The Course of Study in American Education: Past, Present and Future
type: CreativeWork
description: The purposes of this study were twofold. The first was to trace the development of curriculum guides from Germany to American educational practices of today. The second was to analyze a set of older and a set of contemporary curriculum guides. The historical section was prepared through extensive library research, analysis of old and rare guides and consultations with curriculum scholars. The analysis of guides utilized a data collection instrument developed for the study. Two sets of curriculum guides were analyzed: twenty-six older guides dated 1871-1928, obtained from a collection at Columbia University and fifty-one contemporary guides from the 1981 ASCD conference. The analysis was divided into three categories: (1) older versus contemporary guides, (2) contemporary elementary versus secondary versus combination guides, and (3) contemporary "basic" versus "supplementary" guides. Frequency distributions were tabulated using the SPSS. The findings are in two areas: a description of the historical path which led to the development of American courses of study and comparative data resulting from the analysis of guides. Roots of American courses of study can be traced back to German educator, Johann Friedrich Herbart, 1776-1841. His ideas were passed to his disciple, Wilhelm Rein, who developed an eight-volume course of study for German schools. In 1886 two Americans, Charles and Frank McMurry traveled to Germany to study with Rein. They developed courses of study for American schools modeled after German documents. Although the analysis of guides revealed numerous findings, the major results are as follows. Older versus Contemporary Guides More specialization was found in contemporary guides and more reference to arts was found in older guides. The concept of individual differences was given more attention in older guides. Contemporary Guides Only half referred to evaluation procedures. Internal consistency among components was also found in half the guides. All Gu…
abstract: The purposes of this study were twofold. The first was to trace the development of curriculum guides from Germany to American educational practices of today. The second was to analyze a set of older and a set of contemporary curriculum guides. The historical section was prepared through extensive library research, analysis of old and rare guides and consultations with curriculum scholars. The analysis of guides utilized a data collection instrument developed for the study. Two sets of curriculum guides were analyzed: twenty-six older guides dated 1871-1928, obtained from a collection at Columbia University and fifty-one contemporary guides from the 1981 ASCD conference. The analysis was divided into three categories: (1) older versus contemporary guides, (2) contemporary elementary versus secondary versus combination guides, and (3) contemporary "basic" versus "supplementary" guides. Frequency distributions were tabulated using the SPSS. The findings are in two areas: a description of the historical path which led to the development of American courses of study and comparative data resulting from the analysis of guides. Roots of American courses of study can be traced back to German educator, Johann Friedrich Herbart, 1776-1841. His ideas were passed to his disciple, Wilhelm Rein, who developed an eight-volume course of study for German schools. In 1886 two Americans, Charles and Frank McMurry traveled to Germany to study with Rein. They developed courses of study for American schools modeled after German documents. Although the analysis of guides revealed numerous findings, the major results are as follows. Older versus Contemporary Guides More specialization was found in contemporary guides and more reference to arts was found in older guides. The concept of individual differences was given more attention in older guides. Contemporary Guides Only half referred to evaluation procedures. Internal consistency among components was also found in half the guides. All Gu…
author: Winters, Marilyn B.
keywords: Curriculum and Instruction, Education, History
date published: 1984-01-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:41:09Z
provider: Claremont Graduate University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Claremont Graduate University