W. K. (William Knox) Tate

Best known as W. K. Tate, William Knox Tate was an American educator and writer whose work centered on schools, especially in the rural South. Records from Winthrop University describe him as a former State Supervisor of Rural Schools in South Carolina, superintendent of Memminger Normal School in Charleston, a professor at Winthrop College from 1910 to 1914, and later a professor at George Peabody College for Teachers.

His published work shows two sides of his career. On one hand, he wrote directly about education reform in books such as A Statement of the Rural School Problem in South Carolina, Country School Movements and Ideals in South Carolina, and The New Country School: A Survey of Development. On the other, he also helped create school readers, including volumes of The Child's World, bringing his educational ideas into the classroom itself.

Tate died in 1917, but the surviving record suggests a life deeply tied to public instruction and school improvement. Even now, his books offer a glimpse of an era when teachers, supervisors, and textbook writers were all part of the same effort to widen access to learning.