Arthur O. Norton

Arthur O. Norton, born Arthur Orlo Norton in 1869 and died in 1959, was an American scholar of education. He taught at Harvard University, where he was identified as Assistant Professor of the History and Art of Teaching, and he is best remembered for books that gathered original historical materials for students and general readers.

One of his best-known works is Readings in the History of Education: Mediaeval Universities (1909), a source-based collection designed to make the past feel vivid and immediate. He also contributed an introduction to The First State Normal School in America; the journals of Cyrus Peirce and Mary Swift (1926), showing his continuing interest in the development of teacher training and American educational history.

Norton's writing has a practical, classroom-minded quality: he wanted readers to encounter documents directly rather than only through summary. That approach gives his work a clear historical value today, especially for listeners interested in the roots of universities, teaching, and the shaping of modern education.