West Chester University - Serpentine Yearbook (West Chester, PA)

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I9I4 SERPENTINE Page 5 SNAP-SHOTS OF PROF. BURNHAM

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Page 4 SERPENTIN E 1914 A i ' krtrlj of tl|0 ICtfr nf J rotesor S ' mttli lurnltam r t 9 OV ALL the .trains wliich have gone to make up the tine compound of American citizenship none is more vigorous than the sturdy stock that came to New Lngland out of Old England. The stock which served under Cromwell and put an end to kinglv misrule in England by cutting off the head of the king, was the same stock that joined the Puritan migration to this country. It is from this Roundhead blood that there came into Connecticut, out of Xorfolkshire, in England, the Burnham ancestors of tiie subject of this sketch. Settling first in Connecticut, the stream worked its way into central and western New York and still pressed for- ward until the early forties found the father of Smith Burnham located in southern lichigan as one of the pioneer set- tlers. Into this same neighborhood came Margaret Smith, of a strain of sturdy Germans who had settled the Mohawk Valley in New York. From this vigorous Palatinate German line, grafted onto the English Roundhead has sprung the subject of this sketch. Smith Burnham. professor of history in the West Chester State Normal School, was born and reared in contact with Mother Earth, with nothing of luxurv to pamper, nothing of pri -ation to weaken, with just enough rigor of coun- try life in the seventies to bring self-reliance and vigor of frame and miml. Smith Burnham was Ijorn near Battle Creek, Michigan, on August 20, i S66. To no operation known on the ordinary farm was Smith Burnham a stranger. The chores which fell to the lot of a boy of his time were his ; the rustic pleasures, we may be sure, were his, too. Educated in the district school until he was sixteen vears old, he found in his high school course the first great stimulus which led him on to scholar.ship. In tliose days, high schools were few, and were unlinarilv taught by men who in scholarshiji and in serious devotion to their calling, ipiite equalled the clergy. In the little town of Vicksburg, with a po|nilation of less thpn a thousand, such a teacher gathered about him a group of one hundred and twenty-five girls and boys, brought in from all the countrv round about. Snu ' th Burnham had known and associated with vigorous-minded, straight-thinking men. but they had been men whose education, from the scholastic standpoint, had been restricted. Here was a man who firi? ' ! him with, ambition. Within two years Smith Burnham was an assistant in the high school, and two years later found him at Albion College. It must always be a question whether the small or the large college offers the greatest advantages to an earnest young man. If the young man who comes of .scholarly surroundings has in him the impulses and needs only the facil-

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Page 6 SERPENTINE 1914 ities, the great university must always offer him the more im|iortant field. To a boy whose scholastic lite has been re- stricted, the intimate contact that the professor in the small college has with his pupils tar more than counterbalances the defects of the narrower equipment. In such a situation, young Burnham now found himself. The strongest person- ality with which he came in contact was with a teacher of history, and not unnaturally the bent (if Burnham ' s mind was distinctly set in the lines of history and constitutional development. The family resources were not sufficient to make young Burnham ' s ccnn-se an easy one, and he was obliged to inter- mit his studies for a while and teach in the high school. This prox ' ed more of an advantage than a disadvantage, for it gave him time to think over what he was learning, and find out his deficiencies. When he returns to Albion to finish his course, he is ready to do such work as he had never done before. Those of us who delight in the way Prof. Burnhain throws himself into the athletic life of the school will have lit- tle difficult}- in understanding that in liis own college days he was an enthusiastic athlete. Twice only has the foot-ball team of the University of Michigan been defeated by one from the same State. In 1891, Albion gave Michigan the first of her defeats. Of that team Smitli Burnham was captain, coach, and star quarter-back. When the victors came home that night, the whole student l)odv met them with a hay wagon and a l)and, and escorted them to the campus, where a great bonfire was kindled. By the glow of the fire. Captain Burnham told his fellow-students Hmv it had been done. That defeat remained the only defeat by a State team for the University of Michigan up to the fall of 1913. In 1892 he graduated from his college, and was immediately oft ' ered the position of assistant in history. .Shortly thereafter he took his own first and present chief assistant in the person of Ella L. Caster, his clas.smate, to whom he was married in August, 1893. Young Burnham was now ready for the facilities of a great university, and he made for himself the opportunity for advanced study, first at Harvard, and later at Chicago University. P rom here he went l)ack to .■ lbion to take the place of their professor of history, who had gone to Michigan University. M Albion he remained a full professor of history until West Chester summoned him in 98. At West Chester Professor Burnham followed a series of teachers of history who had given that department high standing in this institution. But, high as was the standing of his department, it at once started to grow until it reached its present commanding position. To the teacher of history there is one source of culture beside which all others pale. This lies in actual, intelligent contact with the board on which the game of history- has liecn played. Impelled by this conviction, Professor Burnham prepared himself, first of all, by studying and planning so as to have his mind in thorough readiness to absorb all that is best worth while. Then he obtained a year ' s leave of absence and spent it in European travel and study.