Bruce Ryburn Payne was born on February 18, 1874 in Mull's Grove, Catawba County, North Caroline, United States. He was the second son and second child of Jordan Nathaniel and Barbara Anne Eliza (Warlick) Payne. He came of pioneer stock, English and Pennsylvania German on his father's side and Swiss on his mother's. His father was a teacher and school superintendent and Methodist preacher, licensed to preach but never fully ordained.
Bruce Ryburn Payne prepared for college at the Patten School at Morganton, North Carolina, and in 1892 entered Trinity College (later Duke University) at Durham, North Caroline. His first ambition was to become a physician, and his under-graduate training was planned with that end in view. In 1902 he received his M. A. , and in the fall of the same year he began further graduate study at Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York. Payne received an M. A. in 1903 and a Ph. D. in 1904, writing as his dissertation Public Elementary School Curricula: A Comparative Study of Representative Cities of the United States, England, Germany and France (1905). He later received honorary degrees from Trinity in 1917, Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) in 1920, and Columbia in 1929.
Upon graduating (Bachelor of Arts) in 1896, however, Bruce Ryburn Payne became principal of Morganton Academy, which position he held for three years, serving also as superintendent of schools in Burke County in the third year. Having by 1899 decided on teaching as a career, Payne took a position in the Durham High School, enrolling for graduate study at Trinity at the same time. His most influential teachers were Paul Monroe, John Dewey, Edward L. Thorndike, and the distinguished Herbartian Frank Morton McMurry, who served as his major professor.
Following the completion of his doctorate at Columbia, Payne served for a year as professor of philosophy and education at the College of William and Mary. From 1905 to 1911 he taught at the University of Virginia, first as professor of secondary education, then as professor of psychology and director of the summer session. He personally raised the money to match the one and one-half million dollars granted for this purpose by the trustees of the Peabody Education Fund. He planned the buildings and campus somewhat in the style of those of the University of Virginia, assembled an able faculty, and made his college the most influential institution for the training of teachers in the South.
Bruce Ryburn Payne died of a heart attack on April 21, 1937 in Nashville, Tennessee.
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
Bruce Ryburn Payne was somewhat over medium height and rather stocky in build. All his movements betrayed intense nervous energy, restlessness, and determination. If his manner was at times somewhat preoccupied and aloof, he was nevertheless capable of the warmest human feelings.
On December 7, 1897, Bruce Ryburn Payne married Lula Carr of Kinston, North Carolina. Their only child, Maxwell Carr, was born in 1898.
