New Horizons.

By 1860 common-school advocates had put their most crucial battles behind them; the publicly supported common school had become an established institution in most parts of the country, and the initiatives that continued to draw their attention were concerned mainly with intensifying the experience of schooling: extending the annual term, keeping children in school until a later age, and regularizing attendance. But as elementary-school education came to be seen as standard across the country, educators and civic leaders began efforts to extend the common-schools ideal to younger and older Americans. It was during this period that the kindergarten and the public high school made their first appearance in American society.

The Kindergarten Movement.

Like so many features of the common-school model, the kindergarten had been d in Germany, and German immigrants to the United States played an...