Background

Burke Aaron Hinsdale was born on March 31, 1837 on a farm near Wadsworth, Ohio, United States. He was the son of Albert Hinsdale, who moved from Torrington, Connecticut, to Ohio, in the fall of 1816, and Clarinda Elvira Eyles, the daughter of other emigrants from Connecticut who had cast their lot in the Western Reserve. He was descended from Robert Hinsdale who came to America in 1637, settling first at Dedham, Massachussets, and later in Deerfield.

Education

Hinsdale worked on his father's farm and attended the short sessions of the district school until his sixteenth year. He then entered Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (later Hiram College). His student days, scattered over the years from 1853 to 1860, were interspersed with short winter terms of school teaching. At Hiram he found James A. Garfield, first a student and later a member of the faculty and principal of the Institute. Between them developed a lifelong friendship.

Of academic honors, he received from Bethany College and from Williams College the honorary degree of Master of Arts in 1871, from the Ohio State University the honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1888, and from the Ohio University that of Doctor of Laws in 1892.

Career

In 1860 Hinsdale became a tutor in the Eclectic Institute and through the Civil-War period he was one of a small group of instructors that remained at the school. Later, from 1864 to 1869, he held church pastorates in Solon and Cleveland and was for one year a professor in a college which had a brief existence at Alliance, Ohio. During this interval he was assistant editor of the Christian Standard, a church weekly published under the auspices of the Disciples of Christ.

In 1869 Hinsdale became professor of philosophy, English literature, and political science in Hiram College. In the next year he was made president, and under his administration the institution became a college in fact as well as in name. He continued at its head until 1882, serving as lecturer, preacher, and administrator. During these years also he wrote three books on theological subjects and in 1880, at the request of the Republican National Committee, he wrote a campaign life of Garfield. Upon the death of the President, he published as a Hiram memorial President Garfield and Education (1881), a tribute revealing the author's growing interest in the problems of education. Later he edited The Works of James Abram Garfield (1882-1883).

Having won wide recognition as an educator, in 1882 he became superintendent of the Cleveland schools, an office which he held four years. At the time the Cleveland school system was under a cloud of textbook and patronage scandals and it is doubtful whether Hinsdale and the board of education had much in common or ever understood one another. He was not reelected in 1886, but he remained two years in Cleveland largely engaged in compiling his historical study, The Old Northwest (1888). He had meanwhile published a collection of articles and addresses under the title: Schools and Studies (1884).

In 1888 he accepted the professorship of the science and art of teaching at the University of Michigan, and in addition to his teaching he continued to write on the subjects which had long interested him. In his studies in the field of education, he showed himself in his later works to be rather less critical of existing methods of instruction than he had formerly been, supplanting his criticism with constructive methodology. His most important studies of his last period were: The American Government (1891); How to Study and Teach History (1894); Jesus as a Teacher and the Making of the New Testament (1895); Teaching the Language-Arts (1896); Horace Mann and the Common School Revival in the United States (1898); The Art of Study (1900); and History of the University of Michigan (1906), posthumously published. Hinsdale died at Atlanta, Georgia, in his sixty-fourth year.

Achievements

• Hinsdale was a prominent author of numerous books and articles and educator with national reputation. He is best remembered for his service at Hiram College and Cleveland public schools. He sought to strengthen the schools and, during his administration, built 14 new buildings.

Works

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  • Teaching the Language-arts; Speech, Reading, Composition

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • President Hayes's Southern Policy. An Address Delivered in the Town Hall, Hiram, Ohio, Tuesday Evening, September 25, 1877

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Studies in Education

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • History of the University of Michigan, with biographical sketches of regents and members of the University Senate from 1837 to 1906

    (History of the University of Michigan, with biographical ...)

  • How to study and teach history, with particular reference to the history of the United States

    (How to study and teach history, with particular reference...)

  • The Art of Study: A Manual for Teachers and Students of the Science and the Art of Teaching

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • Jesus as a Teacher: And the Making of the New Testament (1895) (Paperback) - Common

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • The Old Northwest; the beginnings of our colonial system

    (The Old Northwest; the beginnings of our colonial system....)

  • Jesus as a teacher and the making of the New Testament

    (Jesus as a teacher and the making of the New Testament. 3...)

Membership

Hinsdale was a member of the National Educational Association; of the National Council of Education, of which he was president in 1897; and of the Michigan State Teachers' Association, of which he was president at the time of his death.

Connections

On May 24, 1862, Hinsdale married Mary Eliza Turner of Cleveland who had been a classmate at Hiram.

Spouse :

Mary E (Turner) Hinsdale

Daughter :

Mary Louise Hinsdale

Father :

Albert Hinsdale

Brother:

Wilbert Bartlett Hinsdale

mother :

Clarinda E. (Eyles) Hinsdale

Daughter:

Ellen C Hinsdale

Friend:

James A. Garfield