Stanwood Cobb


Stanwood Cobb was an American educator, author and prominent Baháʼí of the 20th century.
He was born in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of Darius Cobb and his wife, née Laura Mae Lillie. Darius and his twin brother Cyrus Cobb were Civil War soldiers and artists, and descendants of Elder Henry Cobb of the second voyage of the Mayflower. Their mother was Eunice Hale Waite Cobb, founding president of the Ladies Physiological Institute of Boston. Darius Cobb and his wife had four daughters and three sons. Stanwood Cobb studied at Dartmouth College, where he was valedictorian of his 1903 or 1905 graduating class, and then at Harvard Divinity School, earning an A.M. in philosophy and comparative religion 1910. His thesis work, Communistic Experimental Settlements in the USA, observed that every such settlement had failed within a generation because of an inability of communism to get people to subordinate their own desires for the good of the group. In 1919 he married Ida Nayan Whitlam. Cobb was a member of several literary associations and of the Cosmos Club of Washington, D.C..
Cobb lived internationally for some years before settling in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where he died.

Career as educator

In 1907–1910, Cobb taught history and Latin at Robert College in Constantinople, followed by several years teaching in the US and Europe. He later headed the English department at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, taught at Asheville School in Asheville, North Carolina, and was instructor in history and English at the United States Naval Academy. Frustrated by the teaching experience at the Academy, Cobb heard a lecture by Marietta Johnson who helped marshal and crystallize his thoughts on education practice and curriculum theory. As a result, in 1919, Cobb founded the Chevy Chase Country Day School, of which he was the principal until his retirement, and, active in the progressive education movement in the United States, became a founder and motivating force, first secretary, and eventually president of The Association for the Advancement of Progressive Education, in 1931 renamed Progressive Education Association and then American Education Fellowship. The first president was Arthur E. Morgan. Later the influential John Dewey served as president. Cobb resigned the presidency in 1930 following the influx of supporters of George Counts who moved the focus of the Association from a student-centered learning approach to one of a social policy oriented approach to education theory. However, between the enormous impact of World War II on all thought and the involvement of many members of the PEA in communism and the general atmosphere of Anti-communism in the United States the achievements of the PEA both before Cobb's resignation and after were largely lost.

Life as a Baháʼí

After looking at Theosophy and Reform Judaism and other themes in religion' Cobb investigated the Baháʼí Faith after a series of articles in the Boston Transcript on the religion attracted his attention. He pursued the interest to Green Acre conference center in Eliot, Maine in 1906 during his studies at Harvard Divinity School preparing for the Unitarian ministry. Sarah Farmer much affected Cobb, and Thornton Chase was giving a series of talks. It was on that occasion that Cobb became a Baháʼí.
Between 1909 and 1913 he met with ʻAbdu'l-Bahá five times. In 1911 Cobb and a number of others gave talks in honor of the personal invitation by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá to pilgrimage of Louis Gregory.
Cobb was a founding member of the Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Washington D. C. in 1933, and served on various committees and edited two Baha'i journals: Star of the West in 1924, and World Order from 1935–39.

Books and articles authored

Cobb was a prolific writer. Among his books were:
Similar to his books, the focus of Cobb's articles has been education and Baha'i oriented - he has contributed to or was anthologized by:
as well as