Hinsdale, B.A. (Burke Aaron), 1837-1900

Educator who served as President of Hiram College, Superintendent of the Cleveland Public Schools, and professor at the University of Michigan.

The career of Burke Aaron Hinsdale (1837-1900) included a variety of occupations. At various times he was a teacher, a minister, an editor, a college president, a superintendent of schools, a university professor, and a prolific author of numerous books and articles. While pursuing these occupations he made lasting friendships with a number of noted contemporaries, including President James A. Garfield and his wife Lucretia. After President Garfield was assassinated, Lucretia Garfield authorized Hinsdale to collect, edit, and publish The Works of Garfield .

Burke Aaron Hinsdale was born to the farmer Albert Hinsdale on March 31, 1837 in Wadsworth, Medina County, Ohio. The family had originally moved to Ohio from Connecticut in 1816. Burke attended the local school, and at sixteen he left Wadsworth to attend the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (renamed Hiram College in 1867) at Hiram, Ohio. There he met and befriended James A. Garfield. To pay for his education Hinsdale taught school in Franklin, Ohio. After his graduation, he became a teacher in the English Department of the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute and remained at his post until 1864.

Hinsdale's departure from Western Reserve Eclectic Institute led him to new occupations. He served as pastor of the Church of the Disciples of Christ in Solon, Ohio, and later of the Franklin Circle Church of the same denomination in Cleveland, Ohio. He became an associate editor of The Christian Standard, a religious periodical in Cleveland, and wrote many articles for the publication. In 1868 he accepted the chair of History, Political Economy, and Governmental Science at the short-lived Alliance College in Alliance, Ohio. The next year he returned to Hiram College and became Professor of Philosophy, English literature, and Political Science.

In 1870 he was elected President of Hiram College and was engaged in the teaching, fundraising, and administrative duties of his office. Hinsdale's energy was drained by these duties, and he continued to write and publish -- The Genuineness and Authenticity of the Gospels (1872), The Jewish Christian Church (1878), and The Ecclesiastical Tradition (1879). When his friend James A. Garfield became the Republican candidate for President in 1880, Hindsdale prepared the Republican Text Book for the Campaign in 1880, a biographical account of Garfield. In 1881 he published President Garfield and Education . During his last year at Hiram College, Hinsdale edited The Works of Garfield .

Hinsdale became discontented with being president of a small college and sought other positions. He asked President Garfield for an appointment to the State Department, an opportunity that vanished after Garfield's assassination in 1881. Hinsdale finally resigned from Hiram College in 1881 to become the Superintendent of Cleveland Public Schools in 1882. In a pamphlet entitled Our Common School Education (1877), Hinsdale had charged that education standards were declining, and he was determined to use his new post to improve the quality of public education by hiring better teachers, not by building bigger schools. His efforts, however, encountered the opposition of the elected Cleveland Board of Education, which combined an interest in education with a concern for political patronage. After a number of quarrels the board refused to reelect Hinsdale as superintendent after 1866.

During his period of unemployment, Hinsdale published The Old Northwest and applied for the superintendencies of education at Detroit, Michigan, and Minneapolis, Minnesota. In order to support himself he instructed teachers in the art of education. Finally in 1888 Hinsdale was elected to the chair of the Science and Art of Teaching at the University of Michigan when its occupant, Professor William H. Payne, resigned. as professor of education, Hinsdale taught the first course in the history of American education to be given at the University of Michigan. In addition to teaching he continued to write and publish a number of books and articles about education in America and Europe, including Jesus as a Teacher (1895), Teaching the Language Arts (1896), and Horace Mann and the Common School Revival in the United States (1898). Hinsdale's active life in education at the University of Michigan continued until his death on November 29, 1900.

V iew the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for Burke Aaron Hinsdale View the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for Cleveland Public Schools