ABSTRACT
The logic wedding theory to practice and giving the educational philosophers a prominent role in setting the direction of American education was compelling: it persuaded college professors and their students. Educational philosophy was sentenced to navigate rough water after mid-century: if its port of call was disciplinary maturity, the port was missed by a fairly wide margin. Quite the opposite was, in fact, the case: educational philosophers who had led the march for rebuilding American society according to a socialistic paradigm were silenced by political threat. Some members of philosophy departments viewed educational philosophy with disdain. They characterized educational philosophers as academic interlopers or, worse, imposters. The irruptions of the 1960s further muddied the water flowing in educational philosophy's mainstream. Surrounded by progressive educators of first rank at Teachers College, Columbia University, William C. Bagley emerged as essentialism's leading spokesman and one of progressive education's severest critics.
