Social Phases of Education in the School and the Home 1899
(Originally published in 1899. This volume from the Cornel...)
Originally published in 1899. This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies. All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume.
Samuel Train Dutton was an American educator and peace advocate. He was a pioneer in socializing the schools. He had a profound interest in his fellow mortals and a genius for approaching all kinds of people and enlisting their support in any cause near his heart.
Background
Samuel Train Dutton was born on October 16, 1849 in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. He was the eldest child of Jeremiah Dutton, farmer in the towm of Hillsboro, New Hampshire, and his wdfe Rebecca Hammond Train, daughter of a farmer in the same town. On both sides were ancestors in early colonial Massachusetts. Jeremiah Dutton was a stony, strictly orthodox, severely moral, unsocial, intolerant Puritan, respected and shunned by his neighbors. His wife was equally religious, but in her the hardness of Puritanism was absent. She had physical beauty and social charm. She freely gave and freely received sympathy, kindliness, and forbearance, and she had visions that transcended the Dutton farm.
Education
Samuel was like his mother, and it was with her encouragement that after completing the studies of the district school he went for a winter to the Francestown Academy and in the fall of 1867 entered the Literary and Scientific Institute at New London to prepare for Dartmouth.
Two years later, in the midst of plans for going to Dartmouth, it occurred to him that a country boy ought to attend college in a city.
He therefore chose Yale, and graduated in 1873. He expected eventually to enter the Christian ministry, but his funds were low.
A part of the cost of his education had been met with borrowed money. The rest had been earned. In need of income he assumed charge of the schools in South Norwalk, Connecticut, in the fall of 1873.
Some wavering in the choice of a profession followed; for a time he turned to the study of law.
Career
The schools under Dutton's direction improved so rapidly, however, that he could not escape the consequences, and in 1877 he was elected principal of the Eaton Grammar School in New Haven.
From 1882 to 1890 he was superintendent of the New Haven schools, and at the end of this period a national figure in education. Ten fruitful years as superintendent of schools at Brookline, Massachusetts, followed, with numerous outside calls upon his services.
He was lecturer on pedagogy at Harvard, 1895-97, at the University of Chicago, 1897-98, and at Boston University, 1898.
In 1900 he became superintendent of the Horace Mann Schools and professor of school administration in Teachers College, Columbia University. Here an interest in the peace movement began and grew to be his ruling passion.
He retired from Teachers College in 1915 with the rank of professor emeritus, not to rest, but to work more effectively in the various organizations with which he was still connected. Wherever he went he sought, and in a unique degree secured, cooperation between parents and teachers, not only for the training of children but for the improvement of the community, including parents.
His views on public education arc set forth in his annual reports as superintendent at New Haven and Brookline, and in various educational journals. His views on peace found frequent expression in periodicals, chiefly in Christian Work, the Peace Forum (later the World Court) and the League of Nations Magazine. He edited several school text-books and was author of Social Phases of Education in the School and Home (1899) ; School Management (1903); and, in collaboration with David Sncdden, Administration of Public Education in the United States (1908).
Achievements
Dutton was a pioneer in professionalizing the office of superintendent of schools.
He was secretary of the New York Peace Society, chairman of the executive committee of the National Arbitration and Peace Congress, general secretary of the World’s Court League, trustee of the World Peace Foundation, and member of the international commission on the Balkan War. He was also a trustee of the College for Women in Constantinople and of the Christian College in Canton, China.
