1934
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE SOCIAL STUDIES (CHAS. SCRIBNER’S SONS: New York, 1934) compiled by the American Historical Association was published. This book was the result of a project funded to the tune of $340,000 by the Carnegie Corporation of New York called “Investigation of the Social Studies in the Schools,” and was carried out by the American Historical Association. Professor Harold Laski, a philosopher of British socialism, said of this report: “At bottom, and stripped of its carefully neutral phrases, the report is an educational program for a Socialist America.” Important excerpts from Conclusions follow:[Preface] The Commission is under special obligation to its sponsor, the American
Historical Association. Above all, it recognizes its indebtedness to the Trustees of the
Carnegie Corporation, whose financial aid made possible the whole five-year investigation of social science instruction in the schools, eventuating in the following Conclusions and Recommendations.
The Commission could not limit itself to a survey of textbooks, curricula, methods
of instruction, and schemes of examination, but was impelled to consider the condition
and prospects of the American people as a part of Western Civilization merging into
a world order. (p. 1)
Of utmost importance is the following admission of the planners’ goals to change our free
enterprise/representative republic:
The Commission was also driven to this broader conception of its task by the obvious
fact that American civilization, in common with Western civilization, is passing through
one of the great critical ages of history, is modifying its traditional faith in economic
individualism, and is embarking upon vast experiments in social planning and control which call for large-scale cooperation on the part of the people.... (pp. 1–2)
Cumulative evidence supports the conclusion that in the United States as in other
countries, the age of laissez faire in economy and government is closing and a new age of collectivism is emerging.... (p.16)
The implications for education are clear and imperative: (a) the efficient functioning
of the emerging economy and the full utilization of its potentialities require profound
changes in the attitudes and outlook of the American people, especially the rising
generation—a complete and frank recognition that the old order is passing, that the new order is emerging.... (pp. 34–35)
Organized public education in the United States, much more than ever before, is now
compelled, if it is to fulfill its social obligations, to adjust its objectives, its curriculum,
its methods of instruction, and its administrative procedures to the requirements of
the emerging integrated order. If the school is to justify its maintenance and assume its responsibilities, it must recognize the new order and proceed to equip the rising generation to cooperate effectively in the increasingly interdependent society and to live rationally and well within its limitations and possibilities.... Signed: A.C. Krey, Chairman; Charles A. Beard; Isaiah Bowman (signed with reservations printed as Appendix C); Ada Comstock; George S. Counts; Avery O. Craven; Guy Stanton Ford; Carlton J.H. Hayes; Henry Johnson; A.C. Krey; Leon C. Marshall; Jesse H. Newton; Jesse F. Steiner. (Frank A. Ballou, Edmund E. Day, Ernest Hom, and Charles E. Merriam declined to sign these Conclusions.) (p. 35)
