William Chandler Bagley (1874-1946) was an educator and theorist of educational "essentialism."

William Chandler Bagley was born March 15, 1874, in Detroit, Michigan, to William Chase and Ruth (Walker) Bagley. The family came originally from Massachusetts but moved west for his father's employment as a hospital superintendent in Detroit. Bagley attended high school in Detroit and in 1891 enrolled in the Michigan Agricultural College (now Michigan State University) to study scientific agriculture. He received his bachelor's degree in 1895, but finding no immediate employment in his field, he took a position as a teacher in a one-room school in the town of Garth, a lumber community in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

His interest in teaching awakened with this experience, and in the summer of 1896 he began studies at the University of Chicago in the field of education and learning theory. Then, after a second year teaching at Garth, he enrolled as...