Stubblefield and Keane did a splendid job in Adult education in the American experience. The whole book was well documented and informative. The great volume of information was constructively arranged. Even though their immediate audience was adult educators, practitioners, scholars and legislators, it could be understood by anyone on a lower academic level.

The preface and the precise summaries of each chapter made it easy to grasp the information. While this is so, one finds that the purposes of the book were not clearly stated. It was expected that they would have been as clearly stated as were the five themes that emerged through the authors' exploration. The implication is that the purposes are in the overall goal of presenting a history of adult education in America.

The data was chronologically arranged in the discussion. One could still see how each of the five themes was covered in the thesis. The first theme, which shows that Americans value education in adulthood and have created many education systems for adults, is covered in nearly all of the chapters. But chapters one, three, four, five and seven show more of this than any of the others. The second theme of the US being a land of opportunities, but certain groups were limited to pursue these, could be seen in chapters three, four, six, eight and nine. The third theme reveals that a dynamic society called for new forms of adult education from the background of agriculture, to that of industry, to that of information. Elaboration on this could be seen in chapters seven, ten, twelve, thirteen and sixteen. To see the fourth theme in experience, one may look at chapters three, eight, nine, eleven and sixteen. This theme speaks of the creation of forms of adult education to shape the individual and society. The last theme stating that adults began to use existing information system is elaborated on in chapters four, five and six.

Two negatives should be mentioned here. The first one is the failure of the authors to list what are the thirteen colonies they referred to repeatedly. These were mentioned in the preface and on pages twelve and nineteen, but they were never listed. A non-American reading this book would be at a lost here. What are the thirteen colonies? The second is the inclusion of a statement on page two hundred and eighty-seven that said it was the insecure to whom religious best sellers brought the message of religion as peace of mind. Those who seek after God and what He offers are not insecure. This may only be true if this insecurity is the same as that which drives anyone to self-actualization.

It was thought that this critique should have shown the shortcomings in not tracing the development of adult education universally. Upon reading, it was discovered that it was never in the minds of the authors to do such documentation. Comments on such have therefore been excluded.

In comparison with other books on a similar topic, this book is top rated for what it set out to do. It was indeed a work to the audience it sought to reach. Works of a similar nature for regions outside the US do not put this in their shadows. This book reveals impartiality in clearly stating the prejudices in adult education, in America, against different groups. Stubblefield and Keane have produced a job well done.