SADLER, SIR MICHAEL ERNEST

born July 3, 1861, Barnsley, Yorkshire, Eng. died Oct. 14, 1943, Oxford world-renowned authority on secondary education and a champion of the English public school system. Sadler was the first child of a physician. He was educated at Rugby and at Trinity College, Oxford, where he excelled in the classics. He served as secretary of the Oxford University Extension from 1885 to 1895 and steward of Christ Church, Oxford, from 1886 to 1895. Under his leadership the extension grew enormously, offering nearly 400 courses all over England. But Sadler recognized that the university extension was handicapped by failings at the secondary level, and he persuaded Oxford to hold a conference on the subject of secondary education in 1893. Shortly thereafter, Sadler served on the Royal Commission appointed to investigate and report on secondary education. In 1895 Sadler left Oxford to become Director of Special Inquiries and Reports in the Government's Education Department. At that post he built up an enormous literature on comparative education, almost single-handedly creating a new branch of the study of education. He also greatly enhanced the Education Department's library and made his office a source of educational information to British and non-British alike. When he resigned in 1903, Sadler was internationally renowned as an expert on educational matters. He spent the next eight years teaching and writing and seeking further to improve secondary education. In 1911 Sadler became vice chancellor of the University of Leeds, greatly increasing its faculty, students, and academic stature. After a two-year stint (191719) as president of the Calcutta University Commission, Sadler returned to Leeds, where he remained until 1923. He was knighted in 1919. It was in 1923 that he accepted his final academic post, master of University College, Oxford. In 1934 he retired. Lecturingoften on the essential function of education to produce an elite capable of administering government and businessand work on a history of English education filled his final years. Sadler was also known for his extensive art collection, containing works of both old masters and modern artists, and for his generous patronage of unknown artists.