Henry Lester Smith was a long-timeprofessor and administrator at the Indiana University School of Education. Inaddition to teaching and other administrative positions, Smith served as the dean ofthe School of Education from 1916 until his retirement in 1946. While at IU, he alsocreated the Bureau of Education Research and made it the means of disseminating thebest in educational thinking to Indiana educators and others through regularpublications of its Bulletins. Active in the community and state, Smith was alifelong member of the Reformed Presbyterian Church and chair of the local Red Crosschapter for most of his professional life. As secretary-general of the WorldFederation of Education Associations, he was involved in drafting documents tocreate the educational branches of what would be UNESCO. Prof. Smith died inBloomington, Ind., in 1963. The collection consists largely of correspondencerelative to his national and international educational work, materials developed inconnection with his teaching, and research materials and writings in his maininterest areas of international education, school administration, and charactereducation. There is a substantial amount of material on his year of service asSuperintendent of Schools in the Canal Zone in 1908-1909, his work with the NationalEducation Association and other national organizations as well as the WorldFederation of Education Associations. There is a small series holding records fromhis tenure as Dean of the IU School of Education.
