ABSTRACT
Open education is the latest in a long line of efforts to reform American schools. Its chances of success can be gauged by recalling similar efforts in the recent past. Progressive education was intended to turn schools around by removing the dead weight of tradition and attending to the needs of individual children. Education for life adjustment was intended to make schools useful in the lives of young people who weren't headed for college. The structure of the disciplines was offered as strong medicine for the ills that allegedly resulted from too much progressive education and too much life adjustment.
