Idealism
Plato is often identified as giving classic formulation to idealist philosophy, one of the oldest that exists. The German philosopher Hegel created a comprehensive view of the historical world based on idealism. In the United States, transcendentalist philosophers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Thoreau outlined an idealist conception of reality. In education, Fredrich Froebel, the founder of kindergarten, was a proponent of idealist pedagogy. William Harris, who popularized the kindergarten movement when he was superintendent of schools in St. Louis, Missouri, and who became U.S. Commissioner of Education at the turn of the twentieth century, used idealism as a source for this administrative philosophy. Tc most educators, the leading American proponent of idealism is J. Donald Butler. The authors, however, would claim it is William Bennett, a strong believer of values and virtues.