ABSTRACT
According to Foster Watson, writing in 1909, It will be generally admitted that it is high time that the historical facts with regard to the beginning of the teaching of modern subjects in England were known, and known in connexion with the history of the social forces which brought them into the educational curriculum. For New Zealand, it highlights the value of historical approaches to the curriculum. For England, it may point the way towards a wider focus of enquiry in curriculum history. While hopeful that history could make an important contribution to the study of the curriculum, the historian Kenneth Charlton was acutely aware in 1968 that this contribution was but little appreciated by those concerned with 'the new star in the heavens which is called curriculum theory and development. Curriculum history might even prove to be a means of analysing the processes of cultural imperialism, rather than merely its latest manifestation.
