This paper describes and evaluates how Horace Mann, John Dewey, and Mortimer Adler would define and structure citizenship education in today's world and also discusses their primary concerns.
There is a common thread which runs through all three educational philosophers: the concept should be available to all.
The early-nineteenth century experienced, both in Europe and the United States, the growth and development of ideas which saw popular education as an instrument of the national state. Most of these systems attempted to grant this power of reading, writing, and arithmetic; and most viewed the vital factor to be in assuring the employment of this power for the good of the state in patriotic education. Consequently, this concept in America must be thought of as only one component of a wider movement toward education for national, as opposed to purely religious or personal, objectives.
And so the question has been and still is: How can the school teach patriotism or citizenship education without teaching some type' of political creed? Once again, the answer was one of teaching values while retaining the common character of the school; or in other words, keeping the school available to all. Horace Mann had the following thoughts on this subject, which was an object of study quite close to his heart.
In Mann's Twelfth Annual Report he states: "The very terms, Public School, and Common School, bear upon their face, that they are schools which the children of the entire community may attend. Every man, not on the pauper list, is taxed for their support . . . He is taxed to support schools, on the same principle that he is taxed to support paupers; because a child without education is poorer and more wretched than a man without
bread" (103). Thus, it is evident that Mann believed a basic education to be the very lifeblood of a responsible citizen. Education should stress the humanities because a democratic so...