author
Nathan Christ Schaeffer
1849–1919
A longtime Pennsylvania educator and public official, he spent decades shaping schools, teacher training, and public instruction in the state. His career joined scholarship, ministry, and educational leadership in a way that made him a widely respected voice in American education.
1 Audiobook
Thinking and learning to think
by Nathan Christ Schaeffer
About the author
Born in Maxatawny, Pennsylvania, on February 3, 1849, he graduated from Franklin and Marshall College in 1867, studied divinity at the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Church, and continued his education in Berlin, Tübingen, and Leipzig. He was ordained in the German Reformed Church and brought both academic training and religious conviction to his work as a teacher and writer.
After teaching at Franklin and Marshall College, he became principal of the Keystone State Normal School at Kutztown, serving from 1877 to 1893. He then became Pennsylvania's superintendent of public instruction, a post he held until his death in 1919. During those years he was known as a strong advocate for public education and teacher preparation, and he also served as president of the National Education Association.
He wrote and edited widely on educational and religious subjects, including work connected with the Pennsylvania School Journal. Remembered as an influential school leader as well as a speaker and author, he left a lasting mark on education in Pennsylvania during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.