University of Wisconsin Oshkosh - Quiver Yearbook (Oshkosh, WI)

Page 9 text:

unqualified support in their dealings with students. If a teacher’s work was deficient, the students never found it out through the President. In fact, occasional shortcomings in individual members of the faculty were screened by the President with religous care. The centrifugal forces in President Albec’s school never came into play very much. He was bound to maintain authority. His school represented an institutional unit with which every student was obliged to come iu contact. This I consider one of the greatest elements of strength in President Albee’s work. Kvery country boy or girl was made to feel at home in the school. The world which had suddenly become so much bigger for them still had a definite place for everyone. That place was somewhere within the domain of the personal influence of the President, at least indirectly; and directly under the wings of some guardian in the faculty. Country pupils were peculiarly susceptible to this kind of treatment, and usually manifested generous appreciation. When the high school graduates, with their greater insight into affairs and men, first began to appear, the two classes of students presented certain incompatible elements; and the greater love which the President bore the former did not always tend to reconcile the latter. President Albee’s attitude towards young men and women who had a weakness for independent and resolute action was shaped largely, perhaps, by his more intense love of the general trait of the rural element. His heart was in the district school, and he always expressed feelingly “the interest I feel in my friends who were once with us and of us, and I trust will always be of us, even when they are not with us.” The watchword of of President Albee’s pedagogical theory was inspiration ; and the inspiration which comes from close contact with instructors rather than that which grows out of a thorough knowledge of organized material, and from the consciousness of progress. Partly for this reason. j erhaps, was he slow to recognize what in these days is called research work. He desired a teacher “to rouse expression of thought in others and secure that expression not only as a test of knowledge but as a progressive element for the evolution of power.” “Rudimentary stimulation, and not a complete exposition for the sake of imparting mere information.” and engendering “the organizing attitude of mind” should stand among the aims of a teacher in a class-room. Readers of these lines will probably not be surprised to find me writing about the school, the teachers, and the profession when I have been asked to write concerning President Albec. The President’s life cannot be separated from these. His school was the highest expression of his character and life. His devotion to the school and the profession had all the characteristics of a religious sentiment. On holidays even he could be found walking to and fro through the corridors and rooms of the school buildings. To him these places were sacred. To those who knew him well they will always remain sacred. The work and influence of President Albee will ever stand as the finest memorial of his earnest and dignified manhood, of his lovable and reverent nature and of his implicit faith in the gospel of hard work. II. B. Mkykr, University oj Wisconsin. 7

Page 11 text:

Lydon W. '-Briggs. YI)ON W. BRIGGS was born in Lancaster, Erie County, New York, May 16, 1840. lie attended an academy in that place from the age of eight to twelve years. He came with the family to Wisconsin in 1852. They settled in Kenosha county, where he attended district school in winter and worked on the farm in summer. In the fall of 1857 he entered the Kenosha High School. In 1862, in the darkest days of war between the states, he enlisted in the Seventh Wisconsin Battery, Hying Artillery, and served until the troops were mustered out in 1865. In that year he was made Superintendent of Kenosha county schools without opjK sition, and in 1867 was appointed principal of a ward school in Racine. Here was begun the acquaintance between Mr. Briggs and President Albee that developed into a close and lifelong friendship. In 1871, President Albee took charge of the Oshkosh Normal School, and a year later Mr. Briggs was made principal of the high school at Green Bay. He continued in charge of this school for live years, and conducted it with marked success. In 1877, he left Green Bay to take charge of the high school in Manitowoc. In 1878, at the end of one year’s service, he resigned his position there to accept a call to the Oshkosh Normal School. This call was made by President Albee to the friend and co-worker of former years with the certainty that the service rendered would be loyal and efficient. There arc hundreds, even thousands, who can testify that during the twenty years of this relationship, no man, no institution, ever had a more devoted assistant: The loyalty, the efficiency, the untiring, self-sacrificing character of this service made it indispensable to the recipients. Such service can never be bought and paid for; it can only be appreciated. That it was appreciated by him to whom it was personally rendered, was attested by many marks, and by a letter to the alumni sent from a full heart and a weary hand in the midst of sickness that found no cure. That it is appreciated by the Board of Normal School Regents they have shown in the most substantial manner in the year just past. For twenty-one years, Mr. Briggs has gone in and out among us, not only doing well the duties to which he was appointed, but seeing others, “not nominated in the bond”, and performing them in the spirit of service without reference to the reward. But the reward is in the character of the work, and follows as the harvest follows the seed-time. That Mr. Briggs may reap abundantly is the sincere wish of those who have worked with him in the institution that he has always served so unselfishly. 9