PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION MOVEMENT, THE (in Europe called New Education) is the loth century expression of new ideas inherited from Comenius, Rousseau, Pestalozzi and Froebel. Progressive leaders sprang up in both America and Europe simultaneously but independently at the end of the 19th century. In Chicago, Ill., Col. Francis W. Parker and Prof. John Dewey, each for himself, began teaching and practising the phil osophy of education which forms the intellectual basis of the movement. In Europe three men inaugurated the movement in their respective countries : Cecil Reddie in England, 1889, Herman Lietz in Germany, 1898, Edmond Demolins in France, 1898. In the United States the Progressive Education Association and in Europe the New Education Fellowship have for ten years led the movement and promulgated its underlying ideals. Progressivism with its new spiritual element, its discontent with traditional prac tices, and its vision of a finer procedure, has notably affected American education, both private and public, from nursery school to university. The leaders of the movement advocate, and put into practice, the following beliefs : education at any age should be a natural growth involving experiences—physical, mental, moral, social and spiritual—adapted to the age, health, interests and abilities of each pupil; (2) genuine education develops, not through imposed formal learning from books and lectures, but only through self-directed, spontaneous activities, preferably pur sued in group situations; (3) interest aroused in an atmosphere of freedom is the proper incentive to effort, not the external com pulsions of authority, penalties and rewards; (4) the finest edu cation is that which through inspiration and opportunity stimu lates and releases native power, resulting in original thinking, ac tion or creation; and (5) educational processes, like processes of growth, involve continuing change and are subject to improve ment through experimentation.
Four influences lave contributed vigour to the movement : the needs created by recent social-economic developments; (2) the rise of the human sciences—biology, physiology, psychology and psychiatry; (3) the challenge of democracy and individualism to the authoritarian traditions of mass education; and (4) the extension of altruistic idealism to include childhood and youth.
(M. S.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.-John Dewey, Interest and Effort in Education (1913), School and Society (1915) and Schools of Tomorrow (1915) ; Edward Yeomans, Shackled Youth (1921) ; Gertrude Hartman, The Child and His School (1922) ; Eugene R. Smith, Education Moves Ahead (1924) ; Bertrand Russell, Education and the Good Life (1926) ; Wm. H. Kilpatrick, Education for a Changing Civilization (1927) ; Stanwood Cobb, The New Leaven (1928) ; John Dewey, Democracy and Education.