ABSTRACT

While the development of a system of common schooling did not occur without opposition, its later institutionalization meant that schools, especially as they later became concentrated in urban areas, would have to accommodate intellectually, economically, and culturally diverse populations of students and provide them with instruction. (For descriptions of equality of U. S. social conditions relative to Europe, and of the widespread acceptance of egalitarian social principles, see Cremin [1951].) What has come down to us as the problem of grouping in the 20th century originates in these institutional questions rooted in the larger society.