Educating teachers has been central to Wellesley's mission since
it was founded in 1875. In fact, during its first years, the College
was supported by tuition from "teacher specials," practicing teachers who came to Wellesley to take liberal arts courses. As the College grew, its trustees continued to emphasize teacher education. As Yale University President Noah Porter, who was a Wellesley trustee, wrote in the American Journal of Education in 1880, "if the College was to be practically useful, it must be planned to meet that class of American girls who intend to become teachers." Although
there was no formal Education Department in the beginning, all courses
were considered appropriate for teacher preparation.
The Department also offered broader courses on education as a field of study. In 1888, Carla Wenckebach, aprofessor
in the German Department, began teaching a pedagogy course that focused
on three aspects of education that remain specialties within our Department
today. She described these aspects as:
Theoretical - Lectures and recitations are given on the science and art of education as based upon underlying philosophical principles. Especial prominence is given to the study of child-nature, and the laws of its development.
Practical - Special attention is given to the instruction in primary, intermediate, and higher grades. Lessons given by members of the class will be criticized by instructor and students. The aim is to offer a critical study of methods in general, that each may be able to select or devise those best adapted to her needs.
Historical - The lives
and chief works of Comenius, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel, and Horace
Mann are studied.
In the 1890s an arrangement was made for Wellesley
graduates to student teach in the Brookline Public Schools and students
were soon involved in other types of fieldwork.
In
1908 the name of the Department was changed from "Pedagogy" to "Education." Arthur
Norton, who became chair in 1912, was a former high school physics
and chemistry teacher who had attended Harvard and taught at the
Harvard Graduate School of Education. A very respected historian
of education, Norton also encouraged the development of a model kindergarten
on campus. With the backing of influential Wellesley professors Katharine
Lee Bates of the English Department and Katharine Coman of the Economics
Department, the Anne L. Page School (now the Child Study Center)
opened in 1913, headed by Anna White Devereaux, who also taught a
kindergarten course.
Preschool education continued to be a focus of the Department. A campus nursery school was opened, and in 1925 nursery school leader Abigail Eliot began teaching preschool courses at Wellesley. Students did fieldwork at Eliot's Ruggles Street Nursery Training Center in Roxbury and observed and volunteered at Dennison House, a settlement house in Boston.
The number of students enrolled in education courses grew steadily. By 1912, over 150 students were taking education courses, about the same number who enroll in our courses now. The Department continued to add new levels and types of certification, and began offering a minor in education studies for students interested in education but not teacher certification. In 1998, when the Commonwealth of Massachusetts first began requiring a teacher licensing test, our Department was the only undergraduate teacher education program in the state to have a 100% passing rate. The Department continues to grow and respond to students' needs and the larger need for well-educated teachers, researchers, and citizens concerned with all aspects of education.
