Recovering a tradition of rural progressivism in American public education

Dewey-inspired educational progressivism in the first half of the 20th century generally has been assumed to have been an urban phenomenon. This article traces a tradition of rural progressivism during the period J9J0-J950 centered at Teachers College in New York City, and explores the implication of that tradition for educators today. The greatest single need for the improvement of country life at the present time... is for a corps of properly prepared country teachers who will en-ter our existing country schools and, through vi-talized teaching and tactful social leadership, convert them into living centers for the instruc-tion of both children and adults and the complete upbuilding of country community life.--:-Mabel Carney, 1912 (p. 252) Have we not reached the time when we are justi-fied in expecting that every rural school, however small, shall be a place of genuine education of high quality?-Fannie Dunn, 1931 (p.423) The following question was asked during a dinner con-versation at a rural education conference a number of years ago: "Is there a tradition of rural school progressivism?" At the time, I was reading Lawrence Cremin's The Trans-formation ofthe School (1961), which remains the best and most complete history of Deweyan progressivism. In it, I had come across several sections that dealt with rural edu-cation issues, with references to a handful of good rural schools that seemed to fit within the context of Dewey-inspired educational experiments. But a few examples of what would appear, from Cremin's account, to be isolated and unconnected progressive rural schools in the period between 1900 and 1940 hardly constitute what I would cal1 a "tradition " of rural school progressivism. So my unex-plored response to the question at that time was a tentative "No. " Nevertheless, I remained intrigued by the notion. It stuck with me during the summer of 1998, when I attended a summer gathering ofthe Annenberg Rural Chal-Correspondence concerning this article should be addresse