author
Thomas R. (Thomas Raymond) Cole
1881–1970
A longtime educator in Seattle, this early twentieth-century school leader wrote from direct experience about what it meant to grow into the work of teaching and administration. His books offer a practical, lived-in view of American public education as it was being shaped in a fast-changing era.
1 Audiobook
Learning to Be a Schoolmaster
by Thomas R. (Thomas Raymond) Cole
About the author
Born in Iowa in 1881, Thomas Raymond Cole went on to build a career in education in the Pacific Northwest. Records from the University of Washington archives describe him as a professor of education at the University of Washington, and other contemporary references identify him earlier as superintendent of schools in Seattle and formerly assistant state superintendent of schools.
Cole is best remembered as the author of Learning to Be a Schoolmaster (1922), a work grounded in real school experience rather than abstract theory. That background gives his writing a straightforward, useful quality: he wrote as someone who had spent years inside classrooms, school systems, and the day-to-day challenges of educational leadership.
He later served in Washington state public work related to school building needs, including as chairman of the Washington State School Emergency Construction Commission from 1953 to 1957. Cole died in Seattle in 1970. A suitable verified portrait could not be confirmed from the sources reviewed, so no profile image is included.