Peru State College - Peruvian Yearbook (Peru, NE)

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Tl)£ 2s. S. 2s. S From tlpc beginning. FIFTEEN miles soutli of Nebraska City on a branch of tbe B. fc M. R. R. is located the little town of Peru. Surely Nature lias been lavish of her gifts, and no town in Nebraska can boast of a more picturesque region surrounding it. Well-wooded bluffs, the majestic “Big Muddy” in the distance, the river lowlands and valleys in great variety here mingle and make a picture worthy of a corner of classic New England. In 1S04, was started here Mt. Vernon College—a church school under the auspices of the Methodists of Nebraska. This same year a three-story brick building was erected at a cost of $10,000— this was the beginning of old Mt. Vernon Hall, which burned in January, 1897. This single building served the rather manifold duty of dormitory, class recitation room, and library. During the session of the Legislature, winter of 1860-7, the property was tendered the state for a Normal School. In acknowledgment of the gift the Legislature appropriated money for the completion of the building and an endowment of twenty sections of land in Lancaster county. By provision of an act passed in June, 1867, the State Normal was formally located, established and endowed, and sixty acres of land near Peru was given in fee simple as a site for the school. Then was begun the Nebraska State Normal School. The Board of Education of said school held its first meeting in 1866, and elected J. M. McKensie president and his wife assistant. School opened in the fall of that year with this rather limited faculty and an enrollment of fifty in the Normal Department. From this modest beginning the school has grown for thirty-five years, slowly but steadily and surely to what it is today. The men who have successively filled the president’s chair in that institution are Prof. J. M. McKensie, 1866-71; Dr. D. Williams, 1871-2; Gen. L. J. Morgan, 1872-74; Rev. Azel Freeman, 1874-75; Prof. Albert

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The N. S. -N. 5. Nichols, 1875-79; Prof. S. R. Thompson, 1.87(1-77; Dr. Robert Carry, 1877-83; Dr. Geo. I.. Farnham, 1883-93; Prof. A. W. Norton, 1893-98; Dr. J. A. Beattie, 1899-00; Dr. V. A. Clark, 1900 --. To the faithful work and wise administrations of these able leaders and their assistant teachers, together with class after class of earnest, sympathetic students, saying by their presence with us and by their work while here—“We are here to help and to be helped”—to those, I say, has the success of the school been due. We wish to mention particularly three persons who for years were connected with the State Normal; one as president of the board, one as member of the board, and one as preceptress, three who will be held in loving memory by hundreds now widely scattered throughout our own and other states. We refer to Dr. Geo. L. Farnham, Hon. B. E. B. Kennedy and Miss Eliza C. Morgan. Dr. Farnham, who passed away at Binghamton, N. Y., Aug. 2, 1899, was at the head of our school for a decade, from 1883 to 1893, In him, all connected with the school, whether as student or teacher, felt a just pride and entertained a genuine affection for. lie was great as a man, as an educator and as a citizen. In educational circles he is known as the author of the “Sentence Method of Teaching Reading,” and the greater part of his life as a school man was devoted to the promulgation and practical application of the principles underlying this method. He was a psychologist of more than ordinary merit. In fact his “keen perception, broad experience and profound erudition place him among educators of the first rank. Ilis personal interest in the students resulted in the filial affection entertained for him by them—none knew him but to honor and to love him. Ilis was a period of genuine prosperity for the school. During those ten years the Library Building, the Observatory, a large addition to the Main Hall and the Engine House were built, the electric light plant obtained and many of the beautiful trees which now adorn our Campus planted. We are confident that lion. B. E. B. Kennedy, who for more than a quarter of a century was president of the Board of Education, little knows how we miss his visits, else he would surely come again to cheer to encourage, to admonish and to make better for his presence. That he still watches our work with loving interest, still rejoices in our success, and sorrows when failure finds us, we feel assured. For twenty-six