Selected Moments of the 20th Century
A work in progress edited by Daniel Schugurensky
Department of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology,
The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto
(OISE/UT)
Department of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology,
The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto
(OISE/UT)
This is a site about education during the 20th century, organized by decades. It includes short descriptions of 'educational episodes' that took place in that period. The episode in question could be a policy, a court case, a piece of legislation, a scholarly article, a theory, a project, a research report, an incident, a book, a speech, an empirical finding, a tragedy, an acomplishment, a failure, a conference, the opening or a closure of an institution, a film, an anecdote, or anything, big or small, that tells us something about education theory, policy, politics, research or practice during the last century. Arguably, some of these episodes have been more historically significant or influential than others, and some may be more well-known than others, but each one uncovers a piece of that immense puzzle that was 20th century education. Education is understood here in its broadest sense, and not only as schooling. Although its current emphasis is on North American educational developments, there is an ongoing effort to include more international content.
Most entries have been written especially for this site (many of them by education students), although some consist of links to other webpages. Cross references are used to show connections between different moments. New entries are added regularly. If you would like to submit an entry, make a comment to improve this site, or suggest a link to a webpage to be added to this compilation, please send it to: dschugur@asu.edu.
PLEASE NOTE: THIS WEBSITE IS BEING TRANSFERRED TO
http://schugurensky.faculty.asu.edu/moments/index.html
NEW MOMENTS WILL BE ADDED TO THIS NEW ADDRESS ONLY.
Other History of Education Sites:
The Homeroom - British Columbia's history of education web site UNESCO milestones in education
History of American Education (U.S. education) South African history of education
Some significant events in this period
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1900 Henry Barnard, advocate of common schools, dies in poverty at age 89 1900 Learning about birds instead of killing them: Audubon Society replaces Christmas Side Hunt with Christmas Bird Count
1900 John Ruskin, a pioneer in art education, dies in England at age 81 1900 Umeko Tsuda founds Joshi Eigaku Juku (currently Tsuda College) to provide Japanese women with opportunities to pursue higher education 1900 Professor Edward Ross fired from Stanford University over a disagreement with Jane Stanford 1901 Margaret Haley becomes the first woman and first teacher to speak at the NEA 1901 Anarchist teacher Francisco Ferrer opens Modern School in Barcelona 1901 Rabindranath Tagore starts school combining Western and Indian philosophies 1901 Joliet Junior, the First Independent Public Junior College 1901 Francis W. Parker progressive school opens 1901 Henry Dunant, a school dropout, is awarded the first Nobel Peace Prize 1902 Learning together without teachers: Oscar Olsson and the study circles 1902 Émile Durkheim gives opening lecture on "Pédagogie et sociologie" in the course "L'Education morale" 1902 Nonconformists jailed for opposing Education Act and refusing to pay school taxes 1903 W.E.B. Du Bois criticizes Booker T. Washington 1903 Mother Jones leads demonstration against child labour, says working children belong in schools 1903 Rowntree and Binns discuss democratic and autocratic methods in The History of Adult Schools 1903 Marie Curie first woman to receive doctorate in France 1903 Albert Mansbridge founds the Workers' Educational Association (WEA) 1903 Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre opens in the UK 1903 Peace educator Tsunesaburo Makiguchi publishes A Geography of Human Life
1904 German board of education appoints commission to investigate Clever Hans and math teacher Von Osten
1904 Feminist, pacifist and anarchist teacher María Lacerda de Moura founds Escola Normal de Barbacena in Brazil
1904 Circuit Chautauqua, innovative adult education initiative promoting reflection and discussion on political, social and cultural issues
1904 Margaret Haley calls for teachers to organize 1904 First cohort of high school students graduate from Felix Adler's Ethical Culture School 1904 Pavlov receives Nobel Prize, opens route for conditioning in education 1904 Helen Keller becomes the first blind-deaf person to graduate from college 1904 Dewey leaves the Chicago Laboratory school and goes to Columbia University 1904 Stanley Hall publishes Adolescence 1904 "Enter to learn; depart to serve": Mary McLeod Bethune opens Daytona School for Negro Girls 1905 Upton Sinclair starts the Intercollegiate Socialist Society 1905 After over twenty years of existence, the 'Flying University' of Poland is legalized 1905 Tsarist government closes universities in Russia 1905 Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon develop test to determine mental age of children 1905 William Taylor, 13, dies from school hazing 1906 McMillan sisters’ campaign prevails: Provision of School Meals Act is passed 1906 Teacher and social activist Susan Anthony dies in Rochester, NY, at age 86
1907 Maria Montessori opens the first Casa dei Bambini (Children's house) 1907 Marietta Johnson launches the School of Organic Education In Fairhope, Alabama 1907 The "Wisconsin Idea" brings the university to the community 1907 Olive Decroly opens the Ecole de l'Ermitage 1907 Working People's College in the USA 1907 Paul Natorp and social pedagogy 1907 In an overflowing classroom, William James gives his last lecture at Harvard University 1908 Edmund Burke Huey publishes The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading, a pioneering work on oral language and early childhood literacy education at home 1908 Berea College v. Commonwealth of Kentucky 1908 Robert Baden-Powell starts world scouting movement 1909 Ella Flagg Young, first female superintendent of a major city school system 1909 Dewey publishes How We Think 1909 Oxford and Working-Class Education: A report on the university-'workpeople' relationship 1909 Credit system of 120 hours measures secondary school attainment: The Carnegie Unit is born 1909 Fircroft College offers residential education for workers in the UK
Some significant events in this period
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1910s The Institutionalization of Industrial Education in Black Rural Schools 1910 Adelaide Hoodless, co-founder of the Women's Institute and one of Canada's most creative social reformers, dies at age 53 1910 Justo Sierra opens the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) 1910 Leo Tolstoy, who had opened 16 pioneering progressive schools for peasants in Yasnaya Polyana, dies at age 82 1910 Marechal Candido Rondon instructs his troops: “Die if you must, but never kill”
1910 Emma Goldman and others found the Ferrer Modern School in New York 1911 Norman Bethune becomes a teacher-labourer at Frontier College 1911 Edouard Claparède publishes Experimental Pedagogy and the Psychology of the Child 1911 In The Child and the State, Margaret McMillan argues that schools discriminate against working class children 1911 Sigmund Freud v. Alfred Adler
1911 Ferdinand Buisson publishes Nouveau dictionnaire de pédagogie et d’instruction primaire 1911 Industrialist Richard Teller Crane dismisses teaching of humanities: “No one with a taste for literature has the right to be happy; only men entitled to happiness are those who are useful.”
1911 Mexican schoolteacher Otilio Montaño introduces Emiliano Zapata to the works of Kropotkin 1912 Janusz Korczak begins innovative educational programs in Polish orphanage 1912 Norman Bethune goes to Frontier College as a literacy teacher and a lumberjack 1912 In Education: A First Book, Edward Thorndike extends his theory of animal intelligence to human learning 1912 Louis W. Stern develops the concept of IQ (intelligence quotient) 1912 Claparède creates Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau, precursor of the International Bureau of Education 1912 Universidad Popular Mexicana provides free liberal humanist education to workers and general public 1913 Vygotsky loses bet with sister when admitted to Moscow university 1913 In Educational Psychology, Edward Thorndike disagrees with Rousseau and his child-centered followers 1914 Paul Monroe publishes Cyclopedia of Education and Principles of Secondary Education 1914 European youth learn to live, play and sing together; next day, they kill each other: The short truce of Christmas 1914 New York University begins training of “teachers for the feebleminded” 1914 Popular educator Manuel Dimech, founder of 'Circle of the enlightened', arrested in Malta and sent to exile 1914 Margaret Naumburg promotes art therapy in Walden School 1914 Richard Tawney publishes An experiment in democratic education 1915 Nadezhda Krupskaia writes Public Education and Democracy 1915 Scott Nearing is dismissed by the University of Pennsylvania: a test of academic freedom 1915 Rules for Female Teachers 1915 Led by John Dewey, American Association of University Professors (AAUP) addresses academic freedom in Declaration of Principles 1915 Richard Buckminster Fuller expelled again from Harvard University for "irresponsibility and lack of interest" 1915 University of Toronto pressured to fire Dean of Forestry Berhanrd Fernow and other professors of German descent 1916 Lewis Terman and The Measurement of Intelligence 1916 American Federation of Teachers is created, becomes first US union to accept minorities as full members, calls for equal pay for African-American teachers 1916 John Dewey publishes Democracy and Education 1916 Disaffected students from Ruskin College and socialist teacher John Maclean's found Scottish Labour College
1916 Lucy Sprague Mitchell and progressive education colleagues create Bureau of Educational Experiments, which would become the Bank Street's School for Children
1916 The American Educational Research Association (AERA) is founded 1916 In Public School Administration, Ellwood P. Cubberley argues that schools are factories in which children are raw materials to be shaped into products to meet demands of life
1917 Italian-American progressive educator Angelo Patri publishes Schoolmaster of the Great City 1917 Smith-Hughes Vocational Education Act promotes education in agriculture, trades and industries 1917 Pacifist professor James Cattell dismissed from Columbia University; colleague Charles Beard resigns in protest 1918 Students ignite democratic university reform in Cordoba, Argentina 1918 Seven Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education 1918 Beatrice Chambers founds Maltman's Green, a girls' progressive school 1918 Mary Parker Follett publishes The new state: Group organization the solution of popular government 1918 University of Toronto and unions meet: Canadian Workers Educational Association is born 1918 Kindergarten Units are organized after World War I to help refugee children in France 1918 Adult Educator and labour organizer Ginger Goodwin is killed in British Columbia, Canada
1918 Russian pedagogue M. M. Pistrak initiates experiment on school democracy and progressive education 1918 In The Curriculum, John Franklin Bobbitt applies principles of scientific management and engineering to education 1919 The Progressive Education Association is founded 1919 The Winnetka Plan 1919 Dalton School Opens 1919 Rudolph Steiner talks to prospective parents of the first Waldorf School 1919 New immigrants learn that the good citizen loves God, the Empire, and is every inch of a man 1919 Weimar Constitution recognizes and promotes expansion of Volkshochshulen (Folk Schools) in Germany
1919 John Dewey begins a three-year work period in China 1919 International Federation of University Women (IFUW) is created with associations from eight countries
1919 British report says that adult education should be universal, lifelong and citizenship-building 1919 Bauhaus School aims at combining arts academy, crafts school, and architecture training 1919 Charles Beard, Thorstein Veblen, John Dewey and others found The New School for Social Research
Some significant events in this period
