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Gifted Education in Houston, Texas:  
Curriculum Differentiation in the Early Twentieth Century  

 
Mindy Spearman 

Clemson University 
 

During the first part of the twentieth century, the 
concept of giftedness was inexorably bound with the 
psychometric tradition.  Psychologists who studied 
academically talented students used intelligence theory as a 
framework for practice, policy and research.  Thus, the 
history of gifted education in America often is equated with 
the history of the intelligence movement—e.g. Alfred Binet, 
Henry Goddard and Lewis Terman (Hildenbrand 1981, p. 1).  
Much of the literature that deals with early gifted education 
chronicles the conception of psychometrics and the 
ideological battles waged in the years following the advent of 
gifted education in America.  As a result, scholars have given 
great focus to a small number of events, sometimes even in a 
“top ten list” format (Cross 1999, Haensly 1999).  The items 
usually are very similar, e.g. “Historical events underlying 
today’s strong interest in gifted education centers on a half-
dozen people, an intelligence test, one Russian satellite, and 
three national reports” (Colangelo and Davis 2003, p. 6).   

A few historians have explored places and 
narratives that do not make the conventional history of gifted 
education “top ten list”.  For example, Greenlaw and 
McIntosh (1988) survey several early modifications for 
gifted children, although they noted that such school 
programs before the 1920s were rare.  Newland (1976) 
discussed some of the first school districts that developed 
short-tracking and Passow (1986) framed the history of 
acceleration in terms of the enrichment vs. acceleration 
debate.  On the other hand, few scholars have studied the 
instances of such practices in specific institutions.  Nor have 
they studied the individuals who contributed to the 
establishment of special classes and differentiated curriculum 
for a school’s academically talented children.  Franklin 
(1989), for example, in his investigation of Progressive Era 
special education in Atlanta public schools, encouraged 
researchers to focus on the role which individual educators 
and “those who manage the schools” have played in the 
institution of curricular differentiation (Franklin 1989, p. 
593).  Houston, Texas, as a city with a strong educational 
system during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth 
centuries, is particularly well-suited for a historical case 
study.  The story of special programs for academically 
talented schoolchildren in Houston adds materially to the 
understanding of early school programs for gifted children.  
The Texas School Journal, a major educational journal in the 
state of Texas, called Houston’s course of study “unusually 
strong” and noted that the city routinely made “genuine 
progress” in numerous educational areas (“Editorial” 1986, p. 
100). 

At a time when most American public school 
systems made few accommodations for gifted students 
(Jenkins 1983, p. 21), Houston had such provisions in place 
as early as 1900 (HISD report 1900-1901, p. 49).  Notably, 

this policy also included provisions for flexible promotion in 
the city’s colored schools (HISD 1900-1901, p. 50).  The 
district initially instituted a policy of grade advancement; that 
is, students could be promoted from one grade to another as 
often as teachers felt necessary.  W.W. Barnett, Houston 
superintendent from 1900-1904, subscribed to the belief that 
students should work at the academic level best suited for 
their own development.  Barnett wrote, for example, that “an 
extremely active mind stagnates or turns its attention 
elsewhere unless work is sufficiently difficult is placed 
before it” (HISD report 1900-1901, p. 50).  Barnett’s 
successor retained this policy.  Paul W. Horne, 
superintendent of the Houston city schools from 1904-1921, 
issued a special circular letter on promotions during the first 
year (1904-1905) of his superintendency.  The circular 
endorsed the early promotion of any student who could 
successfully complete work at an advanced grade level.  
These “special promotions” were issued through a joint 
decision made by the classroom teacher and school principal 
(HISD report 1904-1905, p. 164).  This early-exit system was 
similar to the system of short-interval promotion conceived 
by William T. Harris in 1868, then superintendent of the St. 
Louis public schools (Passow 1996, p. 93).   

In 1910, Houston city schools began another 
accommodation for the academically talented known as 
“telescoping” or “short-tracking”—i.e., moving rapidly 
through the curriculum by completing work at a faster pace.   
That year, Dow School created a short-track primary class for 
academically advanced students, eight boys and eleven girls 
(HISD report 1912-1913, pp. 42 and 177). Dow, a school for 
white children that served the city’s Sixth Ward and a portion 
of the First Ward, had sixteen teachers who taught grades 
first through seventh.  The advanced class enrolled 
significantly fewer children than did the regular classes 
which averaged 31 students per teacher (HISD report 1910-
1911, p. 99).  Through acceleration, these Dow students 
completed three years of primary work in two years [see 
picture 1].    Upon reaching third grade, their performance 
was equivalent to that of students who needed three years to 
complete the same curriculum (HISD 1912-1913, p. 43).  
District administrators were proud of this curricular 
innovation, and highlighted the achievements of the Dow 
class to both the public and the board of trustees through the 
annual superintendent reports. 
 Two years later, supervisors within the district 
petitioned Superintendent Horne to move away from 
acceleration and, instead, to employ other forms of 
curriculum differentiation.  W.G. Smiley, Houston High 
School principal, for example, requested that the system 
conduct a special study in order to examine curricular content 
that better met the needs of exceptional pupils above “the line 
of mediocrity” (HISD 1912-1913, p. 41).  Lora B. Peck, 



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supervisor of primary work, requested special classrooms for 
younger students.  She wrote: 
 

There is a serious question as to whether merely 
promoting more rapidly as the best solution of the 
problem of what shall be done for the specially capable 
child.  We have special classes for the sub-normal 
pupils; we consider the children of average ability very 
largely.  Has the unusually bright child no claim that 
the public school is bound to consider?  Have we 
acknowledged and satisfied his claim when we simply 
allow him to work with what speed he may?  Here is a 
problem calling for the careful attention of all thinking 
people (HISD 1912-1913, p. 42). 

 
Superintendent Horne did not immediately address their 
concerns.  Although Smiley dropped his request, Peck again 
petitioned the superintendent the next year, complaining that 
the “problem has as yet not been solved” (HISD 1913-1914, 
p. 55).  She reiterated her doubts about the effectiveness of 
acceleration and suggested one possible solution: 
 

Surely there is something better for them, but what is 
it?  I have endeavored to find out what other cities are 
doing with this class of pupils but nothing seems to 
have been tried in the primary grades.  What is the 
solution?  I have never seen the experiment made, but I 
should like to try having some of these pupils begin 
working with a foreign language, say German (HISD 
1913-1914, p. 55). 

 
Peck suggested a form of curriculum differentiation that, 
almost a century later,  Gallagher and Gallagher (1994, p. 
100) called “novelty”—i.e. introducing new topics or 
programs that are not found within the schools’ standard 
scope and sequence.  This kind of special content-oriented 
approach to curricular modification did not generally became 
popular in the 1920s (Buswell 1923, p. 687; Stedman 1924).   

Following Peck’s second appeal, Superintendent 
Horne responded to her request immediately.  His response 
took the form of a public commitment to provide for “the 
extra bright pupils” (HISD 1914-1915, p. 13).  He 
equivocated on the issue of the value of acceleration.  
Specifically, he suggested special classes which involved a 
combination of “allowing them to complete the work of a 
given grade in less than the time ordinarily required” (i.e. 
acceleration) and “giving such pupils more work than is 
generally done in their respective grades” (i.e. enrichment) 
(HISD 1914-1915, p. 14).   At the primary school level, both 
principals and teachers at Dow and Allen elementary schools 
initiated his plan.  Horne also granted Peck’s request for the 
addition of German classes for the schools academically 
gifted students.  These schools offered the optional German 
classes to students in the 5th, 6th, and 7th grades whose parents 
wanted their children to have this extra enrichment.  
However, these classes were not integrated into the students’ 
regular curriculum.  They were offered after school so as to 
not interfere with their schedule of normal offerings at that 
grade level.  At the end of the year, these pupils took an 

examination that, if passed, enabled them to receive one-half 
year high school credit in German (HISD 1913-1914).  
Additionally, Superintendent Horne’s policies enabled 7th 
grade students to go to the nearby Houston high school for 
extra enrichment.  In addition to German, they could choose 
Latin, Spanish, algebra or history (HISD 1915-1916, p. 17).  
These provisions for enrichment and acceleration were not 
accorded to gifted colored students. 

Lora B. Peck’s ideas of formal provisions for gifted 
students in the Houston Schools’ primary grades clearly 
affected the system’s program of studies.  She questioned the 
benefits of acceleration years before this issue received 
national attention: “I am not convinced that it is desirable to 
rush these children through the grades too immature for the 
studies to be taken up” (HISD 1913-1914, p. 55).  Her 
visionary ideas were similar to those published nationally ten 
years later by notable gifted educator, Leta Hollingsworth 
(1926).  Peck’s local advocacy and commitment to education 
for the academically gifted reveals that tensions between the 
notions of acceleration and enrichment not only were present 
in the early part of the twentieth-century.  These tensions also 
could be resolved at the local level.  Peck’s unsuccessful 
attempt to locate neighboring Texas cities with similar school 
programs for gifted children (HISD 1913-1914, p. 55) 
illustrates that her ideas and programswere novel to the 
region.  Certainly, Peck was an educational reformer who 
identified an area of need, explored alternatives, and 
successfully lobbied for change.  Houston Supervisor Peck 
represents an unacknowledged leader of gifted education 
reform. 

In addition to its use of acceleration and special 
classes, the Houston public schools instituted another 
provision designed “to take care of the extra bright child” 
(HISD 1915-1916, p. 20).  The policy enabled Houston 
schools to provide special one-on-one tutoring to advanced 
students during the regular classroom day.  Beginning with 
the 1915-1916 school year, unassigned teachers (ones who 
were employed on a daily basis to serve at schools that 
needed substitutes and aides) and supernumeraries (e.g. high 
school normal program graduates without first grade 
certificates) pulled gifted intermediate students for “special 
coaching” (HISD 1915-1916, p. 20).   

During this period of time, Houston gifted students 
were identified in their classroom.  Classroom teachers made 
judgments about early promotion, short-track placements and 
pull-out tutoring.  They appeared to have been alert both to 
students’ general ability and grades, as were teachers 
elsewhere in the nation (Hildreth, 1966, p. 48).  Although the 
Standford-Binet IQ test was created in 1908, teachers seldom 
used it in connection with giftedness until it was revised by 
Terman in 1916 (Assouline 2003, p. 125; Morelock and 
Feldman 2003, p. 456).  In the Houston city schools, the 
Binet test was used to identify “sub-normal” pupils, but not 
for gifted children (HISD 1914-1915, p. 15).  Yet not all 
curricular modifications for the gifted in the Houston city 
schools necessitated student identification.  The extra classes 
offered to some of its 5th, 6th and 7th grade students were 
available to any student who wished for additional 
enrichment.                                                                                                      



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However successful the Houston experience was 
believed to be, not all Texas educators believed that 
curriculum differentiation served the best interest of gifted 
children.  Eleanor Kennedy’s article in the Texas School 
Magazine, for example, argued against any sort of ability 
grouping in schools.  She opined, furthermore, that curricular 
differentiation for gifted students resulted in a weakening of 
the physical body (Kennedy 1911, p. 10).  Her theory was 
popular during these times and not generally questioned until 
the publication of Leta Hollingworth’s Gifted Children: 
Their Nature and Nurture, (1929).  This claim, on the other 
hand, received no attention in any of Houston’s annual 
school reports during this period. 

Knowledge of special provisions for gifted students 
in Houston schools during the early years of the twentieth 
century adds significantly to the body of historical 
knowledge about early gifted education in the United States.  
For the most part, only a few American city school systems 
have been recognized to have made special accommodations 
for gifted pupils early in the twentieth-century (Hildreth 
1966, p. 47; Colangelo and Davis 2003, p. 6).  Indeed, 
schools of Houston, Texas, a southern city recognized for its 
educational innovations, must be added to this list of 
vanguard school districts.  
 
 

References 
Assouline, Susan.  2003.  “Psychological and Educational 

Assessment of Gifted Children”. In Nicholas 
Colangelo and Gary Davis, eds. The Handbook of 
Gifted Education, third edition. Boston: Allyn and 
Bacon. 

Buswell, G. T.  1923.  “The School Treatment of Mentally 
Exceptional Childen”.  The Elementary School 
Journal.  v23, n9 (May): 683-693. 

Colangelo, Nicholas and Gary A. Davis.  2003. “Introduction 
and Overview”. In Nicholas Colangelo and Gary 
Davis, eds. The Handbook of Gifted Education,third 
edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 

Cross, Tracy.  1999.  “Top Ten List (Plus or Minus Two) for 
the 20th Century”. Gifted Child Today Magazine, v22, 
n6, 1999: 22-25. 

“Editorial.”  1896.  The Texas School Journal 14, n3 (Mar): 
100 

Gallagher, J and S. Gallagher.  1994.  Teaching the Gifted 
Child, fourth edition.  Boston:  Allyn and Bacon. 

Greenlaw, M. And Margaret McIntosh.  1988.  Educating the 
Gifted: A Sourcebook.  Chicago: American Library 
Association. 

Heansly, Patricia A. 1999.  “My View of the ‘Top 10’ Events 
That Have Influenced the Field of Gifted Education 
During the Past Century”.  Gifted Child Today 
Magazine, v22, n6: 16-18. 

Hildenbrand, Suzanne.  1981.  Democracy’s Aristocrat: The 
Gifted Child in America,1910-1960.  U.S, Educational 
Resources Information Center, ERIC Document ED 
206 144. 

Hildreth, Gertrude.  1966.  Introduction to the Gifted.  New 
York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. 

Hollingsworth, Leta.  1926.  Gifted Children: Their Nature 
and Nurture.  New York: The Macmillan Company. 

Houston Independent School District. Annual. Report of the 
Superintendent of Houston Public Schools. (Houston: 
Gray, Dillaye and Co). 1904-1905, 1908-1909, 1910-
1911, 1912-1913, 1913-1914, 1914-1915, 1915-1916. 

Jenkins, Rita Virgina Moore.  1983.  Gifted and Talented 
Education in Texas Public Schools 1915-1983.  
Unpublished Dissertation.  Waco: Baylor University. 

Kennedy, Eleanor.  1911.  “Abnormally Bright Children”.  
Texas School Magazine.  14,  n8 (Dec): 9-11. 

Morelock, Martha and David Feldman.  “Extreme Precocity: 
Prodigies, Savants and Children of Extraordinarily 
High IQ”. In Nicholas Colangelo and Gary Davis, eds. 
The Handbook of Gifted Education, third edition. 
Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 

Passow, A.  1996.  “Acceleration Over the Years”.  In 
Camilla Benbow and David Lubinski, eds.  Intellectual 
Talent: Psychometric and Social Issues.  Baltimore: 
Johns Hopkins University Press: 93-98. 

Van Sickle, J. H.  1910.  “Provision for Gifted Children in 
Public Schools”.  The Elementary School Teacher.  
V.10, n.8 (Apr): 357-366. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



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