1628 - John Amos Comenius felt education should begin in the
early years and should follow the laws of nature. His ten principles
of teaching were: following in the footsteps of nature we find that
the process of education will be easy 1. if it begins early, before
the mind is corrupted. 2. If the mind be duly prepared to receive
it. 3.If it proceeds from the general to the particular. 4. And from
what is easy to what is more difficult. 5. If the pupil be not overburdened
by too many subjects. 6. And if progress be slow in every case. 7.
I the intellect be forced to nothing to which its natural bent does
not incline it, in accordance with its age and with the right method.
8. If everything be taught through the medium of the senses. 9. And
if the use of everything taught be continually kept in view. 10. If
everything be taught according to one and the same method.
1693 - John Locke developed the theory of environmentalism
1762 - Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote Emile, explaining
that education should take into account the child's natural growth
and interests.
1780 - Robert Raikes initiated the Sunday School movement to teach
bible study and religion to children.
1801 - Johan Pestalozzi emphasized home education and learning
by discovery
1816 - Robert Owen opened a nursery school in Great Britain
at a Cotton Mill. He believed that early education could counteract
bad influences of the home.
1817 - Thomas Gallaudet founded the first residential school for
the deaf in Hartford, Connecticut.
1824 - American Sunday School Union began
1836 - William McGuffey began publishing the Eclectic Reader
for elementary school children; his writing had a strong impact on
moral and literary attitudes in the nineteenth century.
1837 - Friedrich Froebel, known as the "father of kindergarten,"
established first kindergarten in Germany.
1837 - Horace Mann began his job as secretary of the Massachusetts
State Board of Education; he is often called the "father of the
common schools" because of the role he played in helping set
up the elementary school system in the United States.
1837 - Edouard Seguin stated the first school for the feebleminded
in France.
1860 - Elizabeth Peabody opened a private kindergarten in Boston,
Massachusetts, for English-speaking children.
1869 - First special education class for the deaf in Boston
1871 - First public kindergarten in North America started in Ontario,
Canada
1873 - Susan Blow opened first public school kindergarten in the
United States in St. Louis, Missouri as a cooperative effort with
William Harris, superintendent of schools.
1876 - Model kindergarten was shown at the Philadelphia Centennial
Exposition.
1880 - First teacher-training program for teachers of kindergarten
began in Oshkosh Normal School, Philadelphia.
1884 - The American Association of Elementary , Kindergarten, and
Nursery School Educators was founded
1892 - The International Kindergarten Union was founded
1896 - John Dewey started the Laboratory School at the University
of Chicago, basing his program on child-centered learning with an
emphasis on life experiences.
1905 - Sigmund Freud wrote Three Essays of the Theory of Sexuality
emphasizing the value of a healthy emotional environment during childhood.
1907 - Maria Montessori started her first school based on
her theory that children learn best by themselves in a properly prepared
environment.
1909 - Theodore Roosevelt held the first White House Conference
on Children
1911 - Arnold Gesell, began child development study at Yale University
on the importance of preschool years.
1912 - Arnold and Beatrice Gesell wrote The Normal Child and Primary
Education.
1915 - Eva McLin started the first U.S. Montessori nursery school
in New York City.
1918 - The first public nursery schools were started in Great Britain.
1919 - Harriet Johnson started the Nursery School Bureau of Educational
Experiments, later to become the Bank Street College of Education.
1921 - Patty Smith Hill started a progressive, laboratory nursery
school at Columbia Teachers College.
1921 - A. S. Neill founded Summerhill
1922 - Merrill-Palmer Institute Nursery School opened in Detroit,
with the purpose of preparing women in proper child care
1924 - Childhood Today, the first professional journal in
early childhood education, was published by the International Kindergarten
Union.
1926 - National Committee on Nursery Schools was initiated by Patty
Smith Hill at Columbia Teachers College; now called the National Association
for the Education of Young Children, it provides guidance and consultant
services for educators.
1926 - The National Association of Nursery Education (NANE) was founded.
1930 - The International Kindergarten Union changed its name to the
Association for Childhood Education.
1940 - The Lanham Act provided funds for child care during World
War II, mainly for day care centers for children whose mothers worked
in the war effort.
1944 - The journal Young Children was first published by the
NANE.
1950 - Erik Erikson published his writings
1952 - Jean Piaget's The Origins of Intelligence in Children
was published in English.
1957 - The Soviet Union launched Sputnik.
1960 - Interest in Open Education began in the United States.
1960 - Katharine Whiteside Taylor founded the American Council of
Parent Cooperatives for those interested in exchanging ideas in preschool
education; it later became the Parent Cooperative Preschools International.
1964 - The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 was passed as the beginning
of the war on poverty and was the foundation for the Head Start Program.
1965 - The Head Start Program began with federal money allocated
for preschool education; the early programs were known as child development
centers.
1967 - The Follow Through Program was initiated to extend the Head
Start Program into the primary grades.
1968 - The federal government established the Handicapped Children's
Early Education Program to fund model preschool programs for children
with disabilities.
1970 - The White House Conference on Children and Youth was
held.
1971 - The Stride Rite Corporation in Boston was the first to start
a corporate-supported child care program.
1972 - The National Home Start Program began for the purpose of involving
parents in their children's education.
1980 - The White House Conference on Families was held.
1982 - The Mississippi legislature established mandatory statewide
public kindergarten.
1983 - An Arkansas commission chaired by Hillary Clinton calls for
mandatory kindergarten and lower pupil-teacher ratios in the early
grades.
1984 - The High/Scope Educational Foundation released a study that
it said documented the value of high-quality preschool programs for
poor children.
1990 - The Child Care Development and Block Grant was signed into
law, the most comprehensive child-care bill since WWII.
1997 - Clinton reestablishes the White House Conference on Children.
