PROFILE: Alexander J. Stoddard
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America's innovative public school leader in the 20th century and a pioneer of instructional television
Copyright © 2005 by E. A. KralThe concept of public schools in America began in 1837 after Horace Mann influenced the Massachusetts legislature to establish a state board of education. He wanted to organize the common schools of his time into a system of public schools that were free, nonsectarian, and accessible to all children. By the end of the 19th century, the nation' s population did begin to grow, in part, because of immigration from Europe and elsewhere, but the economy was primarily based on agriculture, and 41 percent of the population resided on farms. Work habits and moral values were largely taught in the homes.
Though Massachusetts was the first to pass a compulsory school attendance law in 1852, every state had done so by World War I. In 1900, one of ten youth aged fourteen to seventeen was enrolled in high schools nationwide. The proportion that graduated from high school was 8 percent, with only a minority of the graduates going on to college.
At the turn of the 20th century, American schools traditionally concentrated on subject matter, which typically involved courses such as reading, writing, arithmetic, geography and history. Teaching methods were comprised of lectures and dictation, while students memorized from notes taken, and recited what they had learned. They sat in rows of desks fixed to the floor, and teachers usually maintained strict discipline.
This was the era from which Auburn, Nebraska, native Alexander J. Stoddard began his career of more than four decades as an innovative superintendent of schools--starting with three in Nebraska and going on to six more nationally, including Philadelphia and Los Angeles--who also published several articles and books and probably spoke to more audiences in more parts of the nation than any Nebraskan since orator William Jennings Bryan.
By mid-20th century, he ranked among America's foremost educational leaders. He had also participated in reform proposals for Japan's schools and the programs of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). And he was a pioneer of instructional television.
In 1905, A. J. Stoddard began at the age of 16 to teach at the one-room Grand Prairie Rural School District 20, located two miles west and one mile north of Auburn, population 2,729 in southeastern Nebraska. This was followed by two years as principal and teacher at Athens Elementary School in the town. He then studied for one year at nearby Peru State College to earn his administrative certificate in August 1910.
For the next five years, he was superintendent at Newman Grove, population 850, in northern Nebraska's Madison County, then began thinking about becoming a lawyer, so he attended law school at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in the summer of 1915. After enrolling at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in February 1916, he again attended law school at Ann Arbor the following summer, then returned to Lincoln to serve as superintendent for one year at the adjacent village of Havelock.
From 1917 to 1922, his career began to expand during his superintendency in the Gage County community of Beatrice, at the time Nebraska's 5th largest city with a population of 9,664. This was also an era of great expansion of public schooling nationwide, and that is what excited and challenged Stoddard.
In Beatrice, he oversaw construction of a new elementary school and enlargement of another, and the high school earned championships in athletics and debating. He also dealt with the frustrations of the large local German American population during World War I, took part in chamber of commerce activities, coached basketball, and occasionally umpired baseball games.
Elsewhere, he served as president of the Nebraska State Teachers Association in 1920 and completed coursework at UNL, only 40 miles north, for his bachelor's degree issued in June 1922. That summer he attended the renowned Teachers College of Columbia University, then resigned to become head of the schools at the New York City suburb of Bronxville.
According to the August 8, 1922 Beatrice Daily Sun, local school board members released Stoddard from his contract with "keen disappointment" because under his administration "the Beatrice system has been called the best in any city of similar size in this section of the West,...and the work of both the high school and the grades has been broadened along modern lines."
Relocation to Bronxville was a turning point in his career. During the school year as well as summer vacations, he was allowed to attend classes at nearby Teachers College of Columbia University, where he earned his master's degree in 1924. On its faculty were several progressive education leaders who influenced their graduates to help spread school reform nationwide.
Among the most prominent at the time, reported historian Lawrence Cremin in The Transformation of The School (Alfred A. Knopf, 1961), were John Dewey, who proposed ideas that were incorporated into "progressive education" theory; William H. Kilpatrick, a popularizer of progressive education, the child-centered school, and the project method for all subjects in the curriculum, the latter considered a large change in 1915; and George D. Strayer, a co-pioneer of applied research in educational administration.
Progressive education was a composite of theories related to socialization, activity, independence, and child-centered as well as developmental instruction. Its leaders believed that public schools must prepare pupils for a variety of needs essential to society rather than simply the minority that go on to college.
Moreover, emphasis must be placed on the individual child (rather than pupils as a group), on materials that interest the child (rather than forced memorization of facts), on active involvement with objects, locations, and people in addition to reading and hearing about them. In short, the focus of education should be on learning by doing.
Some at Columbia University, such as Kilpatrick and Strayer, were members of a nationwide, exclusive group that combined in trust-like effort, or networks of administrative progressives, according to David Tyack, primary author of Managers of Virtue: Public School Leadership in America 1820-1980 (Basic Books, 1982) and of Tinkering Toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform (Harvard University Press, 1995).
A few networks concentrated on influencing federal or state legislation, some on training and placement systems, some on professional organizations such as the National Education Association (NEA), and others on textbooks, tests, school design and consultations.
"In school districts, the individual leaders who exerted the most influence on public schools were the local superintendents. Most of these administrators came in contact with the program of the educational trust, and it was the superintendents who served as conduits for the new professional norms in communities scattered across the nation."
From 1922 to 1926, Stoddard laid the foundation for a model progressive school system at Bronxville, population 6,387, a residential suburb of business and professional leaders who commuted to nearby New York City. He introduced individualized instruction adapted from the Dalton Plan, founded in 1918 by Helen Parkhurst, and insisted "on conferring with experts Engelhardt and Strayer" of Columbia University, reported Claudia J. Keenan, author of Portrait of A Lighthouse School, published in 1997 on the 75th anniversary of the accreditation of the Bronxville Public Schools.
To help the faculty implement the new methods, he took the unusual step of hiring for one year Marion Carswell, a teacher from the school district of Winnetka, Illinois, at the time the nation's leading progressive public school system. He had also encouraged teachers to buy records and play music.
According to Keenan, "he purchased film projectors and stereopticons, and some Bronxville alumni recall that Stoddard brought radios into the classrooms so students could listen to President Calvin Coolidge's inaugural address."
In a lengthy article published in the March 1926 issue of Education, he not only described local specific procedures of individualization, but also concluded, in part, "From the kindergarten through college, boys and girls have been told, instead of being allowed to do for themselves. If the Individual Method contributes to the development of men and women that are able to stand on their own feet, it will have done much in a democracy where every individual must think for himself."
While planning to leave in the spring of 1926 to pursue professional advancement, he helped arrange that his successor be hired from Winnetka. It was Willard W. Beatty, who became renowned for advancing the Bronxville Schools during the following ten years.
As superintendent the next three years at Schenectady, New York, population 88,723, he "subscribed to the best in the new educational policies... and the Schenectady schools under his stewardship embarked upon new and venturesome educational explorations," wrote Jeanette G. Neisuler, author of The History of Education in Schenectady, published in 1964 by the school district.
He implemented all the classic features of "progressive education" such as child-centered education at Elmer Avenue Elementary School, with chairs and desks unbolted from the floor, and emphasis on children's freedom to ask questions and offer suggestions, occasional trips off campus, and health activities. At Oneida Intermediate School, more time was scheduled for industrial, manual training, and homemaking arts, and other features added for a junior high program, including a library. The high school gained its first guidance counselor.
According to Neisuler, "in 1927, Schenectady became the third in the state to adopt a program of visual instruction, and one of the very first of the smaller cities in the country to do so." Lantern slides and motion pictures were used, and the local General Electric Company loaned films for social and general science classes.
Stoddard attended meetings at nearby Albany and elsewhere. And in March 1928, the NEA Journal published his article on qualities needed by superintendents and the development of professional courses in administration, with references to Columbia University professor George Strayer, lead author of a new textbook on the subject as well as a 1923 survey of the Providence, Rhode Island, Schools.
At the age of 40, he became superintendent at Providence, population 252,981, and while there from 1929 to 1937 he not only implemented several changes ahead of his time but also his career on the national level emerged.
He had taken the position at Providence, knowing about the previous Strayer study and believing the local school system sought expert advice to make improvements. Thus he proceeded to make several changes in school design, classroom instruction, the quality of teaching and administration, and salary scale. The essence of his core values was captured in the October 21, 1934 Providence Journal article titled "School should fit itself to the pupil instead of the pupil to the school."
Stoddard introduced a demonstration school where teachers from Providence and other communities could observe teachers and students involved in the use of the latest techniques of teaching and learning. And he started a cooperative group plan for elementary schools where teachers became proficient in one or two subjects and could discuss their teaching and student progress in group sessions, which encouraged improved ways to assist a child's learning.
Another innovation involved setting up a committee of teachers that met with the superintendent's staff to develop a salary scale that would recognize special training or proficiency, and would assign all teachers and supervisors to a three-schedule program with no differentiation for age or sex. A clause allowed lowering the salary for poor performance after a year's notice and other stipulations. Eventually, most new teachers to the Providence Schools had four-year college degrees, and were better qualified than their predecessors.
During the eight years, he also added a school for the visually impaired, a school for ungraded students, a Fresh Air School (windows were kept open to invigorate classroom atmosphere), and evening and day programs to serve those who wanted to continue their education while they worked, according to former educator Donald E. Leonard's research of local school records and newspapers.
A strong advocate of the junior high school, he also proposed adoption of a democratic rather than autocratic classroom climate, correlated physical education and health work, enriched the curriculum with radio and talking movies, and advised inclusion of civics. He developed the use of radio broadcasts through cooperation with local radio stations to bring learning and information about the schools and their programs into the home.
Nationally, he gradually became part of what Tyack called "the educational trust" by engaging in policy talk and even policy action through appointments to positions of influence, speeches, and publications.
In December 1929, he was appointed by President Herbert Hoover to the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection, and served as chairman of the 41-page subcommittee report titled The Administration of The School Health Program (Century, 1932).
He also began in 1929 his 18 years as an advisor to Encyclopedia Britannica Films, Inc., and as a result of a previous friendship with Bronxville mayor Frederick Devereux, became involved with Erpi Picture Consultants.
With Devereux and two Columbia University professors, he collaborated to publish a 222-page book The Educational Talking Picture (University of Chicago Press, 1933). Its foreword was written by Robert Hutchins, who became a renowned university administrator, foundation executive, and public intellectual.
His first venture in public school textbooks was as secondary co-author with Columbia University researcher William H. Coleman and college presidents Herman L. Donovan and George W. Frasier of Learning To Spell, published by Hall and McCreary in 1931 as a 213-page volume for the second to sixth grades and as a 96-page volume for the seventh and eighth grades.
He presented speeches locally and throughout the New England area, and addressed the NEA and the American Council on Education at annual meetings in 1930 and 1936, respectively. There were also lectures in the summers at Yale University, Columbia University, and the University of Panama.
Among his lengthy professional articles were those published in the November 30, 1930 and March 1933 NEA Journal as well as the August 24, 1935 and March 6, 1937 School and Society.
Most significant during the eight years was his election in February 1935 as president of the NEA's Department of Superintendence for one year, which led in January 1936 to his appointment as the first chairman of the newly created Educational Policies Commission, co-sponsored by the NEA and the American Association of School Administrators (AASA). He was its chairman until 1946.
Stoddard's address titled "Planning Educational Progress" was published by the Commission in 1936 because it presented the traits of policy-making endorsed as basic to its work. It was included with "We Chart Our Future Policies" by fellow Commission member Frederick M. Hunter, a 1905 University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate, a public school administrator in the state until 1917, a recipient of a master's degree from Columbia University in 1919, and later a college chancellor in Colorado and Oregon. They most likely knew each other while in Nebraska.
His next two years were spent as superintendent at Denver, Colorado, population 322,412 by decade's end, where the school system was nationally known for progressivism since World War I, according to historian Cremin.
Locally, he set an example of a democratic (not autocratic) administration by establishing a policies council of principals, teachers, clerks, and janitors that met monthly to consider ideas from 1,700 school employees. Teacher representatives, elected by their members, were the majority, and the superintendent did not have veto power.
Aside from analyzing homework assignments, class size, and retirement age, committees proposed, among many projects, a new experiment to replace textbooks with project guides, reported an article in tbe December 12, 1938 Time, "and 50,000 pupils are to make daily trips to factories, department stores, libraries, police stations, Government buildings."
Elsewhere, many of his speaking engagements in various parts of the nation required travel by airplane. At an Atlantic City, New Jersey, meeting of school administrators, he reviewed major education issues and warned of the dangers of complacency. That address was published in the March 5, 1938 School and Society.
It was also in 1938 that the Educational Policies Commission, chaired by Stoddard and comprised of 20 members, including Prof Strayer, published its milestone 157-page report titled The Purposes of Education in American Democracy.
The report regarded democracy as the established social policy of America (its method of living) and asserted that schools can play an important role in "correcting social ills and building a democracy."
The Commission used the ideals of democracy--general welfare, civil liberties, appeal to reason, consent of the governed, pursuit of happiness--to form the basis of a new school program. To help accomplish these ideals, the four major purposes of schools are related to personal growth of the individual, getting along with other people, earning and spending of an income, and participation in civic affairs.
Years later, the Commission's 1961 update titled The Central Purpose of Education focused on the appeal to reason, stating the main purpose was the development of the freedom to think and to choose, which involves various reasoning processes which can be fostered in the schools and applied elsewhere.
From 1939 to 1948, while superintendent at Philadelphia, the nation's 3rd largest city with a 1940 population of 1,931,334, he became more influential, and demonstrated vision on international issues.
Local innovations were limited during World War II, but afterwards, Stoddard presented a plan for the establishment of "college centers in Philadelphia high schools to help students and many war veterans receive more preparation to qualify for college," reported the January 12, 1946 New York Times. He advised against the long-term creation of a city college.
An unprecedented civic strain at the time was an influx of immigrants from the South. A controversy by teachers at the local Olney High School on May 22, 1947 caused an investigation of charges that the superintendent and board aides allowed development of a general policy of "social promotion" in the elementary schools, that is, pupils advanced from grade to grade because of age, regardless of academic readiness.
Months later, a committee report was issued, placing the blame on lack of funds, and "recommended smaller classes, more teachers, and remedial classes in all schools," reported a July 23, 1948 Philadelphia Inquirer article reprinted a day later in the Los Angeles Times.
Elsewhere, he was very active in the field of publishing and in promoting the importance of education. As chairman of a study committee invited by the Kansas City, Missouri, Board of Education to evaluate its school system, he and his committee published a 35-page report on February 9, 1940. His address before the AASA convention at Atlantic City that asked all educators to respond to critics who charged the schools with being disloyal and subversive was published in the April 1941 NEA Journal.
Toward the end of World War II, he presented his lengthy address "Education and the People's Peace" at meetings of many state and local teachers associations as well as lay groups in various sections of the nation, which was included in the prestigious Representative American Speeches 1944-45 (H. W. Wilson, 1945).
In it, he warned that our nation must not make the same mistake of assuming (as was done after World War I) that the inevitable consequence of war is peace, called for the direct involvement of educators and laymen in peace initiatives, and promoted "support for the establishment of an international office of education as part of the peace machinery."
Meanwhile, as chairman of the Educational Policies Commission, whose 20 members at this time included presidents of Harvard and Cornell Universities, he participated in several publications, including the 421-page Education for All American Youth in 1944.
According to historian Cremin, "since its creation in 1936, the Commission had spoken boldly and authoritatively as the responsible voice of the teaching profession," and it had helped to advance the view that "progressivism had become conventional wisdom in education by the end of World War II."
Stoddard engaged in his second venture in public school publications, too. Along with educators Matilda Bailey and William D. Lewis, he was author of a series of 300-page textbooks intended as a complete elementary program in the field of language arts. Published by the American Book Company in 1944, they were titled English One through English Six, used from grades three to eight.
The program not only presented the usual written and spoken concepts and skills, with many everyday activity suggestions, it also included numerous color illustrations of diverse cultural and work experiences, national and international, rural and urban, including a family watching television.
In 1948, the editions for grades seven and eight were reissued under the title Junior English One and Junior English Two. The entire series was widely used in the United States and in Canada for at least 12 years, and accompanying workbooks were reprinted by Litton Educational Publishing as late as 1974.
He also authored the introduction to the mid-1940s edition of the Book of Knowledge: The Children's Encyclopedia That Leads to Love of Learning, a set of 20 volumes published by Grolier of New York City.
During United States efforts to help Japan rebuild after World War II, he was one of 27 members of the United States Education Mission to Japan in March 1946--the result of a request by General Douglas MacArthur and selection by the U.S. Department of State--charged with helping to create a comprehensive plan for the development of a democratic educational system for Japan.
Its recommendations for changes in the aims and content of Japanese education, administration of education at the primary and secondary levels, teaching and education of teachers, language reform, adult education, and higher education appeared in a 62-page document titled Report of the United States Education Mission to Japan, released in Tokyo on March 30, 1946 and published by the U.S. Government Printing Office that same year as Department of State Publication 2579, Far Eastern Series 11.
The impact of the report aimed at demilitarization, democratization, and localization of its schools was profound. Even though a central ministry of education emerged in Japan in the 1950s to influence curriculum, buildings, textbooks, and teacher salaries, according to the entry on education in Encyclopedia Americana, Vol 15 (2003), "local governments, however, continue to have an important role in personnel selection and everyday management of schools." And to date, the pressure to do well has resulted in "some outstanding achievements of the Japanese school system."
In late 1946, Stoddard was appointed a member of the U.S. National Commission for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), founded that year to help prevent wars by overcoming ignorance and prejudice through improved International cooperation and understanding.
Meanwhile, he had been listed among four finalists for the superintendency of the New York City Public Schools as a result of recommendations from an advisory group headed by Columbia University professor emeritus William Kilpatrick. However, the November 6, 1946 New York Times reported he was "not interested in leaving Philadelphia," but did supply names of possible candidates when contacted several months earlier.
Two years later, however, while he was not a candidate, he did accept an offer to become superintendent at Los Angeles, at the time the nation's 4th largest city with a 1950 population of 1,970,358. And by 1953, the city school system's geographic area, comprised of elementary, high school, and junior college districts, covering 824 square miles, was the largest in the nation.
"Billed as one of America's top six educators," reported the July 24, 1948 Los Angeles Daily News, he was intrigued by "the challenge of the problems of this important community" along with a district of 300,000 enrollment, over 20,000 school personnel, and four junior colleges. Also in 1948, George D. Strayer's survey of the needs of California higher education presented what historians called the first comprehensive state higher education plan in the nation, which recommended master degree programs for state colleges, restriction of doctoral degree programs to the University of California, and addition of new state colleges in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Long Beach.
The rapidly increasing birth rate after World War II, the granting of federal funds to military veterans to attend colleges, and the passage of local bond issues helped expand the Los Angeles City School Districts and indeed many others nationwide.
In 1946, local voters passed a $75 million bond issue, of which 60 percent was spent for new elementary, junior high, and senior high buildings, many constructed during Stoddard's years of service. And with the help of state funds, the Districts built three new junior colleges. Opened in 1949 were Harbor Junior College in Wilmington and Los Angeles Valley Junior College at Van Nuys and in 1950 Los Angeles Metropolitan Junior College in the city itself.
In 1952, a bond issue of $130 million was approved, permitting construction of 49 new elementary, 10 junior high, and 3 senior high buildings along with many additional classrooms and other features at existing facilities.
At the same time, the Cold War between Communism and democracy affected the schools. In one local speech, reported the November 7, 1949 Los Angeles School Journal, Stoddard acknowledged that the schools, churches, homes, and other institutions are major factors in protecting youth from propaganda, and "they must leave our schools prepared to answer the insidious questioner, prepared to stand straight and tall in the pride of their American heritage."
He also notified parents that atomic bombing drills would be a regular part of the 1950-51 school program, according to the September 25, 1950 Time, so that pupils could "drop immediately to the ground or floor, face down," though "we sincerely hope that all of our plans and procedures will never have to be put into actual use."
In an AASA address reprinted in the April 1951 NEA Journal, he argued that ideas are more powerful than bombs, and identified six concerns that could affect "our continued existence as a free nation."
In October 1950, he met with a representative of the National Association of School Secretaries, and agreed to help employees form what became the California Association of Educational Office Employees the following summer. He was also involved with local publication, for under his direction a 137-page Music Experiences for Children in the Fifth and Sixth Grades With An Aural Approach to Music Reading was published in 1950 by the Los Angeles City School Districts for use in its basic institute sessions.
And as an outcome of his attendance at seven meetings of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO between September 1948 and May 1951, he authored a teacher handbook titled The "E" in UNESCO in 1951 for use in the local school system.
Some local individuals objected to teaching students how to separate propaganda from fact and to Stoddard's initiation of his UNESCO program, according to a November 2, 1951 editorial in the University of California at Los Angeles Daily Bruin. And after several months of protesting his "internationalism," critics convinced the board of education to withdraw from use his teacher handbook, reported the September 17, 1952 Christian Century. The following year he planned to use a Ford Foundation grant "to set up special examinations to select each year 90 qualified men and women with B. A. degrees who might make good teachers" to cope with the continued increase of new students. But it was criticized as a way of bringing back UNESCO into the local school system, reported the July 27, 1953 Time, so he withdrew the plan.
In 1954, A. J. Stoddard retired from his position at the age of 65, completing 47 years as a public school educator. A one-page editorial titled "Portrait of An American" in the May 18, 1954 Los Angeles School Journal noted, in part, that "he, like our Country itself, has weathered many storms, for he speaks rather than shouts, and is more concerned with acts than with busyness," and closed with appreciation "for making it possible for others to know why he believes so strongly in the traditions of the past, and the rich heritage of the future."
The July 12, 1954 Time article titled "The Optimist" reviewed his career and praised his accomplishments, and the same month, Nation's Schools reported on the eve of his retirement that "Los Angeles school employees contributed $10,000 in his name to the local Parent Teacher Association dental clinic."
During and after Stoddard's career, there had been a large increase of students enrolled and graduating from high schools nationwide. According to historian Tyack, by 1940, seven of ten were enrolled, and by 1980, it became nine of ten. As for graduation, in 1920, it was 17 percent; in 1940, 51 percent; in 1960, 69 percent, and in 1980, 71 percent.
Despite criticisms of the "life adjustment emphasis" of the progressive era in the 1950s, some of the reforms endured in various ways in American education. Most visible was the widespread adoption of vocational and general education offerings as well as academics in the curriculum. There were also guidance counselors and the design of the new high schools, often single story like elementary schools, which "were less austere than the fortresses they replaced," wrote Robert L. Hampel, author of The Last Little Citadel: American High Schools Since 1940 (Houghton Mifflin, 1986).
Later on, particularly after the 1960s, changes that resembled what progressives had advocated did occur. In general, they involved relationships between school administrators and teachers (the latter had gained the power to negotiate salaries and other issues), relationships between teachers and students, commitment "to more responsive, flexible, and unprejudiced schools," partnerships with the workplace, and flexible schedules, to name a few. Individualized instruction was a continuing priority, along with the encouragement of students to inquire and think on their own.
Meanwhile, Stoddard maintained his innovative influence on American education, even though he had suffered a mild heart attack in October 1954 during a visit to Lincoln, Nebraska. After months of rest at his California home, he was ready to do more.
In 1956, at the invitation of the Fund for the Advancement of Education, an independent philanthropic organization established in 1951 by the Ford Foundation, he studied educational programs at large city school systems by visiting 72 communities nationwide and talking to over 1,000 people interested in education to "submit suggestions on ways of meeting the critical shortages of teachers and buildings."
His 62-page report Schools For Tomorrow: An Educator's Blueprint, published in January 1957, offered several proposals, including the use of "television as an integral part of the school program," and provided examples of its use already being experimentally conducted.
And his October 1957 NEA Journal article advocated more experimentation to determine "practical ways to incorporate television into the school program to lessen the regular load of teachers so they can work more effectively," which types of learning are best suited to television, and whether it "will make possible effective instruction of large classes in some subject-matter areas."
This was known as the Stoddard Plan. Teachers at the time generally misunderstood his proposal as a way to reduce staff, but they had overlooked his argument that any money saved should be used to raise teachers' salaries, hire nonprofessional aides to help with various tasks, and pay the cost of television instruction.
According to a lengthy profile titled "Alexander J. Stoddard: Man of Action" in the May 20, 1961 Saturday Review, "he did not answer his critics publicly, except to point out that the object of his plan was not to save teachers or classrooms or the taxpayers' money, but to save thousands of American boys and girls from getting a poor education."
In the 1960s, more public schools began to use television. Originally supported by the Ford Foundation in 1952, educational television was encouraged for classroom use by passage of the National Defense Education Act in 1958, and by legislation of the U.S. Congress in 1962 for the construction of ETV stations with federal funds matched by state or local sources.
As for A. J. Stoddard's legacy, he was clearly a leader ahead of his time who set a standard of achievement few in public school administration ever match. While many do excel in day-to-day management, staffing, building construction, and public relations, very few also implement lasting innovations such as individualized instruction, the use of technology, and the encouragement of free inquiry and thinking. And it is even rarer to author or co-author many publications and serve in national positions of broad influence.
He also promoted the ideals of democracy and freedom through education worldwide in enduring ways. Not only did he aid in the development of Japan's schools after World War II but his early advocacy helped involve the United States in the founding of UNESCO, which now has 150 member nations headquartered in Paris, France, that focus on educational programs to eliminate illiteracy and improve basic skills.
And he went beyond achieving the American dream by starting his career as a one-room country school teacher and finishing as a leader of the nation's teachers and administrators. For in his November 1930 NEA Journal profile of the "father" of America's schools, he indicated the educator's mission has a higher purpose when he closed with Horace Mann's essential belief: "Be ashamed to die until after you have won some victory for humanity."
Among various forms of recognition for Stoddard were almost 40 citations in the personal names index of the New York Times between 1937 and 1958. He received honorary doctorates from Rhode Island College in 1933, Beaver College and Temple University in 1939, the University of Nebraska and University of Pennsylvania in 1940, Bucknell University in 1947, Occidental College in 1949, and the College of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons in 1954.
Columbia University granted him the prestigious Butler Medal in 1938, and he was named Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society of Education Laureate in 1947. He also received the first Disinguished Educational Service Award from Peru State College in 1960 and the Distinguished Service Award from the AASA in 1962.
Two schools in the nation were named after him. Opened in the fall of 1956, Stoddard Elementary School at 400 South 7th Street in Beatrice, Nebraska, was named by the board of education "in honor of an outstanding school administrator who once served in Beatrice." The following February, he was honored at a local chamber of commerce dinner and toured the facility, reported articles in the February 6-7, 1957 Beatrice Daily Sun. In his address, he called his visit "one of the happiest moments of my life," reiterated the importance of good schooling, and stated, in part, "Freedom is not free....We must be willing to pay the price. We must be willing to give up prejudice, bigotry and intolerance and be willing to give the other man a right to his freedom."
And in the fall of 1967, the Alexander J. Stoddard Elementary School was opened at 1841 South 9th Street in Anaheim, California. He was so honored because he was not only instrumental in planning its ITV concept of instruction and the use of skills and resource rooms in the fifth and sixth grades but he also helped obtain a Ford Foundation grant for the establishment of Instructional Television in the schools of the City of Anaheim. Stoddard's widow was present for the April 5, 1968 dedication, according to records housed at the school.
Housed at the Archives of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles are nine boxes of Stoddard's speeches, testimonials, personal and business correspondence, and several books he read. And copies of his published articles and other materials are preserved at the Gage County Historical Society Museum in Beatrice, Nebraska.
Aside from sources previously mentioned, other published accounts are an obituary in the October 19, 1965 New York Times and his son's autobiography From There and Then...To Here and Now: The Recollections of Hudson Stoddard As told to Jane Stoddard Williams (New Canaan, CT: Benchmark Publications, 1997). An entry is in Who Was Who in America, Vol 4 (1968).
Born in 1889 near Auburn, Nemaha County, Nebraska, one of six children of Alexander B. and Mary Newman Stoddard, he grew up on the farm of his father, a Scottish immigrant, farmer, and builder of roads and bridges in the area. He attended nearby Grand Prairie Rural School District 20, then graduated in 1905 from Auburn High School.
Married at Auburn on August 6, 1913 to Sadie Gillan, a high school classmate, he and his wife raised a daughter and a son. Alexander J. Stoddard died at age 76 on October 18, 1965 in Los Angeles, with interment at its Westwood Village Cemetery.
For more information, consult "900 Famous Nebraskans" on the Internet at www.nsea.org or www.beatricene.com/gagecountymuseum or www.nebpress.com.
