For the Love of Knowledge

7/28/2019 For the Love of Knowledge

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Eue Eucti, vol. 42, no. 2 (Summer 2010), pp. 1736. 2010 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved.

ISSN 10564934/2010 $9.50 + 0.00.DOI 10.2753/EUE1056-4934420202

Iveta SIlovaand WIllIam C. Brehm

For the Love of Knowledge

William W. Brickman andHis Comparative Education

This ticle iscusses Willim W. Bickms ctibutis t the fel

cmtive itetil eucti. Thugh chivl esech

Bickms cllecti t the Hve Istituti t St Uivesity,

iteviews with his me cllegues, stuets, mily membes,

ctet lysis his ublictis the tw juls he eite, the

uths exmie Bickms le i uig the Cmtive Eucti

Sciety, his ti cmtive eucti schlshi, his sevice t

the lge cemic cmmuity thugh lielg cee s jul eit. I

iti t his ctibutis t vcig histicl esech qulittive

methlgies i cmtive eucti, Bickm shul ls be emem-

bee his eletless ets t tect cemic eem by ecugig

eistemlgicl methlgicl ivesity the fel. Bickms le

s schl, euct, eit c theee be best uest thugh

his uyielig lve kwlegelike the hilshes the st.

A mans eet must be planted in his country,but his eyes should survey the world.

George Santayana

I have made a ceaseless eort not to ridicule, not to bewail,not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.

Benedict de Spinoza1

Iveta Silova is the Frank Hook Assistant Proessor o Comparative and InternationalEducation at the College o Education at Lehigh University. Her research ocuses onthe study o globalization democratization and policy borrowing in education Wil


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18 EUropEan EdUCaTIon

William W. Brickman let a unique legacy in the world o education. He is known

as the architect o the Comparative Education Society (Swing, 1987, p. 1),

remembered as one o the nations oremost scholars (Torah World, 1986,p. 1), and considered a rare renaissance man in an age o specialization (Parker,

1987, p. 3). Notwithstanding their wide-ranging connotations, these superlatives

have one common thread. They highlight Brickmans limitless love o knowledge.

Like philosophers o the past, Brickman understood that he had not attained the

truth, but he was constantly engaged in seeking it (Brickman, 1971). Brickman

(1971) was willing to learn rom anyone and to respect everyone. He strove to

understand, not to critique, dominate, or undermine others. Throughout his lie, he

worked diligently to sit act rom ancy and to eliminate error rom erudition

(Brickman, 1971). Being a true scholar meant becoming somewhat like Platosphilosopher, a lover o knowledge (Brickman, 1965).

Brickmans desire to understand educational issues in their entirety opened an

intellectual space or him to explore issues o wide-ranging breadth and meticulous

depthrom the history o comparative education, to state/church relationships in

education, to the role o learned ladies o the sixteenth century, to Jewish education.

As one o his ormer students, Elizabeth Sherman Swing (1987), highlighted, the

intellectual curiosity o this twentieth-century Renaissance man was as inexhaust-

ible as his energy (p. 4). For Brickman, understanding educational phenomena

implied a simultaneous pursuit o historical, comparative, and international inquiry.His ongoing quest or knowledge was contagious to his students and colleagues. It

was reected in his scholarship and the communications he had with some o the

greatest education thinkers o the twentieth century. He was a prolifc writer who

published twenty-nine books, a prized journal editor or Schl Sciety (later

renamedItellectand now USa Ty Mgzie) or twenty-three years (195376)

and Weste Eue Eucti (later renamedEue Eucti) or seven

years (197986), the frst president o the Comparative Education Society and

the only member to serve the society twice, and respected by some o the most

distinguished educators o his time, including William C. Bagley, Isaac L. Kandel,George Counts, John Dewey, Maxine Greene, and Robert Ulich, to name a ew.

Brickman brought his passion or the pursuit o knowledge to comparative edu-

cation. While his version o comparative educationone based on contextualized,

historical scholarshipwas only one o many varieties o comparative educations in

the history o the feld dating back to John Amos Comeniussdictic mg (The

Great Didactic) in the seventeenth century, he valued diversity in both theoretical

orientations and preerred methodologiesthe tools o comparisonduring the

proessionalization o the feld in the late 1950s. When the search or epistemo-

logical certainty (Coulby, 2002, p. 42) took American comparative education onthe path o positivist techniques, quantitative methodologies, and modernization

id l i i h 1960 d 19 0 i k did i hi i


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comparative inquiry and his belie in academic reedom. His intellectual openness

and generosity envisioned comparative education as a space that would be capable

o embracing dierent theoretical orientations and methodological approaches.He thereore devoted his academic lie to preserving such an intellectual space in

comparative education through his own historical scholarship and lielong career

as editor.

Brickmans commitment to historical scholarship, however, had serious im-

plications or his reputation in the feld. During the 1960s and 1970s, when the

feld was moving toward the science o comparative education with escalating

speed, Brickman was regarded by the editors oCmtive Eucti review

as a specialist in the history o comparative education; they published fve o his

nine articles in the journal on the history o the feld. Today, many comparativeeducation scholars remember him primarily or the study trips he organized early

in his career, without paying due respect to his larger contributions to the feld. It

is unortunate that the historical accounts o comparative education as a feld tend

to discount earlier versions o the feld or cast them as inerior and deective

(Rust, Johnstone & Alla, 2009, p. 123). Today, it is ftting to revisit Brickmans

legacy in comparative education and raise him and his scholarship rom the ranks

o orgotten men, orgotten themes2 (Kazamias, 2009, p. 37).

Although Brickmans legacies in comparative education are many, we will o-

cus on three: his role in ounding the Comparative Education Society, his notiono true comparative education scholarship, and his service to the larger academic

community through a lielong career as journal editor. We hope to illuminate

Brickmans legacy in and inuence on the feld o comparative and international

education through archival research o his personal and proessional material held

at the Hoover Institution o Stanord University; interviews with some o his ormer

colleagues, students, and amily members; and a content analysis o his publica-

tions and the two journals he edited. Despite our cursory attempt at what can only

be described as a daunting task o uncovering the lie and work o a man who had,

or example, conducted seventeen dierent research projects our years beore hisdeath and who had been simultaneously working on fve handwritten books during

the last year o his lie, we hope to inspire more aculty and students in comparative

education to reach into the history o our feld to understand its present. As Robert

Cowen (2009) rightully observed, we have a lot o unseen history, which needs

urgent revisiting now and in the uture (p. 7).

The formation of the Comparative Education Society:

More than junket-like tours abroad

William W. Brickmans journey toward comparative education began during his

hildh d i h l ili l Sid k Ci i h l i


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(Riis, 1890, p. 20), crowded, impoverished, and orgotten. This neglected area o

New York became Brickmans linguistic playground. He was surrounded by parents

who spoke Yiddish, Hebrew, Aramaic, Polish, German, and Russian; newspaperswritten in English, Italian, Hungarian, Russian, Yiddish, and Greek; and store

signs, movies, plays, and radio in most o these languages. Despite the terrible

living conditions and disease-laden streets, Brickman was inevitably exposed to

culture, language, and history o all sorts. When his brother, born Morris but called

Moish and later changed to Murray, was born in the three-room, cold-water, gas-

lit, unheated tenement, the young Brickman at the age o two years and eight

months greeted each visitor with the proud declaration, Der dokter hot gebrakht

a baybie in a shretchel. The last word was my Yiddishization o satchel, one o the

ew English words that I had heard (Brickman, 1985).Ater graduating rom the City College o New York with both a bachelors

degree in German and a masters degree in education, he would combine his love

o linguistics, education, and history into a 1938 dissertation titled The Contribu-

tion o Herman Lietz to Education presented to the aculty o New York Univer-

sity (NYU) as one o the frst Jewish Orthodox doctoral candidates. Graduating

with a terminal degree as the war in Europe saw the United States involvement,

Brickmans uency in German made him a vital candidate or the war eort. As

an ofcer in the United States military during World War II, Brickman conducted

trilingual interrogations, learned the Bavarian, Austrian, Silesian, Rhineland, Ber-lin, and Leipzig dialects o German, and became conversant in Czech. Among the

ew European languages Brickman could not speak (to his disappointment) were

Finnish, Gaelic, Basque, Albanian, and Icelandic.

Ater World War II ended, Brickman transitioned rom military service over-

seas (on one vita he labeled his proession during those years as special agent)

to proessor in the history o education department at NYU. While at NYU, he

became convinced proessors o education who taught courses which reer to

systems o education and educational theory in other lands had been treated in a

very superfcial and dead manner, no doubt because o the almost total absence ocontact by American educators with education abroad (Brickman, n.d.). Brickman

set out to remedy this problem by arranging one o the frst academic study tours to

Europe with Proessor Gerald Read o Kent State University and Dr. Bess Goody-

koontz o the U.S. Ofce o Education to add lie and meaning to the teaching o

courses in oundations o education, history o education, and comparative educa-

tion (Brickman, n.d.). Following in the ootsteps o Kandel and Ulich, Brickman

was convinced that one could not engage in a true comparative study without the

intimate knowledge o oreign languages and frst-hand amiliarity with the politi-

cal, economic, and social contexts o the countries studied:Dr. Ulich stressed what Dr. Kandel had said earlier, namely, that knowledge o a


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The frst trip occurred in the summer o 1956 and included school visits, coner-

ences, discussions, interviews, and cultural experiences during a fve-week period

(see Photograph 2).3

In Brickmans (1966) view, a study tour like this representedalternate, short-term solutions or the many teachers and proessors lacking

international experience, while providing additional time or the ormulation o a

program o systematic visitation o proessors o comparative education in order

to provide adequate experiences or oreign school observation (p. 7). More

importantly, however, Brickman (1972) believed that frsthand visitation was

only one o the core competencies necessary to engage in the study o compara-

tive education, which went hand-in-hand with the ollowing, equally important

competencies: scholarship, language skills, objectivity and open-mindedness,

source readings in original languages, and precision in analysis and terminology.When the study tours led to the genesis o the Comparative Education Society in

1956, Brickman (1977a) considered it an act o rashness perpetrated by a rela-

tively younger generation (p. 398). He would have preerred a less spontaneous

proessionalization o the Society.4 As he admitted ten years ater the establishment

o the Society, it might have been desirable to exercise more deliberation in the

establishment o an organization designed to raise standards o study, teaching,

and research in comparative education (p. 8).

Contrary to popular belie, Brickmans inuence did not stop at these study

tours. Firmly believing in Ulichs and Kandels philosophy o comparative educa-tion, Brickman aimed to move comparative education beyond the junket-like tours

abroad and the resultant courses taught by amateurs (Brickman, 1954, p. 398). By

proessionalizing the society, Brickman (1966) hoped to raise standards in all aspects

o scholarship, thus preventing dilettantes rom pre-empting the feld (p. 8). At

the time o the establishment o the Society, or example, he observed that the term

comparative education had been used too loosely and too irresponsibly:

The feld was wide open, and anyone who so desired could leap into the vacuum.What the Comparative Education Society tried to do was to gain recognition in theacademic and proessional world as a group o scholarly-minded, serious special-ists with high standards o teaching, research, and publication. (1966, p. 8)

Indeed, Brickmans vision o the Comparative Education Society was wide and

diverse. The Societys originsor what has been called the prehistorydate back

to 1954 when Brickman held inormal meetings in New York City with compara-

tive education scholars and students. Around the same time, he took responsibility

or organizing the frst annual conerences o comparative education held at NYU.

The goal o the frst conerence on April 30, 1954 was to bring together those who

teach and those who are otherwise engaged in comparative education to discusssome o the undamental problems o this feld (Brickman, 1973, p. 28). A group

hi f i i i l di h l b li h d i


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raph2

.OneothefrstactivitiesorganizedbytheComparativeEducationSociety

wasaEuropeanstudy

m,whichtookplaceromAugust18toSeptember17,1956.

Photographcourtesyof

HooverInstitutearchives,

University,WilliamW.

BrickmanCollection,

Box118.


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action toward a revival o comparative education, methods o teaching comparative

education, and desirable types o research in comparative education.

It is clear that Brickman was genuinely concerned with the uture directiono comparative education. He thought that the feld was too preoccupied with

practicalities (such as study tours) and not enough with building its theoretical

and methodological oundations. At the third annual conerence o comparative

education in 1956, Brickman devoted his address to The Theoretical Foundations

o Comparative Education, where he explained the importance o moving beyond

practical ends and toward theoretical considerations in making comparative educa-

tion a legitimate feld o study:

Comparative Education is very oten regarded as basically a practical feld. It

is oten deended as an area o study on the ground that it is o great value toschool and university administrators, to educational ofcials in the government,to individuals engaged in organizing student and teacher exchanges, and toexperts going on oreign technical assistance missions. There can be no doubtthat these are worthwhile unctional values o Comparative Education. Yet, it isimportant to ask ourselves i we have done our duty to this feld in stressing itspracticality. Any practical work which is ounded on ideas and scholarly datamust necessarily be rooted in a theoretical basis. Without a strong theoreticalsubstratum, the practice tends to lose direction and its proessional character.(Brickman, 1973, p. 116)

Quot homines, tot sententiae

Brickman believed that there was no one correct way o doing comparative educa-

tion. His call or ormulating the theoretical basis or comparative education went

out to scholars o dierent theoretical and methodological backgrounds. While

acknowledging the need or more exploration and more rigorous thinking, he

appealed to his colleagues not to orget the words o the Roman playwright Ter-

ence qut hmies, tt setetie (so many men, so many opinions, quoted

in Brickman, 1973, p. 125). In outlining the general principles o comparativeeducation, Brickman insisted that dierences were not only inevitable, they were

desirable (1973, p. 125).

This belie in the value o diverse opinions was also reected in the original

goals o the Comparative Education Society. O the eight goals ormulated during

the third annual conerence o comparative education, our echoed Brickmans

appeal or collaborative exploration o dierent theoretical and methodological

approaches to comparative education, including (1) encouraging cooperation

among specialists in comparative education throughout the world in joint studies,

exchange o documents, and frst-hand descriptions o education; (2) cooperatingwhenever possible with such organizations as UNESCO, the International Institute


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specialists in other disciplines, particularly the social sciences, and interpreting

educational developments in a wider cultural context. The other our goals included

promoting and improving the teaching o comparative education in colleges anduniversities throughout the world, encouraging scholarly research in comparative

and international studies in education, generating interest in comparative education

among proessors o all areas o proessional education and in other disciplines,

and acilitating the publication o studies and up-to-date inormation on compara-

tive education.5

During the frst decade o the Comparative Education Society,6 academics and

education proessionals engaged in rigorous debate about the epistemological

nature o the feld. In this process, the Societys journal, Cmtive Eucti

review (CEr), became a testing ground in which new ideas and concepts aboutcomparative education were allowed to compete (Campisano, 1988, p. 43). In

part, this was possible due to the skillul editorship o George Bereday, the jour-

nals frst editor, who was recognized or using the journal to provide an outlet

or scholarship o dierent viewpoints and perspectives (Altbach, 1984, p. 6) and

expanding the parameters o the feld giving room to the breadth o interests, talents,

and perspectives (Campisano, 1988, p. 69). Brickman acknowledged Beredays

brilliant editorship by highlighting its respect or theoretical and methodological

diversity, which was central to the advancement o the feld:

thereview has indeed covered the signifcant issues, problems, and developmentsin the various aspects o education in international perspective. It has stressedhistorical and socio-political-cultural-economic contexts, as well as scholarlydocumentation. It has given space to veterans and newcomers, to Americans andoreigners. The book reviews, bibliographies, editorial introductions, news notes,and other eatures have made thereview the indispensable source or all who areconcerned with education on an extra-national scale. (1973, pp. 1718)

However, Brickmans vision or a vibrant epistemological diversity o the feld

began to ade in the mid-1960s, with science and statistics becoming the dominant

tools in comparative education. When Harold Noah took over the editorship oCEr in 1967, the principles o scientifc rationality increasingly became more

visible in the journals publications. Based on their analysis oCEr articles prior

to 1977, Altbach and Kelly (1986) note that the state o the art in comparative

education at that time reected the theoretical dominance o structural unctional-

ism, combined with positivist methodological assumptions (quoted in Crossley,

1999, p. 250). Furthermore, Kelly and Altbach (1988) argued that the interpreta-

tive traditions, critical theory, and conict studies scarcely entered the discourse

o the feld and were not promoted through its major journals and texts (p. 14).

Reecting on this change, Noah (1968) himsel admitted to the growing attentiongiven in our feld to the social sciences and by extension the emergence o sci-


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as stiing orthodoxy (Rust, Johnstone & Alla, 2009, p. 132) and even histori-

cal amnesia (Watson, 1999, p. 235). Others pointed out how such developments

came at a high epistemological and methodological cost, namely the sacrifce oralmost total abandonment o the historical dimension in comparative education

research (Kazamias, 2009, p. 156). Scholars practicing historical scholarship

in comparative education, including Brickman and his predecessors Kandel and

Ulich, were inevitably displaced rom comparative education, as the rapid decline

o their publications in mainstream comparative education journals during the

1960s and 1970s clearly attest. However, it did not signiy the death o historical

scholarship in comparative education. Quite the opposite, historical scholarship

was alive and thrivingas Brickmans scholarship confrmsalbeit in dierent

education spaces.

Brickmans comparative education:

The leading edge of educational history

William W. Brickmans worldview began with a reverence or history, with rec-

ognition that present and uture were a unction o the past (Swing, 1987, p. 4).

He understood the feld in line with the statement o the late Dr. I. L. Kandel, the

world-renowned expert in the feld, that comparative education is the prolongation

o the history o education into the present (Brickman, 1977a). Brickman eventu-ally codifed his defnition o comparative education as the analysis o two or more

national systems o schools and other ormative institutions and inuences, parts

o systems; or o learning, teaching, and related problems and developmentsin

the light o historical, political, cultural, economic, social, religious, and other

actors (Brickman, 1972).

In Brickmans conceptualization, comparative education was the leading edge

o educational history (Brickman, 1977a). Even ater the call to add international

to the title o CES was recognized, Brickman continued to believe the study o

international education was included, almost inherent, in comparative educationby design, which the ounding documents o CES make clear. In any case, Brick-

man squarely placed both felds o study under the larger academic branch o the

history o education, negating any reason to debate the inclusion or exclusion o

international in the study o comparative education. It is almost as i Brickman

had an ordering system or the academic study o education. First came international

education, where the scholar would review the concrete methods and material o

some part o an education system and how those systems moved to other countries.

Second came comparative education, where the scholar would systematically

compare two or more systemsor parts o systemsand use theory to explainthe dierences and/or similarities. Last came the history o education, to provide

ll d di d i d il d l i h d h h


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This three-tier system has its aws, o course. Namely, how can international

education be frst in Brickmans conceptualization i he had labeled comparative

education the leading edge o educational history? One way to clariy this is toview international education not necessarily separate rom but rather supplementary

to comparative education, like development education and intercultural education.

Erwin Epstein outlined this viewpoint in a letter to the CEr editor:

I a correlation is ound between length o name and base o popular support, wemight eventually wish to name our organization the International ComparativeDevelopment and Intercultural Education Society! Only then might we satisyall o the people all o the time. Until that time, let our rose keep its name, andwell be sure it smells as sweet. (Epstein, 1968, p. 378)

Whatever his opinion, Brickman remained relatively silent on the debate to

change CES to CIES. He preerred to spend his time fguring out how comparative

education ft into the history o education, and supported other scholars who did the

same in the economics o education, the sociology o education, and other disciplines.

Brickmans historical scholarship

Brickmans process o comparison was systematic; it was as orderly as the military,

as honest as his belie in academic reedom. It used international, comparative,and educational history into a seamless process that resulted in prooundly deep

understandings o the many topics and interconnections throughout history and

across linguistic and geographic borders. He preerred outlines to organize ideas,

lectures, research, and historical events. He outlined everything rom The Writing

o the History o a College or University in 1954 to a Tentative Prospectus or a

Boys Yeshivah Academic High School in 1965, and rom Education or Leader-

ship in a Global Society in 1980 to the History o International Education: The

Educational Work o the League o Nations191939 (n.d.). His archives are

flled with hundreds o typed outlines on every topic o interest. Taken together,the outlines provided not only a holistic view o his corpus but also a method to

his process, which started with bibliographies and literature reviews.

His bibliographies and literature reviews began early in his career. Brickman

was known or such reviews in Schl Sciety, an extended version o the

various bibliographies he habitually created. He became a ormal contributor to

the publication in 1946 when he returned rom the war. I am delighted to inherit

you as a collaborator with Schl Sciety, Kandel wrote Brickman. We

greatly need the kind o composite reviews which you have begun to write.

Brickman began a long career o pulling together books and articles on a varietyo topics published as educational literature reviews or as bibliographies (titled


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Pennsylvania remembered such impossible tasks as searching or the citation o

an anonymous quotation in a oreign language unknown to the assistant (personal

communication, Raymond E. Wanner, March 2, 2009). Indeed, Brickmans archivesare littered with annotated citations, sometimes in rolodex orm but oten scribbled

on scrap paper and envelopes, haphazardly placed in olders labeled, in one instance,

AMvShis abbreviation or Anna Maria van Schurman, a seventeenth-century

learned lady, as Brickman called her. His method, as disorganized as it may have

appeared, produced an almost unthinkable breadth and depth o analysis. I cer-

tainly appreciate, John Dewey exulted in a letter dated November 3, 1949, your

sending me that wonderully complete reerence list. But I appreciate even more

the pains and thoroughness with which you have done the work no doubt, adding,

Needless to say the list is prized and will be careully preserved. I never dreamedo having anything o the sort.

Readers oSchl Sciety were equally impressed by Brickmans reviews.

In an August 2, 1948 letter, Edward L. Thorndike called his reviews scholarly,

sensible and well-written. Frederick Rogers o Monterey, Caliornia wrote Kandel

on April 30, 1947 to explain his respect and admiration o the educational reviews:

It is gradually being borne in upon your readers that in William W. Brickman

Schl Sciety has a rare jewel. How he does it all deeats my imagination;

I mean particularly the number o books reviewed, plus the very evidently alert

and well inormed critical apparatus he brings into the lists. His ability to bringtogether vast quantities o sourcesboth primary and secondarywas all part o

his larger methodology o historical research.

Beore writing, Brickman outlined more than bibliographies and literature

reviews. He would continue with lists o cultural fgures in dierent countries,

side-by-side comparisons o education systems and languages, extensive reports on

trips aboard, chronological outlines o educational events in various countries, and

eventually a detailed outline o a potential manuscript. This method required Brick-

man to learn new languages and cultures o dierent countries, to work in archives

around the world to fnd primary documents, and to take extensive feld notes orevery trip abroad. His archives, case in point, contain a box o little notebooks, one

or each trip, flled with thoughts, ideas, and observations rom experiences abroad.

These would turn into typed notes (oten labeled or private circulation only)

with titles such as Books, Blue Jeans, and Bellbottoms and Learned Lady o

the Lowlands. All o his collected inormation would then be slowly turned into

manuscripts. Siting through his archives, it is common to fnd myriad outlines o

the same topic. Each iteration o the outline became longer and more complete

than the last. Eventually, or some o the topics, hand-written manuscripts, some

as long as 800 pages, would emerge among his papers.7Brickman explained his research methodology in a document detailing the work

hi d l d d i l hi


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and interpretation o primary source materials, as ar as possible in the originallanguages. International educational history comprises (a) the development o

education in countries other than the United States and (b) the interaction o na-tions in educational and cultural aairs throughout time (1977a).

This type o work required profciency in multiple languages. Yet Brickman

noticed a decline in oreign-language study in the United States, which would make

his preerred scholarship nearly impossible. Near the end o his lie he observed,

the change in the history o American Society and education rom multilingualism

to unilingualism and rom a cosmopolitan to a constricted curriculum (Brickman,

1981) should be o great concern to the institution o education.

There were two important debates in comparative education during Brickmans

years.8 The frst centered on the methods o comparative education research, thesecond on the tools. The debates on methods asked whether the feld should use

social science methodologies or develop its own. George Bereday argued or

the latter while Harold Noah, Max Eckstein, and Arnold Anderson preerred the

ormer. Beore 1969, there was a lively debate between those such as Bereday,

who elt that comparative education should develop its own methodology, and

Anderson, who argued that comparative education is not a discipline but, rather,

a topical area that should utilize social science methods (Altbach, 1991, p. 498).

Brickman remained relatively silent on this debate, preerring to ocus his energy

on the tools o comparison.Brickman had clear belies on the debate over the proper tools o comparative

education. What tools should the feld emphasize in research and scholarship?

Noah, Eckstein, and Bereday believed the feld should rely on science and statistics.

Brickman, by contrast, thought the tools o comparison required a frm grounding

in the study o history and cultures. With the publication oTws Sciece

Cmtive Eucti (Noah & Eckstein, 1969), however, the feld shited meth-

odological emphasis and popularized science and statistical tools in comparative

education. Science and statistics eclipsed Brickmans preerence or historical and

cultural tools in the feld o comparative education.Brickmans preerence appeared in what he did and did not assign as required

reading. On the one hand, he required students to read Beredays (1965) Cm-

tive Meth i Eucti in a 1965 class on the oundations o education while he

was a visiting proessor at the University o Pittsburgh. Although Bereday supported

similar positivist techniques as Noah and Eckstein, Brickman nonetheless assigned

this seminal book in multiple courses. On the other hand, o the syllabi ound in

his archives, Tws Sciece Cmtive Eucti appeared only once

as recommended, not required reading. Swing confrmed Brickmans dislike o

the book but explicitly remembered reading it or class (personal communication,March 4, 2010). Brickman obviously took a frm stand in opposition to science


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edge helping toward the understanding o the educational scene o the past and

present. It is especially useul in aiding the individual to comprehend current

educational problems, since all have roots in the past, adding, no claim can bemade that the scholarly knowledge o the content o educational history and o

the methods o historical research has been instrumental in supplying the basis or

the solution o particular problems in education. He preerred the discipline o

Bagley, who was known to sit quietly in Room 283 at Teachers College, Columbia

University working on the essentials even i that kept him rom the bleeding edge

o Deweys Progressivism. I during the educational debates o the early 1930s

Bagley (cited in Null & Ravitch, 2006) would rather be right than Progressive,

then during the 1970s Brickman would rather be right than scientifc.

More than an editor: Brickmans pursuit of academic freedom

Brickman devoted a signifcant part o his academic career to editing journals and

other publications. As early as 1942, he served as both editor oEucti abstcts

(194244) and assistant managing editor oMe Lguge Jul (194246).

Between 1947 and 1949, he acted as editor oSchl Scietythe only journal

in the country that was published weekly at that timewhile its ofcial editor, Isaac

L. Kandel, was away at his alma mater, the University o Manchester, as the Simon

Research Fellow and Proessor o American Studies.9 Brickman succeeded Kandelas editor oSchl Sciety our years later in 1953 and served in that capacity

or twenty-three years until 1976. In the history o the journal, he became one o

two editors who served the journal or more than twenty years, surpassed only by

the journals ounder, James McKeen Cattell, who edited Schl Sciety or

twenty-our years (191530) beore selling it to the Society or the Advancement

o Education. In 1979, Brickman accepted the editorship o Weste Eue

Eucti (later renamed Eue Eucti) and continued there until 1986.

His editing career spanned orty-our years, interrupted only twice by a our-year

and a three-year hiatus.For Brickman, editing was a noble endeavor. It was much more than a technical

compilation o the most recent scholarship. And, it was much more than a powerul

opportunity to shape, inuence, and control the uture direction o the education

feld. Despite the ew published articlesnot editorialswhere Brickman used his-

torical scholarship, his preerred methodology did not bias his editorship. For him,

editing was his oremost academic duty to advance academic reedom and integrity

o scholarship in the academic world. It was a constant campaign on behal o the

reedom o every member o the intellectual community (Brickman, 1969, p. 268).

Time and again, Brickman devoted his editorials to examining many signifcantmatters o editorial policy and practice (Brickman, 1958, p. 315). In Schl

S l h i d ll i h di i i i d b l


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tion later supported by Kandel (quoted in Brickman, 1958, p. 315). Throughout

his lielong career as an editor, he tried to live up to this policy o resolutely

maintaining the reedom . . .without grinding any particular pedagogical axe inorder to hear all points o view on controversial issues, even in the ace o public

opposition (Brickman, 1958, pp. 31516). Commenting on the role o academic

reedom in educational journals, Brickman wrote:

Criticism must not be regarded as an attack. In a democratic society, criticism isa right and a duty. . . . Individuals will keep on presenting viewpoints on educa-tional questionsregardless o the popularity o their opinionsas long as theyare responsible, have something to say, and can deend what they say. Any otherpolicy sties thinking and promotes the kind o conormity which constitutes a

danger to a democratic society (1958, pp. 31617).Moreover, Brickman practiced what he preached, even i it meant putting him-

sel and the journals he edited at risk o public attack, outrage, and opposition. On

September 19, 1953, Schl Sciety published a critique on the education and

certifcation o teachers by Arthur E. Bestor Jr. At the time, one popular explanation

o the problems in public education placed the blame on proessors o education

who preerred research and theory to practice, leaving teachers inadequately trained

or their proession. Many scholars adamantly disagreed with Bestors attack on

progressive, secondary, and higher education and blamed not only the author but also

the editors who gave him space to publish. Brickman was one o those editors.Ater publication o the article, Brickman received countless letters criticizing his

proessionalism and conduct as editor. (One box in Brickmans archive is devoted

entirely to loose letters, many dealing with the Bestor article alone. For this reason,

we defne this article and ensuing uproar as the Bestor incident.) Simply because

readers disagreed with Bestor, Brickman was attacked as a poor editor. Brickman

engaged in olly, many scholars believed, or publishing the piece. I have been

considerably surprised and distressed, wrote W. H. Sauvain, then acting head o

the department o education at Bucknell University, one month ater the Bestor

incident, that you . . . would lend your columns to such an article as that recentlywritten or you by Arthur Bestor, adding, such articles in reputable journals does

ar more harm than good to our proession.

The incident grew exponentially with each issue oSchl Sciety when

Brickman published rather than censored some o the very negative letters sent

to him. Debate, Brickman believed, was healthy in academia, and he gave space

or various opinions o the time in Schl Sciety. There were, however, a

ew notable scholars in support o Brickman. Dont let them shake you about the

Bestor Article, proclaimed the president o Teachers College, William F. Russell,

in a November 23, 1953 letter. I dont agree with him, but surely he has a rightto be heard. You were exactly right in publishing the articleand more power to


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SUMMEr 2010 31

review in Schl Sciety on the various strands o criticism in American public

education. He appealed to the use o logic to examine the claims and arguments o

individualsnot the individuals themselves. It is worth reprinting in ull the lastparagraph o his essay:

Very little is the product o individuals who are hostile to the aims and practiceso the public schools. It is necessary to examine all statements o dissatisac-tion, as well as those o deense, in the light o logic, aithulness to act, andother objective considerations. The attitude o bellicosity which has all too otengreeted those within the proession who have ventured to call attention to weak-nesses in the abric or unction o the school must give way to a greater degreeo receptivity to dissenting ideas. American education has nothing to gain romadministrative policies which rown upon dierences o opinion. While thispractice o discouraging controversial sentiment on educational matters is notconfned to any one branch o the proession, it is vexing to fnd it among edu-cationists, who, as a group, have openly committed themselves to the teachingo independent thinking. It would be wholesome indeed to see the educationalconventions and conerences once more become the battleground o contrastingideas. Just as the schools are not the private province o the teaching proes-sion, the education o teachers is not the personal preserve o the educationists.(Brickman, 1954, p. 140)

Although Brickman cherished academic reedom and a diversity o theories

and methodologies in the study o education, as evidenced during his editorship oSchl Sciety, by the late 1970s he noticeably reacted to the shit away rom

historical scholarship in the feld o comparative education by becoming editor o

Weste Eue Eucti. He actively began to preserve the shrinking space

available or (what was quickly becoming) the ormer, orgotten methods and

tools in comparative education. The journal, which had been edited by a ormer

student o his (Raymond E. Wanner), was the perect journal or Brickman to orge

a stronghold or historical scholarship. Brickman had the reedom to edit as he

pleased. As editor between 1979 and 1986, he continued Ursula Springers ound-

ing intention o promoting both a marginalized geography (Western Europe) andmethodology (cross-national, qualitative studies) in comparative education within

the journals pages (Silova & Brehm, 2009). Yet Brickman pushed the limits in

his editorials, oten publishing long historical analyses having nothing to do with

the issue at hand.10

Brickmans time at the journal can be understood as a reaction by the once-

amous scholar who, although having started the Comparative Education Society,

took on the editorship o a much smaller journal than Schl Sciety to keep

alive a dying breed o comparison. ThatWeste Eue Eucti was devoted to

Europe seems to be both a welcome coincidence to a scholar who devoted his careerto studies and languages o Europe ater serving in World War II and a conscious

li i h d i h l hi i i d i il di i


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odology but also scholars like himsel, whose prominence was overshadowed by

men bearing computers on their backs (Noah, 1968, p. 125).

Remembering Brickman:

The past and future of comparative education

In 1981, William W. Brickman turned sixty-eight, the mandatory age o retire-

ment at the University o Pennsylvania at the time. Although granted the coveted

emeritus status, Brickman was not keen about the new label. Since he likened

the word to that o a disease, he created more attractive variations or himsel:

Emeractive, Activeritus, and active retirement. Active was exactly how he

spent his retirement. In one letter he wrote to all o his graduate students notiyingthem o his newly changed status at the university, he not only oered to write

recommendations in the uture and see through his current students dissertations,

but also explained his plans to write a seven-volume series o studies o the world

history o universities. Although he never completed such a series, Brickman was

intensely trying to show retirement does not mean an end to scholarship. In act,

he even began his own publishing company with his wie, Sylvia, called Emeritus

Press, as both a jab at the conventional conception o emeritus status and a place

or him to continue publishing. And continue publishing he did.

This episode in Brickmans lie is an example o how he lived his entire lie:dedicated to amily, riends, and colleagues; motivated to attain the highest level

o scholarship; and humorous and light-hearted to all those around him. Dr.

Brickman set, always, exceptionally high standards or his students and was there

to show them how such goals might be achieved, wrote Ronald E. Ohl, one o

Brickmans students, in a July 3, 1980 letter to the prominent linguist Dell Hymes.

As always, Dr. Brickman was, himsel, the best example o a truly fne scholar,

representing what I believe every university hopes or its students. We would extend

this thought urther by arguing that Brickman represented what any academic and

proessional association (including the Comparative and International EducationSociety) would hope or in its leadersan individual o uncommon commitment

to urthering the feld, while preserving its theoretical and methodological diversity

through academic reedom and integrity.

From the day he was a little boy in New Yorks Lower East Side to his time in

Cherry Hill, New Jersey as an Emeractive retiree, Brickmans love or knowledge

guided his work as an educator, scholar, and journal editor. He consistently aimed

or Truth in the study o education by being meticulous in research, astidious in

historical scholarship, and honest in lie. Furthermore, Brickman exemplifed the

principles o academic honesty, integrity, and reedom in pursuing his own scholar-ship and urthering comparative education as a feld o study. Yet Brickman became

l h i l i l hi d i d i i l


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SUMMEr 2010 33

traditional historian-cum-philosopher-cum-humanist (Kazamias, 2001, p. 440)

approach in comparative education. Honoring the legacy o Brickman allows us not

only to reevaluate critical contributions o the ounding members o Comparativeand International Education Society, but also to reimagine the past as we strive or

a more inclusive uture o comparative educationone open to the multiplicity

o theoretical and methodological perspectives. Whether called neo-comparative

education (Broadoot, 2000) or neo-historiography, the task is to problematize

the existing discourses and revisit the historical accounts o the development o

comparative education as a feld o study today and in the uture.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Hoover Institution at Stanord University or its support

o this research; Sylvia Brickman, who not only gave the Hoover Institution the

rights to William W. Brickmans papers, but also worked with us patiently as we

tried to uncover her complex and ascinating late husband; and Elizabeth Sherman

Swing, Erwin H. Epstein, Noah W. Sobe, and Audree Chase-Mayoral or their

helpul comments on earlier drats.

Notes

1. These two quotations were ound in William W. Brickmans archives held at theHoover Institution at Stanord University. They were careully written on small note cardsas i preserved or uture use. More interesting, as unorganized as Brickmans papers are,these two quotes were placed atop a pile o papers in one o the ew olders in the collec-tion. Since his archives have not been cataloged, this older must have come rom Brickmanhimsel, making the two quotes stick out more than his other papers.

2. Andreas Kazamias (2009) does not include Brickman in his list o orgotten menin comparative education, even though he devoted an entire chapter to those educators whowere orgotten primarily because o their historical scholarship (such as Sadler, Kandel, Ulich,and others). Brickman has thereore become the most orgotten in comparative education,

adding another superlative to the long collection that has defned his career.3. One o the frst activities o the newly ormed Comparative Education Society was

the European study program, which took place on August 18September 17, 1956. The goalwas to provide a signifcant frst-hand experience in Europe or proessional educators whohas a responsibility or teaching courses or phases o courses that dealt with education inother lands (Read, 1955, p. 53). The visits were primarily to schools, teachers colleges,and universities in Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, France, Holland, and England. Theprogram also comprised lectures, symposia, ormal and inormal discussions, accumulationo documents and books, and other related activities. As Brickman (1966) later reported, oneo the outcomes o the study trip was the enrichment o the courses given by the participantsnot only in comparative education, but also in related felds.

4. In preparation or the frst study tour, Gerald Read became aware that the travel ex-penses or an organization would be substantially lower than or an unorganized group. This


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The Comparative Education Society in Brickmans archives. It should be noted that theseeight goals are not all reected in the current purpose o the CIES constitution. The use ocooperation is the most obvious dierence in the current purpose o CIES and that oCES. Although CIES currently supports theories, related areas o inquiry and activity,and comparative, cross-cultural, interdisciplinary, and international studies, it makes noexplicit appeal or cooperation as Brickman had emphasized in 1956. Also, it is interestingto note that Kazamias and Schwartz (1977) list only our goals o the Comparative EducationSociety in their historical account o the Societys oundation, including (1) promoting teach-ing and research in comparative education and international studies in institutions o higherlearning; (2) promoting the study o education as a phase o the work o other comparativeand international disciplines, area studies and centers o international studies; (3) acilitatingpublication and distribution o comparative, cross-cultural, interdisciplinary, and internationalstudies contributing to interpretation o developments in the feld o education in their broad

and interrelated political, economic, and social context; and (4) encouraging exchanges andother visits by educators. Again, the goals directly ocusing on the collaborative nature othe society are omitted rom their retelling o the ormation o CES.

6. The Comparative Education Society was renamed the Comparative and InternationalEducation Society (CIES) on July 5, 1968 by a vote o 149 to 51 (letter rom Alan Peshkin,Walter Kaulers, and William Spencer to Barbara A. Yates, July 5, 1968 in William W.Brickman Collection, Hoover Institution, Stanord University).

7. As organized as Brickman was, his archives remain as cluttered as his home ofce.Only Brickman, these authors would like to believe, could possibly know the exact locationo each document in his archives.

8. We thank Erwin Epstein or clariying this idea.

9. The Simon Research Fellow program was set up at the University o Manchesterto bring distinguished scholars to campus or one academic year (Null, 2007). During the194748 academic year, Kandel became the frst Simon Research Fellow, and one o histasks during this time was to build a new American studies department at the university.Halway through his appointment, Kandel was oered the position o proessor o Americanstudies, which he held until October 1949 (Null, 2007).

10. Brickman once wrote a thirty-fve-page editorial on the educational contributions oMartin Luther or one issue oWeste Eue Eucti (the title o the present publica-tion until 1991). Considering each issue consisted o only ninety-six pages at the time, theeditorial director or M.E. Sharpe, Arnold C. Tovell, was noticeably upset when, on December13, 1983, he wrote Brickman saying, Since the Journal promises translations, I think you

should keep your essays to not more than 1215% o any issue. OK? Brickman obviouslypushed the limits oWeste Eue Eucti beyond the comort o the publisher.

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