Dr. Jessie Royer Greaves

Dr. Jessie Royer Greaves:

Teacher, School Founder, and Education Pioneer

“The things we do best are things we do to meet the urgent need of those less
fortunate than ourselves.”
– Jessie Royer Greaves

Jessie Royer Greaves enjoyed teaching at a scored poorly,” he said. Across the nation, many people
Philadelphia school for the blind, but she couldn’t stop were labeled and separated from society in institutions.
thinking about the children who were denied the chance
to learn. Jessie's idea that these children should not be written
It was the early 1900s, and prospective pupils were off, but could and should be taught, was revolutionary,
required to take one of the newly popular I.Q. tests. Only John said. “She saw them as people, as human beings,
those who met minimum score requirements were who could learn, and grow, and needed to be cared for
admitted. Jessie was very troubled by the wasted and educated.”
potential of those who did not meet the benchmark and
were labeled “feeble-minded” and “uneducable.” She felt “She was a trailblazer,” added Ursinus Director of
compelled to act. Disability Services Shammah Bermudez.
On Jan. 1, 1921, Jessie opened Royer-Greaves School
for Blind, the nation’s first school for blind students who First, a Pioneering Student
also have a cognitive disability.
Born in 1874, Jessie grew up in Trappe, Pennsylvania.
An Education Pioneer She loved accompanying her country-doctor father,
The IQ testing movement was aimed at sorting the Joseph Warren Royer, on patient visits. He treated
population according to mental ability, said Ursinus everyone who needed his help, whether or not they
College Associate Professor of Education and could pay. Jessie's mother, Anna Royer, was a talented
Education Department Chairman John Spencer. The musician who taught each of her seven children to play
movement was rooted partly in the idealistic notion that musical instruments. The Royers’ nine-piece family
the tests could find intelligent people from any orchestra would entertain any organization upon
background. Then, regardless of family wealth or status, request. Jessie sang in the choir at St. Luke’s German
that intelligence could be fostered, to the benefit of Reformed Church - now the United Church of Christ -
society. However, IQ testing had a terrible downside: “In where she also taught Sunday school.
that early period, the tests really stigmatized people who
Before Jessie became a
pioneering educator, she was a
pioneering student. In the late
1800s, college was not
considered essential for most
people. For women, many
even considered it undesirable.
But Jessie’s family was both
well-educated and
exceptionally supportive. Her
grandfathers were a
Montgomery County associate
judge and a Philadelphia
Public School controller. Her
father had graduated from Lafayette College and
Princeton University and received a medical degree
from the University of Pennsylvania. He helped establish

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Ursinus College, which became his daughter’s alma teaching at the Philadelphia school, as well as giving
mater. lectures, so she could fund Royer-Greaves.

When Jessie graduated from Ursinus in June, 1892, she First at the original
used her commencement address, “The Higher location in Strafford,
Education of Women,” to advocate for others. She said: then in King of Prussia,
“The breadth of her education gives her that safer and finally at the
judgment, that deeper sympathy, and that calmer school’s current
conviction, which enable her to bear more easily the location in Paoli, Jessie
burdens of her own heart; and then – to help the welcomed students who
overburdened.” were not only blind but
also had cognitive and
Pursuing a career in public speaking, Jessie graduated sometimes physical
from Emerson College of Oratory in 1901. disabilities. Students came from many states, as well as
Cuba and Canada, as there was no place else that
Early Career and a Happy Marriage recognized their potential to learn.

Jessie opened a studio of expression in Philadelphia Since Jessie’s work ran counter to the established
where she taught public speaking for nine years. She thinking of the time, it attracted a lot of criticism at first.
also gave public lectures to rave press reviews. She had to work hard to disprove her critics, but Jessie
never shirked from a challenge.
Her personal life also blossomed. When Jessie broke a
pane of glass in her bookcase, the young artist who “I did not go into the work for the multi-handicapped
lived upstairs, Harry Eugene Greaves, offered to fix it. blind armed with preconceived ideas of how it should be
That neighborly kindness led to love, and they married done nor with helpful suggestions of educators and
in 1905. psychologists. It was an unexplored field,” Jessie once
said. “To be sure, I had had 20 years’ experience
A visit to a teaching the…blind; but that is a very different work. I had
Philadelphia school to learn how to meet the difficulties presented by added
for blind children physical and mental complications which are augmented
changed her life and when the child is blind.”
career path forever.
She wanted to help It took time for Jessie and those working with her to
these children learn how to teach these children. “Undoubtedly, we
develop more poise, made many mistakes,” she said. “But we never lost our
balance, muscular sense, and a sense of direction – passionate desire to help the child nor our faith in the
tools that would help them integrate into broader ultimate success of our undertaking.”
society. Emerson founder, Dr. Charles Emerson,
suggested that exercises from Emerson Physical Compassion and Creativity
Culture classes could help.
Many early Royer-Greaves students had the ability to
When Jessie shared these ideas with the principal of the lead independent lives, but low expectations often
school, he persuaded her to teach declamation – a way meant they arrived at the school having had little chance
of speaking with emphasis – and physical expression. to learn even the most basic skills. This did not daunt
She threw herself into her new work and became well Jessie, say her great-nieces, Ann Royer Coleman and
known in education circles for the remarkable success
of her students.

Jessie’s happy life took a very sad turn in 1919, when
her beloved husband died. Work was not a pleasant
distraction for her, either, as Jessie became more and
more troubled when students she knew could learn were
turned away based on their IQ scores.

Finding Joy – and Success – in Helping Others

Jessie decided it was up to her to do something for
these children. In 1921, she opened the school she
named for her father and husband: Royer-Greaves
School for Blind. For several years, Jessie continued

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Peg Royer Kostopoulos, who saw some remarkable World War II, when it was difficult to hire enough staff,
results first hand. Jessie did the cooking.

Peg remembers a young girl who had been kept in a “The overriding attitude at the school, starting with
high chair and could not walk. “Aunt Jessie got a barrel, Jessie, was one of love,” said Peg. “She believed in the
and she put wheels on it,” she said. After a few more children who were here. She believed in their abilities,
modifications, the girl was able to stand in the middle of and she believed in having a loving relationship with
the barrel, her feet on the ground and her hands on the them.”
sides for support. “That was how she learned to walk.” “She loved them, and they loved her,” said Viola
Wiskowski, who was Jessie’s secretary from 1944 until
Ann remembers a boy named Bobby, who at 5 ½ Jessie’s death.
weighed less than 30 pounds. He had also never been Jessie never gave birth to any children, but hundreds of
out of his high chair. “He never learned to eat because them adopted her.
he had been bottle fed his entire life, and his arms didn’t “Everyone called her Mother Greaves,” Viola said.
work and his legs didn’t work.” Early Curriculum
Royer-Greaves goal has always been to help each
Jessie taught Bobby to eat, first pudding, then solid student be as independent as he or she can possibly be.
food. “She gave him hand strengthening exercises so Jessie’s students were taught math and to read Braille.
that he could hold a spoon for himself,” she said. Bobby They learned employable skills, including typing and
also learned to walk. furniture caning. For many years, the school operated a
caning business on site where students worked.
One day, Jessie took Some students went on to college. Others went to work
Bobby to a concert. in the community.
He came home to
Royer and played the
songs he had just
heard on the piano.
“Aunt Jessie saw that
he was given music
lessons, and he
became quite
accomplished. He
made a living playing
the piano.”

Jessie discovered
that sometimes those I.Q. test results that kept students
from other schools were not measures of ability, but of
exposure. It was not an accurate measure of ability to
test children on subjects that no one had tried to teach
them, she reasoned.

She wrote of one child who came to Royer-Greaves in
with an I.Q. of 39, down from 41 two years earlier. “In
1946, after five years in Royer-Greaves School, his I.Q.
was 96,” she wrote.

A School and a Home

For many years, Royer-Greaves was both school and
home for those it served. The Manor House, now offices
and meeting spaces, held dormitories for boys and girls.

In addition to teachers, psychologists, therapists, and
nurses, students had house parents who lived at the
school with them, offering guidance and friendship.

Jessie also lived on campus. She ate meals with her
students almost every day. On Friday nights, she would
gather them by the big fireplace to tell stories. During

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For Jessie, this was not enough. She wanted her other educators told her that these children could not be
students to have full lives and fit well within society, so educated. She persisted in proving them wrong.”
she placed an emphasis on social skills. This part of the
curriculum include lessons in manners, customs, habits, Recognition
behavior patterns and courtesy. In Home Economics,
everyone learned the importance of etiquette, nutrition, While Jessie’s belief that
and homemaking skills, such as cooking. students with blindness
and cognitive disabilities
Jessie also wanted every Royer-Greaves student to could and should learn
have a life infused with music. “She said music was the was unorthodox at first,
best healer for children, and that they were happiest she lived to see her
when singing and listening to music so she put a lot of ideas praised and
music in the curriculum,” Viola remembers. Students embraced.
sang, played in the bell choir, performed plays and
musicals, and often invited the community to In 1926, the Kiwanis
International of
performances or Norristown named Jessie
performed off “the person doing the
campus. most unselfish service in
Montgomery County”
In 1947, Royer- and awarded her the Kiwanis Distinguished Service
Greaves purchased Medal. This honor attracted local attention to the school,
a local farm to fulfill and later, the Lions Club of Norristown made Royer-
two needs. The Greaves School its major project. (Royer-Greaves
school needed the continues to enjoy a strong bond with the Lions Club.
farm house to The Paoli-Berwyn-Malvern Lions Club is the school’s
create a home for greatest benefactor.)
premature blind
babies. It also Other awards and honors poured in. Jessie received the
needed more space Issacher Hoopes Eldridge Citation of Emerson College
to raise animals for “character and service” in 1926. She was awarded
and grow an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Pedagogy by Ursinus
vegetables for food. College in 1938. She was honored as a Distinguished
Daughter of Pennsylvania in 1950, received an honorary
Jessie’s Way Doctor of Humane Letters from Emerson College in
1955, and was given the Isabel W. Kennedy Award for
Jessie’s faith in the ability of her students manifested in Outstanding Service to the Blind in 1956. Jessie was
high expectations. “She wanted them to do their best all given the first-ever Louis Braille Award by the
the time,” Viola said. Jessie created a school culture Philadelphia Association for the Blind in 1957. Also that
where teachers and staff members held the students to year, she received the Achievement Award at the 32nd
the same expectations she did. She was a frequent Educational Week for the Blind. She was named an
classroom observer, and if the lesson wasn’t being Extraordinary Citizen by the National Ladies Auxiliary of
taught to her liking, she would interrupt and take over, Jewish War Veterans U.S.A., Inc. in 1959. In 1961, she
Viola said. was given the Lane Bryant Annual National Award and
in 1962, Ursinus presented her with its first Alumni
Jessie applied her trademark determination to school Award.
administration. The person who most often saw this was
Mr. Perry, the school business manager and a close Even more important to Jessie, other schools and the
friend. entire education establishment came to embrace the
kind of inclusiveness she pioneered. In 1966, the
“When it came to running the school…she wanted to do federal government established the first grant program
what she wanted to do” for the students, Viola said. “She to fund the education of children with disabilities and
didn’t want to hear about finances and about cutting also created the Bureau of Education of the
costs.” Handicapped. “She was able to enjoy the fact that other
schools finally accepted these children,” Viola said.
Sometimes, budget discussions were necessary.
Initially nobody believed she could do what she wanted Jessie Royer-Greaves remained active and involved at
to do, and she had to fight every step of the way. “She the school she founded and loved until her death on
put up her own money for many years, because nobody June 21, 1967, at the age of 92.
would support her,” her great-niece Ann said. “Even

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Royer-Greaves Evolves While Remaining True to Its “Aunt Jessie demonstrated such loving care that
Founder’s Mission she inspired the people around her with that same

The attributes and needs of the Royer-Greaves student
body have changed over time. Society has evolved, and
so has federal law, which now requires that public
schools provide accommodations and support services
that allow children with disabilities to learn beside their
non-disabled peers. Today, there is no longer a demand
for centralized care for blind babies, and the youngest
students at Royer-Greaves School are 4 ½ years old.

Because many children with impairments similar to attitude, and that became the culture for the school.
those of Royer-Greaves’ earliest students today attend As new people came in and the school expanded,
public schools, Royer-Greaves now serves students they, too embraced that culture,” her great-niece
with more profound disabilities who need more Peg explains. “That culture still exists.”
intensive, individualized attention and education.

Recognizing that
these students
would continue to
need services as
adults, Royer-
Greaves added an
adult program in
1989, and in 1990
the Adult Training
Facility was
licensed.

Despite these
significant changes,
Jessie would
recognize Royer-
Greaves and see
that her
philosophies live
on.

Jessie believed in a strong link between mind and body.
Royer-Greaves students and adults continue to

focus on physical development in the school

gymnasium, playground, and swimming pool. Royer-
Greaves again has a garden, where adults and students

grow vegetables.

Music can yet be heard on campus daily, both in therapy This article includes information from:
and for pure enjoyment. Song is a universal means of
expression, including for people who are  The Keystonian, April 1958
non-verbal. Everyone still performs at special  Royer-Greaves School for Blind Archives
functions, often inviting the community to campus  The Ursinus College Archives
performances.  Interviews with those quoted
 The personal document collections of Ann Royer
Both the school and adult training facility remain
committed to helping each individual achieve Coleman and Peg Royer Kostopoulos, great-
maximum independence and to live his or her most nieces of Jessie Royer Greaves
fulfilling and joyful life possible. Expectations remain Thank you.
high and the students, adults, teachers, therapists, and
other staff at Royer-Greaves School for Blind still take
pride in forging family-like bonds with each other.

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