Lake County Ohio GenWeb

Henry C. Beardslee

As published in the Alumni Record, Painesville High School, Painesville, Ohio
Compiled and Published by the Painesville High School Alumni Association in 1925

Transcribed by Linda Jeffery, November 2004.

Henry C. Beardslee, ’83

Among the many graduates of P.H.S. probably none has accomplished so much in the field of Botanical Research as has Mr. Henry C. Beardslee of the class of 1883. His interest in this subject was due very largely to the influence of his father who was a very skillful botanist. As Mr. Beardslee says “I was started in this study by my father and soon drifted into Mycology, a department of the science which is still less developed, in which I have worked for years with deepening interest and widening acquaintance.”

As a pupil in high school Mr. Beardslee planned to attend college and consequently arranged his high school course with this in view. The course of study in those days did not include Greek which at that time was an absolute necessity for entrance to college. However, Rev. George R. Merrill, pastor of the Congregational church, placed about a dozen of the High School boys and girls “under lasting obligations to him,” as Mr. Beardslee syas, “by organizing a class for them in that subject. The fact that he succeeded in one school year, with one recitation each week, in teaching us enough Greek to enable us to do college work in that subject is some indication of his thorough scholarship, and skill as a teacher. Nothing in my college career gave me so much delight as the fact that I was not numbered in the fifth of my class who were dropped at Christmas for deficiency in Greek, though my margin of safety was, it must be confessed, decidedly narrow.”

Mr. Beardslee graduated from Western Reserve University in 1889 and spent one year at Green Spring Academy, being called from there at the end of the year to the newly organized University School at Cleveland, Ohio which was about to open its doors. He remained there as Master of Science and Mathematics until 1901, when he became associated with the two principals of University School in the founding of the now well known Asheville School, at Asheville, N.C. He continued as Senior Master of this school until his retirement in 1918. His career as a teacher was a busy one, yet always and increasingly, a happy one.

The following words taken from a letter received from Mr. Beardslee will be not only be of interest to many of the Alumni but to a large extent will be an echo of the thoughts of many a graduate of the class of 1889 as well as of those of earlier and later generations:

“It is a pleasure to add, that looking back on my high school days it is my conviction that the boys and girls of Painesville were very fortunate in their school. Owing to an unusual set of men, many of them trained in the eastern universities, who constituted the school board, Painesville in those days certainly possessed public schools which were better than those of most towns of its size.

In direction of the schools, Prof. Thos. Harvey, was superintendent of instruction and Miss Abbie Cushman, Miss Louise Harvey and Miss Ida Murray were our high school teachers. It is my conviction as a teacher, that few high schools have ever had abler direction, or abler, kindlier or more successful instruction, than Painesville High School in my day.”