Montana State University Bozeman - Montanan Yearbook (Bozeman, MT)

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President James IH. Hamilton President James M. Hamilton began his work at the Montana Agricultural College in the fall of 1904. being then forty-three years of age. His career as an educator and public man has been almost altogether in Montana. He came to the state in 1889. to ta 'e c iar e of the public schools of Missoula. Like Dr. Reid he was a member of the first State Board of Education, and from the beginning was one of its most efficient and influential members. He continued in office until he resigned the superintendency of the schools of Missoula and became Professor of Psychology and vice-president in the State University of Montana in 1901. Meanwhile he had been gaining steadily in reputation, both as a school superintendent and as an educator in the wider field afforded by the State Board. It was in his acquaintance with the men who were guiding the affairs of the state in that Board, that he demonstrated the qualities that later led to his promotion. In the faculty and executive board of this College he was regarded as pre-eminently the one man in the State I7'

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Fresbyterian church at Deer Lodge, and in the following year was elected to the presidency of the College of Montana at Deer Lodge. This position he held for four years with distinction, helping raise the money to pay for the buildings and equipment, and donating much of his salary meanwhile. lie became at once an educational leader; was a member of the first State Board of Education, president of the Educational Council, and President of the State Teach ers’ association. As a platform lecturer he was in great demand all over the state and became well known as a public man. In 1894 he was called to the presidency of the recently established Agricultural College, and accepted. He found the College in rented quarters with no buildings as yet of its own, but with some work organized in engineering, agriculture and commercial branches. The catalogue published soon after his arrival shows one hundred and thirty-nine students enrolled, and an active faculty of about a dozen members. Following a number of changes in the faculty in 1896, there was a considerable re-organization of the work, but since that time it has gone steadily forward. The college as Mr. Reid left it is within the recollection of the present generation of students and faculty. Soon after leaving Deer Lodge Mr. Reid was honored by the College of Montana with the degree of D. D., but though he was often spoken of as Dr. Reid, he himself preferred not to use the title.Shortly after Dr. Reid’s resignation of the presidency of the College, he was married and has since made his home in Montreal, where he is engaged in business. Those who knew Dr. Reid as president of the College remember him as a man of broad sympathies and a wide range of active interests; an inspiring leader of young people in their years of struggle and aspiration; a man of high ideals, both of culture and efficiency. As an educator and administrator he believed in men rather than machinery; insisted rather on results than on methods; and though he could be faithful and painstaking in trifling details (I have known him to spend a whole Saturday with hammer, saw and yardstick putting up blackboards), yet in general he found the routine business of administration irksome and wearing. In broad questions of policy he was always interested and was a shrewd and wise counsellor. His influence thus exerted on the educational ideals of the state will be long remembered. id

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Board whose steady friendship, wise counsel, and intelligent appreciation were most prized. No doubt it was much the same feeling in Missoula that led to his promotion to the vice-presidency there. During his period of service in the University he was thought of as one of the best friends the Agricultural College had in the state. Any sketch of President Hamilton's career in the state would be incomplete that did not mention his work in teachers' institutes, which has taken him into nearly every part of the state, and, with his easy social qualities, has given him the widest personal acquaintance enjoyed by any man with the teachers of Montana. President Hamilton is a great believer in young people, and especially in young people who have to work their own way; for his own college education was made possible only by working as janitor, student assistant, and country school teacher while he was taking his college course. He holds the degree of M. S. from Union Christian College; and during his school superintendency he studied in the summer school of Clark University. With the preparation and experience that has been described, President Hamilton is now a: the beginning of what promises to be a long and successful term of office. At the time when President Hamilton first came to Bozeman to take up the work that Dr. Reid was laying down, it was remarked by one of the best and most useful friends that the College has ever had, that the pioneer days were over. Anyone who has talked with Mr. Hamilton about his plans and aims for the college as he is now beginning to realize them, knows that he is working for a development and extension of its work and resources that will make these days, too, look like pioneer days a few years hence. 18