THE FIRST CONFERENCE TO ESTABLISH OPTOMETRIC STANDARDS

In 1901, when optometry first achieved legal status, optometric educat ion in the United States was inadequate. Two-week courses in refractio n, correspondence courses, and 2 year apprenticeships were common. Ove r the next 2 decades, progress was made through the closing of a numbe r of schools and the development of some creditable ones, but across t he country optometric education remained unacceptably uneven. There we re various calls for improvement, and in 1921 the American Optometric Association (AOA) formed a Council on Optometric Education. In 1921, f unds were appropriated by the AOA to fund a nationwide conference on o ptometric education, which was held in January, 1922. Among other thin gs, this conference resulted in the classification of all schools, clo sing some in the process; the adoption of minimum entrance requirement s; the adoption of subject matter syllabi; and the recommendation of t he end of apprenticeship and correspondence courses. Optometric educat ion was forever changed.