Ellwood Patterson Cubberley

Ellwood Patterson Cubberley (June 6, 1868 – September 14, 1941) was an American educator and a pioneer in the field of educational administration. He spent most of his career as a professor and later dean in the Stanford Graduate School of Education in California.

Cubberley, who was born in Andrews, Indiana, was the son of Edwin Blanchard Cubberley and Catherine C. Biles. He graduated from Indiana University in 1891, and then served as president of Vincennes University from 1891 until 1896. On June 15, 1892 he married Helen Van Uxem, a fellow student he had met at Indiana University. He was superintendent of schools in San Diego, California from 1896 until 1898. He joined the faculty of Stanford, then went to Columbia University where he earned a Ph.D. in 1905. He returned to the Stanford faculty in 1906 as a professor of education. He was the dean of the Stanford school of education from 1917 until he retired in 1933.

For much of the 20th century, the dominant historiography of schooling in America was exemplified by Cubberley. His many textbooks emphasized the rise of American education as a powerful force for literacy, democracy, and equal opportunity, and a firm basis for higher education and advanced research institutions. It was a story of enlightenment and modernization triumphing over ignorance, cost-cutting, and narrow traditionalism whereby parents tried to block their children's intellectual access to the wider world. Teachers dedicated to the public interest, reformers with a wide vision, and public support from the civic-minded community were the heroes. The textbooks helped inspire students to become public school teachers and thereby fulfill their own civic mission.

Cubberley published a total of 30 works during his life, including:

Cubberley was perhaps the most significant theorist of educational administration of his day. At the outset of Cubberley's career, school administration had no theoretical or scientific basis. There were no formal textbooks from which to teach educational administration; educational administrators were expected to learn solely from experience. Indeed, educational administration posts were often political plums requiring little, if any, formal training in education. Most universities lacked education departments.

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