Philander P. Claxton entered the university in 1879 and graduated second in his class of 16 in 1882 after completing the classical curriculum in two and one-half years. At the university, he was active in the Philomathesian Literary Society and served as the first editor of its newspaper, the Philo Star (January 1882). In 1887 while he was teaching pedagogy in North Carolina, UT granted Claxton the AM degree “in course,” the sole violation of the policy adopted in 1879 to grant no more such degrees to graduates of classes after 1878. (The degree was granted in recognition of his studies in Germany and at Johns Hopkins and his submission of a thesis on Goethe’s Faust.)
In 1902 University President Charles Dabney, a strong advocate of the creation of better public schools throughout the South, employed Claxton to return to Knoxville to head the Bureau of Investigation and Research of the Southern Education Board. (The Southern Education Board was a private organization supported partially by Rockefeller money that mobilized support for education in the South.) With funds from the SEB and the General Education Board, Claxton and Dabney created a department of education at the university. They also organized the Summer School of the South with General Education Board funds.
Claxton was head of the Education Department and Superintendent of the Summer School of the South from 1902 through 1911. He was instrumental in securing the passage of the General Education Bill of 1909, which increased appropriations for public schools, established three normal schools, and provided for permanent state funding for the university. Also in 1909 Claxton accepted membership on the national Hook Worm Commission, a body of leading scientists and educators formed to expend John D. Rockefeller’s gift of $1 million for the purpose of eradicating Hook Worm disease.
In 1911 Claxton was appointed US commissioner of education, a position he held for a decade, serving under three presidents. He then served as provost at the University of Alabama (1921–23), superintendent of schools in Tulsa (1923–29), and president of Tennessee’s Austin Peay Normal School (1930–46). In 1957 the Philander P. Claxton Building was named for him.
In 1986 the Philander P. Claxton Award was initiated by the Tennessee Conference of the American Association of University Professors to honor an individual who has made significant contributions to higher education in Tennessee. The recipient is to embody the highest ideals of the academic profession and of the association.