William Harold Payne

Background

William Harold Payne was born on May 12, 1836 in Farmington, Ontario County, New York, United States. He was the son of Gideon Riley Payne and Mary Brown (Smith).

Education

William Harold Payne attended country school during the winter months and by the time he was thirteen had mastered textbooks on algebra and grammar. Since he was of frail constitution, he found farm work heavy as well as irksome, and accordingly his mother, who recognized his bent for study, encouraged him to enter the Macedon Academy in 1852. Here he studied for two years, teaching in country schools part of the time.

Career

During the summer of 1854, William Harold Payne attended the New York Conference Seminary at Charlottesville, then gave eighteen months to teaching country schools. He was then appointed principal of the Union School at Three Rivers, Michigan, where his wife's family had settled. Under his administration the school grew from two to six departments in six years, and he won a local reputation. In 1864, he became principal of the union school at Niles, Michigan, and from 1866 to 1869 was in charge of Ypsilanti Seminary, resigning that position to become superintendent of public schools at Adrian. He was the editor of Michigan Teachers Association's organ, the Michigan Teacher, from its first issue, January 1866, to 1870.

During his first year at Adrian William Harold Payne delivered an address, The Relation between the University and Our High Schools (published 1871), by which he first attracted attention as an advocate of a coordinated state school system which would permit the pupil to pass by regular steps from the primary grades to the University. He also urged the training of prospective teachers in the technique of teaching. His views met with some opposition, but won the favorable notice of James B. Angell, president of the University of Michigan, who succeeded, in 1878, in securing the establishment of a chair of education in the University, the first chair of pedagogy in the United States.

The department of education developed under his professorship until it included seven courses offered by the professor himself and four courses in special methods by members of other departments. In 1887 Payne accepted the dual position of chancellor of the University of Nashville and president of Peabody Normal School, Nashville, Tenn. He reorganized the library, raised the standards of the normal school, which in 1889 was renamed Peabody Normal College, and by 1901 had more than trebled the enrollment. In that year he resigned to resume his old professorship at the University of Michigan, vacated by the death of his successor, Burke A. Hinsdale.

During the Nashville period he translated The Elements of Psychology (1890) and Psychology Applied to Education (1893) from the French of Compayre, and Émile (1893) from the French of J. J. Rousseau. In 1901 he published The Education of Teachers. Ill health compelled him to retire from teaching in 1904 and he died in Ann Arbor three years later on June 18, 1907.

Achievements

• William Harold Payne was the first Professor of the Science and Art of Teaching at the University of Michigan. He wrote Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on the Science and Art of Teaching (1879), Outlines of Educational Doctrine (1882), Contributions to the Science of Education (1886), edited D. P. Page's Theory and Practice of Teaching (1885), and translated The History of Pedagogy (1886) from the French of Gabriel Compayre. He had previously published Chapters On School Supervision (1875).

Works

More photos

• book

  • History of pedagogy;

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Chapters On School Supervision: A Practical Treatise On Superintendence; Grading: Arranging Courses of Study; the Preparation and Use of Blanks, Records, and Reports; Examinations for Promotion, Etc

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

  • The Michigan Teacher Volume 1

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

  • Contributions to the Science of Education 1886

    (Originally published in 1886. This volume from the Cornel...)

Membership

William Harold Payne was a president of the Michigan Teachers Association in 1866.

Personality

William Harold Payne was a perfect disciplinarian, combining gentleness and firmness in a singular degree.

Connections

On October 2, 1856, William Harold Payne married Sara Evaline Fort, and with her conducted the school at Victor, New York, for the next two years. His first wife had died in 1899, and on July 6, 1901, William Harold Payne married Elizabeth Rebecca Clark. He had five children by his first marriage.

Father:

Gideon Riley Payne

Mother:

Mary Brown Smith Payne

Spouse :

Eva Sarah Fort Payne

Spouse :

Elizabeth Rebecca Clark Payne

Daughter :

Eva Payne Jones

Daughter :

Clara Louise Payne McClelland

Sister :

Cynthia Orlena Payne Mitchell

Sister :

Salinda Power Payne Converse

Sister:

Lydia M. Payne Sheldon

Brother :

Chauncy S. Payne

Brother :

Frank Riley Payne

Daughter:

Emma Payne Murkin

Daughter:

May Payne Fields

Son:

William Riley Payne