Arthur R. M. Spaid | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Spaid from History of Hampshire County, West Virginia (1897) | |
| Delaware State Commissioner of Education | |
| In office July 1, 1917 – July 1, 1921 | |
| Superintendent of Dorchester County Public Schools | |
| In office 1913–1917 | |
| Superintendent of New Castle County Public Schools | |
| In office 1903–1913 | |
| Principal of Alexis I. duPont High School | |
| In office 1894–1903 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | July 27, 1866 Capon Springs, West Virginia, United States |
| Died | March 16, 1936 (aged 69) Winchester, Virginia, United States |
| Spouse | Mary Abi Farquhar Spaid |
| Relations | John W. Spaid (father) Margaret Elizabeth Brill Spaid (mother)[1] |
| Alma mater | Wilmington College (AB) Haverford College (MA) Columbia University (MA) |
| Profession | educator, school administrator, superintendent, and education commissioner |
Arthur Rusmiselle Miller Spaid (July 27, 1866 – March 16, 1936) was an American educator, school administrator, lecturer, and writer. He served as principal of Alexis I. duPont High School (1894–1903) in Wilmington, Delaware, superintendent of New Castle County Public Schools (1903–1913) in Delaware, superintendent of Dorchester County Public Schools (1913–1917) in Maryland, and Delaware State commissioner of Education (1917–1921).
Born in West Virginia, Spaid began his career in education as a schoolteacher in Virginia and as a school administrator in Ohio. After a decade as a principal Spaid became a superintendent; in this role he argued for compulsory education and the consolidation of New Castle County's rural public schools, instituted pay raises for teachers to mitigate a teacher shortage, and served on a committee to revise the state public school system's curriculum.
Spaid received a Master of Arts degree in education from Columbia University in 1917, the same year he became the Delaware State Commissioner of Education. As commissioner, Spaid worked to bring efficiency to the state's public school system; his efforts resulted in the Delaware State Board of Education's adoption of a new school code in 1919. He left Delaware in 1921 and engaged in Chautauqua-related work before becoming the head of the Education Department at Salem University in Salem, West Virginia, from 1926 to 1936.
Spaid was a naturalist by hobby and took hundreds of photographs, using them to illustrate his nature study articles and lecture slides. Throughout his career as a school administrator, he served as an instructor, lecturer, and speaker for multiple courses, institutes, and organizations. Spaid was also an avid writer, and he published articles in Scientific American and Country Life in America. He had planned to author a book on his nature studies, for which he had written notes and collected specimens; however, his home and notebooks were destroyed in a fire in 1917. Spaid died at the home of his daughter in Winchester, Virginia, in 1936. According to historians Hu Maxwell and Howard Llewellyn Swisher, Spaid "placed himself in the front rank of the educational works of Delaware, and received the commendation of the press and the educators for his advanced ideas."[2]
- ^ "Woman of Seventy Expires" (PDF). The Washington Herald. Washington, D.C. January 13, 1910. p. 9. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 20, 2019. Retrieved February 20, 2019 – via Chronicling America.
- ^ Maxwell & Swisher 1897, p. 730.