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Tom & Carolyn Ward Columbus, KS |
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George H. Failyer was born in December, 1849, on a farm in Mahaska county, Iowa. When he was six years old his father's family moved to Page county, Iowa, then on the extreme frontier, and settled on a preëmption claim.
He first attended school at the age of eight, and was regular in attendance, the schools ranging from three to six months in the year. He was student in Amity Academy, Amity, Iowa, for a term in 1867 and one in 1868. In April, 1868, he accompanied his father to Southeast Kansas, and took up a claim in connection with his father on the Cherokee Neutral Lands. From this time to September, 1873, he was engaged in the usual farm work of a new country, studying at odd times for recreation. In September, 1873, he entered the third year of the then six-year course at this College, and graduated in 1877, having found time during his course for special work in chemistry.
After graduation he spent a year resting on a farm in Chautauqua county, Kansas, and teaching in the common schools. A vacancy occurring in the chair of chemistry here in 1878, he was asked to take the place temporarily, and at the close of the year was elected to the chair, which he still holds, having received the degree of Master of Science in 1879. From the necessities of the institution, the teaching of various other subjects has fallen to his lot, especially mineralogy, physics, meteorology and geology. In 1880 he spent a term in special study under Prof. R. C. Kedzie at the Michigan Agricultural College. He has been one of the chemists of the State Board of Agriculture. since 1879; has been president of the Kansas Academy of Science, and is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. At the organization of the State Experiment Station, he was made Chemist of the Station. He is the author of a handbook for students in qualitative analysis, and the inventor of chemical apparatus and methods of some importance in quantitative analysis.
Edwin Alonzo Popenoe was born in 1853, on his father's farm in Montgomery county, Ohio, but studied in the common schools and in the village high school in McLean county, Illinois. Removing, in 1869, to Topeka, Kansas, he began in the following year a preparatory course in Washburn College, where he studied six years, graduating in the classical course in 1876, and receiving the degree of Master of Arts from the same institution a few years later. After graduation, he taught a year in the Shawnee county schools, and a second as principal of the Quincy school in North Topeka, resigning the latter position in 1879 to accept the chair of Botany and Horticulture in the Kansas State Agricultural College, where his duties included the instruction of the classes in zoölogy and entomology, and the superintendence of the orchards, gardens and grounds. At the division of duties in 1883, he was assigned to the chair of Horticulture and Entomology, which he still occupies. He is a member of the American Ornithologist's Union, a life member in the Kansas State Horticultural Society and in the American Pomological Society, the vice-president for Kansas in the American Forestry Association, and secretary of the American Horticultural Society. He was for many years secretary of the Kansas Academy of Science, and is one of the official entomologists to the State Board of Agriculture.
William A. Kellerman was born May 1st, 1850, in Central Ohio; his early life being spent upon his father's farm. He prepared for college in Fairfield Academy. In 1871 he entered Cornell University, and after four years graduated with the degree of B. Sc. After graduating he became Professor of Natural Science in the Wisconsin State Normal School. After five years' continuous service in that position he went to Europe and studied two years in Germany and Switzerland, and received the degree of Ph. D. In 1881 he returned to this country and was called to the Kentucky State Agricultural and Mechanical College, where he remained two years. He has been connected with the Kansas State Agricultural College since 1883, as Professor of Botany and Zoölogy, until 1888, since that time of Botany alone. In 1885 he was made Botanist to the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, and in 1888 to the Kansas Experiment Station. In connection with his work he has published "Elements of Botany," "Plant Analysis," "Analytical Flora of Kansas," and various scientific contributions. in 1885 he established the "Journal of Mycology" and edited the same until 1889.
David Ernest Lantz, Professor of Mathematics, and librarian, was born in Juniata county, Pennsylvania, in 1850. He was educated in the Juniata county Normal school, and in the State Normal school at Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1875, and received the degree of Master of Science, after examination, in June, 1885.
From 1870 to 1883 he was a teacher in the public schools, and holds life diplomas in both Pennsylvania and Kansas. For two years he was principal of public schools at Mifflintown, Pennsylvania, and of the Juniata county Normal school, and for five years previous to election to his present position he was superintendent of schools at Manhattan, Kansas. He is well known through the State as a successful conductor of teachers' institutes, and in 1882 was nominated by acclamation in the Democratic convention for State superintendent of public instruction. He is an honorary member of the Kansas State Horticultural Society, a member of the Kansas Academy of Science, and an associate member of the American Ornithologists' Union.
Professor John Daniel Walters was born in 1848, and is a native of the canton of Solothurn, or Soleure, in Western Switzerland. He received his education in the common schools of Aetigkofen and Dombresson; in the high school of the county of Bucheggberg, and the cantonal gymnasium of Solothurn, from which institution he graduated in 1867. Two months after his graduation he landed in New York, working as decorative painter, architectural draughtsman and private teacher in different parts of the country, until his appointment to the position of teacher of drawing at this College. He was given the degree of M. Sc. in 1883, and made Professor of the department of Industrial Art and Designing in 1885. The Professor has taken considerable interest in the work of the National Educational Association. During the meeting of the Association in Topeka, in 1886, he was the secretary pro tem., and at the meeting in the following year, in Chicago, the regular secretary of the Industrial Section. At the meeting in Nashville in 1889, he read a paper on industrial education, and served on two different committees. He has also read papers before many of the different scientific or practical societies of the State, and has been for several years the chairman of the standing committee on landscape gardening in the State Horticultural Society.
Ira D. Graham was born in Vinton, Iowa, on August 29, 1856. Two years later his parents removed to Knox county, Illinois, where he grew up. He received the usual common school training and entered Abingdon College, Abingdon, Ill., at the age of sixteen years, and paid his way while there by manual labor. From this college he received the degree of Bachelor of Science, and in 1885 the honorary degree of Master of Arts from Eureka College, Eureka, Ill.
After leaving college, he served several years as a telegraph operator and railroad agent, and taught several terms in the common schools of Illinois and Kansas. In 1879 he was elected superintendent of telegraphy in the Kansas State Agricultural College, and held this position until 1890. He was elected secretary of the faculty in 1881, and in 1884, when the office of assistant secretary of the Board of Regents was created, Mr. Graham was appointed thereto. In 1886 he was made instructor in book-keeping and commercial law, and in 1890 secretary of the Experiment Station. He was for several years treasurer of the Kansas Academy of Science, was one of the founders of the Kansas Dairy Association, and has been its treasurer and a member of its executive board for the past two years. He is a member of the Kansas State Grange and the Kansas State Historical Society, and of various other associations, educational and scientific.
O. E. Olin was born at Earlville, Ohio, on the 3d of December, 1851. His father was a prosperous farmer of the western reserve. The family, leaving the ancestral home, went west in 1852. Mr. Olin began his education in the schools of Iowa and California, and returning, completed his school days in the public school of his birthplace. He began teaching in Michigan, in 1870. In 1871 he came to Kansas, and has been working in the schools of this State ever since. He first taught a country school in Osage county, was then principal of the Baldwin city schools, afterward principal of the Augusta school in Butler county, and superintendent of schools in El Dorado. From the last position he was elected to the professorship of English in the Agricultural College.
Mrs. Nellie Sawyer Kedzie was born in Madison, Maine, August 2, 1858. The first eighteen years of her life were spent in the country, as her father was a farmer.
Her education was begun in village and country schools. In 1870, her family moved to Ottawa, Kansas, where she attended a private school taught by Prof. and Mrs. M. L. Ward. She spent two years in the Kansas State Agricultural College, graduating with the class of 1876. After teaching one year in a country school, she was employed four years as one of the teachers in the graded schools of Ottawa.
She married Robert F. Kedzie, Professor of Chemistry in the Mississippi Agricultural College. After his death, in 1882, she returned to Kansas, and was employed as teacher of Domestic Economy in this institution. The next year the College gave her the degree of M. Sc., and in 1887 made her professor of Household Economy and Hygiene.
Mrs. Elida E. Numan Winchip was born in Warren county, New York, September 23, 1849. She attended school at the Glens Falls Academy, with a special course in painting and drawing. She moved to Topeka, Kansas, in 1872, and taught painting and drawing in Bethany College for three years. In 1869 she was married to Jesse K. Winchip, and they moved to Manhattan, Kansas, in 1872. After the death of Mr. Winchip, Mrs. Winchip was appointed superintendent of sewing at this College. Her work here has brought under her instruction, during the past seven years, nearly a thousand young women of Kansas.
The present head of the Mechanical Department, Prof. O. P. Hood, was born at Lowell, Mass., June 14, 1865, but from 1869 until 1885 his home was Indianapolis, Indiana. He supplemented his early mechanical training by one year of study at Worcester Technological Institute, Worcester, Mass., and two years at Rose Polytechnic, Terre Haute, Indiana, graduating in the first class from that institution with the degree of B. Sc. in the Mechanical Engineering course. Early training in a shop devoted to pattern and model making was further extended after graduation by journeyman work at that trade in Chicago and Indianapolis.
After some experience as superintendent of a company making surgeons' specialties, he was, in 1886, upon recommendation of professors at Rose Polytechnic, selected for superintendent of the Mechanical department of this College. He was made instructor in mechanics and engineering in 1887, and professor in 1889, still retaining the duties of superintendent of shops.
Alexander B. Brown, A. M., of the chair of Music, is a native of Edinburgh, Scotland. He was a student in Oberlin College and leader of the college orchestra and band at the opening of the rebellion, when he and a majority of the band volunteered, and were accepted for service, in conjunction with company "C", afterwards mustered into the 7th Regiment Ohio Infantry at Cleveland, Ohio, where he was detailed by Col. E. B. Tyler to recruit a band for the regiment and brigade. After receiving honorable discharge from the army at Washington, D. C., he pursued his musical studies in Boston, graduating from the Boston Music School with honorable mention, especially as a vocalist. After an extended trip through New England in the interests of music, being urgently solicited to accept the professorship of music and elocution in Olivet College, Michigan, he did so, and afterwards finished his literary course in that institution. He was elected associate editor of The Olio and Folio, a literary and musical journal. He organized the Michigan Conservatory of Music and Elocution, in connection with the college, and after serving it as director for ten years, he resigned, to accompany the ex-president of the college, Rev. N. J. Morrison, D. D., and the local trustee, Hon. S. F. Drury, to Springfield, Missouri, where he assisted in the founding of Drury College and the Missouri Conservatory of Music and Elocution.
For the purpose of completing the prismatic charts, in association with his brother, president of the Kansas Conservatory, he removed with his family to Leavenworth in 1881, resigning his professorship in Drury and directorship in the conservatory and becoming the director of the Kansas Conservatory. In 1883, the charts being nearly completed, he accepted a second call to Drury College and Missouri Conservatory, where he remained until 1886, when he again resigned, and accepted a call to the State Agricultural College.
J. S. C. Thompson, Superintendent of Printing, was born at Scottville, Illinois, December 7, 1858. He early learned the printer's trade, spending all vacations and spare hours from school in the office, until, at the age of eighteen years, he left school and devoted all his time to mastering the intricacies of the "art preservative." To his typographical labors were added the duties of local writer, in which dual capacity he has since acted for the greater part of the time. When twenty years old, Mr. Thompson heeded the lamented Greeley's injunction and "went west" as far as Marshall, Mo., where he was engaged for two years on the Marshall Daily News. In August, 1881, he went to Stockton, Kansas, where he remained for a year on the Record, thence going to Atchison, where be spent a short time with the Haskell Printing Company. While here he was called to Newton to take a position on the Newton Daily Republican, then the property and under the management of Hon. Allen B. Lemmon. After four years' service as city editor of the Republican, Mr. Thompson was elected, in January, 1887, to the position he now holds.
Francis Harding White, Professor of History and Constitutional Law, was born in Attica, New York, 1862. His education, commenced in common school, included two years at the Collegiate Institute, Attica, New York. After practicing printing and telegraphy for several years, he entered the United States signal service in 1880; studied meteorology, electricity, etc., at Fort Meyers, and served for three years in the chief office of the signal service at Washington, D. C. During his stay there he prepared, under private tutors, for Princeton University, and graduated from that institution in 1887, with special honors in political science, and received, after competitive examination, the historical fellowship. The next year was spent as superintendent of the Brooklyn Children's Aid Society, which provides industrial schools, assistance of different kinds, and homes for thousands of children. He was called to the chair of History and Constitutional Law at this College in 1888, and made professor in the following year. He received the degree of A. M. from Princeton in 1890.
Charles Christian Georgeson was born June 26th, 1851, on the island of Langeland, Denmark. He attended private and public schools during his boyhood, and from 1867 to 1872 served a five years' apprenticeship in horticulture. Having emigrated to America in 1873 he graduated from Michigan Agricultural College in 1878 with the degree of B. Sc., receiving M. Sc. from the same institution in 1882. From graduation to 1880 he was associate editor of the Rural New Yorker, New York City, and was then appointed Professor of Agriculture in the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, where he remained several years. From the beginning of 1886 to near the close of 1889 he was in the employ of the Japanese government, as Professor of Agriculture, in the Imperial College of Agriculture and Dendrology in Tokio, Japan, and on his return to this country was appointed Professor of Agriculture and superintendent of the farm, at the Kansas State Agricultural College.
Edwin B. Bolton, 1st Lieutenant 23d Infantry, U. S. Army, was born and raised in Mississippi. He was a cadet at the Military Academy, West Point, New York, from July, 1871, to June, 1875, when he graduated and was appointed 2d Lieutenant 23d Infantry. He was with his company on frontier service till November, 1879; was on detached service as Professor of Military Science and Tactics at the Mississippi Military Institute, Pass Christian, Mississippi, and at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mississippi, Starkville, Mississippi, to March 1883, when he again joined his company for duty on the frontier. He was promoted 1st Lieutenant in February, 1884, and was Regimental Adjutant 23d Infantry from April, 1886, to April, 1889. At the expiration of the maximum limitation of four years' service in that capacity he served in command of company until August, 1890, when he was detailed as Professor of Military Science and Tactics at the Kansas State Agricultural College.
Ernest R. Nichols was born in Farmington, Hartford county, Connecticut. His parents soon moved to a farm in northeastern Iowa, where his time was spent, till the age of eighteen, working on the farm summers and attending the district school winters. In the summer of 1878, he taught his first term of district school, and the following winter a second term. During the year 1879 and a part of 1880, he was a student at the Iowa State normal school. After being principal of schools at the village of Luana for a year, he completed the course at the State normal school, graduating with the degree Bachelor of Didactics. After a year's service as principal of Charles City high school, and another year as superintendent of Nashua schools, he entered the State University of Iowa as a student, devoting most of three years to mathematics and the physical sciences, graduating in 1887 with the degree Bachelor of Science, and receiving in 1890 the degree, Master of Arts. Having been elected, in 1887, superintendent of Monticello schools, he resigned after eight days to accept the assistant professorship of Mathematics in the State University of Iowa, which position he held until 1890, when he resigned to accept his present position.
Nelson S. Mayo was born near Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1866, and worked upon the home farm until he entered the Michigan Agricultural College with the class of 1888. Upon graduating he was appointed assistant to the veterinarian of the Michigan Experiment Station. He completed the course at the Chicago Veterinary College, graduating with honors in 1889, and was a special student in bacteriology under Dr. F. S. Billings. He returned directly to the Michigan Agricultural College, where he assisted in the Experiment Station, and practiced his profession. In 1890 he took the Master's degree, and in October was called to his present position, the chair of Physiology and Veterinary Science.
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Tom & Carolyn Ward Columbus, KS |
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