Abstract
This book is the first volume of a three-volume project entitled The Idea of Public Education. The purpose of the overall work is to lay the foundations for a new science – the social-natural science of public education. By the term natural science I mean a quantitative science able to speak to causal factors, make quantitative predictions, and in generally be on a par with the traditional natural sciences represented by physics, chemistry, and biology. By social-natural science I mean a natural science taking for its topic human beings in social intercourse with one another.