The Progressive Education Movement appears as one of those

truly American artifacts, the patchwork quilt: bits and pieces of

older garments (some from the old country) and snips of new

cloth, interestingly positioned shapes and color forming a whole

providing substance and service for the present and future. In a

sense, there is no precise beginning to the Progressive Educa-

tion Movement, since its antecedents come from sources so var-

ied in time, place and intent. There is, however, a need to set

parameters for the purposes of a bibliography. The last several

decades of the nineteenth century reflect the thrust of scientists

to position man in terms of his development. Similarly, among

educators and social scientists, the possibility of relating stages

of the development of mankind to a growing focus on the indi-

vidual set the stage for a scientific approach to education. This

approach surfaced almost simultaneously in England, America,

Italy, Germany, France and Belgium. The beginning of the

twentieth century emerges as a decisive point in the coalescing

of ideas.