Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Woodward, Calvin Milton

WOODWARD, Calvin Milton, educator, b. in Fitchburg, Mass., 25 Aug., 1837. He was graduated at Harvard in 1860, and became principal of Brown high-school in Newburyport, Mass. During the civil war he was captain in the 48th Massachusetts volunteers, taking part in the siege and capture of Port Hudson under Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks. In 1865 he was chosen vice-principal of the Smith academy of Washington university, St. Louis, and in 1868 he was appointed assistant professor of mathematics in that university, where since 1870 he has held the chair of mathematics and applied mechanics, also since 1870 he has been dean of its polytechnic school. He planned and organized in 1879 the manual training-school as a subordinate department of the university without resigning his other duties, and has filled the directorship of this school from the first. The St. Louis manual training-school is the pioneer of its kind in America, and has served as the model in organizing other similar schools, in consequence of which Prof. Woodward's expositions of the aims and value of manual training have had the widest influence in shaping the new education both at home and abroad. He was a member of the school board of St. Louis in 1878-'80, and president of the St. Louis engineer club in 1883-'4. Prof. Woodward was president of the industrial department of the National educational association in 1882-'4, and vice-president of the American association for the advancement of science in 1888, presiding over the section on mechanical science. In 1885 he was invited to present a paper on “Manual Training” before the educational conference in Manchester, England, and afterward he visited the educational institutions of Europe. He has written a large number of papers on mathematical subjects and manual training, which he has contributed to scientific journals and other periodicals. His books are “History of the St. Louis Bridge” (St. Louis, 1882), and “The Manual Training-School: its Aims, Methods, and Results” (Boston, 1887).