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248 The Career Development Quarterly March 2009 • Volume 57

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JesseButtrickDavis(1871–1955):PioneerofVocationalGuidanceintheSchools

Mark Pope

Jesse Buttrick Davis is considered to be the 1st school counselor in the United States because he was the 1st to implement a systematic guidance program in the schools. Through his work in the Michigan public schools, he became an important leader in the development of vocational guidance in the late 1800s and early 1900s. His pioneering work in the Detroit and Grand Rapids public schools laid the founda-tion for the counseling specialties of career counseling and school counseling. He was also 1 of the founders of the National Vocational Guidance Association (now National Career Development Association) and National Association of Secondary School Principals.

Jesse Buttrick Davis is widely considered to be the first school counselor in the United States, because he was the first to implement a systematic guidance program in the public schools (Brewer, 19��2; Gladding, 2006; Schmidt, 2003). Through his work in the public schools of Michigan, he became one of the primary leaders in the development of vocational guidance in the late 1800s and early 1900s (Brewer, 19��2; Davis, 1956b). His pioneering work in the Detroit and Grand Rapids public schools laid the foundation for the professional counseling specialties of career counseling and school counseling.

Values and Beliefs That Contributed to Davis’s Achievements

Davis had a bias toward environment over heredity, toward free public schools, against racial prejudice, toward equal access to education for women, and toward the role of humor in education. Although his mother was an elitist, Davis was a man of the people who believed strongly in the free public schools and the critically important role of education in a democracy. He was a very human person, concerned with the rules as well as how to break them. His memoirs are filled with anecdotes that show the humanity of people as he pokes holes through their stuffy facades. Raised by a patrician mother who talked of the “blue bloods” (Davis, 1956b, p. 59), he learned to eschew such attitudes and became a leader in the public schools, designing education “to meet the needs of youth in a democracy” (Davis, 1956b, p. 62).

Davis was also an inveterate “joiner” because he strongly believed in the idea of giving back to his community. “The teacher who does not

Mark Pope, Division of Counseling and Family Therapy, University of Missouri–St. Louis. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Mark Pope, Division of Counseling and Family Therapy, College of Education, University of Missouri–St. Louis, 415 Marillac Hall, One University Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63121-4499 (e-mail: [email protected]).

The Career Development Quarterly March 2009 • Volume 57 249

take his place as an active member of his community is neglecting his duty as a good citizen and is narrowing his own field of thought and service” (Davis, 1956b, p. 230). A list of the organizations in which he held membership and the groups of which he was a leader and an officer would fill too many pages for this article. He walked the walk when it came to leadership and participation in his local and professional communities. Davis valued extracurricular activities as an integral part of a well-rounded education. He gladly accepted the role of mentor, even developing a leaders’ club at Grand Rapids Central High School composed of presidents, captains, editors, and so on, of school organi-zations that met at his house monthly (Davis, 1956b).

When Davis founded the Grand Rapids Junior College and became its first president, his bias toward a more practical education emerged. “As a professor of education, I have often told my classes that when I was graduated from college I was fairly well prepared to live in the Middle Ages” (Davis, 1956b, p. 58). He had a classic liberal arts education that included (both high school and college) 6.5 years of Latin, ��.5 years of Greek, 3 years of German, and 2 years of French; however, he could not speak the modern languages, having read the prescribed standard literature, and could not even read a newspaper in those languages, say-ing, “I knew practically nothing of the century in which I lived nor of the workaday world into which I was soon to launch” (p. 58).

Much of Davis’s (1956b) motivation for innovation in education was in decreasing the amount of time required for students to achieve their educational objectives.

When we consider that it is now taking practically one third of a person’s life expectation to prepare himself effectively to enter upon his lifework, and also that he will be forced to retire at sixty-five years of age, it is evident that the individual’s period of service or production is limited beyond reason. (p. 1�1)

Career Decisions and an Emerging Career PathDavis’s awareness of the need for guidance came, like too many students, as he prepared for high school graduation, saying, “But I could get no help from anyone” (Davis, 1956b, p. 36). His father did not want to influence him and just told him to get his baccalaureate degree first and then he could worry about an occupation. “Teachers were concerned only with preparing you for college entrance” (Davis, 1956b, p. 3�). Finally, he succumbed to his peers and decided that he would go into electrical engineering at the University of Michigan with several of his closest high school companions. After a trip to the University of Michigan, and seeing what it was that elec-trical engineering students studied and did, he lost interest. Later, a kindly, older Baptist minister told him to steer clear of the ministry if he could do so with a clear conscience. With such indecision and his father’s guidance, he took a year off from academics right after high school but continued his classical studies of Latin and Greek with a private tutor. And, although he did not have a career epiphany during that time, he became convinced that college was the path, but to exactly what he was unsure.

Davis was, however, more worried about his career decision during his high school senior year than he was during his college years because


in the liberal arts college there was nothing to decide or worry about. It was all taken for granted. There was just one royal road to learning and I was on that road. Just as Father had said, “Get your A.B. degree first, then you can decide upon a profession.” (Davis, 1956b, p. 66)

As Davis approached his college graduation, he was, however, still with-out a career plan and not knowing what he was going to do with his life. He even put this question to the dean of his college, to no avail. As he entered Colgate University, Davis took all of the history courses that were offered and, by default, became a history major. “Following the influence of my Aunt Sally in my childhood days, I took all the his-tory that was offered, just because I liked it and not with any conscious vocational plan” (Davis, 1956b, p. 56).

APeakExperienceIn 1895, during Davis’s senior year in college, he had a “peak experience”—so named by Abraham Maslow (199��) because of the life-changing effect that it has on an individual’s life and/or career. Professor Charles H. Thurber of Colgate selected Davis to teach a class of 30 boys in English history for an ailing faculty member until the faculty member was healthy enough to return to teach. Davis liked teaching.

Later, Professor Thurber took him on a walk and, after some pleas-antries, queried, “Just what are you going to build as a career on your foundation?” (Davis, 1956b, p. 6�). Davis ruminated on this for days and then another chance meeting occurred with Professor Thurber, who began to help him gather some additional career information by inte-grating Davis’s expressed interests into three potential career scenarios: two that Davis had identified (minister and lawyer), and another that Thurber had discussed (teacher).

As Davis (1956b) described it, it went something like this:

Then he [Thurber] began to draw mental pictures of [the three occupations]. . . . [H]e [also] pictured what I could do as a teacher in a high school, lead-ing musical clubs with the pupils, coaching the boys in athletics, teaching the subject I liked best, possibly administering a school some day helping to build better men. (p. 68)

Later, Davis found himself “lying awake at night planning and still plan-ning (about what I could do as a teacher)” (Davis, 1956b, p. 68). He was astonished at what had happened.

Davis then sought out Professor Thurber to take another walk and inform him of what he had decided. Thurber was skeptical and asked “have you made this decision because I have said anything that you have taken as my advice that you ought to teach?” Following that with “What would you say if I told you I thought you would make a rot-ten schoolteacher?” These questions provoked Davis to anger, and he replied that “I’ll show you some day” (Davis, 1956b, p. 69). Thurber laughed and right then offered Davis his first academic position as his teaching assistant.

In Davis’s memoirs, after this story, he went on to outline the basic Parsonian career counseling process (Parsons, 1909), although he did not know that at that time: He wrote that Professor Thurber (a) “helped


me know myself” (self-knowledge), (b) “opened my eyes to the possible fields” (gather occupational information), and (c) “made certain that I had made my own choice” (i.e., understand the relationship between these issues and make a decision [Davis, 1956b, p. 69]). “Vocational guidance was not known at that time, but it impressed the fundamental principles upon me in such a manner that it has been a major factor in my entire professional career” (Davis, 1956b, p. 69).

AfterCollegeAfter graduation from Colgate University in 1895, Davis applied and was selected for his first job—as a teacher in the Detroit Central High School, the same school from which he had graduated. He was paid $60 per month for 10 months—$600 per year. He taught six classes of beginning algebra, not his major, but all that was available that 1st year. In 2 years, in 189�, he was finally able to teach history and was assigned to teach Ancient History (as the least senior person), but it was his passion and he believed he was trained enough through his studies at Colgate.

Later, as he and another faculty member (head of the history depart-ment and principal of the 11th grade) were organizing a union in his high school to combat the politicization of the school (educational decisions being influenced by political leaders in the community), they were both discovered by the school administration. The other faculty member was fired, but Davis was elevated to take his school positions. Two other administrators resigned in protest of this and, with the fired faculty member, went off to start their own school. Davis struggled with the decision to resign too, but finally decided to stay and take over as head of the history department and as 11th-grade principal—a most important compromise that set the tone for his career. As 11th-grade principal, he began to identify the skills and competencies of and to develop the role of school counselor (Davis, 1956b).

In 190�, Davis became the principal of the Grand Rapids Central High School in Michigan. Through his work in Grand Rapids, he also established both the first junior high school as well as the first “junior” college in Michigan, the Grand Rapids Junior College, where he served as its first president. This new junior college was developed for the express purpose of providing postsecondary training in occupations, and, because it offered courses in the evenings, it presaged the adult education movement. In 1912, he was appointed vocational guidance director for the city of Grand Rapids concurrently with his other educational duties in that city.

The year 191�� was of particular importance in the life of Davis and the vocational guidance movement. With the 191�� publication of his book, Vocational and Moral Guidance, and his election to office in the National Vocational Guidance Association (NVGA [secretary, in 1913, and president, in 191��]), Davis traveled throughout the United States speaking on issues concerning guidance in secondary schools.

Also, in 191��, Davis began to teach classes at various universities. From 191�� to 1916, he was invited by a number of universities to give brief courses on guidance as part of the universities’ training of teachers. He lectured at the University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin, University of Nebraska, and University of Illinois. He was also invited by the University of Minnesota to teach two courses as part of the summer session of 1915:


Principles of Vocational Guidance and Public School Administration. Davis greatly enjoyed that level of teaching—a portent of things to come.

In 1915, Davis was one of the founders and the second president of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, when 30 high school principals met at the Lasalle Hotel in Chicago during the convention of the North Central Association of Colleges and Second-ary Schools. In 191�, Davis was made director of the Boys’ Working Reserve in the U.S. Department of Labor, and later, in 1918, chief of the Junior Section, U.S. Employment Service, and associate director of the Boys’ Working Reserve, U.S. Department of Labor. His role there was to develop and initiate a system of junior counselors in the federal employment offices throughout the country.

In 1920, Davis began teaching at Yale as an adjunct professor during the regular term and at Harvard in the summers. The portent was re-solved when, in 192��, he moved into university teaching full-time and accepted the positions of professor at Boston University and part-time lecturer at Harvard University. In 1935, he became the dean of the School of Education at Boston University. He retired as dean in 19��2 and from Boston University in 1951, died in November, 1955, and his completed memoirs were published in 1956 (Davis, 1956b).

On Becoming a School CounselorDavis was a very student-focused educator and had a passion for his role of helping his students. The four grade principals (Grade-9 principal, etc.) at Detroit Central High School were responsible for students’

attendance and issuing permits to re-enter classes after absence, the planning of their individual programs of study, and for handling all matters of discipline . . . [as well as assisting] . . . the principal of the school in problems of administra-tion such as preparing the schedule of classes and determining general policies. (Davis, 1956b, p. 11��)

He also had “the opportunity to serve as a guidance counselor, a term not yet invented” (p. 11��), for his 500+ students, similar, unfortunately, to today’s school counselor workload. He believed that “(a)s a guide of youth, he must know the kind of world and the workaday problems his pupils must be prepared to face” (Davis, 1956b, p. 122) and that a case of discipline was an “opportunity for character building” (p. 13��).

Davis (1956b) believed that the role of parents in guidance counseling was not always positive:

Guidance counselors will testify that it is often more difficult to deal with the par-ents than with the pupils. They are wont to determine what their offspring should enter as a profession or business with no consideration of the pupils’ aptitude or ability or their own interests and desires for themselves. Too often they cannot realize that the child has matured to the point of having some judgment of his own and a strong desire for a little independence and responsibility. (p. 120)

At Grand Rapids Central High School, during his principalship, Davis had the opportunity to implement his beliefs and did so with passion (Brewer, 19��2; Davis, 1912, 191��, 1956b). He established a systematic guidance program that reached from the junior high school to the high school, again using the


three steps that he observed earlier in his life. Guidance was made the major function of Grades �, 8, and 9. The process for the “guidance period” was that every Friday, in the English classes, students would prepare essays on various assigned topics. In Grades � and 8, the theme was “Ambition” and the “attempt was to arouse the desire to be someone worthwhile” (Step 1: self-knowledge [Davis, 1956b, p. 1�9]). The emphasis was on character building in Grade 9. In Grade 10, the focus was on “World’s Work,” where students reported on the occupations of their parents, friends, or on some occupation in which they were interested (Step 2: occupational information). The Grade-11 theme was “Choice of a Vocation and Preparing for It,” and the Grade-12 theme was “Service”—“the use of one’s vocation as a loyal citizen serving his community” (Step 3: career choice [Davis, 1956b, p. 1�9]).

But, the “spirit of guidance” was not limited to 1 day and one class each week; it permeated the entire curriculum under the leadership of Davis:

The “career motive” was used by all teachers to inspire a new interest in their fields of study. . . . History teachers had their pupils looking up the origins or historical backgrounds of the vocations in which they were interested. (Davis, 1956b, pp. 1�9–180)

The success of the systematic guidance program that was developed under the leadership of Davis was chronicled in his aforementioned book, Voca-tional and Moral Guidance. In this book, Davis and his teachers presented what he called the “Grand Rapids Plan.” Davis wrote chapters and edited the manuscript while his teachers also contributed chapters, reviewed the manuscripts, and even typed the final copy. This book became the blueprint for implementing a systematic guidance program in the schools through several editions and over 20 years in publication (Davis, 1956b).

There was also such a great need for occupational information to in-form the student’s career decision making that Davis even was able to get himself appointed by the governor of Michigan as a “State Factory Inspector.” He did this so that he could have access to the occupational information that was included in other inspectors’ reports on the in-dustries in Grand Rapids.

In 191�, during World War I, as mentioned earlier, Davis was made director of the Boys’ Working Reserve in the U.S. Department of La-bor, and later, in 1918, chief of the Junior Section, U.S. Employment Service, and associate director, Boys’ Working Reserve, U.S. Depart-ment of Labor. His role was to develop and initiate a system of junior counselors in the federal employment offices throughout the country. The role of such counselors was to “keep youth in school and away from the temptations prevailing at that period” (Davis, 1956b, p. 203). Davis laid out the role of these junior counselors that might be the first ever statement of the role of school counselors:

The specific duties of Junior Counselors shall be as follows: (a) To influence boys and girls to remain in school as long as possible. (b) To help youth who have to leave school to go to work in making a start in right lines. (c) To arouse the ambition of boys and girls to fit themselves for definite life careers. (d) To advise youth who are employed where they could find some form of trade, technical, or business school for special training.


(e) To encourage the establishing of needed opportunities for vocational guidance in the community. (f) To follow up all applicants in their training and at their work to see that they have the best available advantages of study and labor. This process should continue until they are well established in their vocational plans. (g) To keep (a) system of files and reports. (Davis, 1956b, p. 20��)

In his final report to the director general of the U.S. Employment Service, he wrote of his passion to help those who were less fortunate and must go to work directly from high school.

Vast sums of money are being spent annually in behalf of the two million boys and girls of the “teen” age whose parents are able to keep them in school, but very little has been done for the less privileged nine million boys and girls of the same age who have had to go out unaided and unguided to make their way in the workaday world. It is for these boys and girls that the Junior Section has been established. (Davis, 1956b, p. 205)

The junior section did not survive long, as is the fate of many political entities. It was, however, an important governmental initiative and laid the foundation for school counseling in the 1920s and employment counseling in government in the 19��0s.

Leader in the Vocational Guidance MovementFrom 1910 to 1920, Davis devoted his major attention to pioneering and promoting the new vocational guidance movement. Even in 1956, his concept of guidance had not changed much over the years, and he still approved of his definition to the extent that, in 191��, he wrote the following:

Vocational guidance means the gradual unfolding of the individual’s better un-derstanding of his own aptitudes and abilities, and an awakening of his own moral consciousness; it means the opening of his eyes to the broad fields of opportunity in the world; it means a selection of and a preparation for his own best field of service; it means a conception of himself as a social being in some future occupa-tion, and from this viewpoint, an appreciation of his duty and obligation toward his business associates, his neighbors, and the law. (Davis, 1956b, p. 20�)

Davis’s pioneering work in vocational guidance in the schools came to the attention of many people during that time, so much so that the organizing convention of the new NVGA was held in Grand Rapids, Michigan, from October 22 to 2��, 1913. On Wednesday, October 22, 1913, during the convention, Davis led a full school demonstration of the Grand Rapids guidance plan. The members of the entire conven-tion came to the Grand Rapids Central High School at 9:00 a.m. and were firsthand observers of how this plan worked. They attended guid-ance classes and observed the actual group guidance procedures of the graded plan, they heard from the Junior Chamber of Commerce about its guidance work of collecting career information and from the Boys and Girls Leadership Clubs about how they promoted leadership and participation, and they were even presented a film showing apprentice training in an industry. The day ended with a luncheon prepared by


the high school’s Department of Domestic Science and a question and answer session.

Davis’s rise, however, to becoming a founder and leader of this new vocational guidance movement came about through his extensive involve-ment in national professional activities and his success in developing a systematic and comprehensive program of vocational guidance that per-meated the junior and senior high schools in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In 1910, Davis attended the First National Conference on vocational guidance, which was held in Boston (Brewer, 19��2; Davis, 1956a). This conference was initiated by David Snedden, Commissioner of Education for Massachusetts; supported by Frank Thompson of the Boston schools; and organized by Meyer Bloomfield, Director of the Vocation Bureau of Boston. This conference drew delegates from 35 cities around the United States for presentations and discussions on vocational guidance and its various manifestations. Davis gave an account of his work in the Grand Rapids schools, but “was ruled out of order at first when he began to tell of using English classes for guidance. Apparently few had envisioned the possibilities through curriculum studies” (Brewer, 19��2, p. 139).

Davis, however, had made his point and, at the Second National Conference (held from October 23 to 26 in 1912 at Teachers College, Columbia University), he was recognized for his contributions by be-ing appointed to the committee charged to “consider the possibility of effecting a national organization to further the interests of vocational guidance” (Brewer, 19��2, p. 1��1). Committee members were Arthur Dean (Chairman), director of Industrial Education, New York State; Mrs. Bryant B. Glenney and Meyer Bloomfield from Boston; Jesse B. Davis, Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Benjamin Gruenberg, New York City.

At the first meeting of this committee, however, there was a rebellion by the members who were not from New York City. The members from New York City had prepared a draft report that those not from New York City believed was too locally focused. The members not from New York City then proposed a different approach. They proposed that the organizing group should (a) represent all parts of the United States to make it a national movement, (b) represent the various organizations interested in the guidance of youth (YMCA, YWCA, etc.), (c) be given the authority to add to its membership such persons who might be helpful in carrying out its task, and (d) be empowered to call the organizing convention at such time and place as they deemed expedient and there to perfect the organization and elect its officers.

After two meetings, the organizing group accepted this new proposal and reported this to the national conference. This report was accepted and, as a result, a new committee was appointed with the following membership: Jesse B. Davis (chairman), Grand Rapids, Michigan; Meyer Bloomfield, Boston; Eli W. Weaver, Brooklyn, New York; Edith Campbell, Cincinnati, Ohio; J. G. Olmstead, YMCA, New York City; Arthur Dean, state director of Industrial Education, Albany, New York; and William Weiner, principal of a high school, Newark, New Jersey. At the first meeting of this new committee, they added Frank Leavitt, Uni-versity of Chicago; James Hiatt, Philadelphia Public School Association; and Charles A. Prosser, executive secretary of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education (later to be called the National Vocational Education Association).


The first meeting of this new committee was held during the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education convention in Philadel-phia, in 1913. Plans were developed to hold the organizing convention from October 21 to 2��, 1913, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at the same time as the convention of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. Frank Leavitt was chosen to chair the committee to plan the details of the convention. The program was chosen by Davis (as the local host), Prosser, and Leavitt, and the first mailing list was provided by Davis on the basis of those who had inquired about the Grand Rapids plan of guidance in the schools. The committee recom-mended that the new organization be called the NVGA.

That first NVGA convention had 2�� participants, from 26 states; the District of Columbia; Ontario, Canada; Puerto Rico; and the Institute of Sociology in Brussels, Belgium. There were �� participants from Illinois, 3�� from New York, 31 from Michigan, 2�� from Pennsylvania, 23 from Ohio, and 1�� from Wisconsin; the Pacific Coast states had 19 and the South had 12 participants. The speakers were a tremendous collection of prominent people of that era, including Owen R. Lovejoy, secretary of the National Child Labor Committee; Leonard P. Ayres, Russell Sage Founda-tion; Ida M. Tarbell, editor, American Magazine; Julia C. Lathrop, head of the Children’s Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor; and Woodbridge N. Ferris, governor of the state of Michigan. The current president of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education was William C. Redfield, who was also the U.S. Secretary of Commerce and was very active in developing the program (Davis, 1956b).

At the organizing convention of NVGA, in 1913, the first officers were also chosen and included Frank Leavitt (president), Chicago; Alice M. Barrows (vice president), New York City; Jesse B. Davis (secretary), Grand Rapids, Michigan; James S. Hiatt (treasurer), Philadelphia; with an Executive Council of Meyer Bloomfield, M. Edith Campbell, George P. Knox, O. W. Burroughs, and E. M. Robinson.

The second NVGA convention was held in Richmond, Virginia, in 191��, again, in conjunction with the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. New NVGA officers were elected and included Jesse B. Davis (president), Grand Rapids, Michigan; Anne Davis (vice president), Chicago; W. Carson Ryan (secretary), Washington, DC; James S. Hiatt (treasurer), Philadelphia. An Executive Council was also elected and was composed of Frank Leavitt, Charles A. Prosser, Arthur W. Dunn, F. B. Dyer, and Meyer Bloomfield (Brewer, 19��2).

At that convention, it was decided that the next NVGA convention should be held in Oakland, California, in 1915, but it would not be held in conjunction with the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education’s annual convention (Davis, 1956a). Davis strongly believed that vocational guidance and vocational education were being confused in the minds of the public as evidenced in newspaper accounts and that NVGA needed to develop its own identity. He used his influence to hold the convention just in advance of the NEA convention as a number of other professional associations were also doing (Davis, 1956b).

In 1916, at the NVGA convention, Meyer Bloomfield was elected the third president. As the United States entered the World War I years, NVGA struggled (as did many other associations) in 1918. There was


no convention in 1919, but an annual meeting was held in St. Louis, Missouri, with an address and several reports on guidance activities around the country. Most of the current officers of NVGA did not attend this meeting, and there was no election of new officers. This nascent organization almost died, but it was revived in 1920 largely through the efforts of John M. Brewer of Harvard and Dean of Women Katherine F. Ball at the University of Minnesota (Brewer, 19��2; Davis, 1956b). Davis again played an important role in saving this new organization and in maintaining its historical continuity as he fought to preserve the original name, the NVGA (Brewer, 19��2).

Today, the National Career Development Association (formerly NVGA) is the preeminent career development and career counseling profes-sional association in the world. With more than 5,000 members, the association continued the traditions and focus established by Davis and his colleagues in 1913.

Summary and ConclusionDavis was the first school guidance counselor in the United States and was the first person in the United States to implement a systematic guidance program in the public schools (Brewer, 19��2; Davis, 191��; Gladding, 2006; Schmidt, 2003). Like most new ideas or inventions, they arise at a specific point in time because of a special confluence of external forces, especially societal epochs, economics, and people. I have written about this phenomenon in my social transitions stage model (Pope, 2000), describing the development of the career counseling profession in the United States. The late 1890s and early 1900s were a time of much turmoil with a society in transition from an agricultural to an industrial foundation. Millions of young people were being thrown into the world of work with little prepara-tion or guidance (Davis, 1956a). As these social forces compelled a citizenry toward change, the need for help with this difficult process spread into the schools. Davis and other educators saw the need and responded.

Although Davis was the first, others also deserve mention as important leaders in this new guidance movement in the schools (Brewer, 19��2). Eli Weaver at the Boys High School of Brooklyn implemented similar programs in New York City in 1908. Frank Goodwin led this work in the Cincinnati, Ohio, schools by 1911. I. B. Morgan carried on similar guidance work in the Kansas City, Missouri, schools beginning in 1912 as well as James S. Hiatt in the Philadelphia schools. In 1913, Anna Y. Reed developed guidance programs in the Seattle, Washington, school system along with O. W. Burroughs in Pittsburgh. Davis and other pioneers richly deserve the credit for their work: “These and other efforts in guidance established the beginnings of what was to become the school counseling profession” (Schmidt, 2003, p. �). These pioneers were influenced greatly by the work of Frank Parsons (1909) through his book, Choosing a Vocation, and the Vocation Bureau that he established in Boston (Brewer, 19��2).

Although many of the pioneers of vocational guidance were social workers or religious workers, Davis was an educator, which gave him a unique perspective on these issues. Through his groundbreaking work in the public schools of Detroit and Grand Rapids, Michigan, he became one of the primary leaders in the development of vocational guidance


in the United States, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and laid the foundation for the professional counseling specialties of both career counseling and school counseling (Brewer, 19��2; Davis, 1956b). Davis’s (191��) book, Vocational and Moral Guidance, became the blueprint for implementing vocational guidance in educational settings throughout the early years of the 20th century.

Davis went from a high school teacher to a college of education dean over his lifetime. He had many achievements, including founder of the first junior high school and junior college in Michigan, founder and second president of the NVGA (now National Career Development Association), and founder and second president of the National Association of Second-ary School Principals, to name a few. He had an exceptional career that spanned 50 years of the most important times in our society’s educational development, and he was an important contributor to those times.

As an educator, he touched many lives, and those students have gone on to also make important contributions to U.S. society. Davis’s (1956b) book is replete with statements regarding the pride he had for the success of his pupils and about how they had gone on in their lives to become prominent citizens. His students fondly referred to him as “Uncle J. B.,” and he never called them students but “his boys and girls” (Davis, 1956b, p. 211). Even in his writings, he never referred to them as students, only “pupils.” “Pupils” at Grand Rapids Central High School came to his office, not afraid of being called into the principal’s office but for help. Like the young girl who exclaimed as she entered, “Oh Uncle J. B., I am in trouble, will you help me?” (Davis, 1956b, p. 211). And, as any good school counselor would, he always found time and a way to help.(Note. Extensive quotations from The Saga of a Schoolmaster, by J. B. Davis, 1956, Boston: Boston University Press. Copyright 1956 by Trustees of Boston University. Extensive quotations reprinted with permission.)

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The Personnel and Guidance Journal, 34, ��20–��22.Davis, J. B. (1956b). The saga of a schoolmaster. Boston: Boston University Press.Gladding, S. T. (2006). Counseling: A comprehensive profession (5th ed.). Upper Saddle

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