The publication of Lawrence Cremin's The Transformation of the School, which is subtitled Progressivism in American Education, 1876–1957, was a noteworthy occasion for students of American culture in general and of American education in particular. This volume marked the conclusion of the first thoroughgoing attempt to study progressivism in American education. Such an attempt is welcomed by those who have long hoped to see a work which considers progressive education as a significant contribution to American thought and character, rather than as an anti-intellectual and irresponsible hocus-pocus, as many of its detractors and caricaturists would have us believe. For those who would read history instead of the over-simplified and often downright irresponsible caricatures and detractions of progressive education, there is in Cremin's study ample evidence to demonstrate that “the word progressive provides the clue to what it was: the educational phase of American Progressivism writ large.”