Illinois State Normal University - Index Yearbook (Normal, IL)

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instructors, or because ability or willingness to teach more than one branch is contrary to union rules, teachers in higher institutions nowadays confine their labors to a narrow field. Not so with the stalwarts of the generation passing. Soon history, both sacred and profane, was formally added to his department, but he taught arith- metic, algebra, geometry, reading, drawing, mental and moral phil- osophy, and spelling. There is a tradition that vocal music also was at times in his program Besides teaching this varied line he took up a regular course of non-resident work in the Wfesleyan University extending thru a long term of years, and obtained in succession the degrees of A.M. and Ph.D. The degree of LL.D. has since been conferred upon him by the same institution. Since 1901 Professor Mctlormick has confined his instruction to history and civics, and has given his work a wider range than in former years. He has become especially interested in the history of our own state, is an active memberof the State Historical Society, and is the author of a bill soon to become a law, requiring all teach- ers to be examined in the history of Illinois. Mr. McCormick has taught in the State Normal School for thirty- six years. two years longer than any other of the one hundred forty- six men and women whose names appear on the roll of its faculty. YVith his undimmed powers and abounding good health we may ex- pect etficient service for years to come. In 1892 he was made vice- presidentg since that date a large share of the internal adminis- 1JI'EltlOll of the school has fallen to him. For many years he was a most active worker in the institute field, his happy combination of clearness and vigor with a flavor of native wit proving highly effective and popular. His evening lec- tures and formal addresses always wrought out with the utmost iidel- ity, have uniformly attracted large audiences. His published works include two manuals for the teaching of geography which have had a wide sale. Mr. Mctlormick is a prime favorite with the students of the Normal School. It is not because he fails to expose hazy thinking, or evasiveness, or talking against time, or any of that brood of sham- ming substitutes for upright. down1'ight, ha1'd work, which even Normal students sometimes shelter. But a kindly manner, a merry twinkle, and polished forceps may make even dental surgery endur- able if not attractive. His tremendous energy, his fertility of re- source, his overtlowing good humor, his ready wit, still his classroom fl grin o1',iffw.vl my Sl'l'l'III'.H'1'il'llY ALLIQN. 1113 ANIJERSUN-Hf'l1'ull1 lil4lfln.H HD NDEX 105

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Jmclax U15 HENRY MCCORMICK on the extreme noithw est coast of Ireland, the subiect of this sketch was born Feblualy 5, 1831. The legion was altogether treelessg peat the universal fuel, potatoes the chief crop, but the soil was ill-adapted to agriculture, the people depending mainly upon the herring which swarm the bays that indent the coast. When after the famine of 1846, the stream of emigration to America had risen to a flood, the elder lXIcCormick determined to try his fortunes in the New NVorld. In 1850 he settled in central Ohio. Three years later, Henry, then a boy of sixteen, followed him. 'Ihe voyage by sail lasted some six weeks. NVhen Ohio was reached he learned that his father had succumbed to a fatal illness a month before. Altho stranded and desolate in a strange land, he was not the lad to lose heart. He soon drifted to southern Wiscolisiii where he spent several years farming in summer, attending school in winter in district school or village academy. In 1859 he taught his first school. He received thirteen dollars per month and boarded 'roundf' The salary seems small but the board was doubtless tl1e best the district afforded. VVhile the absence of a fixed abode brought some inconvenience to the young teacher, the system was likely to develop a mutual understanding between parents and teacher and the cordial cooperation whose absence is much bewailed in modern pedagogy. For six years he taught rural schools, mostly in Boone County, Illinois. Meanwhile he had married him a wife, who had, it seems, more confidence in her husband's future than he possessed himself. His success in teaching united with her argu- ments to turn him towards the state normal school. He arrived in Normal in 1865. The records of the next th1'ee years reveal his in- dustry and thorouess. Upon his graduation in 1868 he was elected the lirst superintendent of the public school of Normal. The next year at the age of thirty-two he was appointed professor of geography and began his long CEITQGI' as a teacher in the Illinois State Normal University. It must not be supposed that his teach- ing was confined to this branch. Either because of the extension of knowledge, or because of the indolence of the younger generation of N the village of Belmullet, a community of some 700 inhabitants, . . . F' . .' , ' . Uhr 'gf llw rlwrrrs limi slr-ny 1111 lln'1-41i1f1ufs. -CA1:11112 A'rK1NsoN. .l l:'1Ifwlm1gl1lrr qfllrr nmlllrr. -LILLIAN ANDI-3RsoN, 4

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HI? NDEX vos with interest and delight. It is notorious that all teachers tell sto- ries and sometimes repeat them, but his anecdotes mellow with age and when told for the hundredth time attain a ripeness of tlavor which the sour vintagcs of the twentieth century can never rival. In his domestic life Mr. McCormick has been singularly happy. His daughter, Mrs. Alice Trowbridge, is with her husband at their sunnner honie in northern Michigan. Three sons, Dr. Nelson K., Dr. Ferdinand U., and Dr. Henry Mctlorniick, Jr. are all practising their professions in Nornial. The fourth son, Edward, is at the head of the department of Mechanical Engineering in the State Agricul- tural College at Manhattan, Kansas. DAYVID FELMLEY. E' Wllff A-4',,qflnm-1m fr slum! in wifi: lin'.1?1w1lllj1. '-llllis. ANIi1c1csoN. ll'1' 'HHN' nm.-ffm: llfllllv siruw' llflllllff' on Ill? l'f'll.l,'ClIlfS'lllflc ATKINS- li