Lincoln High School - Lincolnian Yearbook (Kansas City, MO)

Page 6 text:

f cc t e 179413

Page 5 text:

T H E L I N c O L N IAN COLORS: OLD GOLD AND {BLUE ISSUED BY LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 1915 KANSAS CITY, MO.

Page 7 text:

SfSsJtl Hi EH: l Ill JUIMMUMJIAM A il irl l “U® 1 !! 0 ... ji.js . . , PROF. G. N. GRISHAM 0 AN INESTIMABLE ASSET TO OUR CITY Gabriel Nelson Grisham, A. M., born near Smyrna, Tenn. in 1856, learned the alphabet in 1865, entered William Penn School at the age of ten years in 1866, the Public School in 1867, Nashville Institute (Roger Williams) in 1869, senior class of Worcester Academy, Massachusetts, in 1873 and graduated from the same in 1874. In the same year he entered Brown’s University. Five years later bidding his Alma Mater farewell, he began his life work in Goliad, Texas. In 1880 he was called to Lincoln Institute, Jefferson City, Mo., taught mathematics, physics and astronomy and in 1884 was created professor of mathematics. In 1886 at Roger Williams, Tenn. he took the degree of A. M. majoring in German. In 1887 he was elected principal of summer school, Kansas City, Mo. Two years later he was called to the principal- ship of Lincoln High School, which position he held until May 1, 1915, when the condition of his health caused his resignation. These facts and figures, simple and bare as they seem, contain a world of inspiration not only for the Negro youth of Kansas City, Mo., but the humblest of nature ' s sons of any race and clime. Born a slave and starting to school at the age of ten, in eight years, without the back- ground of an educated ancestry, Professor Grisham accomplished what his blue-eyed New England schoolmates were doing in twelve years. His singular aptitude caused his New England friends to urge him to enter the ministry, but his undimmed vision prompted him to remain a layman and thus be in closer touch with laymen’s children. He saw clearly that for a time at least his people’s ear could be reached easier than their eye. Hence he prepared himself to be a speaker by erecting a platform in hi%jr( om and mak- ing short and pointed addresses, to the chairs daily. So those lectures with w:hic,h he has charmed, instructed or entertained us here were not prepared on the spot or a short time before, but back there in his youth in that New England upper room. At the age of 33 Professor Grisham finds himself the principal of the largest Negro High School west of the Missouri. Its en- rollment was 56. It had no laboratory, em- - 5 —