Biography

He was born at North Madison, Indiana

Madison, Indiana

As of the census of 2000, there were 12,004 people, 5,092 households, and 3,085 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,402.9 people per square mile . There were 5,597 housing units at an average density of 654.1 per square mile...

. He graduated at Franklin College, Franklin, Indiana

Franklin, Indiana

As of the census of 2000, there were 19,463 people, 6,824 households, and 4,872 families residing in the city. The population increased by more than 50% during the 1990s , with new residents attracted by jobs in the community, as well as some people commuting to Indianapolis for work. The...

 in 1890, studied at the University of Heidelberg and took his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 in 1897. He became professor at Columbia

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 in 1899, his research involving education in its historic aspect. As well as Columbia, he lectured at Yale

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 and California

University of California

The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...

 universities. During 1912-1913, he reported on the condition of education in the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

. Professor Monroe received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the University of Peking

Peking University

Peking University , colloquially known in Chinese as Beida , is a major research university located in Beijing, China, and a member of the C9 League. It is the first established modern national university of China. It was founded as Imperial University of Peking in 1898 as a replacement of the...

 in 1913.

Paul Monroe had a significant impact on the development of education in China and made a dozen trips there in the 1920s and 1930s. He contributed much to educational interaction between China and the United States, and his impact on Chinese students at Columbia who later became leading educators in China, such as Guo Bingwen, Tao Xingzhi, Chen Heqin, Jiang Menglin and Zhang Boling, was considerable. These students, who enrolled at Teachers College at Columbia, were influenced by the theoretical educational innovations of John Dewey, but Paul Monroe exerted a practical influence on their ideas about curricular implementation. He advanced practical methods for democratizing Chinese education, which extended to the development of the “6-3-3” educational program. Creativity and the development of self-confidence were major educational goals for Monroe. As he said: “The essence of democracy is that all people, no matter whether intelligent or backward, should have the equal chance of full development.”

His contributions to the study of education also gave Dr. Monroe an international reputation, and his textbooks have helped to give the subject a position of great importance in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. He was the President of Robert College

Robert College

Robert College of Istanbul , is one of the most selective independent private high schools in Turkey. Robert College is a co-educational, boarding school with a wooded campus on the European side of Istanbul between the two bridges on the Bosphorus, with the Arnavutköy district to the east, and...

of Istanbul between 1932-1935. His greatest contribution was as editor-in-chief of the massive and wide-ranging Encyclopedia of Education, in five volumes (1910–13).

Works

He published:

• Source Book in the History of Education for the Greek and Roman Period (1901)
• A Text-Book in the History of Education (1905)
• Brief Course in the History of Education (1907)
• Principles of Secondary Education (1914)