ABSTRACT
When, at the age of twenty, John Dewey was offered a teaching position in Oil City, Pennsylvania by his cousin, the principal of the high school, he readily accepted. Although he appears to have been a rather successful high school teacher, there is still no reason to believe that, at this point in his life, he seriously entertained the idea of devoting a major portion of his career to professional education. One particular event during his tenure at the University of Michigan seems to have had a profound effect on the course of Dewey's evolving theory of education. When the National Education Association met in Saratoga Springs, New York in 1892, a prominent group of educators, including Charles DeGarmo, Frank and Charles McMurry, Elmer E. Brown, Nicholas Murray Butler, and Joseph Mayer Rice organized the Herbart Club. Of particular significance was Dewey's acceptance of recapitulation as the central frame of reference for his curriculum theory.
