Grayson County TXGenWeb

Sherman, Texas

Henry Alston Ivy was born in Fayette County, Texas on November 30, 1860. He was born on a farm where they rise to eat at four o'clock and eat supper by candle light. His father was the most successful farmer in that section of the country.

Mr. Ivy's educational advantages were very limited. He only went to school a few weeks in the summer "between crops". He was always ambitious and when he was in school, he showed particular interest in letters and the writing of them.

When he was only seventeen years old, he began his career as an educator by teaching at Post Oak for twenty-four dollars a month. He paid fifteen dollars of this to a hired hand to take his place on the farm.

Three years later he entered Baylor at Waco and graduated when he was twenty-four with his B.A. degree. He then practiced law for a short time but he soon learned that he preferred the school room.

He became principal of the Commercial Department at Baylor but resigned to be principal of the Normal Department in National Commercial College at Denison. He stayed here three years as principal and president.

He, then, accepted a position in the cotton office of Birge-Forbes and Company of Sherman as a stenographer and accountant. At the close of the season the next spring, he opened his "School of Business" in Sherman. He first opened it up above where the interurban station now is. He moved it on Pecan St. in 1913 to a building which is now easily worth $25,000 with the adjoining lots. And it is all paid for too!

What do you expect your business education to do for you? One who is thinking of entering a business college should think of this then decide what you want to do and then select the course of study that will best fit you to achieve your aim. Consider your previous education and the expenses. The only admission is the tuition and a fair previous education and a good moral character.

These are your planning days for a student in high school. One should make the best of them for most of the rest of your life will be spent in putting up the structure that you are planning to-day.

The school's equipment is complete and strictly up-top-date. Mr Ivy and another teacher conducts the classes but sometime he has another teacher to help. The teachers are competent and experienced. It is a "little school with a big record". The students are surrounded by an actual business atmosphere at all times. It is a business school equiped like a business office, run on business principals by a business man, where you learn business by doing business as business is done by the up-to-date business establishments. Mr. Ivy's school has continued to grown and successfully meet the demands of a critical public for thirty-three years.

One is able to take almost any kind of course (Business) at Ivy's. One can get a Commercial Course, Secretarial Course, Practical English Course, Civil Service Course and Home Study by mail. He also has night school and it is free to the day school pupils.

Study hours students are required to be in school for the entire daily session unless properly excused and they are expected to do considerable work at home.

Sherman offers an ideal environment in which to secure a business education. Sherman, early in it's history, became known as an educational center and is now famous far and near as "The Athens of Texas".

Sherman Business College secures special low membership rates at the Y.M.C.A. for its gentlemen students.

About seven years ago, Ivy had a "School Course in the Essentials of a Usable Education for 'backward grown-ups". None in the class could be under sixteen and none must be past the seventh grade.

Graduates know more than merely book-keeping, shorthand, and typewriting. They know the underlying principles of business. They are taught the basic things of commercial law. They are prepared to accept Promotion. Positions are secured for graduates but most students get positions before graduating.

The former students of the college are scattered from Flanders Field to the Phillipines. The college has frequent calls for "Ive trained office help that helps". Mr Ivy is already putting the second generation through the mill and expects to start on the third before he surrenders to H. A. Jr. now only four years old.

Business employment is pleasant, renumerative from the beginning and gives opportunity for personal advancement.

It is the most attractive profession open to the energetic young people of today. The problems of business change every hour of the day and perhaps that is why business is such a fascinating calling.

The young person in business develops a taste for many of the things that make life worth while, among which is a comfortable home with books, pictures and other refinements that make life worth living.

The beginners in the business office always have before them a luminous goal, that of the proprietorship of his own business.

A business education is very worth while and essential sometimes and you will not be wasting your time to attend one.

Personal interview with Mr. Ivy
by Reba Pippin