History and Use of the Blackboard



Perhaps no one method has so influenced the quality of the instruction of the cadets as the blackboard recitations. Major Thayer insisted on this form, although old records show that it was introduced at West Point by Mr. George Baron, a civilian teacher, who in the autumn of 1801 gave to Cadet Swift "a specimen of his mode of teaching at the blackboard." Today it is the prominent feature in Academic instruction.

[Quoted from Richardson 1917, p. 25]


There is indication that the blackboard was used in a few schools in the US before it was used at USMA. See Charnel Anderson, Technology in American Education, 1650-1900, published by the US Dept of Health, Education, and Welfare 1961 [Kent State: FS 5.234: 34018. Rickey has photocopy of pp. vi +16-25, 32-35, 40-47, 50-53; the last few pages are the bibliography of this small booklet.]

 


"George W. Cullum, USMA 1833, to his sister, Miss Catherine Cullum, April 24, 1831: Monday morning April 25th. – I have just returned from a hard morning's work, of surveying. I have been taking a plan of the point, for the sake of a little practice and still more for some fresh air. It is delightful working on the field instead of on the blackboard, particularly as we sometimes have a peep of some of the fair sex, when taking the positions of their dwellings."  [Sidney Forman, West Point (1950),  p. 98.]