History of Education Society

The Professional Significance of History of Education

Author(s): Maxine Greene
Source: History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Summer, 1967), pp. 182-190
Published by: History of Education Society
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THE USES OF HISTORY OF EDUCATION II

The Professional Significance

of History of Education
MAXINE GREENE

HISTORYOF ANY SORTconnotes,for me, searching,exploration,

and increasingly complex designs. I think of what Henry James spoke
of as a "fineness" of insight and perception, of what he described in
Portraitof a Ladyas expandedconsciousness,the pursuitof a larger,
"moreplentiful"life. IsabelArcherin that novel is a kind of exem-
plaryfigure-one who "carriedwithin herself a great fund of life"-
whose "deepestenjoyment was to feel the continuity between her
own soul and the agitations of the world. For this reason she was
fond of seeing greatcrowdsand large stretchesof country,of reading
about revolutionsand wars, of looking at historicalpictures-a class
of effortsto which she had often committedthe conscioussolecismof
forgiving them much bad painting for the sake of the subject....'
We, too, dealing with the history of educationat a moment like
this, have much to forgive; and "for the sake of the subject,"we ob-
viously need to confrontthe difficultquestionof the discipline'ssig-
nificance in teacher education. Not very long ago, such questions were
eitherset aside or resolvedby administrativefiat. Educationalhistory
tended to be validated by the contributionsit made to the public
image of the profession.The men who wrote it (as BernardBailyn
and othershave been remindingus) conceivedthe schools of the past
to be but preparationsfor the commonschool; and the emergenceof
that commonschool was seen to representone of history's culmina-
tions-the fulfillmentof a "promise"made (perhaps)at the begin-
ning of time.
Mrs. Greeneis Professorof English and a memberof the Departmentof
Philosophyand the Social Sciencesat TeachersCollege, ColumbiaUniver-
sity, She is editorof the TeachersCollegeRecord.

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 The nature of history qua history was a matter of indifference to
writers like these. The uncertainties which plagued historians
through the ages did not occur to them. It is doubtful whether they
troubled themselves about the issue of historical "reality" or histori-
cal "truth." No Collingwood appeared among them to speculate about
the difficulty of understanding particular actions, nor to hypothesize
that the historian ought to try to rethink the thoughts of a Horace
Mann or a Francis Parker in an effort to comprehend what happened
and why. No one, in fact, brought up the question of whether or not
the educational historian's concern was primarily with "rational
human action"-whether educational developments could be ade-
quately explained by a consideration of the decisions and behaviors
of a given number of educational pioneers. Nor did anyone offer as
an alternative the possibility of discovering (in Michael Oakeshott's
words) "greater and more complete detail" with respect to events in
the world of schools. Nor is there evidence that any of the early edu-
cational historians seriously contemplated the sort of problem which
has concerned Carl Hempel: the kinds of explanations made possible
by "an assumption of general laws." General laws were, it would
seem, frequently assumed; but the matter of explanation did not ap-
pear to trouble the writers of educational history any more than did
"what actually happened" in the past.
What happened, it was assumed, could be known through con-
sultation of the texts of laws, reports, and public addresses. It could
be determined through a reading of the descriptive accounts left by
journalists, social reformers, statesmen, and-most of all-the
schoolmen themselves. Or it could be worked out by drawing in-
ferences from these, sometimes for a conception of individual
motivation or popular opinion; sometimes for a conception of "tend-
ency," "tradition," or "law." The problem of organization was
solved by a kind of foreshortening: chronologies were developed
in terms of the more visible aspects of institutional development, or
by discovering correlations between the stages of such development
and events which were apparently related.
The business of determining the discipline's significance, as well
as the discipline's structure, is far more complicated today, now that
we know some historiography and can no longer write history for
strategic reasons or political ones. We can no longer arbitrarily skim

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educational history off the top of cultural history, no matter how we
decide to specialize. We cannot evade the problems fundamental to
the larger discipline of history: the pervasive problems of the past's
"reality," of objectivity, meaning, and truth. Nor can we evade the
issues of historical explanation and generalization. We have, each
of us, to decide the degree to which we can be "scientific" about his-
tory; we have, each of us, to define criteria of relevance, particular
scales of priorities.
As I see it, relevance is still the crux of the matter where the deter-
mination of professional significance is concerned; but relevance, to
me, signifies relevance for the individual teacher or the teacher-to-be
-not simply utility, and certainly not utility in enhancing the
status of the profession. I am existentialist enough to believe that a
teacher, like every other human being, achieves dignity as he makes
effectual choices in the world, as he creates and recreates himself as a
teacher day by day, month by month, by dint of making the kinds
of decisions and employing the kinds of strategies which enable
young people to learn. The relevance of history for such a person
depends, I believe, on the degree to which a study of the educational
past enables him to organize his own experience in the situations of
the present, to refine his strategies, to enlarge his conceptual scope.
Its relevance depends on the degree to which (as in the case of the
statesman who studies political history) it enables him to discern a
range of possibilities for action, to perceive both limitations and what
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., calls "ambiguities."
It is trivial to say simply that history-any kind of history-
illuminates the present. To say that is to assume that there is an ob-
jective, identifiable state of affairs called "the present," existing apart
from the interpretations of existing individuals who are skilled in
various distinctive ways, responsible, involved. It seems meaningless
now to assert that knowledge of what happened in the past can pre-
scribe or offer reliable clues to what ought to be done in the present.
I think we know enough to agree that our inquiries into the educa-
tional past do not equip us to make the kinds of predictions scientists
make with respect to the physical universe, any more than they put
us in the position to perform experiments. They do not give us a
warranty for finding analogous situations, nor do they provide the

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kinds of reliable generalizationswhich assure long-range controls.
We can, I think, devise generalizationsby adoptingcertainprinciples
from the social sciences;but these ought to serve as organizingprin-
ciples, permittingus to identify certain recurrencesand similarities
while we study singular facts. At best, they will help us order an
inchoatefield and permitus to make some hypotheticalexplanations
whichmay be used as resourceswhen we are requiredto makechoices
with regardto teaching,learning,and the schools.
When I ponderthe significanceof the disciplinewith the individ-
ual teacherin mind, I believe we have to begin with a consciousori-
entation to teaching, learning, and schools in the contemporary
world in which that teacher lives and works-and with questions
variously and skillfully definedby responsiblepeople functioningin
the midst of that world. They must be questionsdefinedbecause of
the needs of action,becauseof the exigenciesof choice.
Considerthe world of the teachertoday, with its impinging im-
mediacies, its pressure, the sense of constant innovation, insuffi-
ciency, flux. Considerthe pervasiveuncertaintieswith respectto the
aims of schooling, the absence of what was once called a "public
philosophy,"the sometimesappallingrealizationthat educationex-
tends far beyond the professionalteacherand far beyond the insti-
tutionallife of the schools.
The curriculain teacher-traininginstitutions are built upon the
recognitionthat the teachercan only deal with such challengesif he
masters certainconceptsin selected disciplines,aside from his field
of specialization,the subjectmatter that he is teaching or planning
to teach. He must learn to conceptualizelearningbehaviorand non-
learningbehavior,to identify the learningtasks that can reasonably
be performed.He must understandthe fundamentalsof institutional
life, the functionof groupsin society, somethingof the way in which
communitiesand neighborhoodsare structured,something of the
role of subculturesand the "cultureof poverty" and of the various
traditionsthat pervadeAmericansociety. He is expected,too, to un-
derstandsomethingabout the organizationof the schools, about the
ways in which they are controlled,about the making of policies re-
spectingwhat is taught, and about the "politics"now involved. The
professionalsignificanceof all this knowledge is generally assumed

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 to be found in its relevanceto a teacher'sactual work in the public
schools, to the necessity for him to relate intelligently to the mani-
fold situationsthat arise in professionallife.
The significanceof educationalhistory has not been so evident, in
spite of the proliferatingfoundationscourses in colleges throughout
the country. It seems to me that the discipline may be justified,
however, as other subjectmattersare justifiedtoday, as long as its
distinctivenessis identified-perhaps as one of the humanities. I
think it belongs to the area of the humanitiesbecauseit deals funda-
mentally,not with the impersonallives of institutions,but with the
continuing,sometimesdesperateefforts of groups of men to choose,
shape, and maintainwhat they considerto be a properhuman way
of life. It deals, I think, with the way men conservein the midst of
change that which they select as worthy of perpetuation-those ele-
ments of knowledge, tradition, skill, and belief deemed worthy of
keepingalive. It was JakobBurckhardtwho said that history is what
one age finds worthy of note in another.History of education,then,
may be what the historiansof educationfind significantenough to
note in the choicesmade in ages past. One of the distinctivethings
about this kind of history, of course, is that the educative"reality"
being studied always involves value choices. The historian looks at
decisions with respectto what has been consideredvaluable and to
the action on such decisions, whether deliberateor unthinking.He
may find that what seems to him worthy of note is preciselythe op-
posite of that found worthy of conversation.He may find what he
conceives to have been trivial and inappropriatesomehow frozen
into the heritage. Educationalhistorians and educators, therefore,
face somewhat the same problems:what one generation considers
valuableandimportantmay not be what a previousgenerationprized.
A historianof education,in consequence,cannot avoid confronting
himself as interpreter.His task is not the simplereconstructionof the
past, nor merely the explicationof singularthings.
All dependson how the singularthings are ordered,how experi-
ence of past and present is interpretedby a disciplinedmind. Both
history and education,it seems to me, turn upon such interpreta-
tion; and, again, I am remindedof Henry Jamesand what he called
"the reflector"or the "centralconsciousness"which works upon raw
materialsand ordersthem. For James,it was art which orderedlife;

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without art, he said, life would be "a splendidwaste." I think we
can say that about the history of educationwhere a teacheris con-
cerned. Without a conscious process of selection and organization,
without a deliberatesearchfor long-rangemeanings,the educational
world, too, would resemblea "waste,"althoughnot a very splendid
one. It would be a confusionof momentarypuzzlements,unfinished
inquiries,unexpectedcataclysms.Dazzledby presentness,the teacher
would be all too likely to find perspectiveimpossible-and interpre-
tation hinderedhopelessly.
I am suggesting,of course,that the significanceof historicalstudy
for the teacherlies in the possibilityit offers for the shaping of large
perspectives,enablingthat teacherto makesome sense of the inchoate
present throughwhich he moves. To engage in historicalinquiry is
to seek out organizingprinciplesand ideas to patternthe particulari-
ties that composeexperienceas it widens to includethe past. Asking
questions about continuties, lines of development, relationships
among ideas and events, facts and values, and economicand social
changes, the teacheris in a position to pursuemeanings, if not an-
swers.He is in a positionto orienthimself in the continuousuniverse
extendingfar beyond his personalplight. He is in a position to ap-
propriatethe past by making it part of his own life situation, the
situationsin which his choicesare to be made.
I have in mind such large perplexitiesas those accompanyingthe
struggle over integrationin the publicschools today. I have in mind
the open questionsrespectingthe role to be played by the family in
the life of the city child, the equally open questionsrespectingeco-
nomic opportunityand the viability of "equality"as norm. Also I
have in mind the problemof the directionof contemporaryeduca-
tion: the aims that are and ought to be defined.I have in mind the
connectionbetween those aims and the professedgoals of the cul-
ture, as well as the commitmentsof individualswho mediate and
interpretfor the mass of people: the artists and writers of America;
the men who administerthe mass media; the so-called"influentials,"
ranging from block-associationleadersin the city slums to corpora-
tion executivesresponsiblefor the new technologies.
Surely it is importantfor the individualteacherto make sense of
some of this, to relatehimself to it, to take a stand.
Beginning with particularquestions, preferablythose arising out

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of his affirmedresponsibility,he may, if he knows enough, borrow
concepts from the social sciences or the behavioralsciences for the
sake of orderinghis own field. Or, if he finds them workable,he may
borrow concepts from the discipline of academichistory, with the
awareness-whatever the concepts he chooses-that the organiza-
tion they make possible is but one of several alternativemodes of
organization,each of which might permithim to define a few mean-
ings in a limited sphere.
If, becauseof his particularinvolvement,the teacheris preoccupied
with the problemof school integration,he may productivelyapply
principlestaken from sociology. They may be principlesrelated to
the problem of assimilation, a problem confronted repeatedly by
teachersfor morethana hundredyears.Also, he may drawfromwhat
is now called"urbanstudies,"or from economics,or from one of the
historical specialties.Looking back at the cities of the past and at
their efforts to absorbwaves of immigrantswho had to be assimi-
lated, he may be more free than he would otherwisebe to conceptu-
alize the whole matter of the '"commonschool" experienceand the
tension between demands for such experienceand concurrentde-
mands for groupautonomy.
He may be enabledto comparethe relationshipbetween such de-
liberately fostered assimilation and equality of opportunity with
relationshipsbetweenthem at momentsin the past. At once, he may
be enabledto define his own doubts and prejudiceswith respect to
both assimilationand equality. It seems to me to make a difference
when one is trainedto considerthis problemin the light of the prob-
lematic past and to relate the demonstrablefacts of the past to the
actualityof the present,to the end of orderingbothby means of some
viable organizingidea.
As interesting to me is the even larger question of the place of
publiceducation,with all the promisesmade for it, in the context of
the American tradition-pervaded as that tradition has been with
the sense of special mission, of a promise given at the moment of
settlement. The teacher functions today in the midst of crumbling
idols, even as public educationbecomes increasingly importanton
the national scene. The investments in knowledge and schooling
grow apace;yet there appearsto be a decliningfaith in what educa-
tion can accomplishwhere the social orderis concerned,a declining

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faith in what it can do to promote security, to assure individuals
opportunities for what was traditionally called "success."
The dominant emphasis is relatively new in our purportedly anti-
intellectualist history: the emphasis upon cognitive mastery, on the
ability to conceptualize, on the kind of intellectual competence which
enables people, not necessarily to succeed in any particular sphere,
not necessarily to become businessmen or inventors or hunters of
white whales, but to make intelligent choices in a precarious world.
Given the traditional assurances, the traditional rationale for the
public school, this is hard for many Americans to accept. Teachers,
I find, are ambivalent; but they also find it difficult (if occasionally
comforting) to accept the notion that it is the business of the schools
primarily to teach young people how to think and to initiate them
into the subject matter disciplines. It is no longer the prime objective
of the schools to rebuild the social order, to eliminate poverty, to
guarantee equality-to redeem.
And here, too, there is a place for history of education, perhaps a
place where it can play its most significant role. As historians inter-
pret our educational experience, I believe, they inevitably dramatize
the tragic element in our national life: the clash between the dream
and the actuality; the persistence of what Joseph Conrad described
as "necessary illusions"-which are the barriers men build against
nothingness and futility. I mean by this that historians cannot avoid
describing the early public schools as beneficiaries of the eighteenth-
century faith. After all, that faith was the source of the world's best
educational hope at the time the common school arguments were
being refined. It was a glorious faith, an absurd faith, and we still
talk in its terms. Yet I believe that the imaginative artists of Amer-
ica, most of them tragic in their perception, presented a thousand
intimations that the faith was groundless, that the country's very
rise to world preeminence caused a falling away of the dream.
Because our artists saw all this, I have thought their presentations
important in the shaping of perspectives on the past, just as I have
thought them important for the occasions they offer to engage imagi-
natively in the felt life of America. Melville, Hawthorne, Mark
Twain, and the rest did not write explicitly about education; but they
did make possible intensified perceptions of American experience, the
continuing experience of individualism contending with conformi-

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ties, freedom with organization,altruism with greed, elitism with
equality-the village with "the territoryahead," the green hills of
homelandwith the dangeroussea.
Most of all, they made possible an intensified perceptionof the
fallibilityof men and the limitationswhich define the human career.
Educationalhistorianshave seldom paid heed to matterslike these;
but, it seems to me, they urgentlyneed to be conceived.
At this momentof time, when the teachercannot even be sure of
the supportof his own locality, when he can offer no child assurance
of identity or a meaningfulfuturerole, I think that history of educa-
tion can becomesignificantif, in additionto stirring the teacherto
interpret,to order,and to seek out meaning,it also makes it possible
for him to confrontthe human conditionand to take his stance as a
teacherwho is a humanbeing with respectto the indifferenceof the
sky. It is out of such confrontationsthat dignity emerges, courage
and a kind of gaiety. This may be, in the last analysis, how one
moves-by means of history-to a larger,more plentiful life.

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