Educating the Progress Prophets: Robert Frost Responds to Progressive Education

“What is a good education; and what good is education?” Professor of English Literature Michael Bauman used to ask his students these two questions. Disagreement on this question though history began a debate that still rages in the West. This debate is now called the “philosophy of education.” However, at some point in the last century, those involved changed the question and began asking “what’s the use in education?” It is among these conditions that we find Robert Frost contributing his own answers to this great conversation in the pursuit of wisdom.

Frost did not work specifically as a philosopher, education theorist, or a political reformer. As a poet, however, he asked difficult questions that forced him to confront ideas that had consequences in each of these fields. Many of these poetic inquiries dealt with the nature of man, which inevitably guided his views of education. Because he spent much of his life as a teacher, Frost knew that his writing directly informed his teaching so much so that he said they “were one” (Hewlett 176). It is no surprise that we find a strong philosophy of education in the works of Robert Frost.

Frost had much to say about the social and political movements of his time, particularly in the realm of education. Because of his anti-progressivism, Frost thought that the “scientific” approach to education was inferior and even harmful when compared to the classical-liberal education he favored and considered a good in itself. We will explore this topic in an order of three steps: first, we will examine Frost’s response to general progressivism, second, we will investigate Frost’s concern for the progressive education movement in particular, and third, we will look at Frost’s proposal of an alternative philosophy based on a historical canon of the liberal arts.

Frost lived during a time of great reform among the educating institutions in the West. Progressivism, the most influential philosophical movement of its time, was at its peak and demanded that mankind move past the traditions and religions of the past (Kurtz 3). Progressivism is defined as any individual belief, social movement, or political philosophy that seeks social and economic reform in reaction against traditional religions and economic systems that hinder humanity from advancing society “into a better place” (Nugent 5). This philosophy has major anthropological presuppositions, which ultimately reject the belief in inherent constraints and limitations on human capacity.

Frost believed that whatever “progress” in society was, it could not thrust mankind into utopia (Selected Letters 418). Social reformation and advancement towards efficiency could never end suffering. Here Frost denies an underlying premise of the progressive utopian vision. The history of the Enlightenment and the different influences of the progressive movement are obviously far too elaborate and diverse to explore in detail, so for our purposes, we will explore the parts of it that have implications in Frost’s philosophy of education.

We will examine two examples of progressivism at work. The first is President John F. Kennedy’s address at Rice University where he outlines all of human history. Kennedy condenses the narrative to a period of forty years from the “man emerg[ing] from his caves” to “America’s new space craft” that will “literally [reach] the stars before midnight tonight.” If this wasn’t enough to show Kennedy’s subtle progressive leanings, he goes on to say, “If this capsule of history teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred” (Kennedy).

The second example, and in the midst of Frost’s lifetime, is the 1933 Humanist Manifesto. Although the Manifesto’s thirty-four authors defined themselves as humanists, they shared common ideas and political figures with the progressive educators; one of which was John Dewey. In the Manifesto, the authors state that man must reject the religions and traditions of old and “learn to face the crisis of life in terms of his knowledge,” then state that their goal is “to establish the satisfactory life for all, not merely the few” (5). At the end of the statement, the authors assert that “man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that has within himself the power for its achievement” (6). To do this, man “must set intelligence and will to the task.” Of course, each of these statements assumes that man is capable, without intrinsic limitations, of collectively creating the “world of his dreams.”

Contrary to the presuppositions of the progressive movement, Frost maintained that there were severe limitations on the intellectual and moral capabilities of man (Stanlis 63). These limitations hinder man from entering the utopia championed by many political philosophers and social reformers who deny such constraints on human nature. However, Frost did not condemn the concern for human suffering. In a letter to Louis Untermeyer, Frost states that he did not “feel it is humanity not to feel the suffering of others… The national mood is humanitarian,” which was “nobly so. I wouldn’t take it away from them” (Letters of Robert Frost to Louis Untermeyer 285). However, Frost never thought of humanitarian work could ultimately change man. In his view, these social efforts cannot bring forth an earthly paradise; as he wrote, “whatever progress may be taken to mean, it can’t mean making the world any easier a place in which to save your soul” (Selected Letters 418). Frost believed that any efforts made to permanently end human suffering are futile or even dangerous because the human condition is inherently and unchangeably self-centered, and without accountability, man inevitably tends towards a life of self-inflicted suffering.

Frost’s experienced this tooth and nail when tragedies struck his family. The reminder of death and disorder in the human soul was a constant theme in his life. From witnessing the premature death of his father and mother, sons Eliot and Carol, daughters Elinor-Bettina and Marjorie, to watching his sister Jean and daughter Irma succumb to mental illness, Frost endured disasters that forced him to consider the true nature of man and the suffering destined to him (Stanlis 252). He was constantly confronted with imperfections in the universe that cause the pain and suffering man is bound to experience. Frost understood that while man can attempt to artificially postpone the inevitability of death, they all “must endure their going hence.”

The discipline of science made the most aggressive attempts to advance the agendas of the progressive movement. Frost criticized the extensive reach of science that tried to “figure the world out.” Their obsessions with psychology, natural science, and the social sciences were meant to develop a formula to introduce a better world. However, Frost thought scientific thinking was no different than any other kind of thinking in that it was the contemporary metaphorical use of relating to the world as compared to the metaphors used throughout history (Larson 198). Scientific thinking provides for temporary understandings that help us to function in the world. In “Too Anxious for Rivers,” Frost explicitly states that science is incomplete. There is no “end of the story” from science but the “rest of the story is dreaming” (342). This metaphor is not permanent or complete; Frost firmly believed that “all men by nature desire to know” (Aristotle Metaphysics 1:1), a desire that cannot be satisfied by any enlightenment offered from scientific knowledge (Larson 198).

In his own work “Waste or Cod Fish Eggs,” Frost pokes fun at the “scientism” which held expectations beyond what the discipline could offer.

Some Harvard boys when they were rudely faced
By science with the awful fact of waste
It takes a million eggs to hatch on cod
Their totem symbol just gave up their god
And suicided with a lightning rod. (558)

The “totem symbol” of science, which the Harvard students tried to find in the codfish, is destroyed by inefficiency of its reproductive system. For every one codfish that survives, nearly one million eggs are destroyed or die in the process. Surely this is not the most efficient form of reproduction nature can produce. This “waste” does not point to the autonomous Darwinian scientism these students hoped for. In Frost’s view, these attempts at using science to figure out reality ultimately lead to a misunderstanding of reality.

The “autonomy” that concerned Frost was any belief or method that tried to remove the human from the natural context in which he lived. He thought that any attempt to see the world from an objective perspective, which leaves the boundaries of subjectivity, should be temporary because earth in its subjectivity is the best place to understand life. In “Birches,” Frost’s character left the earth for a short while, but always returned because earth is “best place for love” (117-118). In this particular poem, Frost did not criticize attempts to analyze and scrutinize the world. It is the means by which we try to do so that concerned Frost. How can one merely think about the world when one must think in the world? In a letter to his students at Amherst, Frost made clear that “it is not possible to get outside the age you are in to judge it exactly,” which he later warned as “dangerous” (Selected Letters 418). While scientism tried to leave the human context to understand it, Frost, through poetry, returned to the human context in order to understand it.

To Frost, the constraints on humanity that require us to collectively join in contribution to knowledge were inescapable, but even more, Frost held that these constraints and limitations were good and natural aspects of human life. He thought that the impossibility of utopia was a good thing. In “The Prophet,” Frost uses the popular biblical cliché, which says “the truth will set you free”: a truism for ethical decisions that most everybody heard as a child. Once again, Frost used his irony to provoke thought when he claimed, “My truth will bind you slave to me- / Which may be what you want to be” (559). The modern man desired total autonomy and freedom from the traditions set by history. In contrast, Frost desired to be bound to the truth in order to be free. Modern man’s pursuit for independence, or “autonomy” as described before, is unnatural and effectively de-contextualizes man from the context we belong in: man should not pursue this sort of autonomy.

Frost did not think the intrinsic constraints of the individual as a bad thing. The total autonomy that utopia attempted to give is not something Frost thought was good or even achievable. Rather, to him, utopian dreams “bunch us up and keep track of us” because “it can’t protect us unless it directs us” (Interviews 146). The pursuit of the humanist ultimately leads to tyranny (Stanlis 241). In “Build Soil”, Frost tells us to “turn the farm in upon itself / Until it can contain itself no more” (295). The natural sweat of the brow which man’s work produces is not an evil that can be remedied by a world without toil; it is the continuous journey of man producing civilization. In August 1944, Frost gave a speech at Bread Loaf and asked, “What is the opposite of utopia?” When no one could give a satisfactory answer, he concluded, “hell is not the opposite of utopia, civilization is!”

In short, Frost believed that the limitations of the rational and moral capabilities of man were unchangeable. Because of this, the sciences cannot give an exhaustive account of reality and therefore should not be seen as the savior of man. Any attempt to do so only delays the inevitable result of suffering and ultimately suppresses our natural desire for civilization.

Once we define progressivism and see how Frost responds to it in its most general form, we find his views of human nature show up in his philosophy and practice of education. His view on the necessity of constraints play out in his teaching methods as well as his system of constructing curricula. If limitations on human morality and intellect truly keep man from progressing, then ignorance is not the ultimate vice, and knowledge is neither inherently salvific nor directly connected to virtue. It follows that education should not be viewed as a means to reach the ends of producing a utopia and therefore should not be executed in accordance with the criteria set by the scientific method; or for our purposes, the progressive educationalists (Cox 49).

Education historian Diane Ravitch outlines and defines the progressive education movement, which occurred during Frost’s lifetime. Ravitch explains that in the early twentieth century, there were four essential elements of progressive education: developing a scientific method to schooling, creating child-centered classroom organization, shaping students to fit a specific vocation to provide social efficiency, and directing learning for the ends of social reformation, or what we now call “social justice” (60). Education professor David Labaree further separates these four facets of the movement into two distinct categories: the first was what he called “administrative” and the second “pedagogical” progressive methods (89). Although both were predicated on the ideology of an unconstrained human nature common to the entire campaign, they were very different in practice. Championed by psychologist Edward Thorndike, the administrative camp saw the student as a political instrument to serve society, which the system could assess and condition for such tasks through testing. The pedagogical side however, emphasized so-called “child-centered” classroom methods and social reformation, mainly under the influence of John Dewey (94). Contrary to the anthropological views of Frost, each of these two parts of the education movement assume no limitations on the human capacity for knowledge as well as moral and social imagination, which leave no room for a liberal education.

Frost wanted his education to be good- not necessarily strong. He criticized his progressive contemporaries by comparing their attempts to bulking up the State’s education rather than Frost’s desire to improve its quality.

I have long thought that our high schools should be improved. Nobody should come into our high schools without examination-not aptitude tests, but on reading, ‘riting, and ‘righmetic. And that goes for the black or white….A lot of people are being scared by the Russian Sputnik into wanting to harden up our education or speed it up. I am interested in toning it up, at the high school level….If they want to Spartanize the country, let them. I would rather perish as Athens then prevail as Sparta. The tone is Athens. (Interviews 194)

Because the progressivists thought they could create an essential science to the classroom, aptitude tests were a central thrust of the progressive reform movement. Students would take tests to assess their talents and practical skills to conform the their education towards meeting societal needs in order to create social efficiency. Similarly, the Greek city-state of Sparta spent its time and resources building its efficiency through martial status while Athens’ expenditures went towards “loving wisdom” and finding the best way to serve the city-state; Sparta pursued order and Athens pursued virtue. Frost thought we ought to “tone it [our education] up” rather than “harden [it] up”, by which he meant developing disciplined students (Interviews 270). He thought education used as the “knowledge is power” approach was inferior to loving wisdom for itself, even if a “stronger” power conquered the weaker; or if Sparta took Athens. Social efficiency is not a priority over and certainly should not subjugate quality. Sparta’s order is not necessarily good itself but must be used as good while Athens’ pursued the virtuous. Efficiency is an instrumental good while virtue is a good itself.

According to Frost, since human nature is inherently bound by constraints on morality and intelligence, curing ignorance through education cannot save man. However, Ignorance is often considered to be the enemy of the moral man. Plato famously argued that knowing the good always led to doing the good and a person could know the good by logically chaining one proposition on to another. However, Frost did not think the emphasis logic was effective. Frost scholar Sydney Cox affirms this when he says, “we are fooled by thinking of things as continuous and unbroken.” After which he quotes Frost, “Your whole life can be so logical that it seems to find to me like a ball of hairs in the stomach of an angora cat. It should be broken up and interrupted, and then brought together by likeness, free likeness” (51). This “freedom” Frost thought essential to education placed him adamantly against the first element of progressive education that Ravitch offers: namely, that enough effort can create a science of education in order to precisely and indefinitely determine a student’s potential (60).

If the theory is true that knowledge directly informs virtue, a person merely needs to “learn” to achieve ethical standards according to the social norm. Education becomes solely a means for “the greater good” which, taken to extremes, sacrifices all other goods for its own perpetuation. When intelligence is viewed as a means towards human perfection, progressive education institutions inevitably view their students as tools. This view defines intelligence as whatever knowledge can be used to preserve and move man forward in human progression; what our contemporaries call “progress and sustainability.” As described above, progressive schools sought to reach social efficiency through the means of education. The most obvious example of this reform is the testing movement.

The testing movement logically followed from what the progressives hoped to achieve. The best way to assess the success of a teaching method, for the purposes of revision, is testing. Testing and revising shows the productivity of a procedure and identifies the causes or hindrances of favorable outcomes. School and pedagogy becomes about tests and preparing for tests. Results rely on the students’ ability to parrot the information they were spoon-fed. Frost resented this because testing does not accurately assess the level of a student. Frost said a teacher could instruct their students “a whole year” and not feel “sure whether they have come near what [education] was all about”; but later Frost would hear “one remark [that] was their remark for the year”, which Frost said, “told me what I wanted to know” (“Education by Poetry” 725). To Frost, he could assess a student by “the closeness” the student gets to a text. The closer a student could learn to think like the author he is reading, the better the student is. “Everything depends on the closeness which you come” and Frost thinks students “ought to be marked for the closeness, [and] for nothing else” (725).

This “closeness” put Frost in contrast to the progressive emphasis on reason. In “All Revelation,” Frost explored the inadequacy of reason when he contemplated the immensity of the universe, or all reality, as compared to the meagerness of the human. Instead of responding with nihilistic and timid intimidation, he was encouraged by the knowledge that the “geode / Was entered, and its inner crust”. He concludes that man may not be able to completely comprehend the entirety of the universe. We cannot even do it all at once: the outer crust and the inner crystals cannot be examined at the same time. The knowledge gained is temporary because “the mind has pondered on / A moment and still asking gone,” which Frost later said is a “Strange apparition of the mind!” However, Frost claimed that humans have “All Revelation”; we have, in a sense, been shown the world and know how to look at it. We don’t need to know all things about the “geode” at all times, which modernity would have us do.

Without a doubt, the testing advent had a science-based understanding of student development. However, Frost noticed that when education becomes science-based, it becomes about cramming information into the student in effort to form the student into a product of the school (Cox 57). The most important task for the students is to memorize what their teachers tell them to, which inevitably imposes on students a large amount of work with little value. Frost complained that, “all those years may be wasted” in a typical learning institution by forcing “busy work” (qtd. in Cox 49). The educator is no longer concerned with developing whole beings but it limits himself to the development of tools for social productivity. The graduate of this program may work well in his “proper role” for a time, but his education had nothing to do with the individual himself, and his character is risked as a consequence. Sydney Cox affirmed that Frost was not interested in creating new working citizens, which makes “a stuffed shirt [which] is blown up with what is not digested” and instead of developing an educated person, this “learning” develops “a stuffed shirt [that] ‘doesn’t care what he thinks of himself, provided the world thinks well’” (57). The person is lost in the machine of efficiency and no longer cares for his own individual virtue.

The child-centered approach to the administrative tasks and pedagogical methods in the classroom also correlated with the unconstrained view of human potential held by the progressivists. According to Diane Ravitch, the progressive ideology assumed “that the methods and ends of education should be derived from the innate needs and nature of the child” (60). Rather than have the student conform to a standard of learning that may not be suited to his best interest, the child-centered educators wanted to conform the classroom to each individual student so that the student could access his own untapped knowledge. According to the progressivists, the student did not need to move toward anything in his education because everything was already in him.

As a teacher, Frost did not want to work with the child as a mere aid to the student’s esoteric self-education. In “Education by Poetry,” Frost reveals that we rarely “tell [students] what thinking means” and then goes on to define “thinking” as metaphorical: “putting this and that together; it is just saying one thing in terms of another” (723). Frost’s center of teaching does not lie in the child but the metaphor, which is best brought about by reading great books in the past that allow the student to think in different metaphors (719). He cared more about how close the student got to the text and the author and cared little about how close the student got to himself (725).

The progressive assertion that the child is an untapped educated individual who merely needs to be guided to his “inner-knowledge” violates Frost’s emphasis on the “closeness” to the classics (“Education by Poetry” 725). A student that looked to the historical canon for his education had to look outside of himself rather than inside his own soul. Frost scholar Peter Stanlis states that Frost wanted “the highest possible standards in a curriculum centered in the classics and the humanities” (203). The humanities were the philosophical systems developed throughout the history of Western Civilization, which Frost often referred to as “the book of the worthies” (197). Rather than child-centered, Frost was classics-centered.

The progressive education movement’s pursuits of both social reformation and social efficiency did not offer Frost what he thought necessary to develop the lives of individuals through learning. Frost valued education more than as a mere tool for a political or economic agenda.

Rather than attempt to achieve social order and justice through schools, Frost had a different vision for the student in which the best education had no further goals other than itself. At the height of the human experience, education was intrinsically a goal. In On Taking Poetry, Frost claimed that “the height of everything is fooling" because of “God’s foolishness” (“Poetry and School” 818). Frost did not mean the term “foolish” as synonymous with “squander,” but as that which comes from the general pursuit of the liberal arts: the liberty to live in the “height of everything.” When people experience what is most human, they act in this “great fooling.” They are not directed by a strict course of action that would lead them to a further end, but they have the freedom to explore and experience this fooling. This is a waste to be thrown away for those who worship efficiency and progress, but loved by those who pursue wisdom.

The context of understanding Frost’s “waste” in learning must be predicated on his belief that education has a direct connection to poetry. This may sound counter-intuitive, but Frost held a firm belief that poetry was essential to education. Contrary to popular understanding, a poem’s meter or rhythm cannot fully define the poem and it should not be reduced to a “syntax, language, [nor a] science” (Education by Poetry 717). Poetry, however unlocks the use of the metaphor, which lies at the heart of the poem. In “Education by Poetry,” Frost explained what he meant by this direct relationship of poetry and metaphor.

Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another. People say, “Why don’t you say what you mean?” We never do that, do we, being all of us too much poets. We like to talk in parables and in hints and in indirections-whether from diffidence or some other instinct (719-720).

Metaphor is the vitality of language, without which we could not understand. Thought and metaphor are directly connected as “thinking one thing in terms of another.” Frost ultimately states that “Education by poetry is education by metaphor” and that one cannot know “the discreet use of metaphor… unless he has been properly educated in poetry” (719). If the true meaning of education is “thinking,” and thinking depends on metaphor, and learning to understand metaphor depends on a sophisticated education in poetry, then understanding poetry is the key to thinking well.

Frost did not merely replace the progressivists’ worship of science for his own affinity for poetry. Frost thought that poetry was not supposed to completely or permanently enlighten the individual. He said that a poem “begins in delight and ends in wisdom” and then quickly warns that this wisdom is “not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on” and that the understanding that it brings is “a temporary stay against confusion” (The Figure a Poem Makes 777). Although cults are one example of those that base themselves on this claim to a “great clarification,” other groups often do this in less obvious ways.

Traditionally, the liberal arts worked as a “temporary stay against confusion,” but after the enlightenment, scholars began seeking more empirical and extensive methods of knowledge. Science then was elevated from one of the many liberal arts to the standard all other disciplines must conform to. Frost knew that any discipline claiming to hold the key to knowing all reality ran the risk of overstepping its bounds into other forms of knowledge: thus, imagination became empiricism. While poetry was not a “great clarification,” it was necessary for education.

For students to properly understand poetry, they had to be well rounded in the classics. In Poetry and School, Frost states that we must “make ourselves at home among the poems” where we are “completely at our ease as to how they should be taken” (806). In order to do this in the classroom, he used pedagogical methods to push his students towards the great books. Frost wanted his students to engage the ideas from the “book of the worthies”; to understand, to the best of their ability, the great conversation passed down through the different metaphors of mythology, theology, philosophy, the humanities and the arts, law, natural theology, natural science, the social sciences, and ultimately poetry. Frost scholar Mildred Larson states that “Literature should present solely as itself-as literature, Frost believes” (200). So much so that Frost challenged his psychology students to read Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Plato outside of the assigned material.

With his immense experience in teaching at nearly every level of education, Frost learned to produce an atmosphere conducive to his standard of learning. Cox stated that Frost encouraged his students to engage in “random talk” in proper context of the subject matter (54). He rarely lectured, fearing that his character would get in the way of the lesson and he routinely did not plan classes because he understood that students needed to discuss ideas to their logical extent, which an inflexible syllabus would not allow. This required discussion and contribution.

Understanding poetry well is something we “spend a great deal of education on” (“Poetry and School” 818). However, there is a great irony in the pursuit of poetic wisdom. At its best, “poetry mounts somewhere into a kind of fooling.” In a couplet, Frost playfully shows this paradoxical view when he says “It takes all sorts of in and outdoor schooling / To get adapted to my kind of fooling” (“It Takes All Sorts” 478). It would make sense then why Frost thought “waste” worked closely along side with the “freedom” in schooling. The freedom to fool at “the height of everything” required a level of intellectual sophistication.

The education philosophy Frost proposed had two essential features: that “thinking” is “thinking one thing in terms of another” and putting like and like together, which is synonymous with metaphor, and that learning to use metaphor in this way is best accessed through reading, absorbing, and experiencing the “book of the worthies.” When we achieve this, “improvement will not be a progression but a widening circulation” (Poetry and School 806). Our knowledge and experience of human thought through the “book of the worthies” causes this “widening circulation.” As a result, education does not make us better, but bigger.

When we reduce what is good to what is practical, we remove the potential for “the height of everything.” This height is not an untapped human capacity that can achieve through systemic efficiency and social justice, but the experience of what we were made for. The question, “what’s the use of your education?” does not cohere with this philosophy. The correct response is, “use? Education has no ‘use’; it is what we use other things for.” Sydney Cox warns, “Something in school should save us from the fatal credulity of progress prophets. Something should save the students from supposing that the way of intelligence is eliminating opposition and waste” (50). This is the progressivism Frost feared, but Cox continues: “something must be present in education to remind them that as lying down goes with love, so waste goes with growth and opposition with night and day.”








Works Cited

Cox, Sydney. “But keep the generalizations broad and lose,” “And get students to start performing,” and “With the freedom of their materials.” A Swinger of Birches: A Portrait of Robert Frost. New York: New York University Press, 1957. 48-58. Print. Frost thought the current method of “busy work” education was the true waste of time. Education cannot progress us into a utopia because there is “no escape from suffering.” Frost refused to remove intellectual conflict and waste from the classroom because waste is required to grow. Frost refused to adhere to the belief that something cannot be good unless it is “useful”.

Frost, Robert. “All Revelation,” “Birches,” “Build Soil,” “Education by Poetry,” “The Figure a Poem Makes,” “It Takes All Sorts,” “Poetry and School,” “The Prophet,” “Too Anxious for Rivers,” and “Waste or Cod Fish Eggs.” Robert Frost: Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays. Eds. Richard Portier and Mark Richardson. New York: The Library of America, 1995. 302-303. Print.

Frost, Robert. “Play for Mortal Stakes.” In Other Words: Amherst in Prose and Verse. By Horace W. Hewlett. Amherst, MA: Amherst, 1964. 176. Print.

Frost, Robert, and Edward Connery Lathem. Interviews with Robert Frost. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966. 146, 270. Print.

Frost, Robert, and Lawrence R. Thompson. Selected Letters. Ed. Lawrence R. Thompson. The University of Michigan: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964. Print.

Frost, Robert, and Louis Untermeyer. The Letters of Robert Frost to Louis Untermeyer. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963. 284-85. Print.

Kennedy, John F. “Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort.” Rice University. Rice Stadium, Rice University, Houston. 23 September 1962. President Kennedy outlines the West’s (particularly America’s) vast scientific progression in the twentieth century. He outlines the fifty-thousand year history condensed to a span of fifty years showing how technology and other scientific advancements have grown exponentially. Yet, Kennedy charges that there is new knowledge to be gained with new trials that man will inevitably overcome.

Kurtz, Paul. Reprint. “The Humanist Manifesto I.” Humanist manifestos I and II. Indiana University: Prometheus Books, 1973. 3-7. Print. The authors of the manifesto argue that man should overcome the traditions and religions of the past. Although these religions once aided man’s quest for “the good life,” they are now a hindrance and should be rejected. The authors outline fifteen statements by which they define themselves. Within these statements, they admit that they are naturalists (monists), that the “mind” of man is merely biological, and that they wish to seek equality for all. They conclude that man’s intelligence is the key to achieving the “world of his dreams.”

Labaree, David F. “The Ed School’s Romance with Progressivism.” Brookings Papers on Education Policy. Diane Ravitch. Brookings Institution Press, 2004. 89-112. Print. Laberee offers to show the Ed school’s ties to progressivism throughout history. He makes the distinction between pedagogical progressivism and administration progressivism; pedagogical progressivism reflecting “child-centered instruction,” “discovery learning,” and “learning how to learn” methods of teaching, and administrative progressivism attempting to create a scientific curriculum to allocate students’ skills to fit the needs of society. The ed schools, which reflect the pedagogical movement, haven’t been harmful or helpful. Labaree argues that the pedagogical movement influenced the rhetoric of reform but little policy, while the administrative movement had a large influence on reform.

Larson, Mildred. Robert Frost as Teacher. Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1979. Print. Scientific knowledge does not give us a key to unlock the absolute and certain truths of the world. Rather, it conveys the metaphorical relation of a civilization to its material earth. We see Frost convey this in his poem “Too Anxious Rivers” where he tells us that there is no “end of the story” from science. If there is no scientific method, or at least no scientific way to living a meaningful life, then our spheres of life should also influence this. Teaching, like society in Frost’s view, was not something that can be planned but must come together on its own structure.

Nugent, Walter T. K. "Introduction." Progressivism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. 1-5. Print. Nugent recounts a brief history of the progressive movement, in which the masses under the leadership of four political figures (William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, Robert M. La Follette, and Woodrow Wilson) sought to reestablish the "common good" which had been eroded through economic corruption and inequity. Workers created unions; Protestants created the Social Gospel; and activists began speaking out on woman suffrage. Most progressivists encouraged government action, seeing it as the solution to America's systemic problems. "Reform" became the ideology behind the campaign because the movement itself was too vast and complex to reduce to any one set of issues.

Ravitch, Diane. “A Fork in the Road.” Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms. Simon and Schuster, 2001. 51-87. Print. Ravitch tells of two choices early twentieth-century Americans could take: the Committee of Ten’s common academic curriculum and the progressive movement. Due to business leaders who wanted efficiency in the market place and progressive educators in the colleges of education, the Committee of Ten’s proposal was rejected. As a result, the progressive movement was given its opportunity for reform. The main goal of the social reformers, under the influence of John Dewey, was to reconnect the schools to society.

Stanlis, Peter. Robert Frost: The Poet As Philosopher. Wilmington, Del: ISI Books. 2007. Print