Lawrence Cremin came of age intellectually in the 1950s as he forged his career as an education professor, developing his own ideas about the role and purpose of professional education in society and in higher education. In his first 11 years as a professor, Cremin became increasingly engaged in the field for which he would become most renown—the history of education. This chapter examines Cremin’s early scholarship, teaching, and activities as a junior professor in the Department of Social and Philosophical Foundations at Teachers College, as well as the context of his professional work in higher education in the 1950s.