1940: General Education Board

The General Education Board is an institution incorporated by an Act of Congress in 1903, with the stated object of 'promoting education within the United States of America without distinction of race, sex, or creed.' Its present program is restricted largely to the support of three types of work: (1) education in the Southern States; (2) research and experimentation in relation to the problems presented in the field of general education, i.e., the secondary school through the junior college level; (3) a program in child growth and development. In 1941 the Board will terminate its work in the fields of general education and child growth and development. During the year 1940 the Board made appropriations approximating $6,500,000.

Southern Education.

Grants for southern education included the following: to Meharry Medical College, Nashville, Tennessee, $3,700,000 toward endowment, and $160,000 toward the current expenses of the College and the Hospital; to Bennett College, Greensboro, North Carolina, $200,000 toward endowment; to Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, Alabama, $60,000 for enlargement of the plant and equipment of the School of Agriculture; to the University of North Carolina, $60,000 to the Department of Chemistry for apparatus, equipment, and organic materials, and for a study of new sources of tanning materials; to Fisk University, Nashville, $50,000 for teaching and research; to the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, $48,800 toward the support of a Bureau of Industrial Research; to Clark University, Atlanta, $50,000 for the purchase of a new site.

General Education.

Grants in the field of general education were as follows: to Teachers College, Columbia University, $67,200 for support of the program of science teaching of the Bureau of Educational Research in Science, and $50,000 toward expenses incurred by the Congress on Education for Democracy; to the Educational Policies Commission of the National Education Association of the United States, $65,000 for general support and $10,000 for its program of education for civic responsibility; to the National Association of Secondary School Principals, $24,750 for support of a study of occupational adjustment; to the University of California, $61,700 for support of the study of adolescent development being conducted by its Institute of Child Welfare; to the American Council on Education, $40,000 toward support of the cooperative study in general education at the junior college level; to Stanford University, $40,000 for support of its program in social studies.

Officers.

The executive officers of the General Education Board during 1940 were: Ernest M. Hopkins, Chairman of the Board of Trustees; Raymond B. Fosdick, President; Albert R. Mann, Vice-President; William W. Brierley, Secretary; Edward Robinson, Treasurer; George J. Beal, Comptroller; Thomas M. Debevoise, Counsel; Chauncey Belknap, Associate Counsel; Albert R. Mann, Director for Southern Education; Robert J. Havighurst, Director for General Education. The offices of the Board are at 49 West 49th Street, New York City.