High School Inspection by the University of Wisconsin, 1877–1931

Abstract

During the decades around the beginning of the twentieth century, public universities in the United States commonly employed a “certificate system” to establish eligibility for undergraduate admittance. “Certification” meant that between 1877 and 1931 representatives of the University of Wisconsin inspected high schools and had face-to-face interaction with pupils, teachers, and administrators. If they found a school's facilities, curriculum, and teaching to be satisfactory, graduates—with the endorsement of their principal—could enter the University as freshmen without further examination. This process of certification by inspection was part of a broader dialogue between Wisconsin high schools and the state university. The principal inspector during the 1920s, Thomas Lloyd-Jones, brought together strands of both administrative and pedagogical Progressivism, while insisting on the importance of academic subjects in the high school curriculum. By encouraging closer articulation between secondary schools and colleges, it was a central component of what educational historian Mark VanOverbeke has described as a more “stratified and standardized educational system” that developed in the United States between 1870 and 1910.