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

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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

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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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The INDEX Page io He was of mixed ancestry. His father was Dutch and his mother was Irish. To the kinsman of XVilliam the Silent I have been accustomed to attribute the steadfastness of his purposes and the loyalty and devotion with which he worked them out. To his mother's race I ascribed the mirthful vein which ran thru a life of many sorrows like a thread of purest gold in a fabric of sober hues. His father was a sailor and beat about the world for years, meeting many strange adventures and some quite in- credible hardships. He had married in New York four years be- fore Enoch was born and in 1838 he imigrated to Illinois, set- tling within eight or nine miles of Bloomington. How much the stories of his interesting experiences may have stimulated the imaginations of his boys I cannot say. The eldest of his sons was tall, angular, rather awkward, but of excellent parts and of Fine repute thru all the country-side because of his manliness and exceptional reliabiity. He had a way of holding his head erect and of looking at some distant goal, as if he were native to the sea or to the wide expanse of the prairies. It was familiar to all who knew him, and as well, the earnestness of his penetrating eyes when unrelieved by the light of his playful humor. It was an impressive peculiarity, but when one learned the method of his life it was simple enough and singularly interesting, he had acquired from his sailor father the habit of guiding his course by fixed stars. His early education was limited. There was a rude school house with ruder benches and the school was taught on the half- subscription plan, for there was no free-school law yet in Illi- nois. There we were mates in the winter of 1852-3. It was a good school, as memory recalls it. The teacher was neat and precise and quite a bit of a scholar, and he was rigorous with the bigs boys and patient with the small ones. There we conned our lessons in the three r's and stood up in a row to spell the words in the old VVelJste1 ' and spoke pieces out of the readers on the Friday afternoons. And who shall say that we were not well employed ? VVhen a triHe over twenty be began to teach. After trying his hand and finding the work to his taste he went to the Illinois NVesleyan University for a term or two. Two years later he was teaching again and in the village where my parents lived. He was the best schoolmaster that the little community had ever known and when his first term was ended he was employed for another term and at his own price. It was an epoch-making experience for those of us who were his pupils. NVe did not a few things that were outside the common run. VVe parsed The Elegy and committed it to memory and learned to love the lines and to respond to the pensive melancholy of the sentiment. But