Awards

National Academies - 1951

American Association for the Advancement of Science

About Alfred Clayton

Alfred Stafford "Staff" Clayton was born February 12, 1911 the son of Alfred Samuel Clayton and Mabel Grace Maynard Clayton. Upon completion of his undergraduate work at Wesleyan University, where he received the B.A. in philosophy in 1931 he taught for nine years in high schools in Connecticut and New York. While he was teaching he attended Columbia University and earned an M.A. (1932) in philosophy of education and a Ph.D. in philosophy of education (1941). 

At Columbia he encountered an extraordinary generation of philosophers of education, including John Dewey. During his study at Columbia, Clayton developed his commitment to furthering philosophy as pragmatics. His dissertation, Emergent Mind and Education, placed the writings of Herbert Mead and John Dewey into psychological perspective. It remains an important contribution to American pragmatic philosophy. Always faithful to his commitment for rational persuasion in action, Clayton emerged from Columbia University with a passion for social reconstruction. He brought that passion with him to Talladega, the leading liberal arts college for African Americans in the South.

As a professor of philosophy and psychology, he brought to his students his devotion to free inquiry and an intellectual basis for the creation of a more humane society in America. His efforts to help his students in their struggles to advance their freedom through the enjoyment of civil rights was within the context of a fiercely hostile, segregationist community. After Talladega, Clayton moved to Western Illinois State Teachers College where he was engaged in the preparation of teachers and then, in 1947, to Indiana University where he taught and advanced philosophy of education until his retirement in 1976. He died on August 11, 1983.