1910s
Events include:
Invention of stainless steel, Einstein’s theory of
general relativity, Russia becomes the world’s first
communist government, radio programming becomes popular,
Titanic sinks, First World War, growth of labor unions,
Ford rolls the Model T off the new assembly line,
influenza outbreak spreads to Minnesota, killing
thousands
Model T being built on the Ford assembly line
U.S. presidents:
William
Howard Taft (1909–1913)
Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921)
1919 |
Stanwood Cobb and progressive educators create The
Progressive Education Association. They stress
child-centered education,
problem-solving skills, hands-on learning,
self-discipline, and flexible methods.
1918 |
The National Education Association publishes the
“Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education,” which
endorses curriculum on seven broad areas: health,
fundamental processes (literacy and math), worthy home
membership, vocation, civic education, leisure, and
ethical character. 1917 |
The Smith-Hughes Act (Vocational Education Act) was passed and gave an impetus to
the developing trend toward vocational education.
1916
|
American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is founded.
American Educational Research Association (AERA) is
founded. National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP)
is founded. 1912 |
Henry Goodman, Lewis Terman, and others adapt the work
of Alfred Binet to create IQ tests.
“How can the child learn to be a free and responsible
citizen when the teacher is bound?” —John Dewey,
1918
College faculty, 1910 |
Timeline
1917
The College of Education
offers its first graduate programs leading to the
awarding of Ph.D.s.
1918
In
the aftermath of “the war to
end all wars,” Professor
Emeritus Maria Sanford
asked the alumni association for
support for a University
Relief Unit, sponsored by
the Minnesota Alumnae
Club, to help war victims
in France. This group of
University women had
formed in 1914 to raise
money for scholarships
for female students.
1916
Faculty member Melvin
Haggerty joins forces with other University
departments to establish a psychological and
psychiatric clinic, which mainly prepares students
for working with mentally disabled children. The
following year, this clinic paves the way for the
launch of the Psychoeducational Clinic, intended to
study and treat educational disabilities. Over the years, the
clinic would grow to include faculty members from
the Department of Psychology and the School of
Medicine as well as the College of Education.
For the first time, all
teacher training at the University of Minnesota is
centralized under the direction of the College of
Education.
 1915
Lotus Delta Coffman, one of the most influential figures in
the college’s history, begins his short but illustrious term as
the first dean. He arrived from the University of Illinois,
where he formed his conviction that primary and secondary
education in the U.S. required a drastic overhaul, and that the
teaching profession needed higher standards and better research
behind its practices. He noted with dismay that few of the
nation’s classroom teachers had actually attended a school for
the training of teachers.
In his five years as dean, Coffman
succeeded in establishing a vibrant School of Education, the only
such school of its kind at a public university, and in gathering
together under its umbrella teachers in training from other
departments of the University, thus defining the college as the
source of all teaching certifications. In addition, he worked
hard to recruit distinguished faculty members to the college.
When Coffman left the deanship, not in ignominy or frustration,
but to ascend to the University’s presidency in 1920—Coffman
remained involved in the improvement of educational practices by
working with the National Educational Association to spur the
U.S. Congress to support educational legislation.
In one of his first acts as
dean, Lotus Coffman lends his support to the
University’s Bureau of Cooperative Research, an
effort to gather data from schools across Minnesota
and apply the information to the study of
educational problems. Soon Coffman sets himself up
as its director and changes its name to the Bureau
of Educational Research. Over time, the Bureau
enlarges into an investigator of the practices and
policies of the College of Education, work that Dean
Coffman describes as “weighing the imponderables and
testing the intangibles.” An early home to the
application of scientific research in support of
education, it eventually becomes a research station
of the federal government’s Bureau of Education.
1914
 Insistent lobbying brings
the college its own facility, the old Mines
Building, which had recently been damaged by a fire.
Remodeled and renamed the Education Building, it
includes space for the Model Laboratory School in
the basement, administrative offices on the first
floor, and classrooms and faculty offices on the
second floor. Dean James does not have the chance to
enjoy his new office for long; he and president
George Vincent have clashed often, and for reasons
that remain unclear, James is dismissed in 1915. The
building serves as the college’s headquarters until
1926.
1912
The college launches a
teacher-training program in agriculture. A year
later, it follows with training courses in home
economics.
 1911
J. Anna Norris, M.D.,
arrives from the University of Chicago to teach in
the Department of Physical Education for Women.
Although her early duties require her to give
physical examinations of students and to investigate
sanitary conditions and outbreaks of illness in
campus housing, she quickly forms the novel idea
that students should receive specialized physical
education programs rather than uniform exercise
programs foisted upon all. In 1912, the University
makes her the department’s director, a position she
holds for 29 years.
She dedicates her career to
improving athletic programs and facilities for
women. Initially women’s physical education programs
can use only a corner of the Old Armory. She
condemns this unfair segregation as “not only
arrogant but lacking in chivalry.” At her urging,
the University opens its first gymnasium for women
in 1914, and the facility becomes Norris Hall after
her retirement.
1911
Dean George James’s
repeated pleas and memos to the Board of Regents
results in an expansion of the college’s faculty to
six members. But the college still lacks its own
building.
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