ABSTRACT
To provide a justification for a course of action is to provide good reasons or grounds for that course of action. It is to show by argument the rightness of that action. To suggest that education must be justified is to suggest that the public school, if it is to be an educational institution, cannot simply be satisfied to take on roles at random in reaction to public pressures or traditional roles based on authority, on speculations about human nature, or on untestable metaphysical assumptions. Judgment about what is worthwhile to pass on the children requires reasoned argument. This chapter will attempt to provide such an argument.
