“George Peabody, “Education: A Debt Due from Present to Future Generations” (June 16, 1852); A Review with Commentary of Paul K. Conkin, Peabody College: From a Frontier Academy to the Frontiers of Teaching and Learning (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2002), ISBN 0-8265-1425-1.”
By Franklin and Betty J. Parker, bfparker@frontiernet.net
Peabody College of Vanderbilt University
Paul K. Conkin, Vanderbilt University’s distinguished history professor emeritus, has long gazed over the Twenty-First Avenue South, Nashville, Tennessee, divide between the campuses of Vanderbilt University and George Peabody College for Teachers. Conkin’s book, Peabody College: From a Frontier Academy to the Frontiers of Teaching and Learning, 2002, is an important multifaceted history covering 217 years of six consecutive charter-connected educational institutions in Nashville culminating in the present Peabody College of Vanderbilt University.
Multifaceted History
The book is about schooling in frontier Nashville before Tennessee became a state (1796) and before and after it became the “Athens of the South.”
It is about new beginnings, examining why each of the six predecessor Peabody educational institutions was founded, how each begat its offspring, who their leading officials and teachers were, what they did right, wrong, neglected to do, and the consequences.
It is about the relationship between Peabody College’s predecessors and neighboring Vanderbilt University and the merger that occurred on July 1, 1979.
It is about the philanthropic intent of George Peabody, Massachusetts-born merchant in the South who became a London-based banker and philanthropist.
It is about his Peabody Education Fund (1867-1914); and how Peabody College became the legatee of that fund.
It is about how Peabody College as the South’s pioneer model private teacher education institution embraced George Peabody’s idealistic motto: “Education: A Debt Due from Present to Future Generations.”
It is also about Peabody College of Vanderbilt University’s continuing pursuit of George Peabody’s dream—to uplift the South and advance the nation through professionally prepared teachers serving ever-better public schools.
Origins
In 1779 Virginia-born and North Carolina-reared James Robertson (1742-1814) explored the western part of North Carolina which would become Tennessee. The next year (1780) he led mainly Scotch-Irish families to the frontier settlement of Nashborough, later renamed Nashville.
Frequent Indian raids caused settler to build makeshift forts (some 50 settlers annually were killed by Indians). From the North Carolina legislature of which he was a member James Robertson secured both a land grant and a charter for a Davidson Academy (newly named Davidson County included Nashville). He found and persuaded Presbyterian minister Thomas Craighead (c.1750-1825) to be both church pastor and academy principal.
Thomas Craighead was a graduate of the College of New Jersey (which became Princeton University, 1896). It was founded by “New Light” Presbyterians to train ministers. Its President John Witherspoon (1723-94), a signer of the Declaration of Independence, inspired many of his graduates with missionary zeal to preach and teach on the frontier.
Thus, Davidson Academy and its successors (Cumberland College and the University of Nashville) were molded by Scotch-Irish Presbyterian culture, rooted in Scottish reformer John Knox’s (c.1514-72) enthusiasm for universal literacy so that all could read and understand the Bible.
Overview, 1785-1875
Peabody’s six predecessor schools were: Davidson Academy (during 1785-1806), under Principal Thomas Craighead who also headed for three years to 1809 its rechartered successor, Cumberland College (1806-26).
Noted educator James Priestley (1760-1821) succeeded Craighead as president of Cumberland College from October 24, 1809, to February 4, 1821. Priestley was succeeded as president by a nationally prestigious scholar, President Philip Lindsley (1786-1850), at whose suggestion Cumberland College was rechartered as the University of Nashville from November 27, 1826, to 1875.
Why the University of Nashville?
There was some confusion between Cumberland College, Nashville, and a Cumberland College in Kentucky. Adoption of the name change to the University of Nashville was hastened by the availability of a federal land grant to institutions of higher education. There was also pride in Nashville’s growing importance. President Lindsley envisioned a University of Nashville as an umbrella embracing professional schools and academic departments.
Overview, Since 1875
The University of Nashville’s (1826-1875) charter was amended in 1875 so that its Literary Department was rechartered as State Normal School (1875-89), renamed officially Peabody Normal College (1889-1911), although informally called Peabody Normal College from the first because of its Peabody Education Fund origin and financial support). Peabody Normal College was rechartered as George Peabody College for Teachers (1914-79), which became Peabody College of Vanderbilt University on July 1, 1979.
Vision of an Athens of the South
Conkin wrote that by scholarly eminence and vision alone Lindsley deserved a chapter by himself, that “Philip Lindsley’s University of Nashville first justified the reputation of Nashville as a center of higher education in the South….” In 1835 Philip Lindsley first called Nashville the “Athens of the West.” It was his “Princeton of the West.” (Conkin, p. 47).
University of Nashville (1826-75)
Philip Lindsley was succeeded as president of the University of Nashville in 1850 by his physician son, Dr. John Berrien Lindsley (1822-97), chancellor during 1850-72, succeeded in turn by Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith (1824-93) as chancellor during 1872-75.
University of Nashville’s Medical School
Financially pressed and occupied by Union troops during most of the Civil War, the University of Nashville hosted a cluster of schools and departments, some short-lived. The most successful was its medical school from 1850 to 1895, which graduated a total of 1,699 physicians and was the second largest U.S. medical school during the Civil War.
Other Schools and Departments
The University of Nashville also had a law department (1854-72); a school of agriculture and mechanic arts (1872-75); a school of civil engineering (1872-75); a military institute (about 1854-59); and a preparatory school, Montgomery Bell Academy, partly endowed by wealthy Nashville iron manufacturer Montgomery Bell (1769-1855), which still functions under the University of Nashville charter.
Nearly Defunct Literary Department
The University of Nashville’s Literary Department, comparable to a college of arts and sciences, did not fare well in enrollment, finances, or faculty. From this nearly defunct Literary Department in 1875 the Peabody Education Fund trustees created and financed a State Normal School, later renamed Peabody Normal College, from which emerged George Peabody College for Teachers and finally Peabody College of Vanderbilt University (from July 1, 1979).
Conkin tells this story by describing George Peabody’s fund to aid public education in the desolate former Confederate states.
George Peabody (1795-1869)
A short account of Peabody’s career and philanthropic motives helps explain his motto, “Education: a debt due from present to future generations.” This motto accompanied his July 16, 1852, letter and check founding his first library and lecture hall in his hometown (then South Danvers, renamed Peabody, Massachusetts, 1868). That motto also helps explain the teacher education idealism of Peabody College, offspring of the Peabody Education Fund (1867-1914), whose purpose was to stimulate public schools for all as a way to help reunite and strengthen the nation.
George Peabody: Mass.-born Merchant in the South
Born poor in Massachusetts 19 miles from Boston, Peabody had four years of schooling and was apprenticed in a general store for four years. In 1811 his father died in debt with the family forced out of their mortgaged home to live with relatives. Two weeks later a great fire in Newburyport, Massachusetts, where young Peabody worked in his older brother’s store, ruined all business prospects. These catastrophes led the17-year-old to migrate to Georgetown, D.C., where he opened a dry goods store (1812).
Peabody served in the War of 1812. Older fellow soldier and Maryland merchant Elisha Riggs, Sr. (his son founded Riggs Bank, Washington, D.C.) took Peabody at age 19 as junior partner. Their Baltimore-based firm successfully imported from abroad dry goods for resale to U.S. wholesalers. Besides traveling widely in the South as a merchant, George Peabody also made five European buying trips during 1827-37.
U.S. Broker-Banker in London
On his fifth trip to London, February 1837, he was also an agent to sell abroad Maryland’s $8 million in bonds to finance the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The Panic of 1837 soon forced Maryland and eight other U.S. states to stop paying interest on their bonds. Foreign investors holding these bonds, many of them pensioners and widows, were dismayed and incensed.
Peabody helped ease foreign investors anxiety by publicly urging officials in Maryland and other defaulting states to resume interest payments retroactively. When resumption occurred and it became known that rather than burden the Maryland treasury Peabody had declined his $60,000 commission, he won public thanks from Maryland’s legislature and governor and respect among London banking circles.
To show his confidence that the defaulting states would eventually pay interest on their bonds, he privately bought many of them when their value was low. When interest payments were resumed he reaped a profit, the basis of his fortune and the source of his later philanthropy.
George Peabody & Co., London
Remaining in London from 1837 onward he founded George Peabody & Co. (1838-64), a London-based securities broker-banking firm, which sold state bonds to finance U.S. canals, roads, and railroads. He bought, sold, and shipped iron and steel rails for U.S. railroads. He helped sell the bonds that financed the Mexican War loan. He was a director of the Atlantic Cable Co.
Root of the Banking Firm of J.P. Morgan
Ill and overworked, he took as partner in 1854 Boston merchant Junius Spencer Morgan (1813-90), whose son, John Pierpont Morgan, Sr. (1837-1913), began as New York City agent for George Peabody & Co. On retirement, 1864, unmarried, without a son to carry on, George Peabody withdrew his name. The George Peabody & Co. London firm continued as J.S. Morgan & Co., Morgan Grenfell & Co., and still continues as Deutsche Morgan Grenfell. George Peabody was the founding root of the banking house of J.P. Morgan.
“Deprived as I was”
In his mid-teens when his father died in debt in 1811, Peabody supported his mother and siblings forced out of their mortgaged home to live with relatives. Peabody restored them to the family home (1816) and paid for five of his younger relatives to attend Bradford Academy, Bradford, Massachusetts. When his 17-year-old nephew asked his financial help to attend Yale College, Peabody replied from London (May 18, 1831), as follows (his underlinging):
“Deprived, as I was, of the opportunity of obtaining anything more than the most common education, I am well qualified to estimate its value by the disadvantages I labour under in the society [in] which my business and situation in life frequently throws me, and willingly would I now give twenty times the expense attending a good education could I now possess it, but it is now too late for me to learn and I can only do to those who come under my care, as I could have wished circumstances had permitted others to have done by me.”
Peabody as Philanthropist
Peabody early told intimates privately and in 1850 said publicly that he would endow helpful institutions in every town and city where he had lived and worked. His gifts included seven Peabody libraries in the U.S.; Peabody museums at Harvard (anthropology), Yale (paleontology) Universities, and in Salem, Massachusetts (Peabody Essex Museum: New England maritime history, Essex County history); professorships at an academy and several colleges; publication funds to two historical societies; aid to Civil War veterans, their wives and orphan children; and aid for a charitable hospital in the Vatican, Italy.
Housing (London) and Education (Defeated Southern States)
His two largest gifts were: $2.4 million for housing London’s working poor (begun 1862), where some 50,000 low income Londoners (white, black, others) still live in some 20,000 affordable apartments; and a $2 million Peabody Education Fund (PEF) to aid public education in the eleven embittered, impoverished, Civil War-torn former Confederate states plus W. Va. added because of its poverty. In May 1866 Peabody went for philanthropic advice to Robert Charles Winthrop (1809-94), who helped choose the original trustees and also presided over the board of trustees.
Robert Charles Winthrop
Winthrop was descended from Massachusetts Bay Colony’s early governor, John Winthrop (1588-1649). He was a Harvard graduate (1828), trained in Daniel Webster’s law office, was admitted to the bar (1831), a Whig member of the Massachusetts legislature, Speaker of the Massachusetts State House, elected to the U.S. House of Representatives (1842-50 and its speaker, 1847-50), and was appointed to fill Daniel Webster’s U.S. Senate seat (1850). A respected national figure no longer seeking public office, Winthrop in the last 27 years of his life (during 1867-94) directed the Peabody Education Fund trustees.
PEF Plan and First Administrator
Winthrop pondered how to use the relatively small income from a $2 million fund to stimulate public schools for white and black children in twelve poverty-ridden, Civil War-ravaged states how to convince defeated, resentful southern parents, taxpayers, and political leaders that permanent tax supported public schools could help renew their economy and uplift their lives; how to attract and train better teachers; and how to spread public elementary and secondary schools to strengthen a new South.
First PEF Administrator Barnas Sears
Winthrop found a feasible plan and its able administrator in long-time friend Barnas Sears (1802-90), then president of Brown University in Rhode Island. Barnas Sears was born in Sandisfield, Massachusetts, was a Brown University graduate (1825), studied at Newton Theological Seminary (Massachusetts), was ordained a Baptist minister, was a Colgate University (New York) professor (1831-33), studied in German universities, was Newton Theological Seminary professor and later its president. He succeeded Horace Mann (1796-1859) as Massachusetts Board of Education secretary (during 1848-55) and was Brown University president (1855-67).
Winthrop and Sears, March 13, 1867
Winthrop and Sears met by chance at the old Wednesday Evening Club in Boston, March 13, 1867. Winthrop asked Sears how the Peabody Education Fund might carry out its mission; and was impressed by Sears’s remarks.
Sears’s March 14, 1867 Letter
Winthrop shared with the trustees Sears’s letter of March 14, 1867, from Providence, Rhode Island, detailing how the Fund might operate. Backed by the trustees Winthrop persuaded Sears to accept the post as the Peabody Education Fund’s first administrator during 1867-80, the crucial first 13 years.
Sears’s Plan
Sears’s plan was to strengthen through grants existing public schools in larger towns to serve as models for smaller communities; to establish new public schools where needed; to require that Peabody Education Fund-aided schools become permanent tax-supported public schools under state control; to require that aided schools meet nine or ten months a year; to have at least one teacher per 50 pupils; and to require local citizens to match Peabody Education Fund contributions, if possible, by two or three times the amount of Peabody Education Fund aid.
Matching Funds and Permanent Legislation
Sears set a rising scale of financial aid as enrollments rose: $300 a year for a school enrolling up to 100 pupils, $450 for 100 to 150 pupils, $600 for 150 to 200 pupils, $800 for 200 to 250 pupils, and $1,000 for 300 or more pupils. It was pure pump priming, using small grants for their matching and levering effect and requiring legislative approval and permanent state support.
Sears’s First Aim
Sears and his family moved to Staunton, Virginia. He wrote, spoke, and traveled widely during his 13 years as fund administrator (1867-80). He used the fund’s limited resources to accomplish his first aim: to help establish tax supported elementary and secondary public schools and create a model teacher training college for the South in Nashville (Peabody Normal College during 1875-1911).
Sears’s Other Two Aims
Sears’s second aim, to establish both short term teachers’ institutes (a week or less training for practicing teachers) and long term professional teacher training normal schools, was largely accomplished by the fund’s second administrator J.L.M. Curry (1825-1903) during 1881-1903.
Sears’s third aim, rural public schools, was largely accomplished by the fund’s third administrator Wycliffe Rose (1862-1931) during 1907-14.
State Normal School in Nashville
Sears saw Nashville, Tennessee, as a cultural center and the ideal place for a normal school as a model for the South. Proposals in the Tennessee legislature to establish a state teacher training normal school had failed in 1857 and 1865. In June-July 1867, Sears offered Peabody Education Fund stipends of $1,000 or more annually if Tennessee would establish one or more normal schools. Legislative bills for a state normal school failed in 1868, 1871, and 1873, even though the Peabody Education Fund offered (in 1873) $6,000 annually to match annual state funding.
University of Nashville Land and Buildings
Disappointed at not getting Tennessee legislative cooperation for a state normal school and not wanting to lose Nashville as his preferred site, Sears in 1874 asked the University of Nashville trustees to give land and buildings for a normal school in place of their moribund Literary Department. He promised to support the normal school with $6,000 annually from the Peabody Education Fund.
Helped by Tennessee Governor James Davis Porter
In 1875, with the help of the then new Tennessee Governor James Davis Porter (1828-1912), Sears got the University of Nashville trustees to convert its nearly defunct Literary Department into a normal school. The legislature, encouraged by Governor Porter, amended the University of Nashville’s charter to legalize the normal school. Sears and the Peabody Education Fund trustees subsidized the normal school, expecting imminent and continuing state support.
TN State Normal School: 1875-1889
Glad not to spend state funds, the Tennessee legislature amended the University of Nashville’s charter to allow it to establish a normal school, financed by Peabody Education Fund’s $6,000 annual contribution (Sears expected sustaining state aid). The new State Normal School on the University of Nashville campus opened December 1, 1875, with 13 students and ended the first year with 60 students.
Peabody Scholarships Provided a Southern Regional Influence
State Normal School (1875-89) was officially renamed Peabody Normal College (1889-1911), although it was always locally called Peabody Normal College. Attendance was cost-free to selected students with promise as future teachers. During 1877-1904, 3,645 of the most promising applicants from the South received Peabody Education Fund scholarships of $200 annually during 1877-91 and $100 annually plus railroad fare during 1891-1904. The importance of the Peabody scholarships was that they reached beyond Tennessee to the entire South. Alfred Leland Crabb (1883-1979, of George Peabody College for Teachers) later noted that these 3,645 Peabody scholarship teachers in their time formed an important core of educational leaders for the South.
Threat of a Move to Georgia
Unable or unwilling to offer state aid, the Tennessee legislature defeated appropriation bills for the State Normal School in 1877 and 1879, leaving funding solely to the Peabody Education Fund until 1881. Disappointed, Sears and the fund trustees considered moving State Normal School from Nashville to Georgia, whose legislature agreed on state support if the fund continued its $6,000 annual contribution. But Georgia’s Constitution required that any such school be state controlled as part of the University of Georgia at Athens. This requirement irked Sears and the fund trustees, who wanted state aid but opposed state control.
Tennessee State Aid.
Threat of a move from Tennessee galvanized Nashville citizens to guarantee $6,000 by April 1880 to keep the Normal School in Nashville. Stung into action, the Tennessee legislature gave the Normal School $10,000 annually (1881-83), raised to $13,300 annually (1883-95), and raised again to $23,000 annually (1895-1905). Peabody Normal College got $555,730 from the Peabody Education Fund (1875-1909) and $429,000 from the Tennessee legislature (1881-1905).
Peabody Normal College’s Three Presidents: 1875-1909.
The three presidents of State Normal School (1875-89) and Peabody Normal College (1889-1911) were, first, President Eben Sperry Stearns (1819-87) during 1875-87. Born in Massachusetts and Harvard University educated, Stearns, under Massachusetts Board of Education Secretary Barnas Sears, was the second president of Newton Normal School, Massachusetts (the first normal school in the U.S.).
The second president was William Harold Payne (1836-1907) during 1888-1901. He had held the first professorship of education in the U.S. at the University of Michigan during 1879-88.
The third president was James Davis Porter during 1901-09, a Tennessean, a University of Nashville graduate (1846), a lawyer, Tennessee House member, Confederate officer, and Tennessee governor (1874-78).
Normal Colleges Became State Colleges of Education
The Peabody Normal College years (1875-1911) coincided with the rise of state normal schools as the chief agency to prepare elementary and secondary school teachers. After 1910, state normal schools were increasingly replaced by state colleges of education, a changeover which coincided with the Peabody Education Fund’s dissolution in 1914.
Transition to George Peabody College for Teachers
George Peabody’s letter founding the Peabody Education Fund (February 7, 1867) allowed its trustees to end the trust after 30 years and to distribute its principal. On January 29, 1903, the trustees resolved to give most of the fund’s principal to found George Peabody College for Teachers (influential trustees then included Theodore Roosevelt and John Pierpont Morgan, Sr.).
On January 24, 1905, the fund trustees committed $1 million (later raised to $1.5 million) to transform the Peabody Normal College into George Peabody College for Teachers, contingent on matching funds from Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee, and other donors; and on relocating from south Nashville to Twenty-First Avenue near Vanderbilt University for added academic strength.
Transition Problems
A problem arose when Georgia State Commissioner of Education G.R. Glenn, Peabody Education Fund acting administrator in 1903, argued in his annual report that because public education in the South lagged behind national levels, the fund’s principal should be used in a campaign to raise local public school taxes. But fear of losing Peabody Education Fund assets led Peabody Normal College alumni to secure petitions supporting the creation of George Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville as successor to Peabody Normal College.
After a year-long deadlock on the issue, the Peabody Education Fund trustees confirmed that George Peabody College for Teachers would indeed succeed Peabody Normal College, with a new campus near Vanderbilt University.
Objection to Move From South Nashville
South Nashville property owners objected to moving Peabody Normal College from their area and began court action. President James D. Porter also preferred south Nashville but the Peabody Education Fund trustees’ endowment power determined the Vanderbilt University location. President J.D. Porter acquiesced, was compensated by a pension from the Carnegie Pension Fund, and helped secure the legislation that permitted transfer of assets from the University of Nashville’s Peabody Normal School to George Peabody College for Teachers.
By June 1909 President Porter also helped secure funds required to match the Peabody Education Fund’s $1.5 million endowment: $250,000 from the Tennessee legislature, $200,000 from the City of Nashville, and $100,000 from Davidson County. President Porter resigned on August 4, 1909, and George Peabody College for Teachers was incorporated on October 5, 1909.
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University was chartered August 6, 1872, as Central University of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In February 1873 its founder, Methodist Bishop Holland N. McTyeire (1824-89), needing building funds, visited Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877) in New York City. Their wives were cousins and had been intimate girlhood friends in Mobile, Alabama (this was Cornelius Vanderbilt’s second wife, his first wife having died).
Cornelius Vanderbilt’s Gifts
Bishop McTyeire told Cornelius Vanderbilt of higher education needs in the South and particularly of Central University building needs in Nashville. Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose wealth came from ferry boats, steamship lines, and railroads (New York Central, 1867), gave Central University in Nashville $500,000 on March 12, 1873, later doubled to $1 million, leading to the renaming of Central University to Vanderbilt University on June 6, 1873.
Vanderbilt-Peabody Connection
Vanderbilt University’s second Chancellor James Hampton Kirkland (1859-1939) wanted to make Nashville a great university center. He also knew that George Peabody College for Teachers’ endowment was initially greater than Vanderbilt’s endowment. Wanting a Vanderbilt-Peabody College connection similar to the successful Teachers College of Columbia University, Kirkland deeded Vanderbilt land to George Peabody College for Teachers, about which some contention later resulted.
Johns Hopkins University President Daniel Coit Gilman
Kirkland’s hoped-for ally in making a Vanderbilt-Peabody connection was Johns Hopkins University President Daniel Coit Gilman (1831-1908), the South’s most respected higher education leader and also an influential Peabody Education Fund trustee. Kirkland urged in 1900 and 1901 that Gilman, about to retire as Johns Hopkins president, become Peabody Normal College president and help form a Vanderbilt-Peabody connection. While retaining his long friendship with Kirkland, Gilman adroitly sidestepped involvement, declining to give a major address in Nashville in 1900 and also declining to head Peabody Normal College in its last years.
First Peabody College President Bruce Ryburn Payne
First President Bruce Ryburn Payne (1874-1937) during 1911-37 cooperated academically with Vanderbilt but adamantly kept Peabody independent as the South’s leading teacher training institution.
North Carolinian Bruce R. Payne was a graduate of Trinity College (later renamed Duke University), was principal of Morganton (North Carolina.) Academy, did graduate study at Trinity College and at Teachers College of Columbia University (M.A., 1903; Ph.D., 1904), was professor of philosophy and education, College of William and Mary, Virginia (1904-05); and was University of Virginia professor of secondary education and psychology and summer school organizer.
Architecture Inspired By Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia
Payne assembled a first-rate faculty, modeled the new Peabody campus on Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia architectural plan (a quadrangle of columned buildings dominated by a Social-Religious Building with a commanding rotunda), and raised an additional $1 million for the new campus.
President Payne’s Fund Raising
An example of Payne’s fund raising: banker and Peabody Education Fund trustee J.P. Morgan, Sr., had promised $250,000 toward George Peabody College for Teachers buildings when needed but died. Payne went to New York City to request the funds of Morgan’s son-in-law, Herbert Livingston Satterlee (1863-1947). Satterlee hesitated because Morgan had not left written evidence of his promised aid. Payne felt he had failed in this fund raising until Satterlee, checking with Morgan’s son (J.P. Morgan, Jr.), released the promised amount.
Peabody Education Fund Assets Distributed, 1914
The Peabody Education Fund trustees dissolved in 1914 and distributed their total assets ($2,324,000) as follows: $1.5 million to endow George Peabody College for Teachers; $474,000 to education departments of 14 southern universities ($40,000 each to the universities of Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana [State]); $6,000 each to Johns Hopkins University and to the universities of South Carolina, Missouri, and Texas; $90,000 to Winthrop Normal College, South Carolina (now Winthrop College), founded by Peabody Education Fund trustee President Robert Charles Winthrop.
Recipient state universities of Georgia, Mississippi, Florida at Gainesville, North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and others named their college of education buildings after George Peabody. There remain George Peabody-named elementary and secondary schools in the southern states his fund benefited; along with a Peabody Avenue and a Peabody Hotel, both in Memphis, Tennessee; and Peabody Hotels in Orlando, Florida, and elsewhere.
Peabody’s Pres. Payne and Vanderbilt’s Chancellor Kirkland
Payne, like Kirkland, was a strong administrator with a vibrant personality. Their relations were polite but strained by Payne’s determination to keep Peabody College independent yet cooperative in cross-listing courses and programs. Kirkland was elitist and an educational conservative while Payne, concerned for mass education, was egalitarian in the spirit of the democratic educational philosophy of his Columbia University mentor, John Dewey (1859-1952).
Peabody College a Unique Mini-University
Payne and his successors, rightly or wrongly, made and tried to keep Peabody a unique mini-university. Besides the professional preparation of teachers, Peabody graduated students in liberal arts, science, music, physical education, art, and library science; and had a demonstration elementary school for teachers-in-training, Knapp farm for rural studies, and a school survey research unit used widely in the South. Unresolved Peabody fiscal problems in the late 1960s and early 1970s led to talk of some kind of merger in the late 1970s.
Peabody-Vanderbilt Mutual Suspicions
With more women than men students during the 1920s-50s, Peabodians felt discrimination and a snobbish belittling of their professional education courses from Vanderbilt liberal arts professors (some of whom gladly taught for extra pay in Peabody College’s large summer school).
The Peabody community sensed that Vanderbilt wanted to separate its graduate courses from them and that Vanderbilt deans and faculty disdained Peabody’s teacher education mission and belittled its academic standards.
Cautious Cooperation
Vanderbilt’s short-lived Education Department (1930-34) caused apprehension at Peabody. It was headed by Joseph Kinmount Hart (1876-1949), a progressive educator from the universities of Chicago and Wisconsin who had written A Social Interpretation of Education, 1929, and other textbooks. Hart’s liberalism caused student disturbances. He ended his Vanderbilt career with bitterness and vague threats of a lawsuit.
More fruitful was the Joint Universities Library (JUL), dedicated December 5-6, 1941, outgrowth of a 1935 study of library needs of adjoining campuses of Vanderbilt, Peabody, and Scarritt College for Christian Workers (Methodist college founded in 1892, later an adult education conference center). JUL was renamed in 1984 the Jean and Alexander Heard Library.
The following overview of the Peabody presidents since Bruce R. Payne, with Conkin’s assessment of each, helps explain conditions that led to the 1979 Vanderbilt merger.
Presidents of George Peabody College for Teachers
Peabody’s first President Bruce R. Payne (1911-died in office, April 21, 1937) was succeeded by the following:
S. C. Garrison
Sidney Clarence Garrison (1887-1944), Peabody’s second president during 1937-44, eight years; was a North Carolinian, a graduate of Wake Forest College, a high school principal and county superintendent. He was an M.A. degree graduate of Peabody College, 1916; served as a World War I captain; earned the Ph.D. degree from Peabody, 1919; taught educational psychology at Peabody where he was also a dean. “Garrison was not Payne,” wrote Conkin; “he was an interim president.” (Conkin, pp. 252-253).
Henry H. Hill
President Henry Harrington Hill (1894-1987) was third president during Peabody’s boom years, 1945-60 (16 years) and interim president, 1962-63 (total of 18 years). Also a North Carolinian, Hill received the B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Virginia and the Ph.D. degree from Columbia University. He was a teacher, principal, and school superintendent in Arkansas; an education professor and dean at the University of Kentucky; was school superintendent in Lexington, Kentucky; St. Louis, Missouri; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Hill was cautious, moderate, and an expert at building consensus (Conkin, p. 265). In 1951, using a foundation grant, Hill hired four high profile division chairs: 1-Harold R. W. Benjamin (1893-1969) to head Foundations of Education; 2-Willard E. Goslin (1899-1969) to head Education Administration; 3-William Van Til (1911-) to head Teaching and Curriculum; and 4-Nicholas Hobbs (1915-83) to head Guidance and Development (Hobbs later led in securing for Peabody its prestigious and well funded John F. Kennedy Center for Research on Education and Human Development. Hobbs was later also a Vanderbilt provost).
Felix C. Robb
Felix Compton Robb (1914-97), fourth president during 1961-66, was an Alabamian, had a Vanderbilt M.A. degree, took education courses at Peabody where he became President Hill’s assistant and heir apparent, and received a Ph.D. degree from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. Conkin characterized Robb as charismatic and idealistic but, when cracks appeared in Peabody’s finances, “not a forceful or decisive leader” (Conkin, p. 296).
John Claunch
John M. Claunch (1906-90), fifth president from August 1, 1967, through 1973, six years, was from Louisiana, a graduate of Austin State Teachers College, Texas (B.A., 1928); and the University of Texas (M.A., 1937; Ph.D., 1956). His main administrative experience was as director of Dallas College, an adult education mainly evening college, established by Southern Methodist University. Stronger candidates had warily declined the Peabody presidency. Conkin called Claunch’s appointment a “disastrous decision,” adding that he was “rigid, insecure,…authoritarian” (Conkin, pp. 311-312).
Claunch chafed at endless studies and reports to keep Peabody College afloat, clashed with Nicholas Hobbs over the Kennedy Center, opposed faculty independence, and was critical of student protests against military action in Vietnam
John Dunworth
John Dunworth (1924-) was Peabody’s sixth and last president during 1974-79, five years, when the trauma of merger was played out. Born in Los Angeles, Dunworth was an Ed.D. graduate of the University of Southern California, had been a successful dean of Ball State University’s Teachers College, Indiana. Conkin characterized him as “Charming, vain, an expert at self promotion…[he] worked well with faculty” and “in other times, other circumstances, might have been a popular president” (Conkin, p. 330).
Reviewers’ Experience at Peabody, 1951-56
[Author Franklin Parker here inserts his and wife Betty J. Parker’s experiences during 1951-56 as graduate students at George Peabody College for Teachers for any light it may shed on the Peabody College of that time].
Betty Parker and I were newly married (1950); recent graduates of Berea College, Kentucky (a tuition-free work-study college); on our first teaching jobs at what is now Ferrum College near Roanoke, Virginia. To upgrade our teaching skills we took Peabody College courses the summer of 1951.
Peabody had a fine regional reputation in our school-oriented circles. Betty’s aunt and other relatives had attended there. We returned to Peabody the summer of 1952 and remained as graduate students through August 1956, four years and two summers, holding part time jobs at Peabody and at Belmont College (now University), which the Baptists had acquired from Ward Belmont School.
Peabody Professor Clifton Landon Hall (1898-1987)
I looked for an unexplored aspect of Tennessee higher education as a dissertation topic to pursue under Canadian-born Clifton L. Hall, a respected Peabody professor in history and philosophy of education. Eager to be accepted as Hall’s doctoral candidate, I enrolled in Hall’s courses for several years. Not until I took Hall’s seminars with weekly papers did I feel I had won Hall’s confidence. Hall was a graduate of Bishop University (Quebec) and McGill University (Montreal) with a Ph.D. degree under University of North Carolina’s (Chapel Hill) history of education Professor Edgar W. Knight.
Peabody Dean of Instruction Felix Robb
After I passed the doctoral preliminary examinations, Dean of Instruction Felix Robb had to formalize my doctoral committee and topic. When I met with Dean Robb in late 1953 Robb spoke at length about his own experience at Harvard Graduate School of Education. In a Harvard seminar under historian Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. (1888-1965), Schlesinger, knowing that Robb was a rising administrator at Peabody, mentioned George Peabody’s little known role as a founder of U.S. educational philanthropy. Schlesinger said that someone needed to explore and document that thesis.
Robb, then President Hill’s assistant, expected to rise to an executive position and chose instead to write his dissertation on education administration. Perhaps regretting an interesting topic not pursued, perhaps out of respect for Clifton Hall (knowing I was Hall’s student), Robb urged me to look into the George Peabody topic.
Research Trips
Increasingly intrigued by what we found about George Peabody, we gave up our Nashville part time jobs; went on research trips to read Peabody-related papers in various libraries and depositories, summer 1954 through December 1954. The following are samples of our findings at various depositories.
Library of Congress (LC)
LC Peabody-related papers included those of:
William Wilson Corcoran (1798-1888), friend and business associate with whom Peabody helped finance the Second Mexican War loan.
Hamilton Fish (1809-93), Peabody Education Fund trustee, New York governor, and U.S. Secretary of State involved in Peabody’s unusual 96-day transatlantic funeral.
John Work Garrett (1820-84), Baltimore & Ohio Railroad president, who brought Peabody and Johns Hopkins together in his home near Baltimore, leading Peabody to influence Hopkins to found the Johns Hopkins University, Hospital, and Medical School.
U.S. President Andrew Johnson’s (1808-75) papers document his visit to Peabody’s rooms at the Willard’s Hotel, Washington, D.C., February 9, 1867, to thank him for the Peabody Education Fund as a national gift.
Benjamin Moran (1820-86), secretary, U.S. Legation (later Embassy) in London, wrote critically in his private journal of Peabody during 1857-69.
The Riggs family papers included those of Elisha Riggs, Sr., Peabody’s first senior partner, and Samuel Riggs (Elisha Riggs, Sr.’s, nephew), Peabody’s second partner.
National Archives
At the National Archives, Washington, D.C., we read “Veterans Records of the War of 1812″ documenting Peabody’s 14 days as a soldier.
We read “Admirals and Commodores’ Letters,” “Dispatches from United States Ministers, Great Britain,” and “Log of USS Plymouth,” each documenting Peabody’s unusual 96-day transatlantic funeral, from his November 4, 1869, death in London, to his final burial in Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem, Massachusetts, February 8, 1870, amid much publicity.
New York City
The Pierpont Morgan Library papers of Junius S. Morgan, Peabody’s partner in London, his son John Pierpont Morgan, Sr., and grandson J.P. Morgan, Jr. (1867-1943), helped explain how Peabody, the founding root of the House of Morgan, along with a handful of other merchant bankers, early learned to marshal foreign capital to help finance U.S. industrial growth.
In Massachusetts
We read the bulk of Peabody’s personal papers and business records (then not indexed or calendared) in what is now the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem; read his papers in depositories in Peabody, Salem, Danvers, and Boston; at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology; and in Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History.
In Baltimore
We read his papers at the Peabody Institute of Baltimore (PIB), and the papers and journals of PIB trustee John Pendleton Kennedy (1795-1870) who, told of Peabody’s intent to endow a cultural center for Baltimore, conceived of the PIB: an exceptionally rich reference library, music conservatory, art gallery, lecture hall and fund (since 1982 part of Johns Hopkins University).
We also read related material in the Johns Hopkins University Library and the Enoch Pratt Free Library (Peabody influenced both men in their philanthropies).
Peabody’s Died During British-U.S. Disputes Over Civil War Trent Affair and Alabama Claims
After living 32 years in England Peabody died in London on November 4, 1869, at the height of two unresolved U.S.-British disputes over U.S. Civil War incidents.
Trent Affair, 1861
In the September 1861 Trent Affair four Confederate agents seeking arms and aid in England and France slipped through a Union blockade of Charleston, S.C., sailed to Havana, Cuba, and then boarded the British mail ship Trent for England when a Union ship stopped, boarded, removed, and jailed the Confederates.
Britain rightly protested this illegal seizure. Anticipating possible war with the U.S., Britain sent troops to Canada on standby alert. Calmer heads prevailed. President Lincoln ordered the Confederates released. But British-U.S. angers over the Trent Affair persisted at Peabody’s death.
Alabama Claims, 1872
Confederate agents secretly bought British-built ships, armed them as Confederate raiders, like the CSS Alabama, which wrecked or sank Union ships and cost U.S. lives and vast treasure. The U.S. offered proof that Britain knowingly turned a blind eye to the sale of these raiders, angrily sought redress, which a Geneva international court decision in 1872 required Britain to pay the U.S. $15.5 million indemnity.
Findings in London’s British Museum Manuscript Division, 1954
We read Prime Minister William E. Gladstone’s (1809-98) cabinet minutes of November 10, 1869. It contained the decision, first suggested by Queen Victoria, to use Britain’s newest and largest warship, HMS Monarch, to return Peabody’s remains from England for burial in the U.S. as required in his will.
Choice of HMS Monarch as funeral ship was thus a political decision to soften near-war British-U.S. angers over these and other Civil War incidents. Politically astute Gladstone at the November 9, 1869, Lord Mayor’s Day banquet, five days after Peabody’s death, said publicly: “With the country of Mr. Peabody we [will] not quarrel.”
Findings at the Guildhall Record Office
Peabody’s March 12, 1862 gift of low cost housing for London’s working poor ($2.4 million total) won public praise. Britons marveled that an American would give that much for the working poor of a city and country not his own.
We read “Journals of the Court of Common Council” recording the Freedom of the City of London honor given to Peabody, July 10, 1862.
We also read “Minutes of the Committee for Erecting a Statue to Mr. George Peabody, 1866-1870,” listing the public contributors to Peabody’s seated statue in Threadneedle St., near London’s Royal Exchange, created by U.S.-born Rome-based sculptor William Wetmore Story (1815-95), unveiled before crowds by the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII, 1841-1910), July 23, 1869.
Statues of Americans in London
Peabody’s statue, 1869, was the first of four statues of Americans in London, the others are of Abraham Lincoln, 1920; George Washington, 1921; and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1948. A replica of Peabody’s statue in London was erected in front of the PIB, April 7, 1890, by Baltimorean Robert Garrett (1847-96).
At the Public Record Office
We read “Alien Entry Lists” recording every time Peabody entered a British port, “Foreign Affairs Papers,” and “Admiralty Papers,” the last two documenting Britain’s part in his 96-day transatlantic funeral.
At Westminster Abbey
We read “Recollections by Dean [Arthur P.] Stanley of Funerals in Westminster Abbey 1865-1881.” Visiting in Naples, Italy, when he read of Peabody’s death in London, Dean Stanley (1815-81) recalled Peabody’s gift for housing London’s working poor and telegraphed associates to offer Westminster Abbey for a funeral service for this generous American.
We read the “Funeral Fee Book 1811-1899,” which listed Peabody’s Abbey funeral costs.
We stood at the permanent Peabody marker on the stone floor of Westminster Abbey near Britain’s unknown soldier where Peabody’s remains rested for 30 days (November 12-December 11, 1869). This marker was refurbished for the ceremony at Westminster Abbey on February 18, 1995, honoring Peabody’s 200th birthday.
Ancient Guilds
To honor his housing gift to London’s working poor, Peabody was made an honorary member of the Clothmakers’ Company, July 2, 1862, and the Fishmongers’ Company, April 19, 1866, whose records we read in the respective guild libraries.
At the Royal Archives, Windsor Castle
Letters from Queen Victoria and her advisors to, from, and about Peabody, include her offer to him of a knighthood. He declined because this honor required him to become a British subject. Unwilling to give up his U.S. citizenship he accepted instead her letters of thanks and an enameled miniature portrait she commissioned to be made especially for him. That portrait, along with his other honors, are on display at the Peabody Institute Library, Peabody, Massachusetts.
At 23 Great Winchester Street, London
Three brass signs on the front door of Morgan, Grenfell & Co., Ltd, read from bottom to top: George Peabody & Co., 1838-64; J.S. Morgan & Co., 1864-1909; and Morgan Grenfell & Co.,1909-90. The firm’s current descendant, Deutsche Morgan Grenfell (since June 29, 1990), has records of George Peabody & Co. and some business papers of Peabody, J.S. Morgan, and J.P. Morgan, Sr.
We also secured a copy of GP’s death certificate from London’s General Register Office, Somerset House.
At the British Library at Colindale (Newspapers)
Turning pages of heavy dusty bound newspaper volumes, we found many contemporary articles about Peabody, especially about his elaborate U.S.-British friendship dinners in or near London from 1850 onward, most often on July 4th to celebrate U.S. Independence Day.
Peabody Embossed Glassware
We wrote letters to British newspaper editors asking readers for any privately held Peabody letters or memorabilia. Two families gave us “George Peabody” embossed glass plates made by a souvenir glassware manufacturer in Sunderland, England, in the wake of his widely publicized death and 96-day transatlantic funeral. We donated this glassware to U.S. Peabody institutions.
London Clubs
After the Panic of 1837 forced nine of the U.S. states to stop paying interest on their state bonds sold abroad, Americans were disdained and Peabody was blackballed when nominated to London exclusive clubs. After his 1862 London housing gift he was unanimously elected to London’s best clubs including the Athenaeum, whose librarian Eileen Stiff (d. 1985) befriended us and helped us visit a Peabody apartment complex where thousands of low income Londoners still live.
Return to Nashville
Back in Nashville we began to organize our voluminous Peabody materials. This task was suddenly hastened when Peabody College President Henry H. Hill invited me to give the Peabody College Founders Day Address on February 18, 1955, the first such address by a student.
February 18, 1955
I compressed the George Peabody story into a 40 minute speech given in the then-named Social Religious Building Auditorium. Wanting the speech published, President Hill put me in the hands of Publicity Director John Edwin Windrow (1899-1984). Windrow took me with him to the Peabody Library Archives to selected appropriate photos and to the printers to select print type and paper stock.
The result was a handsomely printed and illustrated pamphlet. President Hill’s Preface read in part: “Even in cold print [George Peabody's] life story…gives us a warm feeling of hope and courage and trust in the future. George Peabody College for Teachers seeks to exemplify and transmit to a new generation Mr. Peabody’s vision.”
About J.E. Windrow
A Tennessee-born public high school teacher, coach, and principal, J.E. Windrow spent nearly 60 years (1923-84) as Peabody student, faculty member, and administrator under six Peabody presidents. A longtime alumni secretary and Peabody Reflector editor, he was “Mr. Peabody” to tens of thousands of Peabody alumni whom he brought together at Peabody breakfasts at major U.S. educational association meetings.
Recently when we shared with Windrow’s niece Dr. Conkin’s view of Windrow as a conservative who adamantly defended Peabody’s autonomy and independence, she smiled wryly in agreement, quickly adding that in his last years her uncle Edwin Windrow came to see that merger with Vanderbilt had enhanced Peabody’s role in teacher education.
George Peabody, A Biography
Vanderbilt University Press published my George Peabody, a Biography in 1971. On George Peabody’s 200th birthday, February 18, 1995, the Vanderbilt University Press published a revised and updated version with 12 illustrations (both 1971 and 1995 editions are out of print (but available from amazon.com as a free E-Book). A special bicentennial issue, “The Legacy of George Peabody,” Peabody Journal of Education, Fall 1994, 210 pp., reprinted 22 of our previously published George Peabody articles. In 1970 I received the Peabody College Distinguished Alumnus Award. Looking back we doubt that we could have received at any other graduate school the opportunities we had at Peabody College.
[Return to events leading to merger].
Cooperative Peabody-Vanderbilt Program Before Merger
Vanderbilt’s Chancellor [Bennett] Harvie Branscomb (1894-1998) and Peabody President H. H. Hill cooperated in a joint two-year Master of Arts in Teaching program, funded by the Ford Foundation, 1952-55, with subject content courses taught at Vanderbilt and education courses at Peabody. When Peabody College declined to continue, Vanderbilt added to its own small teacher certification program a special Ph.D. program to improve college teaching, with professional courses taken at Peabody College.
May 1962 Study.
A May 1962 study by visiting educator John Dale Russell (b.1895) recommended a more integrated University Center for Nashville higher education institutions but stopped short of recommending a Vanderbilt-Peabody merger. Vanderbilt never fully embraced the plan, which was nursed along through the 1970s by a 1969 Ford Foundation grant.
In retrospect, the 1962 plan was Peabody ’s last chance to affiliate with Vanderbilt from a position of strength. In the 1960s Vanderbilt grew in enrollment and endowment; Peabody went into slow decline. Cooperation in courses and library facilities continued. But changing economic conditions accentuated the two institutions’ different histories, missions, faculty and student backgrounds, experiences, and attitudes.
Vanderbilt students reflected their parents’ more affluent elitism and conservatism. Peabody students reflected their parents’ less affluent, rural, egalitarian, and working class backgrounds.
Economic Downturn 1970s
The 1970s recession, inflation, rising energy and other costs caused college of education enrollments to decline nationally. Peabody lost 30 faculty (1970-72), had unused facilities, and some Ph.D. programs faced loss of accreditation. By 1974, Peabody reduced its music and accounting programs; eliminated some business education, home economics, and modern language programs; sold its Demonstration School; and eliminated some arts and science courses.
Peabody undergraduate enrollment dropped from 1,200 in 1972 to 800 in 1976; graduate enrollment declined to about 1,200. Peabody officials began searching for ways to survive.
Merger Talks: 1978
In August 1978 Peabody’s last President Dunworth began unpublicized merger talks with Vanderbilt officials. Not wanting to irritate already apprehensive Peabody faculty, students, and alumni, he wanted merger talks to reach resolution before Peabody interest groups organized resistance. Dunworth wanted a strong Peabody to emerge from a merger but knew that faculty outside of education and human development would not be kept. Somewhat of a supplicant, Dunworth held merger talks during September-December 1978 with Vanderbilt Chancellor Alexander Heard (1917-) and Vanderbilt President Emmett B. Fields (1923-).
Merger Options
Absorbing Peabody was less attractive to Vanderbilt officials in August 1978 than it had been during 1914-50. Yet Vanderbilt needed Peabody’s programs in education, physical education, accounting, music education, and in some psychology areas. Vanderbilt also needed Peabody’s cooperation in Medical Center research, student counseling, student health, band, choir, joint athletic teams, the Joint University Library, and dormitory space.
Hard Options
Vanderbilt’s President Fields’ thoughts on merger included scaling down Peabody College to an educational policy study center or guaranteeing the existing college of education for eight years, after which Vanderbilt could convert it to whatever purposes it wished. Merger costs would have to come from Peabody’s endowment. Peabody’s future earnings would have to cover its costs. Vanderbilt would absorb Peabody’s total assets.
Looking Elsewhere
Faced with such hard options, Dunworth interrupted negotiations with Vanderbilt in December 1978 and talked of possible merger outside of Nashville with either Duke University of Durham, North Carolina, or George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Tennessee State University (TSU)
A new factor then emerged. Under court order in 1977 the formerly largely African American Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial University in Nashville merged with the Nashville campus of the University of Tennessee, the latter mainly an evening college for commuting students. The resulting Tennessee State University had tried but failed to develop a doctoral program in education first with Memphis State University and then with Peabody College.
Talk of Peabody–TSU Union?
In January 1979, TSU representatives spoke with the Tennessee State Board of Regents (which governs state colleges) about a possible Peabody–TSU union. Nashville citizens, many of whom saw a Vanderbilt-Peabody merger as manifest destiny, were surprised to read on February 13, 1979, of a possible Peabody-TSU connection.
Despite some racial concerns (the TSU image was of a largely African American institution), a Peabody-TSU merger was more acceptable than having Peabody College leave Nashville. A Peabody-TSU merger was also tolerable to those who wanted a Nashville public university of lower cost than Vanderbilt.
Vanderbilt’s Dilemma
On March 10, 1979, the Tennessee State Board of Regents voted 11 to 1 for a Peabody-TSU connection. Vanderbilt trustees quickly reconsidered. A Peabody-TSU merger would mean many African American students at a state-owned Peabody College next to Vanderbilt University. Also, a state-owned Peabody College might have to give up cooperative programs with a private Vanderbilt University.
On March 17, 1979, Vanderbilt Chancellor Heard and Trustee Board chairman Sam M. Fleming (1909-2000) decided to offer formal terms. These terms were presented to Peabody College trustees, March 19, 1979. After six hours of debate, Vanderbilt’s offer was accepted. On April 27, 1979, Vanderbilt and Peabody College trustees signed a “Memorandum of Understanding.” On July 1, 1979, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University became Vanderbilt’s ninth school.
Vanderbilt’s Terms
Vanderbilt absorbed some $11 million of Peabody College’s endowment, retained over $9 million after merger expenses, and allotted $8.5 million of that $9 million for continued Peabody College support. Peabody College of Vanderbilt University was responsible for teacher education and teacher certification programs; kept its undergraduate degree programs in elementary education, early childhood education, and a master’s program in library science (dropped in 1987); kept its Ed.D. program; offered the Ph.D. program through Vanderbilt’s Graduate School; and kept its prestigious and well funded John F. Kennedy Center for Research on Education and Human Development.
The new Peabody College of Vanderbilt University gave up its liberal arts component and ended its undergraduate degrees in physical sciences, social sciences, and human development (except educational psychology); and gave up its master’s degree programs in art education and music education.
These program changes went smoothly.
Faculty Settlement.
Some former Peabody College faculty who lost jobs in a scarce job market protested, voted “no confidence” in President Dunworth, and staged a symbolic march on the Peabody College of Vanderbilt’s administration building. The 40 staff employees let go received a parting bonus of five percent of annual wage for each year of service, or up to 75 percent of their annual pay. Many found jobs at Vanderbilt.
Non-tenured faculty received one year’s pay plus $2,000 for relocation. Tenured faculty could either teach for a final year or receive severance pay of one year’s salary and also collect a bonus of two percent for each year of service and one percent for each remaining year until retirement. For a few of these near retirement, this amounted to paid leave plus a sizable bonus.
Vanderbilt helped find new or temporary positions for those whose jobs were lost.
Backlash
The Tennessee branch of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) condemned the dismissals. The national AAUP took no action. In a show of solidarity, a small Vanderbilt faculty group urged Vanderbilt to retain all tenured former Peabody College faculty who, by August 24, 1979, had signed waivers (some still jobless). By 1980, five dismissed faculty members had not found jobs. Two untenured faculty filed grievances; one initiated legal action but settled out of court.
Most former Peabody faculty and staff, dedicated to their mission, proud of their history, and saddened by the necessity of merger, cooperated with dignity and grace. President Dunworth resigned May 1, 1979, with undisclosed severance pay. Peabody College’s Psychology Professor Hardy C. Wilcoxon (1921-96) was acting dean until the October 1980 appointment of new Dean Willis D. Hawley (1938-).
Vanderbilt’s Gain
Vanderbilt received the 1800 Peabody College students to add to its over 9,000 students. Vanderbilt gained 58 acres, 16 major buildings, dormitory and apartment space, and a president’s home in what some called Nashville’s greatest real estate transaction. Peabody College’s property was then valued at over $55 million.
As a gesture of good will, Vanderbilt committed $700,000 per year for ten years to Peabody College of Vanderbilt University’s operating budget. Peabody College of Vanderbilt University student tuition costs inevitably rose by 10 percent.
Bruised by the merger, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University became, ten years later, academically stronger than ever.
Why Peabody Lost Its Independence
Ironically, Peabody College’s 65 years of prestigious success in training educational leaders (1914-79) contributed to its own demise. Its own best graduates had become influential presidents, deans, leading professors, researchers, and education writers who had strengthened less expensive public colleges of education.
Wise Peabodians and others knew that the time was long past for the survival of a private single purpose teachers college like George Peabody College for Teachers, despite its history, regional reputation, and national and international influence. Many came to see the 1979 merger as a necessary and positive step that led to a stronger, more productive Peabody College of Vanderbilt University.
Why Vanderbilt Acquiesced
At the merger signing, April 27, 1979, Vanderbilt Chancellor Heard said that after seven decades of cooperation Vanderbilt and Peabody needed each other, that Vanderbilt was in the business of higher education, that the precollege schooling of its entering students needed improvement.
He said that because Peabody College had the expertise to prepare better teachers, who in turn prepared better entering students, Vanderbilt needed Peabody, and that Peabody needed Vanderbilt’s strong university base. He said that the risk each institution took in working together was worth taking because of the success both could achieve together.
Peabody’s Acting Dean Hardy C. Wilcoxon
Acting Dean Hardy C. Wilcoxon during 1979-80 knew that Peabody College of Vanderbilt University had to “sharpen its focus as a professional school.” Like all Vanderbilt schools, Peabody College had to pay its own way from tuition, research grants, and fundraising. It also had to pay its share of total plant operating costs, personnel costs, and other services.
H.C. Wilcoxon attended the University of Arkansas (B.A., 1947, and M.A., 1948) and Yale University (Ph.D., 1951), was psychology professor, University of Arkansas (to 1966), a George Peabody College for Teachers faculty member from 1966, and acting dean at the Peabody College of Vanderbilt University merger, 1979-80.
Peabody’s Dean Willis D. Hawley
Wilcoxon’s successor was Dean Willis David Hawley (b.1938) from October 15, 1980 to l989. He came to Vanderbilt in August 1980 to teach political science and to direct the Center for Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt’s interdisciplinary Institute for Public Policy. Born in San Francisco, he earned the B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. He taught political science at Yale University (1969-72) and co-directed Yale’s training of secondary school teachers. He taught political science at Duke University (1972-80) and directed its Center for Education Policy. He was on leave from Duke (1977-78) to help plan the cabinet-level U.S. Department of Education under U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
Educational Technology Breakthrough
Under Dean Hawley and amid a national surge of public education reform (inspired by A Nation at Risk, 1983, and other national reports critical of public education), Peabody had by 1983-84 upgraded its undergraduate and graduate programs, added new faculty, become proficient in using computers and telecommunications to enhance teaching and learning, and moved Peabody into national leadership in applying the new educational technology to improve public school teaching and learning. Peabody’s scattered educational technology components were placed in a Learning Technology Center to assure better research and to secure grants to improve learning and public school teaching.
Peabody As “America’s School of Education”
Hawley stated in 1986: “Peabody, more than any other school of education and human development, [is] national in scope and influence.” He cited Peabody as “America’s School of Education” because “we are arguably better than anyone else at linking knowledge to practice.” After a 1987 self-study on Peabody’s mission, Hawley wrote that “Peabody’s central mission is to enhance the social and cognitive development of children and youth,” focusing on the handicapped, and to transfer that knowledge into action through policy analysis, product development, and the design of practical models.
Peabody Library School Closed
A self-study in 1987 led Peabody to close its 60-year-old Library School. Reasons given for its closing were: it had been understaffed, student enrollment had not grown, school librarians had become computer-based learning facilitators, and American Library Association standards would require adding faculty. A two-day celebration in May 1987 honored Peabody’s Library School leaders and alumni.
Ten Years after Merger
Dean Hawley left the deanship after nine years (1980-89), remaining at Peabody. He became University of Maryland’s education dean on July 1, 1993. Reflecting on Peabody’s ten years as Vanderbilt’s ninth school, he said: To make it the best U.S. school of education and human development, Peabody had improved two-thirds of its programs, collaborated with Fisk University on increasing minority teachers, added new faculty, and increased its capacity to serve and influence educational policy makers and practitioners.
Peabody had established the Center for Advanced Study of Educational Leadership, the Corporate Learning Center, the Learning Technology Center, and strengthened and broadened the mission of the John F. Kennedy Center for Research on Education and Human Development. It had increased student aid and increased external research and development funding at an annual rate of 20 percent. In educational technology research and learning, he said, “we can claim to be the best in the country.”
In 1989 Hawley listed the following among Peabody College of Vanderbilt University’s achievements:
The U.S. Department of Education had awarded Peabody College and Harvard University a joint 5-year $2.5 million grant to study effective leadership in kindergarten through grade 12 school systems. The grant funded a National Center for Educational Leadership, housed at both Peabody and at Harvard, to study the leadership styles of school principals and school superintendents.
Apple Computer had donated computers, with equipment and software matched by Peabody, to improve math, science, and language arts teaching in a Nashville middle school. Besides better middle school learning, multimedia presentations showed prospective teachers how to apply educational technology in the classroom. Peabody was one of a six-member Southeast research university consortium testing and evaluating new educational technology programs in teaching and learning.
Peabody College received a four-year $80,000 grant for 20 educators to develop and evaluate computer-based instruction to improve learning by children with disabilities. The 20 teachers so trained, in turn, were resource educators for other teacher education institutions, thus stimulating ongoing programs. Said a Peabody special education professor directing the research: “We’re on the forefront of computer-based instruction and one of the leading institutions on technology as applied to teaching children with disabilities.”
For three consecutive years, Peabody College was named as having the “top choice” program to prepare guidance counselors. The judges (6l8 high school guidance counselors) most often named Peabody College of Vanderbilt University as having the best program for undergraduates from among 650 quality four-year colleges, public and independent, listed in Rugg’s Recommendations on the Colleges for 1990, 1991, and 1992.
Peabody College’s Dean J.W. Pellegrino
After a two-and-a-half year search, James William Pellegrino (1947-) was chosen as the second dean of Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, 1992-98. He had been acting dean at the University of California, Santa Barbara, before joining Vanderbilt as holder of the Frank W. Mayborn Chair of Cognitive Studies. “I inherited a financially stable and intellectually robust institution,” he said in the fall of 1992 (enrollment was over 1,500 [870 undergraduate, some 630 graduate students]). His goals were to so undergird Peabody ’s instructional programs with innovative technology that they would be “uniquely superior” and set a standard for other universities.
Dean Pellegrino said Peabody was developing a college-wide blueprint to improve learning in U.S. schools. That blueprint included continued collaboration with school leaders and teachers in Nashville and elsewhere, focusing on Peabody-developed innovative educational technology. Besides continued collaboration after September 1992 with Nashville schools, Peabody also joined the U.S. Education Department-sponsored alliance to promote the six (later raised to eight) national education goals.
Social-Religious Building Remodeled
During 1993-96 Peabody’s historic Social-Religious Building was renovated and expanded by 50,000 feet at a cost of $15 million to make it Peabody’s center for educational technology research and development. Its aim was to use creatively computers, interactive video and audio, fiber optics, and satellite systems to improve learning and enhance teaching.
The Social-Religious Building retained the main auditorium and housed Peabody’s central administrative offices, the Department of Teaching and Learning, and the Learning Technology Center. It had built-in capabilities for multimedia presentations, productions, and conferences, and also a visitors center.
Dean Camilla Persson Benbow
Peabody College’s second Dean James William Pellegrino, who remained as research professor, was succeeded by third Dean Camilla Persson Benbow (b.1956) from August 1998. She was former interim dean of Iowa State University College of Education and an authority on academically talented children.
Under Dean Benbow, on April 30, 2000, the Social-Religious Building was renamed the Faye and Joe Wyatt Center for Education, to honor the retiring Vanderbilt University chancellor and his wife, under whom the 1993-96 building renovation occurred.
Since 1979, under deans Hawley, Pellegrino, and Benbow, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University has advanced its small but excellent teacher education and other programs, especially its educational technology; has been financially stable; has refurbished its physical plant; and has enhanced its national reputation.
Conkin’s Conclusions
Conkin wrote positively about the Vanderbilt-Peabody union. He ended his book with the statement that “Peabody…has enhanced the reputation of its host [Vanderbilt].” Conkin sees a realization of “Philip Lindsley’s 1828 dream of a great university in Nashville, with one of its colleges dedicated to the training of teachers.” Conkin lauds as reality “Chancellor Kirkland’s dream at the beginning of the last century of a great university center in Nashville” (Conkin, p. 409).
Final Thoughts
Conkin wrote a fair and balanced history of Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. He read massive documentation, offered much detail yet also presented the big picture. He was blunt and made judgments based on facts. This book is a fit companion to and will stand the test of time alongside Conkin, et al. Gone With the Ivy: A Biography of Vanderbilt University (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985).
Author Conkin’s Dedication
We (reviewers) were touched, as all Peabodians will be, at Conkin’s dedication:
“I dedicate this book to the corps of Peabody-trained teachers. From the first thirteen young women who enrolled in a new State Normal College in December 1875 to the present, thousands of women and men, teachers or prospective teachers, have come to Peabody to gain needed skills in their chosen calling. They have eschewed wealth or the lofty status that too often attaches to high incomes. They have left Peabody, not only well prepared to teach or to assume leadership positions in education, but with a heightened idealism and a stronger commitment to a life of service. More than anyone else, they embody the Peabody ideal.”
Reviewers’ Last Word
Faced with greater financial challenges and class and race divisions than its northern and western counterparts, Peabody College and its predecessors rose phoenix-like again and again to produce educational leaders for the South, the nation, and the world. Strengthened since 1979 as part of Vanderbilt University, and annually from the 1990s to the present voted among the best U.S. graduate schools of education, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University proudly carries into the twenty-first century George Peabody’s 1852 motto, “Education, a debt due from present to future generations.”
End
For blogs of above review, try to access: 1 of 2 Parts: http://bfparker.mindsay.com/1_of_2_parts_paul_k_conkin_peabody_college_from_a_frontier_academy_to_the_fro.mws 2 of 2 parts:http://bfparker.mindsay.com/2of2partspaul_kconkin_peabody_college_of_vanderbilt_univ_by_franklin_parker.mws For google.com-listed blogs by the reviewers on the above review under—bfparker, bfparker, Paul K. Conkin, Peabody College…—try accessing:
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