Ellwood Patterson Cubberley

Ellwood Patterson Cubberley (1868 – 1941) was an American educator and a pioneer in the field of educational administration. He spent most of his career as a professor and later dean in the Stanford Graduate School of Education in California.

Cubberley was born in Andrews, Indiana. He graduated from Indiana University in 1891, he then served as president of Vincennes University from 1891 until 1896. He was superintendent of schools in San Diego, California from 1896 until 1898. He joined the faculty of Stanford, then went to Columbia University where he earned a Ph.D. in 1905. He returned to the Stanford faculty in 1906 as a professor of education. He was the dean of the Stanford school of education from 1917 until he retired in 1933.

During his career, he maintained a view of education as an instrument of social engineering, a view that created some controversy.^[1]

Works

Cubberley published a total of 30 works during his life, including:

• Syllabus of Lectures on the History of Education, 1902
• Changing conceptions of education (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1909) online
• Public Education in the United States, 1919
• The history of education: Educational practice and progress considered as a phase of the development and spread of western civilization (Houghton Mifflin, 1920) online
• Readings in the History of Education, 1920
• A Brief History of Education, 1922
• Public School Administration, 1929
• Public Education in the United States, republished in 1947

Influence

Cubberley was perhaps the most significant theorist of educational administration of his day. At the outset of Cubberley's career, school administration had no theoretical or scientific basis. There were no formal textbooks from which to teach educational administration; educational administrators were expected to learn solely from experience. Indeed, educational administration posts were often political plums requiring little, if any, formal training in education. Most universities lacked education departments.

Cubberley pioneered the use of the school survey as an instrument to improve education, in his reports on the schools in Baltimore, Maryland; New York City; Oakland, California; Portland, Oregon; and Salt Lake City, Utah. In conducting surveys, he applied an integrated theory of organization, administration, and teaching, to assess the strengths and weaknesses of individual schools. He used the latest statistical and quantitative methods. His surveys were significant steps down a new road toward improving school functions.

Cubberley's academic legacy has been controversial. Since his death in 1941, Cubberley's impact has been attacked, most memorably by Lawrence Cremin's The Wonderful World of Ellwood Patterson Cubberley (1965). Some academicians have used Cubberley's methodology as a cautionary tale and termed his approach anachronistic and evangelistic, and some of his administration stances have been attacked as sexist and autocratic.

The Ellwood Patterson Cubberley Papers, 1886-1965^[2] (3.25 linear ft.) are housed in the Department of Special Collections and University Archives in the Stanford University Libraries.

Recognition

• The Cubberley Education Library at Stanford University is named for him,^[3] as is Cubberley Auditorium in the Stanford School of Education.^[4]
• Ellwood P. Cubberley High School (1956-1979) in Palo Alto, California was named for him; the site of the former school now houses the Cubberley Community Center.
• Elementary schools in San Diego and Long Beach, California, are named for him.

Notes

Further reading

• Bowles, Samuel, and Herbert Gintis, Let's Hear It for Ellwood Cubberly: A Response to Donald Light, The School Review, Vol. 85, No. 3 (May, 1977), pp. 473–476
• Cremin, Lawrence. The Wonderful World of Ellwood Cubberley (1965)
• Lagemann, Ellen Condliffe. "Contested terrain: A history of education research in the United States, 1890–1990." Educational Researcher 26.9 (1997): 5-17.
• Sears, Jesse Brundage, and Adin D. Henderson. Cubberley of Stanford and his contribution to American education (Stanford University Press, 1957)

External links

• Works by Ellwood Patterson Cubberley at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Ellwood Patterson Cubberley at Internet Archive
• Public Education in the United States https://archive.org/details/publiceducationi032029mbp