| An examination of the professional life of W(errett) W(allace) Charters (1875-1952) and his contributions to education was the purpose of this dissertation. The personal-professional qualities which influenced Charters' professional life in higher education were examined, and the educational contributions of this transplanted Canadian-naturalized American were described.;Charters was also an exemplar of the man about whom he wrote: the educational engineer. As an individual whose career culminated at the Ohio State University (1928-42) in a position which afforded him autonomy to utilize his many skills, experiences, and human resources acquired before 1928, he enhanced the many dimensions of his professional primacy during the first half of the twentieth century in a manner which must be considered unprecedented. He was a model leader, entrepreneur, grantsman, consultant, resource developer, delegator, man of action, and precursor in "action research.".;While his academic writing appears to be less significant, the Charters Papers, the sixty-three boxes of primary source material, have identified him as predecessor and/or contributor to contemporary curriculum organization and implementation, teacher education, behavioural objectives, competency-based education, the project method, systems concept, evaluation, efficiency, and social control. Charters' writings therefore merit in-depth examination and further studies of his achievements.;Appendices to the study include a compilation of Charters' writings, a significant, unpublished letter from John Dewey and a Charters-initiated "Membership of the Proposed University Curriculum Group.".;W.W. Charters made a number of significant contributions to education. First and foremost, he was a leader of men--one who became mentor to, and/or influential employer of, many future leaders in education: Wilford Aikin, William H. Cowley, Edgar Dale, Ross Mooney, Sidney Pressey, Louis Raths, Hilda Taba, I. Keith Tyler, Ralph W. Tyler, and others. He made other important contributions to education because he was a leader, entrepreneur, and man of action: first "invisible college" of individuals interested in curriculum studies, Institute for Education by Radio, Journal of Higher Education, Eight-Year Study, first college teaching course, educational workshops, forerunner to the university "teaching service," and promoter of staffing differentiated by function. |
