William Hughes Mearns
{{short description|American poet}}
{{Infobox person |
name = William Hughes Mearns
| image =
| caption =
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1875|09|28}}
| birth_place = Philadelphia
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1965|03|13 |1875|09|28}}
| death_place = Bearsville, New York
| spouse = Mabel Gledhill Fagley
| children = Emma (Petra) Fagley}}
William Hughes Mearns (1875–1965), better known as Hughes Mearns, was an American educator and poet. A graduate of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania, Mearns was a professor at the Philadelphia School of Pedagogy from 1905 to 1920. Mearns is remembered now as the author of the poem "Antigonish" (or "The Little Man Who Wasn't There"). However, his ideas about encouraging the natural creativity of children, particularly those age 3 through 8 were novel at the time. It has been written about him that, "He typed notes of their conversations; he learned how to make them forget there was an adult around; never asked them questions and never showed surprise no matter what they did or said."Current Biography 1940, pp. 570-72.{{full citation needed|date=January 2017|reason=Title, year, and pages only.}}
Career
Mearns wrote two influential books: Creative Youth 1925{{cite book|last=Mearns|first=Hughes|title=Creative Youth|location=Garden City, NY|publisher=Doubleday, Doran & Co. Inc.|pages=|date=1925|url=https://archive.org/details/creativeyouth00mear_0/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater|access-date=24 May 2024}} and Creative Power 1929.{{cite book|last=Mearns|first=Hughes|title=Creative Power|location=Garden City, NY|publisher=Doubleday, Doran & Co. Inc.|pages=|date=1929}} Essayist Gabriel Gudding credits those books with "[lighting] a fuse" under the teaching of creative writing, influencing a generation of scholars.{{cite web|url=https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/a-fatal-deafness-to-the-disenchanted-20031129-gdhvst.html|title=A fatal deafness to the disenchanted|date=29 November 2003|website=The Sydney Morning Herald}}
He also served for a time (starting in 1920) as head of the Lincoln School Teachers College at Columbia University.{{cite web|url=http://www.id.iit.edu/visiblelanguage/Feature_Articles/Baron_WritingIntheAgeofEmail/Baron_AgeofEmailPt2.html|title=Writing in the age of email Composition in America|publisher=}} He was also a proponent of John Dewey's work in progressive education.
Antigonish
{{main|Antigonish (poem)}}
Mearns is credited with the well-known rhyme, composed in 1899 as a song for a play he had written, called The Psyco-ed.Current Biography 1940, p. 571 The play was performed in 1910, and the poem was first published as "Antigonish" in 1922.
:Yesterday upon the stair
:I met a man who wasn’t there
:He wasn’t there again today
:I wish, I wish he’d go away
:When I came home last night at three
:The man was waiting there for me
:But when I looked around the hall
:I couldn’t see him there at all!
:Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
:Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door
:Last night I saw upon the stair
:A little man who wasn’t there
:He wasn’t there again today
:Oh, how I wish he’d go away
Mearns also wrote many parodies of this poem, entitled Later Antigonishes, such as "Alibi":
:As I was falling down the stair
:I met a bump that wasn't there;
:It might have put me on the shelf
:Except I wasn't there myself.Colombo, John Robert (2000). Ghost Stories of Canada, p.47. Dundurn. {{ISBN|9781550029758}}.
Other works
- {{cite book|title=Richard Richard|others=Illustrated by Ralph L Boyer|location=Philadelphia|publisher=Penn Publishing|pages=|date=1916}}
- {{cite book|title=The Vinegar Saint|others=Illustrated by Ralph L Boyer|location=Philadelphia|publisher=The Penn Publishing Company|pages=|date=1919}}
- {{cite book|others=Illustrated by W T Schwartz|title=I Ride in My Coach|location=Philadelphia|publisher=The Penn Publishing Company|pages=|date=1923}}
- Night Goblins. Illustrated by Ralph L. Boyer. 1923.This book is listed as a carry-over from an earlier version of this article, but it has not been found in any library
- {{cite book|title=Lions in the Way|location=|publisher=Simon and Schuster|pages=|date=1927}}
- {{cite book|title=The Creative Adult|others=|location=New York|publisher=Doubleday, Doran & Co|pages=|date=1940}}
Personal life
William Hughes Mearns was born on 28 September 1875 in Philadelphia, the son of James H Mearns and Lelia Cora (née Evans).
On 22 December 1904 he married Mabel Gledhill Fagley at St Mark's Church, Phildalphia. They had a daughter, Emma (Petra) Fagley, born on 21 February 1907; she died on 13 October 2006.
William died on 13 March 1965 in Bearsville, New York.
References
{{Reflist}}
Further reading
- {{Cite journal|last=Duff|first=John Carr|title=Hughes Mearns: Pioneer in Creative Education|journal=The Clearing House|volume=40|issue=7|pages=419-421|date=March 1966}}
External links
{{Wikiquote}}
- {{MusicBrainz artist|id=http://musicbrainz.org/artist/05190c33-71a5-4fae-a81d-db9ca8ebcd21|name=William Hughes Mearns}}
- {{Internet Archive author |sname=William Hughes Mearns}}
- {{Librivox author |id=328}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mearns, William Hughes}}
Category:Harvard University alumni
Category:University of Pennsylvania alumni
Category:20th-century American educators
Category:20th-century American poets