The 1910s Education: Chronology

1910:     September Dewey, Oklahoma, opens the nation's first nongraded school, where students in grades one to twelve work independently.

1911:      The average cost of books per student enrolled in a public school is about $.78.

1911:      Yearly tuition for college at Harvard is $150 per year; at Adelphi $180; at Colgate $60.

1911:      Research shows that 60 percent of eighth graders in Hackensack, New Jersey, cannot write an "acceptable" composition on "A Day in My Life" in fifteen minutes.

1911:      Rochester, New York, sets up a Bureau of Research and Efficiency to compile statistical information on public schools.

1912:      A total of 2,569 students attend evening trade schools in New York City.

1912:      The American Federation of Labor announces its stance that the technical and industrial education of workers should fall within the responsibility of the public school system.

1913:      California begins to provide free elementary school books to every student.

1914:      Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Cornell announce substantial increases in tuition. Harvard engineering students will pay $250, instead of the previous $150, for enrollment in a new cooperative program with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

1914:      The Bureau of Education estimates the total cost of U.S. public education at $750 million. This figure is less than one-third the national expenditure for alcoholic beverages and only three times the amount paid for movie admissions that year.

1914:      About one half of the nation's twenty million schoolchildren attend rural schools.

1915:      Vermont adopts a junior-high-school plan, setting up one hundred separate buildings to house seventh through tenth graders.

1915:     September The Supreme Court of Arkansas declares unconstitutional an enactment by the state legislature appropriating $50,000 of common school funds to build high schools.

1915:     December In New York City, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is chartered, with John Dewey as its president.

1916:      The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), a teacher-only labor union of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), is founded with John Dewey's assistance.

1916:      A study in School and Society cites statistics to support its claim that the United States is endangered because not enough college-educated women are marrying.

1916:      Many colleges include "The War Aims Course" in their curricula to explore issues involved in the Great War (later known as World War I).

1917:      All the former slave states except Missouri and West Virginia have established county training schools for African American students.

1917:      The Smith-Hughes Act provides federal funding to states to prepare students in trade, industry, home economics, and agriculture.

1917:      At the New Trier Township High School in Winnetka, Illinois, a student council is formed to make and enforce school regulations, try pupils for infractions, and fix punishments.

1918:      President Woodrow Wilson authorizes the U.S. Bureau of Education to assist state education officers in finding teachers for normal, secondary, and elementary schools due to a national emergency in teacher shortages.

1918:     June 14 On Flag Day, "Americanization" meetings are held, urging the need to educate recent immigrants in American language, citizenship, and ideals.

1918:     October The Federal Board of Vocational Education sends an appeal to disabled soldiers and sailors in hospitals to get educated in order to be able to lead independent lives after the war ends.

1919:      John Dewey and his colleagues establish the New School for Social Research in New York City. It is an independent university run by the educators themselves.

1919:      The Bureau of Education issues a bulletin on "Opportunities at College for Returning Soldiers," consisting of a list of institutions and facts about courses of study, tuition, and scholarships at each of the nation's colleges.

1919:     January The Progressive Education Association is established. Members cite their dissatisfaction with the "inflexibilities" of traditional schools.