The Movement for Progressive Schools.

• Author: Follette, Fola La

The conservatives may be in the ascendant politically in this country, but in the world of elementary and secondary education it is evidently now the popular thing to be counted "progressive." At least this seems a fair deduction after observing the many shades of educational [preaching] and practice which joined in the Eighth Annual Conference of the Progressive Education Association in New York City the week of March 5.

Not long ago, there were schools which had made radical innovations in their practice and yet hesitated to allow themselves to be called "progressive;" today there appear to be many quite formal schools that consider it desirable to be thus classified. Does this mean that an increasing number of parents are demanding something different from the old formal academic factories for their children?

Certainly the Progressive Education Conference demonstrated that a prophet may be honored even in his own country. For eighteen hundred people gathered in the East Ballroom of the Commodore Hotel to hear Dr. John Dewey's address:

"[T]hat pupils in progressive schools are themselves progressing, and that the movement to establish more progressive schools is...