FOUNDATIONS FOR AMERICAN EDUCATION

Harold O. Rugg '08. Yonkers,New York: World Book Company. 1947. Pp.xxii, 826.

"If the wealth of modern creative thought could be assembled and organized, man could command sufficient wisdom to guide the youth of the world." (p. 3) .... "The four foundations of education .... lie scattered in many places, the makings of a great education. The educators of America must now organize these .... and focus them directly on the problems of man." (p. 807)

Between these two passages Dr. Rugg has concentrated for persons profoundly concerned with modern education the seminal ideas for a new psychology, a new sociology, a new esthetics, and a new ethics—the four foundations of education (Parts Two to Five of the volume, 441 pages), and has surveyed graphically—with much disappointment, but with some hope—the course of education in the past fifty years (Part Six, 291 pages). The pervading philosophical theme of the volume is the primacy, vitality, and motivation of experience, and its central importance for any real education.

This scholarly and well-documented work (the six-page index of names lists 388 persons, many with multiple reference) is somewhat unevenly written. The most exciting portion of the book is Part Three, dealing with the sociological foundation of education, in which the author is both luminous and vigorous. The preceding section, on the psychological foundation, seems much too involved and professionally specialized: it is laborious reading even for those educators who have read heavily in psychology.

But this criticism is minor. What is of major importance is that the author insists that education be concerned with the whole human being, not with some mildly intellectual segment; that the author's great hope for education is that it will become more identified with life, in order that life may be more richly and more continuously identical with education. The best of possible worlds—a world of purpose and expression, of democracy, justice, and peace, of health and happiness—is a world in which all agencies encourage the development and cooperation of the individual potentialities of all human beings.