Kilpatrick, William Heard

Related Category: Philosophy: Biographies

(kĭlpă´trĭk), 1871–1965, American philosopher, b. White Plains, Ga., grad. Mercer College, 1891, Ph.D. Columbia, 1912, and studied at Johns Hopkins Univ. He taught at Teachers College, Columbia, from 1909, becoming professor of the philosophy of education in 1918; he retired in 1938. Acclaimed as the great popularizer of the philosophy of John Dewey, Kilpatrick rejected organized subjects; his child-centered emphasis, however, represented a sharp divergence from the position of Dewey. Among his writings are Source Book in the Philosophy of Education (1923), Foundations of Method (1925), and Education and the Social Crisis (1932).