This study addresses itself to several issues in relation to public education in the United States. First, it examines the basic social philosophies underlying the development of mass education in the United States. Secondly, it asks the question: what is the purpose of public education? Thirdly, it relates the development of public education to a dominant source of social change--industrialization, and examines the relationship between the structure and function of education in the 1800's and early 1900's, and the needs of the marketplace. Fourthly, it examines the relationship between the curricula of education in the 1980's and the needs of high technology in the marketplace.