Examine the evolution of developmentally appropriate practice with this biographical history of early childhood education. This book explores the theory's progression - from its beginnings in writings of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century philosophers, its experimental implementation by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century practitioners, and its scientific grounding in contemporary theory and research - and includes biographical sketches and perspectives of eleven philosophical, pedagogical, and theoretical figures - the giants - in this evolution: John Amos Comenius, John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Heinrich Pestalozzi, Frederick Froebel, Rudolf Steiner, Maria Montessori, Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, and Lev Semenovich Vygotsky. Paperback.