Carroll DW Scott educating children with a snake. Photo courtesy of the San Diego Natural History Museum.
Carroll De Wilton Scott was a naturalist, educator, and prolific writer of poetry, stories, reflections, and articles about the natural world.
He was born on December 2, 1878, in Stephenville, Texas, to Eugene and Rosa Scott, and moved with his parents to San Diego County in 1882.
He graduated from Stanford University in 1902 and lived for one year in Nevada; he taught history briefly in San Mateo before taking up farming in Pacific Beach.
In September 1910, he married Edith Mills and began teaching.
He worked in the San Diego County public school system from 1914 to 1934, first as a teacher and later as Supervisor of Natural Study. He served as the first Director of Education for the San Diego Natural History Museum from 1920-1921, and for many years, he wrote weekly California nature articles for local newspapers. He created “nature cabinets” that could be loaned out to schools and used as educational tools.
His publications include Manual of Nature Education for San Diego Elementary Schools (1927), Finding Real Fairies (1945), Looking for California Condors (1945), Story of Southern California Wildflowers (1955), Here’s Don Coyote (1956), and California Nature Poems (1957).
U.S. Censuses from 1910-1950 show us that he was a rancher/farmer, teacher of natural study and a truck gardener.
He died in San Diego on April 2, 1970.
Biographical/Historical, Carroll De Wilton Scott Collection, 1909-1964. San Diego Natural History Museum Research Library, San Diego, CA.
