Claude Wayland Wilson

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Claude Wayland Wilson (1867-1922) was one of the charter faculty members at East Carolina Teachers Training School (ECTTS). Tributes following his unexpected passing on February 1, 1922, at age 54, emphasized his importance to the school’s growth and development. President Robert H. Wright remarked, “Whatever greatness may come to East Carolina Teachers College is in no small measure [due] to the big-hearted, unselfish spirit of Claude Wayland Wilson.” Sam B. Underwood, superintendent of Pitt County Schools, observed that Wilson’s “life was a splendid exemplification of the motto of the institution which he loved so supremely, ‘To Serve.'” James Yadkin Joyner, state superintendent of public instruction and chair of the board of trustees at ECTTS for its first eleven years, added, “Among those who have contributed to making a great institution of the East Carolina Teachers Training School are Jarvis, Ragsdale, and Wilson.”

Wilson was born in Chatham County, North Carolina, on August 27, 1867. He graduated from Wake Forest College in 1893. The following year, he served as one of the principals of the Scotland Neck Male Academy, formerly the Scotland Neck Military School. In 1896, under his direction, the school changed its name to Vine Hill Academy. In 1898, he was named principal of a private school in Williamston, where he remained for two years. In 1900, he moved to Rocky Mount to serve as superintendent of the graded school there. In 1904, he returned to Scotland Neck to serve as superintendent of that town’s graded school. On March 15, 1907, one week after the state legislature established ECTTS, Wilson, a respected educator-administrator, was appointed to its board of trustees. In 1908, he was elected secretary of the board. In 1909, Thomas Jarvis, founding father of the school, persuaded Wilson to join the faculty as its director of pedagogy. Wilson, accepting the position, resigned his seat on the board of trustees. Until his death, however, he continued to serve as its secretary.

In preparation for his work in pedagogical development, Wilson spent the summer of 1911 studying at Columbia University’s Teacher’s College in New York City, then the leading center in the nation providing professional training for teachers. Committed to East Carolina’s mission of training teachers, Wilson led in founding the Model School on campus as a pedagogical site for teacher training, and the Joyner School, an off-campus rural school run by ECTTS as a pedagogical site for rural teachers in training. Additionally, he served as bursar, managing the school’s financial affairs. In Wright’s absence, he was given charge of administrative tasks. He directed summer sessions from 1915 until his passing in 1922. Wilson was also active in the local community. He was a charter member of the Immanuel Baptist Church, and served as a member of the board of trustees at Wake Forest College (now Wake Forest University).

In 1922, shortly after his passing, The Teachers College Quarterly (9/3), included a number of tributes to Wilson and his selfless devotion to East Carolina and its mission of teacher training. In 1926, alumni had a pergola erected on campus across from Wilson’s residence on Fifth Street, in memory of his service to the institution. The West Dormitory, one of the original buildings on campus, was later named in his honor. That building along with the pergola just west of it, however, was demolished in 1968, along with Old Austin. The 1938 Tecoan, the ECTC annual, featured Wilson in a two-page spread, along with Jarvis, Ragsdale, Fleming, Wright, and Austin, honoring their contributions to the history of the school on its thirtieth anniversary.

Sources

• Bratton, Mary Jo Jackson. East Carolina: The Formative Years, 1907-1982. Greenville, NC: East Carolina University Alumni Association, 1986.
• “Claude Wayland Wilson.” The Teacher’s College Quarterly, Vol. 9, no. 3 (January, February, March 1922).
• “Claude Wayland Wilson, 1867-1922.” Tecoan. Greenville: East Carolina Teachers College, 1938.
• Ferrell, Henry C., Jr. No Time for Ivy: East Carolina University, 1907-2007. Greenville: East Carolina University, 2006.
• “Friends Pay Last Tribute to Late Professor Wilson.” The Daily Reflector, February 3, 1922.
• “Training School Victorious.” The Daily Reflector, March 29, 1910.
• Wilson, Claude Wayland. “Department of Pedagogy.” The Teacher’s College Quarterly, Vol. 9, no. 3 (January, February, March 1922). Pp. 144-151.
• Wilson, Claude Wayland. “The Problem of Our School.” The Teacher’s College Quarterly, Vol. 9, no. 3 (January, February, March 1922). Pp. 151-155.
• Wilson, C. W. “Are We Making Good?” Training School Quarterly, Vol. 7, no.1 (October, November, December 1919). Pp. 3-6.
• Wilson, C. W. “The Work of the Schools in Developing Moral Character in the Grammar Grade Child.” Training School Quarterly, Vol. 1, no. 3 (October, November, December 1914). Pp. 139-143.

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