As the modern system of education progresses, new terms are being applied to old practices with resulting new significances. Such a new term is adult education ; such an old practice is lifelong learning. The latter is, of course, an ancient ideal in the history of civilization, but adult education as an organized social process is comparatively recent in American life. Although the term was not recognized under the name adult education until 1924, in meaning and practice it reaches backward into our early community life to the opening of the first public evening school in 1819, to the first attempt at institutes and chatauquas, or the New England Town Meeting of the seventeenth century where the Puritans jealously guarded their right to speak out in the meeting.
As the expression is used today, it denotes a slowly evolving ideal which would make man \u27s educational experience in life process and provide opportunity to all people of all ages and classes
