History of Berkeley Optometry—Part I

1907–1923
Establishing an Optometry Curriculum at Berkeley

"All the material gain I have in this world I must credit entirely to optometry. The little knowledge I have, by which I am able to render fair service . . . has come to me by virtue of those who sacrificed before me. Therefore, if success in life is to leave the world a little better for having been in it, then I feel honor bound to give to that which has given to me." 1 —George Louis Schneider, 1923

 A complete history of Berkeley Optometry is available --- see History Book.

The early practice of optometry

At the turn of the twentieth century, any adult person in the U.S. could practice nonmedical optometry—the treatment of defective vision without the use of drugs or surgical interventions. The manufacture and fitting of eyeglasses was considered more of a mechanical trade than an eyecare profession. There were no educational prerequisites or standards for proficiency, and no legal definitions of what constituted "optometry."

Practitioners were mostly hard working and competent, but in the absence of regulation, there were charlatans who preyed on the unsuspecting public. Fads and scams came and went. The itinerant spectacle peddler, who was a familiar figure especially in the more rural areas of the nation, was not always a trustworthy sort of fellow. The more reputable peddlers carried a vision-testing kit along with their inventory of lenses and spectacles, using an optimeter and other basic portable optical aids to determine the requirements for adequate vision correction. The less skilled peddlers toted a large selection of ready-made eyeglasses, allowing customers to rummage through the assortment until they found satisfactory spectacles. "The skeleton in the closet of the optometric family," opined one editorial, "is the spectacle peddler. He occupies a place similar to that of the barber-surgeon in medicine's family closet. And if at times the optometrist seems to hear a rattling of bones, he has the assurance that while some of his ancestors may have acted like mountebanks, viewed in the light of the times in which they lived they were a logical part of the economy of their day."²

Optometric education during the late 1800s–early 1900s

Early practitioners were, on average, poorly educated in the mathematics of optics or the physiology of the eye. Many learned the trade through practical apprenticeships in the shops of watchmakers or jewelers. Others were autodidacts, reading the few available books on optics or articles in magazines for opticians, and otherwise finding whatever opportunities they could to put theoretical optics into practice.

It was not until 1901 that states began passing statutes defining the practice of optometry and regulating the profession. California was the third state to do so (in 1903). Two decades would pass before all states had optometry laws. California did not impose educational requirements until 1923, the year the Berkeley Optometry curriculum began. The 1923 law stipulated that an applicant for licensing had to be a graduate from both an accredited high school and "a school where the science of optometry is taught, duly accredited by the state board of optometry" before gaining permission to take a qualifying examination on practical and theoretical optometry.³

Conditions for change

The introduction of optometry laws and educational standards took place in a rapidly changing world. In the San Francisco Bay Area, a land boom and population explosion created a need for more expert vision care. Between 1900 and 1910, Berkeley's population tripled, from roughly 13,200 to 40,400 inhabitants, in part due to the diaspora following the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906. The expansion of the University's student body, faculty, research, and infrastructure also opened possibilities for a professional program in optometry. Broadly speaking, as the campaign for a curriculum in optometry developed, it was associated with urban development, educational progress, legislative action, and professional advancement.

A meeting with UC President Benjamin Ide Wheeler, 1907

In 1907, a committee of three optometrists, appointed by the California State Association of Optometrists (CSAO), met with Benjamin Ide Wheeler, president of the University of California, about establishing a "Course in the Science of Optometry." The committee consisted of George Schneider (1874–1928) of Berkeley, Charles Wood (c. 1868–1953) of Oakland, and Frederick Chinn (1870–1940) of Sacramento. This would be the first of more than 100 meetings between optometrists and the University, comprising a sixteen-year undertaking leading to the inaugural optometry curriculum in August 1923.

Although President Wheeler responded favorably to the committee's proposal, he wanted to consult his "oculist" friends. Hearing this, Schneider, Wood, and Chinn realized they would have to contend with determining the role, if any, of the often antagonistic medical profession (most especially ophthalmology). The lack of optometric educational standards was a legitimate concern among ophthalmologists, especially as optometrists began expanding the scope of their practice beyond the manufacture of eyeglasses to include refracting services and spectacle prescriptions. When optometrists began charging fees for refractions, they also invited ophthalmology's natural antipathy toward incursions by other disciplines into vision care, as well as its desire to maintain hegemony in the marketplace. Ophthalmology wanted to limit optometry to the manufacture of eyeglasses, reserving refractions and spectacle prescriptions for itself. Early legal battles often centered around the issue of whether refractions were medical procedures. One by one, however, state legislatures and judiciaries sided with optometry.

Standing alongside these medical activists were many old-school opticians and optometrists. They were among the most vocal of obstructionists, not wanting to jeopardize their lucrative businesses by changing the rules or increasing the number of better-trained practitioners. Advocates of a university curriculum also faced widespread prejudice from a public that viewed optometry with suspicion, a legacy of unregulated optometry and unscrupulous "eye experts" who preyed upon the public.

The struggle for a curriculum in optometry

The early advocates for a "Course in the Science of Optometry" at Berkeley believed passionately in the righteousness of their cause—for them it was a mission of historical proportions. They wanted to advance optometry through professional and scientific instruction, to put it on an equal footing with other healthcare professions. These were remarkable men (the principal players in this tale were indeed all males), dedicated to the proposition that both the profession and the public would benefit from an affiliation with the University—an institution of international repute with exacting standards of education and growing achievements in research.

George Schneider was foremost among these pioneers—a visionary optometrist who would guide the process from start to finish. The early history of Berkeley Optometry serves, in part, as a biography of Schneider's professional life. Through it all, he stands out as a person of ideals, patience, persistence, cleverness, kindness, and vision. Without him there might never have been a School of Optometry on the Berkeley campus (see George Schneider).

Schneider had allies among the Berkeley faculty. The two most important were both professors of physics—Ralph S. Minor (who would become the first dean of Berkeley Optometry) and Exum Percival Lewis (1863–1926), who became chair of physics in 1918 at a critical juncture during the negotiations for a curriculum. Ralph Minor built an influential and supportive relationship with organized optometry in California starting in 1911, as well as with Schneider throughout the 1910s–1920s (see Ralph Minor). Lewis was an indispensable spokesperson for the campaign, especially as Chair of the Department of Physics, where, it was proposed, the Optometry curriculum would be located. Lewis sympathized with Schneider's dream of advancing optometric education at Berkeley and became the strongest faculty voice as chair of a committee appointed by the University Council in 1917. Lewis, in one report to the Council, stated his view in this way: "We believe ... that the University alone is capable of providing a course which will not only develop the most efficient type of optometrists, but which will also stimulate research in the neglected fields of the theory of vision and applied optics, and that it should give earnest consideration to the arguments for the creation of this course."⁴

The turning point came on November 5, 1919, when a formal proposal for a curriculum in optometry was brought before the University Council. Other meetings and discussions were followed by amendments to the proposed courses until, on November 3, 1920, UC President David Barrows informed the Academic Senate of a report revised by the University Council to be submitted to the UC Regents recommending the establishment of courses for academic and professional optometric training under the direction of the Department of Physics.

It required more than two years before the lower and upper-division courses were approved. Even then, two difficult obstacles remained. One was the lack of a physical infrastructure to house Optometry's offices, labs, and clinics; the other was financing, for the University did not have funds for a new program, beyond paying the costs of half the salary of the head of the Optometry curriculum (Ralph Minor, who was given a dual appointment as Professor of Physics in charge of Optometry).

The first problem was solved when Le Conte Hall was built for the Department of Physics in 1923–24. Optometry was given space in 1923 for offices and clinics on the top floor (attic) and an optics laboratory in the basement. The second hurdle was successfully negotiated with the aid of organized optometry in California.

The role of organized optometry in establishing the program

Optometric education and practice was advanced in California largely through the efforts of the more forward-thinking members of the profession. The lobbying by organized optometry for a curriculum was critical to winning over University officials and faculty. Yet these activists did more than voice their support—they also paid for the costs of the inaugural courses. In 1922–23, Schneider organized a campaign to collect pledges totaling more than $9,000 (a considerable sum in those days) in support of the first year's instruction. In the second year, all operating costs were met by the assessment of higher annual California optometry license renewal fees (raised from $2 to $10, with $8 going to support the curriculum and research at Berkeley). The profession sponsored this fee raise by lobbying for it before the California legislature, marking an extraordinary historical moment when private practitioners self-imposed a "tax" to entirely finance a professional program at a public university. Funding of the optometry curriculum by a portion of state licensing fees continued in subsequent years until 1949, when the University finally provided financial support for the program.

The first curriculum in optometry at Berkeley

Lower-division courses in the inaugural curriculum were the same as those for Physics majors in the College of Letters and Science. Upper-division courses were specific to optometric academic education and professional training. Three courses intended for seniors (see asterisks below) were not given in the inaugural year because the first enrolled optometry students had to complete the junior year.

Inaugural Curriculum in Optometry
Approved July 12, 1923
Instruction Began August 17, 1923

Exum Percival Lewis, PhD, Professor & Chair of Physics
Ralph S. Minor, PhD, Professor of Physics in charge of Optometry
George L. Schneider, Lecturer in Optometry

References

1. John Fiorillo has excerpted and adapted most of the text and images used for this web history from his book Berkeley Optometry: A History (Berkeley: School of Optometry and UC Regents, 2010), which provides significantly more information, including extensive quotations from original correspondence and published materials.
2. Maurice Edward Cox, Optometry, the Profession: Its Antecedents, Birth, and Development (Philadelphia: Chilton Co., 1947), 19.
3. Statutes of California: Measures Submitted to Vote of Electors, 1922, General Laws, Amendments to Codes, Resolutions, Constitutional Amendments (San Francisco: Bancroft-Whitney Company, 1923), chap. 164, 380–387.
4. E. P. Lewis, untitled report to the University Council, undated but attached to a memo dated Feb. 28, 1918; Berkeley Optometry Archives.