Bridgewater State University - Alpha Yearbook (Bridgewater, MA)

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Secretary illbartin. - EORGE HENRY MARTIN, seventh Secretary of the State - H Board of Education, was born in Lynn, which has always been g I qu his home except during the years of his residence in Bridge- E I water. ' V ' h He attended the public schools of his native city and in a magazine article My schools and schoolmastersn he has given aninter- esting sketch of his school life. What he says in that article concerning one of his teachers is strikingly applicable to himself as a teacher : His keen questioning went to the root of things, and under him fthe subject taughtl became luminous. . , Graduating fromthe Bridgewater Normal Schoolhe taught for a time in Grammar schools and then was called to a position in this school, where he remained eighteen years, during nearly all of which time he was first assistant. .For the many hundreds of pupils who were under his instruc- tion here his influence fills a large place in their estimate of what the school did for them, not more for what he taught them than for the per- fect examples which he gave them of what good teaching is. While here he took part in Institute work and was so valuable afactor in it that he was appointed one of the state agents. In that position he acquired a wide acquaintance with the schools of the state, his annual re- ports show his quick appreciation of the conditions existing in the schools which he visited, often in sentences of epigrammatic terseness. i After several years service as agent he was elected as supervisor of Boston schools and remained in that position, by successive re-elections, until last year when he was chosen to his present office. This brief sketch of his workin the past will suggest his varied and extended preparation for the important position which he now holds, a preparation which cer- tainly has not been exceeded in its fulness by that of any of his prede- cessors. I While teaching at Bridgewater Mr. Martin published a text-book on Civil Government which he had prepared to meet the needs of his own 7