EDUCATION IN AMERICAN SOCIETY:

In considering the aims or purposes of education in America today, this reflective discussion first reviews the aims of education since the founding of the United States, as well as those antecedent aims in the history of the Western education experience. An overview of changing trends in educational objectives illuminates the gradual development of societal attitudes on the meaning of citizenship and the definition.of an educated person. The general thrust of educational aims has been a sense that, in addition to students ' capacitrto read and compute, educational programs should also link knowledge and skills with an understanding of, and commitment to, democratic principles and their application. Such programs begin in preschool and continue throughout formal education. They foster individual and cultural identity and include observation of, and participation in, the school and community as part of th