Central Michigan University - Chippewa Yearbook (Mount Pleasant, MI)

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Dr. E. L. Austin Nursery School 1934, to work with them. Wfeekly and semi-weekly meetings have been held since then to which other stat? members in the various departments of Central have been invited. ' The plan before us is to select with care about sixty entering freshmen in the fall of 1935 who are to pursue this new curriculum now in process of construction by the Copeland Experiment Committee. Attention thus far has been devoted large- ly to the first year of the experiment. It is not possible at the present time to de- termine in detail what the curriculum will-include but in general it will probably be as follows: Qrientation Q3 hoursl. Social Relationships Q6 hoursj. Physical and Biological WO1'ld Q4 hoursj. Physical and Leisure Time Activities f 3 hoursj. Language, Art, Music, Commerce or Creative WVriting- Cne Elective Q-1 hoursj. Remedial Reading and Mathematics. Much interest has been aroused throughout the state in this experiment and Cen- tral hopes to render a distinct service to Michigan and the whole country in work- ADMINISTRATION ing out an important teacher training program. E 1895 12. c.WARR1NER,P1-esifient C H I P P E Wlgfg April 24, 1935. 29

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CREDIT IS DUE CITY LEADERTS POOL FOR FOUNDING OF TEACHER'S .SCHOOL HE new 310,000 building just completed in the year 1892 on the land of the Normal Campus Addition at the end of Mt. Pleasant's Normal avenue was a tan- gible monument to the fore-sight of many of the leading citizens of the mid-state city. Chief among these leaders was Mr. S. WV. Hopkins, who, if any individual credit is due, can be said to have first actively advocated the idea of a college ilr the city. l i Mr. Charles M. Brooks, long on the board of education of the city schools, was approached by Mr. Hopkins and agreed with the' college plan heartily enough to loan sfsoo to establish the Mt. Pleasant Improvement Company. It was under the name of this company that all future college negotiations went' forward. Qther names associated with the newly conceived embryonic project were those of : I. W. Hance, M. Devereau, A. S. Coutant, I. A. Fancher, D. H. Nelson, G. H. Dusen- bury, L. N. Smith, M. Lower, W. Doughty, and F. D. Patterson. With the money borrowed from Mr. Brooks, these twelve men succeeded in acquiring deeds to 52 acres of land on the south side of the city where the campus is now located. After land had been procured, 145 citizens of the city bought stock in the Company and made it possible for the founders of3 the public spirited project to go ahead with plans of platting and dividing the land into lots. These lots would be sold and the proceeds used to build the college on a ten acre plot re- served from the lot sale. An interesting sidelight after the project was under full swing was the inter- view of Mr. Hopkins with Professor Ferris of Big Rapids. It was at first hoped that Professor Ferris would move his already established school to the more favor- able location of Mt. Pleasant. The deal collapsed finally and only by a narrow margin did Central State miss being called Ferris Institute today. Instead, nego- tiations were made with Professor Bellows of Marquette' to act as principal of the new school. The founders of Central had accomplished their part-years of progress lay ahead. The picture here was taken a number of years ago. It shows the portico and entrance way of the original training school building which was lost by. tire of an undetermined origin in 1933.

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ADMINISTRATION 1895 CHI PPEW A 1935 THE COPELAND EXPERIMENT Honorable Royal S. Copeland, United States Senator from the state of New York, has been a prominent figure in our national affairs for many years. Senator Cope- land is a native of the state of Michigan and was for some ti1ne a. practicing physi- cian in Bay City and a member of the medical faculty of the University at Ann Arbor. Upon leaving Michigan, Senator Copeland went to New York City where for a number of years he was City Commissioner of Public Health. In 1923 he was elected Senator from New York and has held this position ever since. Senator Copeland was a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce in the seventy-third congress and was Chairman of a Subcommittee to Investigate Crime and Crime Control with Special Reference to so-called 'iRackets. This Subcom- mittee, the other members of which were Senator Vandenberg of Michigan and Senator Murphy of Iowa, held extended hearings in New York, Chicago and De- troit. As a result of these hearings Senator Copeland came to the conclusion that our schools and our educational systems should give more particular attention to character education than has been the case in the past. . NVhile it is true that the development of good citizenship has always been consider- ed the basis of free and compulsory education, it is questionable whether the schools have done all that lies in their power in this Held. As a result of Senator Copelands convictions on this matter and at his suggestion the American Council on Education. appointed a committee in the summer of 1934 to work out experi- ments in character education. One of the first steps of this committee was to set up a comprehensive experiment in the public schools of Wfashington, D .C. Qwing to the activity of our State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Honor- able Paul F. Voelker, other experiments are going forward in the state of Michi- gan. The Burton School in Grand Rapids has undertaken hto develop a schedule of records to meet the requirements when education is focused upon the child rather than the subject matter, The following Michigan educators are heading up these character experiments in our state: Dr. Kenneth L. Heaton, Director of the Bureau of Curriculum and Guidance. Department of Public Instructiong Dr. E. L. Austin, Head of the De- partment of Education, Michigan State College: Dr. Wfillard Olson, Director of' Research in Child Development, University of Michigang Dr. C. L. Spain, Execu- tive Vice-President of Wfayne University and Dr. Roy F. Street, Director of Men- tal Hygiene of the Ann I. Kellogg School, Battle Creek. At the suggestion of this Committee and at the request and with the approval of the' State Board of Educa- tion, Central State Teachers College was asked to work out a curriculum in the training of teachers which should give special attention to character building. Doc- tors Austin and Heaton have taken the direction of the preparation of this experi- ment and a general committee of the Central faculty was appointed in November, 28