MARIANO MARCOS STATE UNIVERSITY

College of Teacher Education

TECHNICAL VOCATIONAL AND LVELIHOOD EDUCATION
DEPARTMENT
Butac, Cherika Lhen T.
BTLEd 2-A
TLED 156
Task Sheet 1.1-3

HAROLD RUGG
(1886-1960)

Harold Rugg was one of the best-known educators during the era of Progressive
education in the United States. He was a longtime professor of education at Teachers College,
Columbia University. He produced the first-ever series of school textbooks from 1929 until the
early 1940s. Rugg was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, the son of a carpenter. He graduated
at Darmouth College in 1908 with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and earning a
graduate civil engineering degree from Dartmouth's Thayer School of Civil Engineering in
1909. After he earned his degree he worked as a civil engineering. Afterwards, he taught Civil
Engineering at Milliken University in Decatur, Illinois, where he was inspired to learn how
students learn. This motivated him to gain a doctorate in education at the University of Illinois
in 1915, and he began a college teaching career at the University of Chicago, where he taught
until 1920. He then went to Teachers College at Columbia University, where he taught until
his retirement in 1951. After his retirement he continued publishing books in education and
also served as an educational consultant in Egypt and Puerto Rico.
The field of education was still in its formative stages when Rugg began his career.
Harold Rugg was trained as an engineer and educational psychologist, his major initial impact
was in the field of curriculum. Rugg applied his training to reassessing how curriculum was
created. His editing of and writing in both the twenty-second and twenty-sixth yearbooks of
the National Society for the Study of Education provided groundbreaking syntheses of the
fields of social studies and general curriculum, respectively.
1922, he made a tem to create a Social Science Pamphlets for Junior High Schppl.
These materials were adapted and published by Ginn and Company starting in 1929. While in
192, he wrote his first major work, The Child-Centered School, which described the historical
and contemporary basis for "child-centered" education. This has made a major impact on the
Progressive educators and remains an excellent explanation and critique of this topic. It was
also one of the first discource on the two major emphases within Progressive education–child
centeredness and social reconstruction.
He focused his attention primarily on the teacher education and foundations of
education in the last years before his retirement. His books in these areas were well respected
and received but did not have the lasting impact of his curriculum work. At his death Rugg was

Castro Ave., Laoag City, 2900 Ilocos Norte, Philippines

 cte@mmsu.edu.ph  (077) 600-2014 www.mmsu.edu.ph
 MARIANO MARCOS STATE UNIVERSITY
College of Teacher Education
TECHNICAL VOCATIONAL AND LVELIHOOD EDUCATION
DEPARTMENT
attempting to understand and explain creative thought, and his last book, Imagination, focused
on this area and was published posthumously, not fully completed.

Castro Ave., Laoag City, 2900 Ilocos Norte, Philippines

 cte@mmsu.edu.ph  (077) 600-2014 www.mmsu.edu.ph