Jacobs, Walter B.

Walter Ballou Jacobs (1861-1932), professor of education, was born in Providence on May 5, 1861. After graduation from Brown in 1882, he studied for a year at Union Theological School. He taught in the classical department of Providence High School from 1883 to 1898, when he was made principal of the new Hope Street High School, a post he held until 1901. While he was teaching in the public schools, he was also instructor in pedagogy at Brown from 1893 to 1895 and associate professor from 1895 to 1901. As early as 1895 he introduced the idea of practice teaching for graduate students in secondary schools under actual classroom conditions. When he left the city school system, he was named professor of the theory and practice of education. He undertook the reorganization of university extension courses in 1906, and with only four courses attracted 500 registrations. He was director of university extension from 1915 until 1931, by which time the registration had climbed to 3400 persons in nearly sixty courses. Jacobs had nearly 500 in his extension course on “Psychology for Daily Life.” He was director of the School of Education from 1923 to 1927. He was obliged to retire when he reached the age of seventy. The year before he taught a course in “Applied Social Psychology” in Boston. He died in Plattsburgh, New York on June 23, 1932.