Mississippi State University - Reveille Yearbook (Starkville, MS)

Page 11 text:

Professor William Howard Magruder, M.A. PROFESSOR W. H. MAGRUDER, the honored subject of this review, was born April 2, 1837, in Madison County, Mississippi, near Canton. His patriotic ancestors, of Scotch-English blood, on the paternal side were from Prince George ' s County, Maryland; on the maternal, from Fairfax County, Virginia. His father immigrated into the Territory of Mississippi during Jefferson ' s second administration and settled near old Washington, then the capital of the Territory and afterward the first capital of the State. Professor Magruder was educated at home until his fifteenth year, when he was sent to a preparatory school at Woodville, Mississippi, of which his older brother was the Principal, where he was fitted for the Sophomore Class, Centenary College, Louisiana. After completing the Sophomore course, he returned to Cen- tral Mississippi, and at the age of seventeen and a half years he began his career as a teacher in charge of a township free-school in Yazoo County, Mississippi. Having been appointed principal of the Preparatory Department of Madison College, Sharon, Miss., he received in 1857 his degree of Bachelor of Arts from that institution. He taught continuously until the beginning of the Civil War, when he enlisted as a private in Walthall ' s Twenty-ninth Mississippi Regiment just after the Battle of Fishing Creek, having previously been a member of the Madison Rifles from Canton, though never having been in active service. He served faithfully through the war, surrendering with Joe Johnson at High Point, North Carolina, and at that time he commanded Company B, Twenty-Fourth Mississippi Regiment. He was wounded four times; once at Murfreesboro, Tenn., once at Resaca, Georgia, and twice at Atlanta. After the surrender, he returned to his home and resumed his work as a teacher of boys at Richland , Holmes County. Removing in 1869 to Goodman, five miles away, whither the village of Richland had already transferred the most of its business and a majority of its inhabitants, he taught there until 1872, when he was elected Principal of Canton Male Academy. In 1875 he was elected principal of Canton Female Insti- tute, in which position he remained until his election as Professor of English in the Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College. During his incumbency of the Principalship of Canton Female Institute, he received from Centenary College, Louisiana, the degree of Master of Arts. For twenty-five years Professor Magruder has been the distinguished head of the Department of English at the Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College, and his diligent work has been crowned with marked success. In his teaching, he always presented the fundamental principles of the subject in a clear, distinct, and forcible manner, and then dwelt upon them and their application sufficiently long to produce a vivid and lasting impression. At the end of the session, one could always see how each particular part had been planned to fit nicely into its assigned place. Possessing those inborn traits of mind which have been developed by wise culture and ripened by experience, he has influenced and impressed more men with his teaching than possibly any other educator in the South. His students always remember him with admiration and pay loyal hom- age to him as a Great Teacher. Since 1889, he has been the senior member of the Faculty, and, in addition to his regular duties in the Department of English, he served as acting President whenever the Executive was not on duty. He officiated in this capacity for three months at one time in 1890, during the session of the Mississippi Constitutional Convention, while General Lee was away attending it as a member, being a delegate from Oktibbeha County. And in later years the Board of Trustees appointed him as Vice-President of the College. r 3