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High School Inspection by the University of Wisconsin, 1877–1931

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Robert J. Gough
Robert J. Gough*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
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Extract

During the decades around the beginning of the twentieth century, public universities in the United States commonly employed a “certificate system” to establish eligibility for undergraduate admittance. “Certification” meant that between 1877 and 1931 representatives of the University of Wisconsin inspected high schools and had face-to-face interaction with pupils, teachers, and administrators. If they found a school's facilities, curriculum, and teaching to be satisfactory, graduates—with the endorsement of their principal—could enter the University as freshmen without further examination. This process of certification by inspection was part of a broader dialogue between Wisconsin high schools and the state university. The principal inspector during the 1920s, Thomas Lloyd-Jones, brought together strands of both administrative and pedagogical Progressivism, while insisting on the importance of academic subjects in the high school curriculum. By encouraging closer articulation between secondary schools and colleges, it was a central component of what educational historian Mark VanOverbeke has described as a more “stratified and standardized educational system” that developed in the United States between 1870 and 1910.

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Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , August 2010 , pp. 263 - 297
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Copyright © 2010 History of Education Society 

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References

1 A sympathetic overview of the certificate system is Wechsler, Harold S. The Qualified Student: A History of Selective College Admission in America (New York: Wiley, 1977), 16–61, focusing on Michigan and Illinois. See also Krug, Edward A. The Shaping of the American High School, vol. 2: 1920–1941 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1972), 63–66; and Soares, Joseph A. The Power of Privilege: Yale and America's Elite Colleges (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 15–18. For a highly negative view of the inspection system, see Johnson, Henry C. Jr. and Johaningmeier, Edwin V. Teachers for the Prairie: The University of Illinois and the Schools, 1868–1945 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972), 44, 75, 82, 83, 93–97, 251–59, 352–53, 361.Google Scholar

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51 Curti, et al. University of Wisconsin, vol. 3 94, 556.Google Scholar

52 Birge's letter is reprinted as “President Birge Explains the Dismissal of Students from the University and Methods Used in Eliminating Failures,” Wisconsin Journal of Education 53 (1921): 164–66.Google Scholar

53 Ross is quoted in the A.P. report titled “Madison Univ … Puts Skids Under Dull or Lazy Students,” Chippewa Herald-Telegram, 16 February 1926, 6. His statement received nationwide attention with slightly different wording in “At Wisconsin,” Time, 22 February 1926, 22–23. See also Ross, Seventy Years of It: An Autobiography (New York: Appleton Century, 1936, reprint, 1977), 104. In just over a year, readers of the New York Times encountered articles about the University titled, “Wisconsin Student Shot by Policeman,” 29 May 1920, 18; “Use Bombs in Class Fight,” 9 June 1921, 13; and “[Court] Warns Frats on Carousing,” 16 July 1921, 6. A recent overview and evaluation of this image of hedonistic undergraduate life during the interwar period can be found in Thelin, John R. A History of American Higher Education (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 211–26, 254–56.Google Scholar

54 A.P. dispatch titled, “Reports Students Are Drinking Less,” New York Times, 15 June 1927, 12.Google Scholar

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69 University of Wisconsin, Catalogue 1915–1916 (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1915), 101. Referring to the 1920s, Krug identifies the “folklore of the times” rather than actual admission requirements as why students continued to study foreign languages in high school. See Krug, The Shaping of the American High School, 67.Google Scholar

70 Woerdehoff, Frank J. “Dr. Charles McCarthy: Planner of the Wisconsin System of Vocational and Adult Education,“ Wisconsin Magazine of History 41 (1958): 270–74; Buenker, John D. History of Wisconsin: The Progressive Era, 1893–1914 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1998), 368–71; Glad, Paul W. History of Wisconsin: War, a New Era, and Depression, 1914–1940 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1990), 256–58, 262–63.Google Scholar

71 “Supt. Cary is Blamed: Secretary of the State Board of Education Launches Attack,” Daily Northwestern, 5 November 1920, 12.Google Scholar

72 Sinclair, Upton The Goslings: A Study of American Schools (Pasedena: privately printed, 1924), 278–79, 320–21. The 1910 U.S. census for Menasha, Winnebago County reported that in her lifetime Callahan's wife gave birth to three children, presumably the three daughters then living in the Callahan household, none of whom could have been a textbook salesman in 1921. Cary's assistant, Carter Alexander, similarly explained “why the department fell” (conflating personality and institution). See, “The Wisconsin State Department of Public Instruction Under Cary,” School and Society 14 (1921): 529–44. For a sarcastic rejoinder by Fitzpatrick, Edward A. secretary of the Board of Education, see School and Society 15 (1922): 110–12.Google Scholar

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79 “Better Rural Schools, Says New Candidate,” Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, 22 February 1921, 1.Google Scholar

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81 Curti, et al. University of Wisconsin, vol. 3 143–212.Google Scholar

82 Wisconsin Journal of Education 60 (1928): 424. For a general overview, see Curti, et al. University of Wisconsin, vol. 3, 95–97.Google Scholar

83 Curti, et al. University of Wisconsin, vol. 3 750–52. While never fully implemented, the reforms brought highly favorable national attention to the University. See, “Wisconsin to Try New Academic Plan,” New York Times, 21 September 1930, E6. The proposals were explained and defended by Fish, Carl Russell the chair of chair of the committee that recommended them, in “The Wisconsin Curriculum,” School and Society 33 (1931): 242–45.Google Scholar

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85 Curti, et al. University of Wisconsin, vol. 3 303–12; Larsen, The President Wore Spats, 139–51; Glad, War, a New Era, and Depression, 499–506. The responsibility for the idea that there was at least a tacit understanding between Frank and Callahan is mine, not the aforementioned authors.Google Scholar

86 Callahan, John to V. E. Klontz, 15 April 1946 (retained carbon), in Superintendent of Public Instruction, Inspection Reports, 1939–1948, box 4, Wisconsin Historical Society.Google Scholar

87 “Charge Small High Schools are not Doing Good Education Job,” Appleton Post-Crescent, 8 November 1938, 21.Google Scholar

88 Lloyd-Jones, Thomas “Junior College in the State's Program of Education,“ NASSP Bulletin 14 (1930): 69–74.Google Scholar

89 Capital Times, 2 August 1930, 14 (reprinted from the Muscoda Progressive).Google Scholar

90 Wisconsin State Journal, 13 May 1931, 22.Google Scholar

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97 By the fall of 1929, 42 percent of new teachers in Wisconsin high schools came from the teachers colleges and only 19 percent came from the University. See Wisconsin Teachers Association, Guiding Wisconsin's Growing Generations (Madison: Wisconsin Teachers Association, 1933), 25. As DPI pressed for more high schools to teach manual arts, in the mid-1930s the University dropped its teacher education program in that subject.Google Scholar

98 Curti, et al. University of Wisconsin, vol. 3 740.Google Scholar

99 Wisconsin State Journal, 1 December 1931, 5. Despite its limited implementation, the idea of the University's “service centers” for high school teachers attracted positive national publicity. See, Benjamin Fine, “Educators Seek Better Program in High Schools,” New York Times, 12 May 1940, 50.Google Scholar

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101 Sellery, S. C. Some Ferments at Wisconsin, 1901–1947 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1960), 45–50; Curti, et al. University of Wisconsin, vol. 1, 367 describe an initially close relationship between the School of Education and its parent College of Letters and Sciences at the time of its founding in 1919. For details on the later reorganization, see Curti, et al. University of Wisconsin, vol. 3, 103–7. For an overview of the School of Education's history during the middle decades of the twentieth century, see Farwell, Gail F. “The School of Education: Development in Action,” in A Resourceful University: The University of Wisconsin—Madison in Its 125th Year, eds. Bogue, Allan G. and Taylor, Robert (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975), 25–36. By emphasizing continued collaboration between Letters and Sciences and Education, Curti, et al. presents an interpretation different than mine. See Curti, et al. University of Wisconsin, vol. 3, 739–42.Google Scholar

102 On the limited interest of Letters and Sciences faculty in the School of Education, at least by the 1940s, see the oral history of Pierstorff, Lola R. a librarian and assistant professor of Curriculum and Instruction, in the University Oral History Project. An excellent discussion of the “gradual erosion of the relationship” between liberal arts and education faculty members after 1920 in a neighboring state is Persons, Stow “Education and the Liberal Arts at the University of Iowa,“ Annals of Iowa 52 (1993): 150–65.Google Scholar

103 On the growing “coziness” between DPI and the School of Education, see the oral history of Eye, Glen G. professor of Educational Administration and principal of the on-campus Wisconsin High School, in the University Oral History Project.Google Scholar

104 Bridgeman, Louis “Enriching the Curriculum: A Plan for the Small High School,“ Wisconsin Journal of Education 74 (1942): 237–38. In general, see “Highlight History of Extension in Wisconsin, 1862 to 1999,” http://www.uwex.edu/about/history/; and Curti, et al. University of Wisconsin, vol. 3, 764.Google Scholar

105 About 650 visitation reports for 1944–1947 can be found in Superintendent of Public Instruction, Inspection Reports, 1939–1948, boxes 3, 4, and 8 in the archives at the Wisconsin Historical Society.Google Scholar

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107 Goddard, “The Portion of the High-School Program that May Advantageously be given to Vocational Work,“ 288–89.Google Scholar

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109 The study particularly resonated in Wisconsin because Wisconsin High School in Madison was one of the twenty-six participating high schools. See “Ryan Cites Plan to Experiment at Wisconsin High,” Wisconsin State Journal, 9 June 1933, 11. The University was one of eighteen participating colleges and Letters and Sciences waived “regular admission requirements” for freshmen from participating high schools. See Board of Regents minutes, 17 June 1933. A balanced contemporary overview of the project is Barnard, Eunice “Progressives Hail New Type School,“ New York Times, 1 August 1937, 77. Education professor and soon-to-be University registrar Little, J. Kenneth presented a qualified endorsement of the Study's findings regarding college preparation in a 1942 address to the Wisconsin Secondary School Principals’ conference entitled, “The High School of Tomorrow.” See the, Wisconsin Journal of Education 74 (1942): 421–25. On the project in general, see Ravitch, Diane Left Behind: A Century of Failed School Reforms (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), 281–82.Google Scholar

110 Little, J. Kenneth “University Entry Requirements,“ Wisconsin Journal of Education 74 (1942): 234–36.Google Scholar

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113 A.P. report published as “College Officials Discuss Entrance Standard Changes,” La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press, 9 March 1937, 6.Google Scholar

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116 “Visitors’ Board Holds U.W. Has Lost No Prestige; Backs Regents’ Actions,” Wisconsin State Journal, 12 March 1936, 2.Google Scholar

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119 “Report of the Committee on College Entrance Requirements,” attachment to Board of Regents Minutes, 14 March 1942. See “U.W. Relaxes Requirements for Admission,” Wisconsin State Journal, 3 March 1942, 4; “New U. of W. Entrance Requirements,” Wisconsin Journal of Education 74 (1942): 436, 444. This change followed the nationwide pattern during the 1930s. See Gladfelter, Mildred E. “Status and Trends of College Entrance Examinations,“ School Review 45 (1937): 737–49.Google Scholar

120 Giordano, Gerald How Testing Came to Dominate American Schools: The History of Educational Assessment (New York: Peter Lang, 2005), 45–46, 80–83, 179, situates college entrance exams into the context of the development of standardized testing in the United States in the first third of the twentieth century.Google Scholar

121 See, for example, the A.P. report, “Harvard to Offer Scholarships for Students in the West,” La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press, 16 February 1934, 18. Lehman, Nicholas The Big Test (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1999) is a well-known examination of the rise of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). However, in Power of Privilege, especially 88–96, 192–96, Soares questions Lehman's argument that testing actually led to a “meritocracy” regime at elite American universities, at least Yale.Google Scholar

122 For example, “Entrance Examination for Colleges Planned,” La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press, 26 November 1941, 14.Google Scholar

123 This “differential treatment of students” in admissions and placement, closely associated with education dean and later university president Coffman, Lotus D. is celebrated by Gray, James The University of Minnesota, 1851–1951 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1951), 132–33, 195–99, 218–26, 351–59, 471–81. Its connection to eugenics, and manifestation in racism towards African Americans, has more recently been emphasized by Mark Soderstrom. See Soderstrom, Mark “Sorting Citizens: Science and Segregation at the University of Minnesota, 1900–1940” (unpublished paper read to the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Minneapolis, 31 March 2007). Under Cary, DPI had begun widespread standardized testing in 1916 at all grade levels. See Clark, “Wisconsin State Department of Public Instruction,” 166–79.Google Scholar

124 See the University news service press release at the time of Holt's death, 1 April 1948, in Holt's biographical file, University of Wisconsin-Madison archives.Google Scholar

125 Berhke, J. Alden “New Hands Help Guide the Freshmen's Steps,“ New York Times, 30 September 1928, 156.Google Scholar

126 “Curricular Changes for the College of Letters and Sciences,” attachment to Board of Regents minutes, 21 June 1930.Google Scholar

127 “Class Efficiency Gains,” New York Times, 24 December 1933, X12.Google Scholar

128 Froehlich, Gustav J. The Prediction of Academic Success at the University of Wisconsin, 1909–1941, Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, General Series no. 2358, Serial no. 2374 (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1941), 31–34.Google Scholar

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130 “Appleton Seniors among Highest in Scholastic Rank,” Appleton Post-Crescent, 10 February 1932, 4.Google Scholar

131 Holt, F. O. “When the H.S. Senior Enters College,“ Wisconsin Journal of Education 62 (1930): 433–34. From a careful reading of Forehlich, Gustav it appears that Holt's claim was based on results of the American Council Psychology Examination given to University freshmen in the fall of 1928, not results of the Ohio State University Psychological Test given to high school students in 1929, which was the actual focus of Holt's article. See Forehlich, The Prediction of Academic Success, 19–23.Google Scholar

132 “Wisconsin U. Plays New Role in State,” New York Times, 26 October 1930, E7.Google Scholar

133 Froehlich, Prediction of Academic Success, 33–36.Google Scholar

134 Byrns, Ruth and Henmon, V. A. C. “Entrance Requirements and College Success,“ School and Society 41 (1935): 101–4. The authors’ argument was that math and foreign languages did not provide “intellectual training” for college because even the small correlation they acknowledged between high school units in these subjects and freshman GPA was mostly explained by the students’ “mental ability” as determined by the American Council exam.Google Scholar

135 Little, “University Entrance Requirements,“ 234–36.Google Scholar

136 Curti, et al. University of Wisconsin, vol. 3 556–67.Google Scholar

137 “Analysis of Occupations of Families of Freshmen in the University of Wisconsin,” School and Society 31 (1930): 11–12.Google Scholar

138 Sabine, Gordon A. “U.W. Expects about $600,000 from Students’ Fees,“ Wisconsin State Journal, 21 September 1941, 4.Google Scholar

139 Letter to the Editor, Capital Times, 2 May 1939, unpaginated.Google Scholar

140 Goetsch, Helen B. “Relation of Parental Income to College Opportunity,“ School Review 48 (1940): 26–34.Google Scholar

141 Curti, et al. University of Wisconsin, vol. 3 554.Google Scholar

142 A.P. report published as “Poll on How to Avoid New Taxes Sought,” LaCrosse Tribune and Leader Press, 9 June 1939, 1.Google Scholar

143 Sheboygan Press, 27 January 1939, cited in Curti, et al. University of Wisconsin, vol. 3, 371.Google Scholar

144 Wisconsin State Journal, 16 June 1940, 13.Google Scholar

145 “U. of W. Victim of Politics But It Will Get Along,” Appleton Post Crescent, 20 May 1939, 1.Google Scholar

146 Soares, Power of Privilege, 149. See also McCarthy, J. Patrick “The Articulation of Secondary and Higher Education: Four Historical Models at the University of Georgia,“ History of Education Annual 19 (1999): 42–47.Google Scholar

147 See Fischer, Karin “Top Colleges Admit Fewer Low-Income Students,“ Chronicle of Higher Education, 2 May 2008, A1, A19–20. Among public institutions, the University of Wisconsin—Madison is a target in Haycock, Kati “Closing College Doors,“ American Prospect, May 2007, A18–19. However, Wolfe, Barbara and John Witte, in “Is the University of Wisconsin—Madison Becoming More Elite?,” La Follette Policy Report 18 (Spring, 2009): 10–16, ascribe the change in student socioeconomic background to the effect of out-of-state enrollees.Google Scholar