author

Charles Madison Curry

1869–1944

An English professor who helped shape how children’s books were taught in the early 1900s, he wrote and edited practical, wide-ranging works for teachers and young readers. His career also left a mark on Indiana State University, where he wrote the school’s alma mater.

1 Audiobook

Children's Literature

Children's Literature

by Erle Elsworth Clippinger, Charles Madison Curry

About the author

Born in Whiteland, Indiana, in 1869, Charles Madison Curry became an English literature professor and a writer and reviewer focused on children's literature. He taught at Indiana State Normal School, now Indiana State University, and spent much of his career thinking about how literature could be introduced clearly and effectively to students.

Curry is best remembered for editing and writing educational books, including Children's Literature: A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes, a substantial guide for educators that was later made widely available through Project Gutenberg. He also edited Literary Readings: An Introduction to the Study of Literature and helped create the eight-volume Holton-Curry Reader series for elementary grades.

Beyond the classroom, Curry contributed a lasting piece of campus tradition by writing Indiana State University's alma mater in 1925. He died in 1944, leaving behind work that reflects an era when children's reading, teacher training, and literary study were becoming more formal parts of American education.