Walter Crosby Eells papers, 1890-1963

Walter Crosby Eells was born near Union, Mason County, Washington on March 6, 1886. Eells attended Whitman College, which was founded by his grandfather, Cushing Eells. There he received a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, in Mathematics and Greek (1908) and served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Pioneer. In 1911, Eells received a Master of Arts in Mathematics from the University of Chicago. Between 1911 and 1914 he held teaching posts at Whitworth College, the United States Naval Academy, and Harvard University Engineering Camp. Eells returned to Whitman College in 1916 as Professor in Applied Mathematics (1916-1926) and Education and Educational Statistics (1926-1927). W. C. Eells served as secretary of the Whitman College Alumni Association and editor of the Whitman Alumnus from 1916-1927. Eells received a Ph.D. in Education from Stanford University in 1927 and served as Professor of Education at Stanford from 1927-1938. He was active in American higher education throughout the 1930s and 1940s. He served as the Executive Secretary of the American Association of Junior Colleges and the Secretary of the American Association of Research Colleges. He was also the coordinator of the "Evaluation of Secondary Schools; General Report on the Methods, Activities, and Results" by the Cooperative Study of Secondary School Standards, published in 1939. In the 1945, Eells became Chief of the Foreign Education Division of the Veterans Administration. In 1947, he moved to the War Department to serve as Advisor on Higher Education in the Civil Information and Education Section at General Headquarters for the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. Eells and other, members of the Civil Information and Education Section worked in Japan through 1951 to establish the post-war Japanese higher education system. Of particular interest to Eells was the suppression of Communist influences and sentiment in Japanese Universities. W. C. Eells was a prolific writer, frequently publishing on mathematics, education, higher education, women in education, and education in Japan and Communist countries in the wake of World War II. He died in Washington, D.C. on December 15, 1962.