Martin Grove Brumbaugh

Life and career

Brumbaugh was born in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, the son of Martha Peightel (Grove) and George Boyer Brumbaugh. He grew up in rural Huntingdon County and worked in the combination country store-post office that was operated by his father. He was raised in a small pacifist faith with German roots, the German Baptist Brethren, popularly called Dunkers. Brumbaugh attended Huntingdon Normal School, graduating in 1881. A voracious reader and researcher, he later earned degrees in mechanical engineering, philosophy, and the general sciences before earning a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1894. He returned to Huntingdon Normal School, now renamed Juniata College, in 1895, and continued at the post until 1910. He remained closely connected to the college, returning to the position of the president in 1924.

A leading proponent of educational modernization, Brumbaugh oversaw reform of the teacher training curriculum for the state of Louisiana. After the American Invasion of Puerto Rico, then a wealthy overseas province of Spain, and the Treaty of Paris of 1899, Brumbaugh was charged with implementation of an American-style educational system in Puerto Rico. What did that mean for the Island? At that time, and since the early 1500s the Island's educational system was based in Castilian Spanish. By order of King Ferdinand the Catholic, every church had to have a School Parish and all children were to be educated -"in letters and numbers, in science and Faith"- up to 6th grade. There had been a close coordination between the civil authorities and the Catholic Church parish schools and since the mid 1700s Puerto Rico had a semi-public school system. Around the 19th century education was modernized and the Civil authorities took over a greater role, with the aid of the Church. By the 1880s every Mayoralty had its own Education Board, coordinated with the island's Education Ministry, and with that of Spain's. When Brumbaugh took over, Puerto Rico's alphabetization (literacy?) levels in the urban centers was about 98%. The first thing done by Gen. Brooks, the newly appointed military occupation governor (by President McKinley) was to fire and deport the entire priesthood that managed parishes and their schools, who at the time depended on the civil government for their salaries. 36 of the 74 Island parishes and parish schools were left without a priest and teacher. Upon taking over, the first thing Martin G. Brumbaugh did was to dissolve the entire Education Ministry that had been in place for centuries. Then Brumbaugh had the entire public school faculty, most of whom were trained professors of either Antillean or Peninsular Spanish origins, fired and deported. He then brought from the US a great number of Anglophone school teachers, including his cousin Dr. D. Brumbaugh, considered more "friendly to the American cause". The problem was that the American school teachers spoke only English, and the island's primary language was Spanish, with great numbers of French and Italian speakers. In less than 18 months, after Brumbaugh took over, school absenteeism shot up to 98% with the ensuing performance collapse of a population that spoke one language and the teachers another. Those children who did go to school were punished for speaking Spanish, and put down for their culture. The next thing Brumbaugh did, with the backing of the US Military Government, was to change the entire curriculum, to "Americanize it". He re-wrote the entire Puerto Rican history curriculum, sanitized it and purged from it any data threatening to the "American cause". In addition, he began to edit and doctor data so as to exacerbate anything political or social by the former Spanish Authorities, making it negative, out of context and proportion, in a national humiliation process that caused tremendous public outrage and protests. To this day, the island's educational system is still suffering from Brumbaugh's "reforms". After he left Puerto Rico he held lecturer positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University. In 1906, he became superintendent of the Philadelphia Public Schools and gained statewide recognition for his performance in this role.

A conservative and religious but usually apolitical man, Brumbaugh was nevertheless courted by the Republican Party to run for governor in 1914, after corruption and infighting marred the 1910 campaign. While in office, Brumbaugh fought to expand educational funding, spur highway construction, and support farmers but also blocked labor reform and supported alcohol prohibition. During his term in office he chided the state legislature for spending beyond its means and emphasized this point by vetoing 409 pieces of legislation.

Brumbaugh died of a heart attack on March 14, 1930 while playing golf on vacation in Pinehurst, North Carolina.

Legacy

Brumbaugh Hall is one of the 14 residence halls in the East Halls area of the Pennsylvania State University University Park campus, all named after Pennsylvania Governors. In the college town of Río Piedras, Puerto Rico, Calle Brumbaugh is a street named after Brumbaugh.