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

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, . . . . , The INDEX Page 8 children-one, a boy, dying in infancy. Their spacious home on South Broadway is full of good cheer and their home life ideal. Mr. Manchester has been honored in various ways. Three years after graduation he received from his alma. mater the de- gree of A.M. In IQO6 the Illinois Wesleyaii University con- ferred the degree LL.D. Not long ago some of the prominent citizens of Normal conceived the idea of doing something to improve the town. They put their heads together and organized an improvement association. ln january, IQO7, one year after- ward, Mr. Manchester was elected president. The association found that the town was in the depths of a financial mire and that the first thing to do was to pull it out. Accordingly a new town ticket was put into the field at the spring election, IQO7, headed by Mr. Manchester for mayor. The entire ticket was elected and it is a well recognized fact that a large share of the credit for putting the town on a sound financial business basis belongs to him. Mr. Manchester has written articles on philology' for the ECf1lCl1fl'0lZLl! RCi'1.C'ZQ', and for the School Rc'z'icw. ln connection with his work in the University he has published the following monogra fs : ' 1. An Outline for Language Correlation. 2. The Tariff Question in American History. 3. Our Money History. He has read scholarly papers before the College Alumni Club, the Schoolmasters' Club, and the Normal School Council. All l.S.N.U. graduates and students hold him in the highest esteem and thoroly appreciate his work and worth. GEoRoE H. HowE.

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Page 7 l li 1 I 1 l i I 1 The INDEX fl 5 X Qfj X ff ff f '1 ' fgfff if 5,2 iff RSQN LIQROY lXl.XNCHlfSTl'ilQ was born in the country near Waukegan, Lake cou11ty, Illinois, February 19, 1864. Seven years later the family moved into XYaukegan and the father became county superintendent of schools, anl afterward city superintendent of schools. The boy attended the public schools passing step by step thru the grades and into the high school, from which he was graduated in 1881. In the fall he entered Lake Forest Academy in order to get a start in Greek. There l1e remained two months and the balance of the year he spent in teaching, still continuing, however, the study of Greek. He taught two terms in the country, a winter term, and a spring and summer term, for which he received 332.50 and S2 5 a month respectively. In September, 1882, Mr. Manchester entered Dartmouth college. In those days college boys did not have so much money as now and a considerable number of Dartmouth boys worked their way thru college by teaching. During his course Mr. Man- chester taught five terms in New England village high schools and spent one summer in company with sixty other boys as a waiter in a summer hotel at Nantasket Beach. At the end of his third year in college he had paid all expenses and received only S1530 from his father. He was graduated in 1886 with the de- gree of AB. The Hrst year after graduation he spent in the east teaching in two private military academies at Billerica, Mass., and at Sing Sing, New York. In September, 1887, he was called to Joliet, Illinois, as principal of the high school and he remained there 'till January, 1892, when President Cook invited him to become principal of the I.S.N.U. high school. The university high school was an institution of high rank with a reputation for scholarly work far and wide. In June, 1895, the State Board of Education discontinued the high school and thereupon made Mr. Manchester professor of foreign languages and economics, a position which he still holds. He has been twice married-the first wife and child died in 1892. In December, 1895, he married Miss Flora Thompson, ,Q5, I.S.N.U., of VVarrensburg, Illinois. They have had five

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Page 9 The INDEX E OCI-I . GASTMA T11143 Ixnlix does well to pay its tribute of respect to Ifnocli A. Gastman. In the Nor- mal School sphere of infiuence he was sev- eral firsts. He was first to enter, first to give a graduating ad- dress, first of the alumni to become a city superintendent, first of the alumni to become a member of the Board of Education of the State of Illinois, first to'be its president, first in length of service as a schoolmaster, and X, , first in the hearts of the Alumni Association. He was born at 54 Mulberry St., in the city of New York, on the fifteenth day of june, 1834. He died most suddenly and unexpectedly, in the Parker House, in Boston, on the second day of August, IQO7, while on a pleasure trip to Xew England with his wife. I first made his acquaintance in the early fall of 1851. It is an old and apt remark that the boy is father to the man. It was well illustrated in his case. XVhat he was at seventy was but an enlarged and enriched Enoch A. Gastman of twenty. Few young men that I have known manifested so positive and per- sistent and well-defined trend of character. In some way he had a good start and had it early. In the brief space allotted to this sketch it is not possible to do more than to allude to the most marked characteristics of his personality. Happily they were so easily distinguishable that the task is an easy one. I