In 1892 J. M. Rice reported in The Forum his observations of American urban public schools. The first article in the series was subtitled: “Evils in Baltimore.” The article began with a recounting of an arithmetic lesson in an “advanced first grade.” This lesson, Rice wrote, “will indicate… in what a soul-inspiring manner from one-fourth to one-third of the time is spent in the average primary school of the city during the first two years of school life.”

Rural school reform in California in the period 1900–1940 was motivated by many of the same concerns that underlay the national movement to reform rural education. As was true throughout the country, reforms in this period in California led to the expansion of state regulations and control over the work of teachers. But while these reforms emphasized the need for greater scientific and bureaucratic control, they were also framed in terms of gender, since the majority of rural teachers were women working in relatively autonomous one- and two-room schools. Some educational reformers, influenced by ideas of scientific management and control, argued for the need for supervision of rural women teachers because of women's presumed weaknesses; they argued for expert, usually male, control and supervision. However, this view was not uncontested; other reformers, much more frequently women who had experience working in rural schools, celebrated the capabilities and potential of rural women teachers. This more positive view was particularly strong among California educators, who were influenced by both progressive politics and conceptions of Deweyan progressive education. Increased state control over rural teaching did in fact occur in California, but the creation of institutional structures did not inevitably mean the imposition of male control or of a single view of teachers or rural schools.

In American urban classrooms in the early twentieth century, women teachers faced two looming and contradictory specters: the idealized image of the gentle, nurturing teacher, and the reality of the cold and confusing working conditions of city schools. Women teachers had entered an occupation that was swathed in romantic images of the honorable lady teacher. In both popular culture and educational dialog, the woman teacher was portrayed as “naturally” maternal, caring, and patient, and as having a greater interest in personal satisfaction than in financial reward. Teaching was perceived less as a job than as a mission or a personal commitment. Like mothering, teaching was not just something one did, but was something that defined who one was; it was not simply an act, but a role. Teaching, like mothering, was a sacred calling for sacred women.

Brian Simon is certainly the best-known living historian of education in the United Kingdom, probably in Europe, and possibly in the whole world. His reputation depends upon two factors. The first is a publication record which, to date, comprises some thirty books and more than one hundred other contributions. The second factor is Simon's own life in education. Indeed, the two have been so intertwined that this review of his four-volume history of education necessarily begins with a brief account of the latter. For Brian Simon is no closet academic, no mere observer of the historical scene. Even today, though well into his seventies, he remains, as he has always been, a participant; an understanding of the nature of that participation is essential to any appreciation of his writings.