being Dewey himself who compiled many of Jefferson's writings for the Modern Library. The present effort attempts only to examine briefly certain similarities in their works as these works help to develop the thesis that all philosophy of education has its foundation in value theory.

The book review section of a quarterly such as the one in the History of Education Quarterly might be useful in a variety of ways. First and obviously, it would provide a listing along with some comment concerning writing being done in history of education, a convenient service for anyone who would be aware of what is current in the field. Other journals of course would likely serve the purpose of providing notices of current writing adequately enough, though all too often this comment may be the ruminations of a staff writer, or even an outright “pitch” for selling books. This review section could offer somewhat more than a listing with comment and that is a review of each work by one qualified professionally to criticize, to praise, to blame, to judge relevance and competence, to relate to other works in history and education—in sum, to make a professional appraisal of the book. Such reviewing in this review section would likely be of interest to everyone concerned with history of education, but it would be of special value to those who are doing research and writing in the field. The profession owes these scholars this sort of critical attention, that in illuminating the successes as well as failures in their work, their scholarly efforts may be encouraged.