Monographs on education in the United States; 15 education of defectives
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Edward Ellis Allen was an American educator of the blind. He introduced the Braille code as the universal writing system for blind readers and was one of the few educators who knew all four Braille codes.
Background
Edward Ellis Allen was born on August 1, 1861 in West Newton, Massachussets, United States. He was the oldest of the four children of James Theodore Allen and Caroline Augusta (Kittredge) Allen. He was descended from Pilgrim forebears; the first of his paternal line in America was James Allen, who settled in Medfield, Massachussets, in 1649. From both parents he gained a heritage of social consciousness and respect for learning. James Allen was a teacher in the English and Classical School, the first school in America to have a kindergarten, which had been founded by his brother Nathaniel. Caroline Allen, who traced her ancestry to William Bradford, was a quiet, studious woman who had been a pupil at Brook Farm, a transcendentalist community established by George Ripley.
Education
Allen was educated at his uncle's school and for two years (1872-1874), and then at German schools in Leipzig and Zurich. He entered Harvard College in 1880 and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1884. Yielding to his mother's desire that he study medicine, Allen then entered Harvard Medical School.
Career
Allen accepted an offer to teach at the Royal Normal College in Upper Norwood, London, England, under the direction of Doctor (later Sir) Francis J. Campbell, a remarkable blind American who had formerly taught at the Perkins Institution for the Blind (now Perkins School for the Blind) in South Boston. Allen found teaching more rewarding and better suited to his taste than practicing medicine, and he acquired an enthusiasm for providing blind persons with a chance to live independent lives without the need of charitable assistance. He returned to the United States in 1888 and became the headmaster of the boys' school of Perkins Institution. There he worked with Michael Anagnos, the son-in-law and successor to Samuel Gridley Howe, who had established the school in 1831.
In 1890, at the age of twenty-nine, Allen was named principal of the Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind in Philadelphia. Although his premature baldness had led the trustees to believe they were hiring an older man, his performance soon justified their initial confidence. In his seventeen years as principal, Allen transformed what had been a cheerless charitable home into a vibrant educational institution. Allowing the department of manufactures and sales to languish and die, he stressed instead reading, music, nature study, and athletics; and he initiated a program to help graduates of the school to find employment. He replaced the widely used Howe type with the New York Point type, which blind students found easier to learn and which, unlike Howe, they could write as well as read. Allen was also an early and enthusiastic advocate of the introduction of Braille.
Determined to broaden his knowledge of the psychology of educating handicapped children, he spent the summers of 1895 and 1896 studying with G. Stanley Hall at Clark University, and he formed a close working relationship with Edward R. Johnstone, director of the Vineland (New Jersey) Training School for the feebleminded.
In 1907, following the death of Michael Anagnos, Allen was appointed director of the Perkins Institution. Here at least he did not have to create a "new spirit" as he had in Pennsylvania. Under Howe and Anagnos, ideals were established which brought a sense of dignity and purpose to blind men and women, and a standard of dedication to their teachers. Allen moved Perkins to a suburban estate in Watertown, Massachussets, where it became a standard for many similar institutions. Believing with the school's founder that the successful socialization of blind students would only emerge from a family environment, he reestablished at the new facility the "cottage-family" plan. In this way, students, teachers, and, frequently, guests could live, eat, and play together.
Allen's concern for the proper educational guidance of the blind led him to sponsor scientific research into the psychology of blindness and to attempt to raise the teaching of the blind to the level of a profession. In 1916, in cooperation with his successor at the Pennsylvania Institution at Overbrook, he interested Samuel P. Hayes, professor of psychology at Mount Holyoke College, to devote part of his time to the development of tests and measurements for use with the blind students. The resulting Hayes-Binet Intelligence Tests helped dispel the popular belief that blind people in general are mentally defective and for the first time permitted the accurate classification of blind pupils.
In 1920 Allen cooperated with Harvard University in presenting a series of extension lectures on the education of the blind. His other activities on behalf of the blind included participation in programs for the prevention of blindness, the establishment of classes for the partially seeing, and, in 1932, the establishment of a summer camp for the blind in Manchester, New Hampshire.
In 1931 Allen was involuntarily retired as director of the Perkins Institution because of his age and the onset of deafness. He carried on his writing and his professional activities until his death of uremia at Muhlenburg Hospital in Plainfield, New Jersey. His remains were buried in Newton Cemetery, Newton Center, Massachussets.
Achievements
Allen was a director of the Overbrook School for the Blind and oversaw the design and construction of the campus so the plan and layout allowed students to travel independently and safely, thus the school became a model for other schools for the blind. One more important contribution was to move the Pennsylvania Institution from inadequate and overcrowded facilities in Philadelphia to new, well-designed quarters in suburban Overbrook. His series of extension lectures on the education of the blind laid the groundwork for the subsequent introduction of graduate courses on the education of the blind by universities throughout America.
Allen also sponsored research and the development of standardized testing which established that the intelligence of people with visual impairment is unimpaired. In partnership with the American Foundation for the Blind he established the Department of Special Studies at Perkins in 1927, which conducted child-based research to introduce innovations in the education of students who are blind. He helped to establish the first school for the partially seeing in the United States in Boston, as well and was a prolific contributor of scholarly papers to journals and the conventions of professional societies.
Among his awards are the Leslie Dana Gold Medal from the National Society for Prevention of Blindness, the Gold Medal from the Institute of Social Sciences and the Shotwell Gold Medal from the American Association of Workers for the Blind.
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Membership
Allen served three terms as a member of the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind. He was president of the department of special education of the National Education Association, and the Massachusetts Association of Instructors of the Blind (1915).
Connections
On July 9, 1891 Allen married Katharine Francena Gibbs of Westfield, Massachussets, a teacher at Perkins. They had three children.
