The expansion of educational opportunities and the increase of interest in education in recent years is called “the education explosion”. Some of the underlying causes, particularly in regard to upper secondary education will be described below.
The first factor explaining the unprecedented growth of education is the democratization of education. As a result of the efforts of UNESCO huge programs for extending primary education to all people regardless of differences of race, sex, religion, political, economic or social standing were initiated among the developing nations. To provide teachers for primary schools, secondary schools were needed even before primary education could get a start in such countries. Besides, democratization of education also affected the development of secondary education in advanced nations.
In England the movement toward the Comprehensive School may be considered a typical case. To realise better equal educational opportunity the “tripartite” system of grammar school, technical school and “modern school” is to be replaced by this new type of school. It is comprehensive in the sense that it comprises various opportunities to develop particular trends of intelligence.
In the USA till about 1957, when Russia launched her first satellite, the emphasis in the United States was very much on quantative expansion. As a consequence, the United States has the highest relative enrolment in higher education as well as in secondary education. But the scientific progress in other countries outside the USA seems to prove that creating opportunities for all in education is only one aspect of democratization. The tendency now is rather to stress the point that a proper care for the gifted, for the elite, is equally important.
At about the same time when re-thinking started in the USA, West Germany also came forth with new and drastic plans for reforming the school system. The most basic of these were the Rahmenplan (1957), the Bremenplan (1960) find courses suited to their particular ability. In Japan a more sound philosophy of life and social philosophy is needed. In France, compulsory education was extended to ten years, but at the proper time the pupils are sifted through a process of observation and channeled int ovarious lines. In Japan, most certainly, such measures would be labelled undemocratic. What is lacking in Japan is a sense for proper appreciation of various types of ability and in connection with this a proper philosophy of occupation. Most important, however, is the realization that all types of work in a society, physical as well as spiritual, really possess the same intrinsic value.

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Various plans for reforming and streamlining the system of secondary education in England carried out on the basis of the Butler Act since the forties must be evaluated within the framework of the British type of welfare state structure. Appraising from this viewpoint the entire educational process as tripartite, i. e. consisting of three continuous successive stages, it may be said that secondary education was opened to the people and an equitable distribution of educational opportunity was accomplished at a much higher rate than thirty and more years ago. But when one analyzes the present condition of “English Tripartitism”, in the sense that secondary education institutions were typified into three tracks, the consequences seem rather problematic.
In a state which is planned as a welfare state, it is necessary that the potentialities of the social group are safeguarded in their variety and that within the relation, “planned-state - equal-society”, the individual realizes clearly the object of his loyalty. However in the real situation of the secondary school education system called “English Tripatitism”, the results in this respect are rather negative. By way of contrast it is thought that the comprehensive school planned and practised as a measure of critique on the “English Tripartitism”, aims at bringing about a balance between educational values properly speaking and social and economic values and as such possesses a much higher meaning.
However the problem is not yet completely solved. “Streaming” remains as ever the internal principle of the comprehensive school and it does not look as if the true nature of ability in connection with excellence were clearly grasped. It appears as a proof for this statement that within the differentiated plan introduced in the comprehensive school, the “11-plus” had been simply exchanged for the “13-plus”.
Fundamental problems in connection with an ideal of secondary education arise from reflection on the position of the individual determined by the comprehensive principle of a welfare state and from the search for a new concept of loyalty which renders possible both the social and economic function of the individual and the all around development of character. The various resulting problems concerning the secondary education reform in Great Britain seem to stem ultimately from the fact that the problems of the relationship between man and technology, between man and the system which forms the basis of the solution of these problems have not yet been sufficiently studied and solved.

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The statement, “All men are equal” is neither the expression of a simple, intuitive truth, nor an empirical generalisation, nor is it an emotional expression of the oppressed. As one possible approach to the complex area of equality in education, the author by means of an analysis of the concept of equality has first examined the problem of justification of the principle of equality expressed by the general imperative, “Equals are treated equally, unequals unequally”. Through the clarification of the logical characteristics of this general imperative, he has attempted to arrange properly the various points at issue brought up in the discussion of this complex problem area and to connect them with various other principles.
Especially in regard to the practical side of the problem of the principle of equality arising when it appears in the form of the equality of educational opportunity, attention was paid to recent trends in the educational world of America and England; by way of conclusion it was demonstrated that the problem of equality in education as formation of man, must be studied in the broader context of all the various principles which make man a human being.

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Only a few years ago it seemed that a basic refom of the “Humboldt-University” was not to be expected. The idea of the traditional German University seemed able even in our modern technico-scientific society to hold its own as the guiding pattern for the modern university. Although the Wissenschaftsrat, founded in 1957, neither was nor was it originally intended to be a central university reform agency, however, its publications did much to reactivate the reform discussions which had bogged down in the sixties.
The “Recommendations” of 1960 aimed mainly at consolidation of research-and training capacity in the universities, and thus tried to cope with both the sudden great increase in student numbers (“onslaught of the masses”) and the demands for the reorganisation of scientific research. The “Suggestions” of 1962 go beyond those of 1960 by pointing out new possible ways, without, however, infringing upon the leading principles of the traditional concept of the university.
Only the “Recommendations” of 1966 (New Regulation of University Study) show a rather unexpectedly radical change of mind on the part of the Wissenschaftsrat with regard to the reform of the universities. As the heated discussion, which has been provoked by these “Recommendations” unmistakingly makes clear, it is no longer a matter of merely minor modifications of the old ideal, but the idea of the “Humboldt-University” itself is in question - and on the part of the Wissenschaftsrat has been as an outdated dream rejected. According to the Wissenschaftsrat's new conception, most of the students would be excluded from direct participation in research, freedom of learning would be noticeably cut down, and thus, the primary aim of the traditional university - the education of human personality through encounter with scientific work, within the realm of freedom - would be largely impaired.
The final decision as to whether or not this new conception as a whole will succeed in practice still depends on the largely autonomous university faculties. Nevertheless, in the face of continual increase of student enrolment, it seems to my mind most likely indeed, that the “radical” solution brought forward by the Wissenschaftsrat - if handled with due precaution - will on the whole prove to be the only possible alternative for the German university.

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Educational history, in contrast to general history, is studied as a special history; but in the sense that it presents the history of education which as such has cultivated the human mind which in turn forms general history, it possesses also a universal scope clarifying the very foundations of general history. In that connection Christopher Dawson's view on education in his The Crisis of Western Education, is very revealing. Culture and education are inseparable, education, in fact, is “enculturation”. Hence, the extinction of educational tradition leads to the death of culture. When research in educational history is conducted taking education in this broad meaning, the distinction between factual history of education and the history of educational ideas becomes meaningless.
But education in its development is constantly subject to actual conditions. According to James Mulhern, economic, religious, social and political factors in a real world exercise their influence on education. But these factors are outside of education and do not belong to its essence. Education being subject to these actual conditions, also has the power to transcend them and even to govern them. The reason is that the indispensable function of education is to pursue an ideal to be realised in the future. Education is a human activity carried on in the present world in order to make the heritage of the past useful for a time to come. It is exactly through education that man becomes truly man.
But in the study of educational history, the educational ideal conceived at one particular period in the past is frequently overlooked. Or rather, the grasp of that ideal in terms of the material available is difficult. In the study of educational history the examination of various actual conditions which have a bearing on education is indispensable, but it is necessary to clarify how these conditions were dealt with by presenting ideals making for educational development.
Only when carried out in this fashion will the study of educational history become a source of strength for the education of tomorrow.

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