The First Seventy Years: A History of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse,
1909-1979 / George R. Gilkey

2nd Floor Stacks & Special Collections Rare Books LD6149.5.L3 G5

The First Seventy Years:

A History of the University
of Wisconsin-La Crosse,
1909-1979

The First Seventy Years:

A History of the University
of Wisconsin-La Crosse,
1909-1979

George R. Gilkey

The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Foundation, Inc.
La Crosse, Wisconsin

International Standard Book Number 0-9605832-1-1

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 81-50419

The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Foundation, Inc.
1725 State Street, La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601

Printed in the United States of America

In Memoriam

Aida Allness

Betty Baird

Billie J. Batchelor

Orville Brault

James L. Beers

Francis Carter

Dorothy Heider

Emery Leamer

William Parks

Walter J. Wittich

CONTENTS

Introduction 1

I. Establishment of the Normal School 7

II. The Early Administrations, 1909-1938 23

III. The Later Administrations, 1939-1979 47

IV. The Faculty in Session 75

V. The Campus School 109

VI. The War Generations 125

VII. Students and the University:
Student Affairs and Student Government 149

VIII. Student Life and Letters 175

IX. The University and the Larger Community 205

X. The Last Decade 235

Epilogue 257

Appendix A Faculty Emeriti I

Appendix B Current Faculty with Quarter Century
or more of Service II

Appendix C Members of the Faculty by Department, 1909-1978 III

Appendix D State Officers of TAUWF from La Crosse XIV

Appendix E Faculty Senate Chairpersons, 1966-1980 XIV

Appendix F Administrative Officers XV

Appendix G Administrative Organization Chart XVIII

Appendix H UW-La Crosse Shares of Enrollment XIX

Bibliography XXI

Index

Acknowledgments

Among several persons whom I thank for helping bring this volume to
completion, Walker D. Wyman, Distinguished Centennial Professor of History,
University of Wisconsin-River Falls, deserves first mention. Dr. Wyman
encouraged me to undertake the writing of this volume and, from time to time,
made useful comments and suggestions. Of particular aid were the special
collections librarian, Edwin Hill, and his staff, Marcella Averkamp, Anni
Hauth, Virginia Kreyer, and Joseph Robertson. They not only provided an area
for me to work, but they also facilitated access to needed materials and
photographs. Margaret Annett, Evelyn Haef, and Donna Rumppe compiled the
faculty listing and assisted otherwise.

Three former graduate students graciously permitted me to use the results of
their research. They are Carol Bassuener on student affairs, Clifford Heise on
student government, and Mary E. Seielstad on the Campus School. As
undergraduates, Robert P. Neuman and Diane McDonald did papers for me on
the Normal in World War I and the early programs in the lectures and concerts
series, respectively. Dean Glenn M. Smith, emeritus Professor Milford Cowley,
and Vice Chancellor Carl Wimberly supplied materials from their files.
Historian Howard R. Fredricks' tapes of President Mitchell and President
Gates were invaluable.

For indispensable assistance in the final preparation of the manuscript for
publication, my thanks go to Don Suter and Paul Currier, Audio-Visual
Services' photographers, Eileen Polizzotto, coordinator of University Services,
and Margaret Larson. Without Ms. Larson's expert editing and arranging the
book would not have been printed. My wife, Helen, read the manuscript and
made invaluable suggestions. Vice Chancellor Wimberly and Assistant
Chancellor David R. Witmer have offered continuous support and
encouragement.

I am especially grateful to Mrs. Jan Larkin who typed the manuscript, some
parts of it several times. She did it all with her customary good humor,
accuracy, and dispatch, frequently noting errors and repetitions which she
called to my attention. There are others who helped with a word or a file folder.
My thanks to all of them.

Introduction

The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse is one of thirteen four-year
institutions which, together with University of Wisconsin Extension and the
University of Wisconsin Center System, form the University of Wisconsin
System. The Wisconsin legislature created this system in 1971 by merging the
Wisconsin State University System with the units making up the former
University of Wisconsin. Prior to merger each of the systems had its own board
of regents. With merger, those two became one board.

Originally the eighth of nine state normal schools established in Wisconsin

William E. Wolfe (1913-17) was a
member of the board of regents that
approved the physical education emphasis
for the La Crosse campus.

Charles Van Auken (1917-23) saw
enrollments decline and funding dwindle
during his term as regent.

Introduction

during the half-century between 1866 and 1916, the La Crosse Normal School
opened its doors in the fall of 1909. With the other normals it became a state
teachers college in 1927, a state college in 1951, and a state university in 1964.
La Crosse has had eight "local" regents since 1905 - Thomas Morris,
William E. Wolfe, Charles S. Van Auken, Otto Schlabach, A. W. Zeratsky,
Thomas A. Skemp, Roy Davidson, and Eugene Murphy. With merger the
concept of the local regent underwent modification. The regents' roles
presently are to govern and to watch over the operations of the whole system
regardless of their provenance. La Crosse realtor William Gerrard has served
under this concept.

The first regent, Thomas Morris (1905-1913), engineered the legislation
which authorized establishment of the institution in the city of La Crosse,
selected its first president, and aided in gathering its first faculty. William E.
Wolfe (1913-1917) sat on the board which approved the physical education
emphasis for which the university is noted and authorized the building of
Wittich Hall, a special facility for teacher training in physical education.
Charles Van Auken (1917-1923) saw the normal through World War I and the
post-war years when enrollments dwindled and funding declined. Twice
regent, A. W. Zeratsky witnessed good times and bad. During his terms
(1923-1928 and 1933-1940) the normal became a teachers' college, Ernest
Ashton Smith, George Snodgrass, and Rexford Mitchell became presidents in
succession, the Campus School for practice teaching opened, and the
institution survived the depression years. Between Zeratsky's terms, attorney
Otto Schlabach (1928-1933) argued against reduction of faculty salaries during
those difficult years and effectively supported plans to build a badly-needed
heating plant which began operation in 1938.

Otto Schlabach (1928-33) argued against
faculty salary reductions during
his depression-years term.

During the terms of A.W. Zeratsky
(1923-28 and 1933-40), the normal
became a teachers college and the
campus school for practice teaching
opened.

Introduction

In the terms of Thomas A. Skemp (1940-1943) and Roy Davidson (1943-1950),
the campus population declined drastically during the war years but rose
quickly with the advent of peace. Veterans swelled the ranks, as elsewhere in
the country, and taxed the available educational facilities and living quarters to
the limit. Through the twenty-one years Eugene W. Murphy (1950-1971) sat on
the board of regents in behalf of La Crosse, enrollment grew steadily, the
campus expanded, and the carefully-planned construction program which
produced a cluster of educational facilities and residence halls came to fruition.
Five governors, both Democratic and Republican, appointed Murphy to the
state universities' board and to the merged system board. The university
library bears his name, appropriate honor to his many years of productive effort
in behalf of the institution. The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse has been
well-served by its regents over the years.

The history of the La Crosse campus is part of the unfolding story of teacher
training as it took place in normal schools in the United States. In the first
chapter of the History of the Wisconsin State Universities, the editor, Dr.
Walker D. Wyman, explored the factors which led to the emergence of a normal
school system in Wisconsin. These teacher training institutions were
essentially grass-roots public entities which rose out of the need to improve
education at all grade levels. Before they emerged, however, the Wisconsin
legislature sought to support the training of a seriously-needed supply of
elementary and secondary teachers by subsidizing private liberal arts colleges
such as Lawrence and Beloit. The legislature obtained funds for this support
from the sale of swamp lands donated to the state by the federal government.
The act of 1857 which authorized use of the funds also created a Board of
Regents of Normal Schools which was empowered to receive and disburse the
monies thus obtained.

During his war-time term, Thomas A.
Skemp (1940-43) saw the campus population
decline drastically.

Roy Davidson (1943-50) served as regent
at a time when returning veterans
taxed educational facilities and living
quarters to the limit.

Introduction

As the funds decreased so did the interest the private institutions had in
teacher training. In 1864 seven schools produced a total of only thirty-six
teachers. Four years later the University of Wisconsin (Madison) phased out its
normal department. Little of the curricula offered by these colleges and the
university at Madison dealt with the problems of teaching. Instead courses of
study were almost wholly academic in character. By the end of the American
Civil War, Wisconsin had not yet found the appropriate medium for training
teachers.

But in the post-war era, local and state leaders, inspired in part by the
examples of educational systems in the eastern United States and prodded by
the urgent need for skilled teachers, began to take the necessary steps to build
normal schools. Contributors to Dr. Wyman's History of the Wisconsin State
Universities noted that those leaders frequently were emigrants from the east,
e.g., Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania.

Politics and economics were important factors in the site selection for each
normal school, for such a placement in a community was indeed a feather in the
public servant's fedora. The school's presence was without doubt a fiscal boon,
for it brought faculty, students, and maintenance staffs all with state money to
spend. The state bought land and built buildings, providing financial gain for
fortunate individuals who held plots in the city and for the skilled and unskilled
employed in construction.

Thus, the half-century process which created the normal school system
began in 1866. Under general authorization of the legislature and sometimes in
response to direct legislative decisions, the Board of Regents of Normal Schools
brought into being schools at Platteville (1866), Whitewater (1868), Oshkosh
(1871), River Falls (1874), Milwaukee (1885), Stevens Point (1894), Superior

William Gerrard (1971- ) was appointed
to the merged University of Wisconsin
System Board of Regents.

The university library was named for
Regent Eugene W. Murphy (1950-71).
who watched a construction program
be developed and implemented to meet
the steadily growing enrollment.

Introduction

(1896), La Crosse (1909), and Eau Claire (1916). After seventy years in the
normal system, the institution at Milwaukee joined the University of Wisconsin
(Madison) in 1955. Four years later, Stout Institute, which had been
established as a private manual training school in 1893, joined the then
Wisconsin State College System as a four-year state-supported college.

The institutions which made up the normal school system often faced
hostility from the private colleges and from the university at Madison when
they sought to expand their curricular offerings into degree programs. This
opposition was particularly virulent during the presidency of Charles R. Van
Hise (1903-1918) at Madison. Three times -- in 1907, 1909, and 1913 -- Van Hise
led the assault against legislation to make the normal schools degree-granting
institutions. He was assisted at various times by the presidents of the colleges
at Milton, Ripon, Lawrence, and Beloit. Each time he succeeded in having the
enabling legislation defeated.*

But time and Wisconsin's educational needs overcame that opposition as the
normals inevitably grew from their original status to the position of
universities. The attitude of President Van Hise and others toward such growth
belied their outspoken support for the Wisconsin Idea which described the
boundaries of the university as being the boundaries of the state. Professors
Curti and Carstensen cogently observed in 1949:

For all the published statements about carrying education
to the people, the attitude of University officials toward
the normal schools ignored the fact, clear to anyone who
looked, that educational opportunity was often a matter of
geography. Whether or not young people went to college
and university often depended on their nearness to an
institution. It was at least an open question whether the
"highest educational interests" of the state were served
by opposing the development of the teachers colleges into
the regional colleges which appear to be evolving at the
present or whether these interests might have been better
served if, instead of fighting the advance of the normal
schools, University officials had encouraged their growth,
generously and wisely, and helped them toward educational
respectability and usefulness. **

Commenting on the " 'breath-taking development' " which the nine normal
schools underwent, Professor Walker Wyman appropriately observed in
writing about the state university system in 1968:

Strange it is...that the system has emerged, like Topsy,
without much planning, with little freedom to experiment
or the funds to move in new directions, and without gifted

*Merle Curti and Vernon Carstensen, The University of Wisconsin, A History, 1848-1925
(Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1949), II, 260-266.
** Ibid., p. 266

Introduction

direction from its governing board, its Madison secretariat,
or its administrators. Though strong teachers of
long tenure have provided the lodestones of loyalty to the
institutions, faculties have never shaped many policies
beyond a department or a campus. Despite the conformity
imposed by a single board that establishes policy for the
nine institutions, each university has a flavor of its own
determined by the region it serves, its leadership, and the
traditions that have developed in the past century.*

*Walker D. Wyman, ed., History of the Wisconsin State Universities (River Falls, Wisconsin: River
Falls State University Press, 1968), p. 2. See also Chapter I, passim.

The La Crosse campus is nested between the bluffs and the mighty Mississippi River.

Main Hall

Wittich Hall

Murphy Library

Cowley Hall

Mitchell Hall

Fine Arts Building

Campus buildings are connected by a system of tree-lined walkways.

Establishment of the Normal School

In 1909, the year the state normal school opened in La Crosse, the city could
look back on a half-century of steady growth in population and wealth. Nestled
beneath the imposing bluffs of the Mississippi River at the confluences of the
Black and La Crosse rivers with the Mississippi, La Crosse was a gateway for
westward expansion. Founded in 1842 as a center for trading with Indians and
chartered as a city in 1856, it enjoyed a burgeoning economy and rapid
population growth after the American Civil War. The apparently inexhaustible
pineries of the Black River country gave birth to numerous sawmills and
lumbering fortunes. Steamboats, many of them built in La Crosse, plied the
Mississippi north to St. Paul and south to St. Louis; an early peak year of
steamboating was 1858 when 1,312 side- and stern-wheelers touched on the
local levees carrying both freight and passengers. Fed by immigration from
Europe and the eastern United States, the population rose from 3,000 in 1856 to
over 30,000 in 1909, making La Crosse the fifth largest city in Wisconsin. 1

Thus the westward movement of the population, the farming and commerce
that movement engendered, and the Black River pineries created a thriving and
bustling community. Lumbermen dominated the city and county governments
and the Board of Trade during the 1880's and 1890's. They built thirty-three
sawmills over a period of a half-century; but as the frontier moved further
westward and then disappeared, the mills vanished with it. By 1906 the last of
these was torn down. Some lumbermen left to move further west and south;
others remained to invest in varied enterprises. Momentary gloom settled over
La Crosse with the passing of an age characterized by log-jams on the Black and
uproarious Saturday nights at the local taverns enjoyed by thirsty woodsmen.

La Crosse -- a Mississippi River city of sawmills and steamboats.

Establishment of the Normal School

In that sad year of 1906 a local paper pleaded on the front page for the citizenry
to buy local products and to support local industry:
If La Crosse has a great future, it is as a manufacturing
center. The sawmills and the Wisconsin pine forests made
La Crosse. But the pine forests are gone, and the sawmills
are gone, and most of the lumbermen are gone. Those who
remain have wealth accumulated in a lifetime of industry
and they would prefer to invest it in La Crosse....La
Crosse cannot be anything except a manufacturing center,
and it cannot become a manufacturing center unless its
people invite investment in factories by supporting their
factories. 2

In time, other entrepreneurs succeeded the lumbermen, some with new
enterprises, others with old established businesses. Among new commercial
and industrial groups which emerged to dominate the life of the community
were the La Crosse Rubber Mills (1897), the La Crosse Flour Company
(incorporated in 1893), the Listman Flour Mills, rebuilt in 1889, and W. W.
Cargill Company whose owner and president was involved in various endeavors
including railroads, gas and electricity, grain elevators, and the telephone
company. By the first decade of the twentieth century, La Crosse had six banks,
several utility companies, and a pearl button factory. 3 Among older producers
in the community the most significant were the brewers. La Crosse citizenry
appeared to be good supporters of the industry, for on a Sunday afternoon in
the winter of 1906, Methodist minister J. W. Irish counted 1,087 men in saloons
and only 665 in church despite an ordinance requiring the former to be closed
on Sundays. 4

Encouraged by the Board of Trade, organized in 1868, and the
Manufacturers and Jobbers Union, which first appeared in 1886, La Crosse
returned to a semblance of the earlier prosperous decades. While the
Manufacturers and Jobbers concerned themselves with national railroad and
bankruptcy legislation, the Board of Trade centered its efforts on the economic
life of the city and county of La Crosse. 5 Its membership was the business and
professional elite of the city, for the most part Progressives in politics. From its
ranks came several mayors who, with the aid of the aldermanic council, sought
to create a favorable climate for continued economic expansion. Smaller
enterprisers who held the posts of aldermen expended much effort and taxes in
building and improving streets, bridges and other facilities. 6
Higher Education in La Crosse

As a part of the La Crosse renaissance, the establishment of a state normal
school became of surpassing interest for political and economic leaders. True,
the community had not been without interest and accomplishment in varied
educational institutions from its beginnings. Save for the usual complement of
public elementary schools and a high school, however, education was privately
directed. In 1866, for example, a short-lived La Crosse Academy and Normal
School was established. Between 1864 and 1869 the La Crosse Medical College
operated as a cover for dissecting cadavers; it granted three diplomas. In turn

Establishment of the Normal School

this medical school was intended to be part of Gale University, established in
nearby Galesville in 1854 and directed by various church groups. Somehow the
nexus never occurred. 7

During the prosperous age of capitalism in the latter three decades of the
century, business schools found a congenial atmosphere in La Crosse. In 1872,
owners of the La Crosse Business School objected to an effort to establish a
state normal institution and instead supported private higher education. 8 In
1891, F. J. Toland bought the assets of this business school and established the
Wisconsin Business University, which became a flourishing concern. During its
existence, this university published an annual, had basketball teams, dramatic
clubs, student councils, glee clubs, and Greek letter organizations. In less than
a half-century, the "W.B.U. graduated over 10,000 students. 9 Its rival at the
turn of the century was the Keefe Business College which advertised itself as
"a practical progressive school with up-to-date courses of study, skilled
teachers and unexcelled opportunities for advancement." 10 The La Crosse
School of Music offered lessons in piano and voice. 11

But there was no normal school, and it seemed to the proud citizens of La
Crosse that there was one almost everywhere else. The city and county schools
obtained teachers from the seven normal schools then in existence. 12 Even
with all those the supply was short. Thus by 1905, the city fathers found allies
among members of the Board of Trade and other business associations. They
also found friendly help from laymen in the La Crosse community and from
political leaders in nearby counties and in Madison.

Campaigns for a Normal School

Two earlier efforts to obtain a normal school preceded the successful drive of
1905. The first occurred in 1871 when Mayor Alexander McMillan stepped
down from his seat as presiding officer in order to speak in support of a normal
school for La Crosse. The resolution which followed provided for an election to
approve issuance of bonds for the purpose of obtaining a school site. At a
special meeting the next month the city council announced approval of the bond
issue. A resolution authorized the mayor and clerk to issue bonds to the value of

Alexander McMillan was mayor of La Crosse at
the time of the first (unsuccessful) bid for a
normal school for La Crosse in 1871. The Board
of Regents selected River Falls.

Establishment of the Normal School

$25,000 bearing ten percent interest. 13 Early the following year, the council
referred to the Committee on Schools a proposal of B. D. Atwell and his partner
J. L. Cashel to invest a portion of the bond issue in their private institution, the
La Crosse Business School. The proposition read:

Inasmuch as the City of La Crosse offered to give the State
a Donation of $25,000 Dollars to secure the location of the
Normal School. Therefore if you will give us two-thirds of
this amount to buy us a lot and put us up a Building we will
agree to bring 250 Students a year to the City and also give
Three Life Scholarships per-year for Ten Years to each of
the wards of the City. 14

Nothing came of this first attempt to obtain a normal for La Crosse.
Meantime, in July of 1871, the normal school regents toured northwestern
Wisconsin seeking another site, and, at the beginning of 1872, selected River
Falls for the fourth school. It opened two years later. Then in the 1880's special
legislation provided for the fifth normal to be built in Milwaukee. That school
enrolled its first students in 1885.

Eight years after Milwaukee opened, the legislature provided for
construction of two additional normals. This time Superior and Stevens Point
were in a three-way contest with La Crosse. 15 Quiescent on the matter of a
normal school during the 1880's, the La Crosse community made a strenuous
endeavor in 1893 to get a school. In May of that year, the mayor, Dr. Frank
Powell, appointed a special normal school committee--the mayor as chairman
and two aldermen. The latter were attorney George Gordon and brewery-owner
George Zeisler. Both were members of the Board of Trade. Everyone involved
anticipated that the city council committee would cooperate with the board in
the normal school drive. The council further resolved that the mayor invite the
board of regents to visit the city to pick a site for the school. 16

La Crosse increased its efforts in the early summer of 1893 through
establishment of a joint normal school committee. This committee, composed of

Mayor Franklin Powell led the second (unsuccessful)
campaign for a normal school in 1893.
This time Stevens Point and Superior were
chosen.

Establishment of the Normal School

members of the city council, the Board of Trade, the Manufacturers and
Jobbers Union, the La Crosse Board of Education, and the La Crosse County
Board of Supervisors asked the city council to appropriate $30,000 toward the
purchase of a site and the erection of a building. On its way to the finance
committee the request passed a test vote unanimously. The sum thus approved
was added to $30,000 already provided by the county board. On
recommendation of the finance committee, the resolution of appropriation
passed the council without a dissenting vote. The negotiations which followed
in the next months are not recorded in print. Whatever lobbying and political
influence the La Crosse normal school committee used was not sufficient, and
the rival cities, Stevens Point and Superior, opened their normals in 1894 and
1896 respectively. 17

The joint committee reported bitterly to the mayor and city council that "but
for the treachery of pledged friends," La Crosse would have carried the day in
the legislature. The assembly first voted for La Crosse but the senate, by the
switch of one vote, ultimately turned the tide for Superior. Committee members
obtained some solace from a $500 appropriation for expenses incurred in their
travels to Madison. Thirteen years later the memory of this event still rankled a
local editor who implied that Senator Robert Bashford, because he had
switched his vote to La Crosse's disadvantage, ought not to be supported in a
forthcoming judicial election. 18

What manner of men were these who pressed publicly and privately for a
normal school at La Crosse? The mayor, Frank Powell, had a medical education
on top of numerous western adventures and travels. For some years he had
practiced medicine in La Crosse and was the city's most famous citizen. Among
the aldermen, James B. Murray, originally from New York, had an academy
education. He was in the grocery business in La Crosse. During a long public
career he was a member of the city council for sixteen years and of the Board of
Education for fourteen years. William Torrance, foundry owner and seven-term
alderman, was later mayor when the successful bid for the normal school was
made in 1905. Others were William Neumeister, a farmer, Nicholas S. Rice, a
glazier, Frank Brown, a blacksmith and carriage-maker, Emil Kowalke,
millwright then grocer, and George Euler, who ran the delivery department for
the Gund Brewery. 19

A number of these were unusual men who had achieved public eminence in
the community. They had the encouragement of others, especially of the Board
of Trade, and of the foremost educator at the time in La Crosse, Albert Hardy.
Veteran of Sherman's "March to the Sea" and other classic engagements of
the Civil War, Hardy devoted most of the remainder of his life to education. For
seventeen years (1881-1897) Hardy was Superintendent of Schools and
principal of La Crosse Central High School. Under his direction the curriculum
was sharply revised and four elementary schools and Logan High School were
built. At the turn of the century, Hardy served as vice president and institute
director at Platteville State Normal School. It was he who sought to relieve the
shortage of teachers in the La Crosse community by establishing a special class
on the theory of teaching for high school seniors. It was he, too, who came
forward both in 1893 and later in 1905 to testify in behalf of the need for a
normal school in La Crosse to provide teachers for the expanding school
population in Western Wisconsin. 20

Establishment of the Normal School

Establishment of a Normal School

In February of 1905 a La Crosse Common Council resolution authorized
appointment of a normal school committee with Mayor Torrance as chairman.
Except for Torrance, the names and faces were new, but the determination was
that of 1895. At a banquet the month before, the Board of Trade "decided to
use its utmost influence to secure a normal school" and to act through a school
committee. Once again the Manufacturers and Jobbers Union and the
Progressive Association were active in the cause. Thus four school committees
emerged to plead the case for La Crosse. The three state political leaders from
the area, Assemblymen John S. Durland and Thomas Johnson and State
Senator Thomas Morris, assured their support of legislation for La Crosse. The
latter had his hat "purloined" while addressing the Board of Trade on the
subject but came away with a better one. A bill introduced by Morris passed the
legislature and was signed into law in April of 1905. The bill directed the Board
of Regents of Normal Schools to locate a school in La Crosse; an appropriation
of $10,000 accompanied the authorization. The city council, following the
pattern of other municipalities, contributed an additional $15,000 to purchase a
building site. 21

Thus the appropriation was made, but not without opposition. Opponents
threatened an injunction to stop it, and newspaper items admonished citizens
to "watch your alderman." Watched or not the city council unanimously
approved an appropriation to purchase a sandy tract encompassing two blocks
less one lot from an area in the southeastern part of the city called the Metzger
and Funk addition. A previous offer of a site on "upper King Street"
apparently was not seriously considered. 22

The drive for the school was patently economic in nature, but there were
other overtones. A local editor suggested to readers on the matter of raising
money for the project: "Here is a place we must see the dollar behind the
penny." Attorney John E. McConnell spoke of the lack of adequate teachers for
the 80,000 children in areas tributary to La Crosse. Albert Hardy, now principal
of Washington Elementary School in La Crosse, proclaimed the value of the
proposed school to the whole system of education in Wisconsin. Mayor
Torrance praised La Crosse as the "second city in the state" and emphasized
the urgent need for a school. Surgeon Edward E. Evans, health commissioner
and member of the La Crosse Board of Education, spoke in behalf of the
normal, as did attorney Frank Winter. Winter appears to have had more than a
passing interest in the establishment of a normal. He had for five years held the
offices of principal of the high school and superintendent at Black River Falls
(1881-1884) and at Sparta (1884-1886) before settling down to law practice in La
Crosse. Support also came from Jackson and Trempealeau County
assemblymen together with aid from Superior's representatives who had won
the contest a decade earlier. 23

As the bill for the school passed through the legislative channels, the
protagonists followed its step-by-step progress. In a fit of journalistic pique, a
special correspondent for the La Crosse Tribune despaired of success. Under
bold headlines reading "No New Normal School To Be Provided This Year," he
expressed fear that among the many hurdles in the way of this added
expenditure were Milwaukee and Platteville normals in need of repairs and the

Establishment of the Normal School

university at Madison which always wanted more money. He added:
It is probably true that the normal schools are more
valuable to the state educational system than the
university. The university authorities will deny this, but
many know, nevertheless, that the normal schools are the
foundation stones of the splendid common school system
where thousands of the girls and boys of the state
complete their schooling, while the university trains a few
to dissect the lungs of a cat, read the oration of
Demosthenes in the original Greek, trace the English
language back to the Norman Conquest, teach professional
football players to masquerade as amateurs, and
now and then turn out some really useful citizen. 24

But this time proponents of the school had laid the groundwork carefully, and
the victory won was duly noted in an exuberant press. 25

In a sense, getting a normal school for La Crosse was a victory for political
progressives. Among the leaders of the effort were John McConnell, J. S.
Durland, Frank Winter, Otto Bosshard, and, especially, Thomas Morris, all
earnest supporters of that political philosophy.

After the successful campaign for the school, Morris was lauded in the press
as the only representative in the legislature who really worked for La Crosse.
Upon entering the state senate in 1904, he had rejected membership on
preferred committees in order to serve on the education and finance
committees. Discouraged by previous unsuccessful campaigns to obtain a
normal school, many La Crosse citizens did not make an active effort in this
attempt. Therefore, Morris, practically alone, led the new campaign that
resulted in the eighth state normal school being established at La Crosse. 26

Editorial comment on the dedication of the normal school praised his efforts
in behalf of his home community:

Senator Morris did masterful work in securing the Normal
for La Crosse, and the advantages he contributed to the
community in that activity, although looming as the
biggest thing of two decades, will not be fully appreciated
until we come to view it in the light of history clothed in
the things it will create, in the garment of educational
growth, elevation of moral standards, enrichment of the
state's teaching forces, increase in local wealth and
business activity. 27

Construction of the normal school on a portion of the sandy tract purchased
earlier began in the spring of 1908. 28 Mostly finished by the fall of 1909, "Old
Main" housed all indoor educational activities for the first eleven years of the
school's history. Three stories high and about 200 feet square, the red brick
building stood nearly alone on the sand flats. Praised as the "finest building in
the city," a "model of modern construction," and a "magnificent structure," it
was incomplete but usable when the first students entered on September 7,
1909. The cost, modest by contemporary standards, was $260,000. Old Main

Establishment of the Normal School

Recitation room--a typical classroom

Physics lab

Establishment of the Normal School

contained all classrooms, gymnasia, the "training" school, both faculty and
administrative offices, kitchen, lunchroom, heating plant, and library. The first
faculty and student body set out to beautify the grounds by landscaping and
planting. From the day of the first surveying in April, 1908, to the date of
opening there had been but one instance of serious trouble. This occurred when
the contractor dismissed several workers for loafing and replacing them with
Italian immigrants. Distinguishing between "whites" on the one hand and
"Dagoes" and "guineas" on the other, the dismissed workers at a meeting in a
local tavern threatened to kill their replacements. One workman succinctly
stated their case: "If them D--- Dagoes ain't out of there tonight, there is going
to be some trouble." The arrest of the "white" leader and the stationing of two
policemen at the site of the building put an end to a potentially ugly situation. 29

As the erection of the building proceeded during the winter months of
1908-1909, Morris, appointed first regent for the school, searched for and found
a president (principal). His choice was Fasset Allen Cotton, the State
Superintendent of Schools in Indiana. The announcement came from
Indianapolis in early January of 1909, but the board of regents withheld
confirmation of the formal appointment until nearly a month later. 30 Cotton
and Morris then set about getting a faculty together. During the summer
months student applications to the new normal raised expectations of a first
enrollment to about 300 students. In July, Cotton made the first public plea for
room and board for the expected influx. The La Crosse Tribune advised its
readers that if the public acted properly and well in this regard, the word would
go out that La Crosse would be a good place to attend school. 31

Old Main

Establishment of the Normal School

Main Hall auditorium

The library

Establishment of the Normal School

By late August the "training" school grades were largely filled, and the
press dutifully reported on opening day that there were 150 students in the
normal school. The expectation was that there would be 250 normalites "after
the afternoon trains are in." A few days later the secretary of the board of
regents, William Kittle, visited the new school. The building, he observed, was
the finest normal in the Mississippi Valley. The campus, he thought, would
"work out beautifully." The library was a "gem" and the faculty
"well-selected." Of the faculty, thirteen in the normal school and four in the
training school were present for the elaborate dedication ceremony of
November 10, 1909.

At the dedication Senator Morris told the assembled dignitaries, faculty, and
citizens:

Will you permit me once more to call your attention to the
fact that this is a great day for La Crosse, and for the state.
I believe that even the most hopeful among us dimly sees
the possibilities, the potentialities of this institution.
When we consider how many will be benefited by it, and
in turn, how many will be influenced by them, and that the
work will go on and on indefinitely from generation to
generation, we begin to appreciate how well and how
broadly the state has builded. 33

In his address, University of Wisconsin President Charles R. Van Hise spoke of
the need for better rural education and the role which normal schools could play
in training rural teachers and in higher education generally. He foresaw
additional functions for the school such as providing two years of liberal arts
work equal to that at the university. In his view this would "strengthen the
knowledge side of instruction in the normal schools," although he expressed
the opinion that such concern with liberal arts might interfere with the primary
purpose of the school--professional teacher training. 34 John J. Esch, eminent
La Crosse attorney and congressman, closed the ceremony with words of
optimistic anticipation:

The school has been founded for a great future. It is to
teach the young and untrained how to buffet the currents
of the world. This school may develop a master mind or a
genius transcending the ordinary school of attainments
...then all the efforts from the laying of the foundation
stones to the maintenance of it forever will be more than
repaid. 35

Establishment of the Normal School

NOTES

1. For the first half-century of the city's history see A. H. Sanford and H. J. Hirshheimer, A History
of La Crosse, Wisconsin, 1841-1900 (La Crosse, Wis.: La Crosse County Historical Society,
1951). Two useful studies of La Crosse since 1900 are: Donald J. Berthrong, "La Crosse, A
Case Study in Social History," (master's thesis, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1948); and
Stanley N. Miller, "A History of La Crosse, Wisconsin, 1900-1950," (Ph. D. Diss., George
Peabody College for Teachers, 1959).
2. La Crosse Tribune, Jan. 5, 1906. Among lumbermen who stayed and were highly successful in
other enterprises were C. L. Coleman, Frank P. Hixon, Jon Paul, and Henry A. Salzer.
3. See, for example, Berthrong, pp. 16-25, and La Crosse Tribune, New Era Ed., Nov. 28, 1916.
4. La Crosse Tribune, Jan. 8, 1906. There were 158 "saloons" in or very near the city and 36
churches. See Directory of the City of La Crosse 1905-1906 (La Crosse, Wis.: L. P. Philippi
Company, 1905), pp. 47-57 and 527-53. For the list of five breweries in 1876 see Pryor's La
Crosse City Directory (La Crosse, Wis.: Pryor & Co., Publishers, 1876), I, 146.
5. Berthrong, pp. 49-68. See also Annual Reports of the Board of Trade of La Crosse, Wisconsin
(1891-1901), passim. The Board of Trade became the Chamber of Commerce in 1916. See E. S.
Hebberd, "La Crosse Boards of Trade and Commerce," in La Crosse County Historical
Sketches, ser. 6, ed. Albert H. Sanford (La Crosse, Wis.: La Crosse County Historical Society,
1942), pp. 5-17.
6. See, for example, AnnualReports of the Board of Trade (1898), p. 35, and (1900), pp. 32-39. On
government support of economic activities see for example, City of La Crosse, Council
Proceedings, (1890-1900) passim.
7. Sanford, p. 64; William S. Miller, "The La Crosse Medical School," in eds. Sigurd E. Sivertson
and Mary H. Hebberd, Phases of La Crosse County Medicine: 1855-1920 (La Crosse, Wis.:
La Crosse County Medical Society, 1966), pp. 5-15; and Arthur F. Giere, A Brief History of
Galesville University, 1854-1940 (Galesville, Wis.: 1940).
8. Council Proceedings, Feb. 9, 1872, p. 538.
9. Wisconsin Business University, The Big Leaguer of 1938 (annual), passim. The school published
a variety of catalogs and bulletins some of which are housed in the Area Research
Center, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. (Hereafter cited as ARC, UW-L.) Courses of study
ranged from seven to twelve months in duration. See also Richard Rogers,"A Brief History of
the Wisconsin Business University, La Crosse, Wisconsin," (master's thesis, Wisconsin State
University, La Crosse, 1967).
10. La Crosse Tribune, Aug. 30, 1912.
11. Wright's Directory of La Crosse for 1911 (Milwaukee, Wis.: Wright Directory Co., 1910)
p.410.
12. As late as 1913-1914, 64 of the 97 teachers in La Crosse County schools who were trained at the
state normal schools came from schools other than La Crosse. See A. N. Farmer, Conditions
and Needs of Wisconsin's Normal Schools (Madison, Wis.: 1914), pp. 56-70.
13. Council Proceedings, May 12, 1871, p. 470. Mayor McMillan made a fortune in lumbering,
utilities and livestock after coming to western Wisconsin from Canada. In addition to the
mayoralty position, over the years he served several terms on the city council and the La Crosse
County Board of Supervisors, and one term in the state legislature (1872) as a Republican. In
his varied career, he also was president of the La Crosse Temperance League and the First
National Bank. See Biographical History of La Crosse, Trempealeau, and Buffalo Counties,
Wisconsin (Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1892), pp. 161-163. Alderman
S. L. Nevins, who offered the resolution, was also a lumberman. Senator Thomas Morris, who
ultimately obtained the legislative authorization for the normal at La Crosse also migrated
from Canada. See also Council Proceedings, Jun. 16, 1871, pp. 486-487.
14. Council Proceedings, Feb. 9, 1872, p. 538. For a brief summary of the La Crosse Business
College and the life of Mr. Atwell, see History of La Crosse County, Wisconsin (Chicago:
Western Historical Company, 1881), pp. 521-522. A few years later Atwell sold his interest in
the college. Eventually J. L. Wallace, principal of a local elementary school, became the proprietor.
He in turn sold it to F. J. Toland in 1891.
15. For brief summary statements on the establishment of the various schools see Normal Schools

Establishment of the Normal School

of Wisconsin, Catalog, 1911-1912 (Madison, Wis., 1912), pp. 29-31. An apparent convincing
argument for Superior in 1893 was a payment from the city to the state treasury of $65,000.
16. Council Proceedings, May 2, 1893, pp. 546-547, and May 4, 1893, p. 553.
17. Council Proceedings, May 18, 1893, p. 606, and May 24, 1893, pp. 614-615; and Normal
Schools of Wisconsin, Catalog, 1911-1912, pp. 30-31.
18. Council Proceedings, May 11, 1895, pp. 66-69, and "Bashford Killed Our First Normal," La
Crosse Tribune, Apr. 4, 1908.
19. Biographical History of La Crosse, Trempealeau, and Buffalo Counties, Wisconsin, pp.
160-161, 177-178, 257, 280, 427, and 587-589. For details on Powell's medical career see Mary
H. Hebberd, "Notes on Dr. David Franklin Powell, Known as 'White Beaver,' " Wisconsin
Magazine of History, Summer, 1952, pp. 306-309 and Mary H. Hebberd, "Notes on the Medical
Practice of Dr. David Franklin Powell," Wisconsin Magazine of History, Spring, 1953,
pp. 188-191. For study of Powell's political career see Clarence L. Schlicht, "The Political
Career of White Beaver Powell, Mayor of La Crosse, Wisconsin" (Wisconsin State University,
La Crosse, 1966).
20. For details on Hardy's career, see L. H. Pammel, Some Reminiscences of La Crosse and
Vicinity (Ames, Iowa: Liesenfeld Press, 1928), pp. 28-30; and Willard W. Hanson, "Historical
Development of Public Education in La Crosse, Wisconsin, Up To And Including the Year,
1925," (master's thesis, State University of Iowa, 1951), pp. 72-76.
21. Council Proceedings, Feb. 10, 1905, p. 448; La Crosse Tribune, Jan. 4, 1905, Jan. 9, 1905, Jan.
11, 1905, Feb. 9, 1905, Feb. 11, 1905, and Feb. 17, 1905; and Journal of Proceedings of the
Forty-Seventh Session of the Wisconsin Legislature, (Madison, 1905), I, 127.
22. La Crosse Tribune andLeader-Press, Apr. 7, 1940; CouncilProceedings, Jun. 19, 1906, p. 222;
and La Crosse Tribune, Apr. 19, 1905.
23. For the statements of McConnell, Hardy, and Torrance, see La Crosse Tribune, Feb. 22, 1905,
Feb. 24, 1905, and Mar. 1, 1905, respectively. In the 1905 session, Assembly supporters were
W. D. Braddock (Jackson County), H. L. Ekern (Trempealeau County), W. A. Cleary (Juneau
County), John S. Durland and Thomas Johnson (La Crosse). Senators in support, besides
Thomas Morris, were John M. Whitehead (Rock County), and George B. Hudnall (Douglas
County). Whitehead'and Braddock were graduates of Yale College. McConnell, Hudnall, and
Ekern were law graduates of the University of Wisconsin. Cleary, Durland, and Johnson all
had previously held important public offices. For biographical information on Dr. Evans see the
La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press, Jun. 1, 1932, and on Frank Winter, the La Crosse
Tribune, Mar. 16, 1941.
24. La Crosse Tribune, Feb. 8, 1905.
25. La Crosse Tribune, Mar. 22, 1905, Mar. 23, 1905, Mar. 24, 1905, and Mar. 28, 1905.
26. For biographical sketches of Morris see Wisconsin State Journal, Sept. 7, 1928; La Crosse
Tribune, Apr. 10, 1938; Benjamin F. Bryant, ed., Memoirs of La Crosse County (Madison,
Wis.: Western Historical Association, 1907), p. 361; and John C. Gregory, ed., West Central
Wisconsin: A History (Indianapolis: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1933), IV, 411-415. The
La Crosse Tribune carried around 200 items on Morris' public and private life between 1905
and 1914.
27. La Crosse Tribune, Nov. 11, 1909.
28. Ibid., Apr. 10, 1940
29. Ibid., Jun. 10, 1908.
30. Board of Regents of Normal Schools, Proceedings, Feb. 3, 1909, pp. 21-22.
31. "Open Your Doors For Normal Pupils," La Crosse Tribune, Jul. 7, 1909. Material for the item
was supplied by Cotton.
32. La Crosse Daily Chronicle, Aug. 21, 1909; La Crosse Tribune, Sept. 7, 1909, and Sept. 16, 1909;
and, for the dedication program, see Newspaper Clippings of Early History, Normal School,
Misc. Items (1909-1929), ARC, UW-L, p.3.
33. La Crosse Tribune, Nov. 11, 1909.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.

Thomas Morris

Thomas Morris (1861-1928) was born in Canada where he spent his early
years on his father's farm, in his father's store, and attending the schools of St.
Armand parish, Quebec. After graduating from Bedford Academy, he studied
medicine. Not finding this to his liking, he clerked in a large department store
for several years. Later he went to Syracuse, New York, and engaged in the coal
business. After three years he sold that business and moved to La Crosse where
he learned the barber's trade. In that same year, 1886, he began studying law
in the offices of Crane and Martindale. Two years later he sold his business and
entered the law school at the University of Wisconsin (Madison). Upon
graduating in 1889, Morris began to practice law in La Crosse.

As a lawyer, Morris represented such disparate groups as the Twentieth
Century Club, which sought women's rights, and the Universal Chiropractic
Association, whose cases he pleaded throughout the United States.

He excelled as a trial lawyer and enjoyed the esteem of the local bar
association which spoke of him as a politician of the "highest type" and a man
of principle. One of his law partners described him as the "liberal" member of
the firm who, when discussing a particular case, always insisted that the
important question at stake was not "What is the law?" but rather "What is
right?"

Morris also served La Crosse County as district attorney (1900-1904), the
legislature as state senator (1904-1910), and the state administration as
lieutenant governor (1910-1914). He was mentioned as a gubernatorial
candidate in 1910 but chose not to run so as to prevent discord in the
Republican Party.

In politics Morris was an ardent progressive and a devoted follower of Robert
La Follette. As such, he fought against what he considered to be selfish
interests (the railroads, the rich, and the "stalwarts" of the Republican Party).
He also fought to save the state regulatory commissions and to initiate control
of election expenditures and procedures.

While serving in the state legislature, Morris carefully planned and, almost
single-handedly, led a new campaign for a normal school in La Crosse. This
time (1905) the resolution passed and an appropriation was made. Morris
became the local agent and was largely responsible for the organization of the
normal school and the selection of its first faculty.

Morris also served as regent of the normal school he fathered (1905-1913)
and as president of the Board of Regents of Normal Schools (1908-1909).

The Early Administrations

1909 - 1938

La Crosse has had seven executives in its seventy-year history: Presidents
Fassett Allen Cotton, Ernest Ashton Smith, George M. Snodgrass, Rexford S.
Mitchell, SamuelG. Gates, Kenneth E. Lindner (whose title became chancellor
with merger), and Chancellor Noel J. Richards.

Fassett Allen Cotton

Fassett Cotton was born in Indiana in 1862 into a farm family of rather
modest circumstances. At the time of his selection as president of the new state
normal school at La Crosse, he held the post of State Superintendent of Schools
in his home state. He had obtained his education and subsequent high position
through hard work and study. For his formal education, Cotton attended the
state normal school at Terre Haute, and Butler and Chicago Universities.
Interspersed with his formal higher education were positions as County
Superintendent (1889-1895), Deputy State Superintendent of Public Instruction
(1895-1902), and finally State Superintendent (1903-1909), all of Indiana. In
honor of his work for the improvement of rural schools, Franklin College,
Indiana, awarded him the Doctor of Laws degree in 1905.

The board of regents offered Cotton the presidency in February of 1909, and
he formally accepted the position on March 10, 1909. Arriving in La Crosse
during the summer of that year, he remained there until his resignation on
August 31, 1924.

After leaving La Crosse, Cotton continued his lifelong association with
education. He was president of Northern Arizona State Teachers College
(1924-1926), lecturer on education in the west coast area (1927-1931), and
teacher and publicist for Central Normal College, Danville, Indiana, from 1936
until his death in 1942. The slight shadow cast on his career during the last

Fassett A. Cotton, first president of the La
Crosse Normal School (1909-24), believed that
education should provide for both mental and
physical development.

The Early Administrations

years of his presidency at La Crosse was dispelled by the brightness of his
performance in a long life dedicated to better teachers and better schools. 1

Writing and speaking often on education, Cotton leaves the impression of an
intense, vigorous, and dedicated person. In his official reports and letters as
State Superintendent of Schools of Indiana, he iterated his viewpoints again
and again: In a democracy, education should be for all the people, and it should
be devoted to the whole person. The traditional approach to schooling was to
train part of the people partly; and that was not education for democracy. Every
person should be developed both physically and mentally. For his part, the
teacher must view learning as a total experience. Through the teacher, the
school should teach worthwhile habits of observation, accuracy, concentration.
The school should seek to discover and develop the talents and interests of the
students. The school should teach practical study to prepare its graduates for
the world in which they will live. Because only a few could be professional
persons, most people would earn their livelihood at manual labor. But
regardless of the kinds of careers individuals entered after graduation, they
should be trained to understand the meaning of life. 2

To the superintendent at Newton Stewart, Indiana, he wrote:

One of the most important works of a democracy is to
emphasize the dignity of manual toil: that of farming, of
black smithing, carpentering, or whatnot. The man who
labors with his muscle is just as important as the man who
labors with his brain... Anyone who does conscientiously
any work that the world needs to have done...is a
honorable man. 3

Years later, speaking on "The Country School" to the Wisconsin teachers
assembled at Milwaukee, Cotton repeated his belief in practical education and
the preparation of teachers who could understand the relationship between
education and the community background of their students. To this end he
wrote what sounds rather unusual today:

There must be country reading, country arithmetic, and
country geography. Each subject must be cast in terms of
the child's life. The course of study and its subject must be
adjusted to the life of the community. 4

Still later he told a rural school conference that the century in which they lived
demanded closer ties between the work of the school and the community. 5

At the same time, Cotton advocated the continuation of the study of man's
cultural heritage in history, literature, language, philosophy, and science. On
this subject he wrote, "There is no less demand for culture and scholarship in
the broadest meaning of the terms, but there is more demand for education that
will meet the practical needs of life...." 6 For this practical education schools
needed to provide manual arts and industrial training, agricultural education,
and physical education. Cotton's concept of physical education became the
philosophy of the department established during his administration as the
school's special field in teacher training. He viewed it not as athletic

The Early Administrations

competition but as individual development. In the superintendent's report of
1906 he wrote:

a distinction should be drawn between physical education
and athletics. Athletics have assumed a place in the school
world that is simply out of all proportion to their merits....
Every high school should be equipped with a good
gymnasium, and the boys and girls should have constant
systematic training in physical education. This training
should be supplemented with play. Games that will bring
into play the entire student body should be encouraged.
Inter-class games can be healthful and helpful sports and
can be kept subordinate to the real purpose of school life. 7

On the last day of his life, concerned with the poor physical condition of
American draftees for World War II, Cotton wrote in an unpublished article, he
had entitled "Physical Education and Preparedness":

A thorough and comprehensive course in physical
education should be provided in every school in this
nation, public, parochial, and private. It should be
compulsory for all boys and girls attending the elementary
and secondary schools. 8

Three other areas of learning also ought to be a part of every person's
education, according to Cotton: direct and indirect instruction in morals, music
education, and art education. By morals, he explained he meant instruction in
sex education, social manners and amenities, the virtues of silence and order in
the classroom, and sanitary practices. Music, he thought, would teach children
"to appreciate beauty" and art would help them develop the "habits of
accurate observation." 9

This general and practical education which Cotton envisioned required
skillful, highly-trained, well-paid teachers instructing in improved elementary
and high school buildings. So he was moved to write, "The greatest factor in
any school is the teacher. Indeed, the entire success of the school as an
institution depends on this factor." 10 The teacher, therefore, must be a
scholar, know how to teach, and be a worthy, moral person because students
will imitate him. The teacher, Cotton wrote, is a "missionary" who must be
willing to go beyond what he is paid for. He must learn about the community in
which he lives, he must know the parents, the workers, the grocer, the farmers
who make the environment. He must see the relationship among the school on
the one hand and the home, the church, and the government on the other. 11
Thus the school itself becomes a center not only of formal learning but of
community life. Cotton regarded the township high schools as being
exceedingly important. Of them he said:

The Early Administrations

These schools are often the centers of really great
learning, having, as they do, some of our strongest men
and women as teachers. Bright young graduates of our
normal schools, colleges and universities, ambitious to
rise in the professions, come to these schools and attract to
them the best young blood in the township.... The course
of study is made to appeal to the interests of the many,
and everything is done to make the time spent in school
worthwhile. For the vast majority this is the finishing
school, and it is made to mean as much as possible. And so
it becomes a great educational center, and marks an epoch
in the lives of many who are to take up their life work in its
shadow. It is not a preparatory school for college, though
many of its graduates go to college. Its aim is to do the
best thing it can for these who presumably will go no
further....In doing the best thing for the majority who do
not enter college, we have found that we are doing the
best thing for the minority who do go on to college and we
have come to believe that such a course prepares for
college best. 12

Cotton in Indiana

As superintendent of schools in Indiana Cotton left two significant
impressions. First, he virtually remade the school system of the state by
proposing pioneer legislation in several areas of education. And secondly, he
entered into a voluminous correspondence with teachers, principals, and local
superintendents aimed at the solution of every imaginable problem that could
arise.

In the first of these efforts he was responsible for school legislation in at least
five major areas. It was through his proposals that a whole series of legislative
enactments altered the educational system of Indiana. Cotton drafted the first
state aid law to help poorer areas lengthen their school periods to an
eight-month minimum. He obtained passage of legislation separating the
elementary and high schools. The first school consolidation law, the first
legislation requiring minimum training both academic and professional, and
the first legislation for salaries based on educational qualifications were all the
result of his work. He established the first high school bands and orchestras
and, wherever possible, encouraged the introduction of music into the lower
grades. In addition, he promoted the establishment of industrial and
agricultural vocational education. Farm groups for girls organized under
vocational education were forerunners of the 4-H clubs. Cotton's influence on
the total school system of Indiana is virtually inestimable. 13

Interspersed with the public speeches and the philosophical utterances were
a thousand matters of every day occurrence. Texts had to be purchased at the
lowest possible price. 14 The question of licensing teachers often appeared.
Cotton's answers to such questions reveal a humanitarian attitude at times and
at others a stern view toward the violators of elementary ethics. On the
revocation of a teacher's license he wrote in one instance:

The Early Administrations

Instead of revoking the young man's license you should
first call him to the office and tell him you propose to do so
unless he surrenders it voluntarily. In order to revoke a
license the matter must be made public which is a great
humiliation to the person most interested. 15

In another situation which involved a teacher of slovenly appearance, poor
preparation, and an easy-going attitude toward his pupils he supported,
without reservation, the decision not to renew his license. 16 Referring to the
separate but equal decision of the U.S. Supreme Court he advised a black
teacher from Chicago to apply for a position to city superintendents at
Indianapolis, Evansville, Rockport, Jeffersonville, and Madison where there
were "colored" schools. 17 To a black parent he communicated:

When you wrote to me the other day I thought you meant
that the trustee provided only for mixed schools. I did not
know that your trustee had made special arrangements for
colored schools. Inasmuch as the trustee provides colored
schools it will be necessary for you to send your children to
the nearest colored school.... 18

He denounced the use in high school contests of athletes not enrolled
full-time in school, solved mathematical problems for an anxious principal, and
reprimanded the superintendent at Williamsport for the conditions of the
outhouses at his school. He went forth to dedicate new school buildings. He
wrote generously for job applicants requesting his support. Of one he said, "I
have never known a finer man," of another, "One of the best-prepared men in
Indiana," and of a third, "Indiana has never had an educator who has met with
greater success in school work than Supt. Cooley." 19

He did not hesitate to ask for support in turn when he decided to run for a
third term -- apparently a departure from previous practice. To a local
superintendent he wrote:

I am going to be a candidate for the third nomination and I
want you when opportunity offers, to help create a
sentiment among the superintendents, high school
principals, etc. in favor of this action.20

To another: "I wish you would tell me in confidence which book men are
working against me." 21 Of one friend he asked for a letter to the governor in
support of his candidacy and to other acquaintances he suggested that since the
term of the state superintendent was so short he could expect reelection twice
in order to do a proper job. 22 When a possible competitor appeared to plan to
run for the office he wrote a friend: "If you could pull some strings to keep him
from doing so it would make my work easier." 23 Not surprisingly the journal of
which he was part owner gave him editorial support for the third term. 24 By
mid-summer of 1905 he still had reservations about success in seeking the
additional term, but was confident enough to write a supporter:

The Early Administrations

My political fences are now in good condition.... If the
educators in the state would just speak out to the
politicians....there would be no trouble, but too many
educators (confidential) are afraid to say anything for fear
it may hurt their own standing in their community. 25

The voters of Indiana repaid Cotton's careful planning by electing him to a third
term as superintendent.

The strenuous efforts in behalf of his beloved institutions and teachers led
Cotton to plead constantly for improved schools, better teachers, and higher
pay. 26 He reminded a round-table of state and county superintendents that
Americans annually spent $29 per capita on tobacco and alcohol but only $3.50
for education in all forms. And he concluded this address with a fervent
declaration of educational war:

No more splendid army ever marched to victory than the
mighty army of schoolteachers who have their faces set
against ignorance and idleness in the land. Once aroused
and every man to his duty, such a public sentiment will be
created in the interest of better salaries for teachers that
"we the people" will take hold of townships, and
municipalities, and states and the nation and will sweep
away the things that make for ignorance and idleness, and
will enthrone the forces that make for enlightenment and
personal righteousness. 27

Cotton in La Crosse

Fassett Cotton left Indiana and arrived in La Crosse in the summer of 1909
covered with praise for past deeds and faced with a new challenge in a strange
community. He was not, however, a stranger to normal schools; he had been on
the Indiana state board of normal schools for many years. An enormous
reservoir of goodwill in the new community awaited him; and his selection as
president seemed to meet with everyone's approval. With a rather cavalier

President Cotton's philosophy of total development
of the individual has remained with the
school and is illustrated in the official seal.

The Early Administrations

disregard for preciseness and with poorly suppressed excitement the local
press paid the new president this dubious compliment:

He is big enough to fill the building, and to throw about it
an atmosphere of his own personality, dominating it with a
broad influence which may be expected to exert itself upon
one of the greatest, if not the greatest normal in the
United States. 28

He went ahead quickly to select a faculty, get out literature for prospective
students, and formulate curriculum and instructions in a catalog. By the fall, he
had fourteen faculty for the normal departments to instruct the first students.
An additional four, all with schooling at Columbia University, arrived to begin
the "training" school. 29 He pleaded with the local people for rooms for
incoming students, reminded the community what the school could mean to it,
and issued a call to young persons to seek a career in teaching which would not
make them rich but would provide "more than the average of comfort, leisure,
and honor." He spoke of the need for jobs for prospective students: "Young
men willing to attend horses, care for furnaces, represent laundries and do
other duties that are within reach." Girls would be looking for housework and
waiting on tables. 30 Cotton successfully launched the new normal with the
goodwill of the community behind him. A local paper editorialized only a week
after the opening of school:

It is doubtful if any normal school ever started out with
brighter prospects than has the La Crosse Normal. It holds
the record for first attendance, it has a fine field, it has [a]
splendid building and equipment and grounds that will
become delightful, it is situated in a thriving, live
community whose people have great pride in the school
and its work. 31

The new president spoke often on education. He insisted that politics should
be kept out of educational matters. He told the Wisconsin Education
Association it should work for better teachers and demand higher salaries. He
moralized on good and evil to students gathered in assembly and reminded the
county superintendents that they had one of the most important jobs in the
whole school pattern. Together with members of his staff, he pleaded for
higher salaries for the faculty on the familiar grounds that present salaries were
lower than in other states and good faculty people were leaving because of
this. 32 He organized, directed, and played cornet in the first band at the school
after being provided with $250 to purchase instruments. 33

Early in his administration, President Cotton became involved in the
perennial issue of the transfer of credits from the normal schools to the
university at Madison. Overshadowing that issue was the effort of the normals
to receive statutory authorization to establish four-year degree granting
programs. Although the Madison faculty and administration were uncertain
exactly how to regard their country cousins, their president, Charles Van Hise,

The Early Administrations

knew his mind on the subject. He opposed the normals becoming
degree-awarding institutions, and three times (1907, 1909, and 1913) with the
help of the presidents of Lawrence and Ripon Colleges he blocked the
necessary enabling legislation.

In 1911, however, the legislature provided by law that two years of work at
the normals could count toward a four-year degree at the university at
Madison. This law specified, however, that the normal schools could not extend
their course offerings without specific legislative permission. The normals
promptly advertised the transfer opportunities in their catalogs only to find it
was not all that easy. Academic departments at Madison were often reluctant,
to the point of refusal, to accept certain courses within the two-year package.

In 1912 and again in 1916 Cotton corresponded with Van Hise complaining
about university departments refusing to transfer courses from La Crosse.
Specifically, the 1916 exchange centered around a summer course in organic
chemistry which the department at Madison would not accept. Cotton
threatened legal action, a threat he did not carry out.* The transfer issue lived
on through the next generations, largely becoming a thing of the past with the
merger of the two systems of Wisconsin higher education.

During Cotton's administration the regents obtained funds to expand the
campus and the physical plant. Following designation of La Crosse as the
special school for training teachers of physical education, the board purchased
land in preparation for the erection of a building to house the new program.
Authorized in 1914 and begun in 1916, the building stood uncompleted until
1920. An additional allotment provided for the development of an athletic field
on nearby county fairgrounds property. 34

Legislative opposition to the expenditure of $45,000 for the physical
education building almost prevented its erection. Assemblymen W. C. Bradley
of Hudson, Carl Pieper of Dunn County, and Henry Freehoff of La Crosse
sought to stop the appropriation. Former Wyoming cowboy and sometime
cavalry scout, Pieper, was quoted as denouncing the proposal as "nonsense"
and adding "that there never was a greater curse inflicted on the people of

Construction on Wittich Hall, the new
physical education building, was halted
during World War I. Note the victory
garden in the foreground.

*Merle E. Curti and Vernon Carstensen, The University of Wisconsin, A History, 1848-1925, II,
260-265. The original copies of Cotton's letters are missing, and the copies which the authors used
have been mislaid.

The Early Adrinistrations

Wisconsin than the teaching of physical training." Ultimately, the proposal
was saved through the work of Regent William E. Wolfe, Assemblymen E. J.
Kneen and Carl Kurtenacher, and Senator Otto Bosshard, while the local press
satirized Pieper as "David from Dunn" out to destroy that Goliath, "physical
culture."* A much-desired women's dormitory, however, was not forthcoming.
Instead, a special committee of the board of regents recommended that it be
built at Stevens Point rather than at La Crosse. 35

Cotton faced little criticism during the early years of his administration.
Regent president Theodore Kronshage did complain that Cotton had
established unauthorized courses in rural education and was "apparently
attempting to run a school at La Crosse as he sees fit." 36 Kronshage also
expressed concern about the use of the Bible in school exercises contrary to
Supreme Court rulings. 37 The student newspaper, however, had nothing but
praise after three years of Cotton's leadership:

At the head of the school is a man whose presence needs
no word of explanation. His record of accomplishment
brings laurels to his present position and in his ideals the
future prominence of this school is writ large and clear. 38

The following year a speech on sex hygiene by Carl Sputh to the Parent-Teacher's
Association meeting caused a minor uproar. Sputh's "medical
school" language caused several ladies to walk out and moved one listener to
observe

that unnecessarily daring treatment of a subject which
centuries of civilization have cloaked in modesty and
mystery will put the cause of the teaching of sex hygiene
back five years in La Crosse. 39

Carl Sputh, first director of the School of
Physical Education, caused a minor uproar when
he gave a speech on sex hygiene to the PTA.

*La Crosse Tribune, Mar. 11, 1915. See also, Ibid., Mar. 10, 1915, and Mar. 19, 1915. A portion of
the statement on Pieper read: "Ho, then, keeper of the hall of fame. Room for Mr. Piper (sic) of
Dunn, assemblyman in the State legislature. Enroll him on the shining list for posterity's envious
eye, for he has found an ancient error, older than history, and clubbed it right manfully. To him
belongs the credit for the revolutionary discovery that physical culture is a curse."

The Early Administrations

One unhappy "mother" cited Good Housekeeping as an authority in the field:

Little by little, with the flavor of the flowers and the music
of the bees, mother can lead the sensitive mind by a pretty
pathway into the realm of knowledge. 40

Amidst the controversy the La Crosse Tribune came to the defense of
President Cotton, suggesting among other things that most parents were too
ignorant themselves to teach sex hygiene. The editor reminded readers that
President Cotton had made "this school a model for others" and that no one
should "permit resentment at one young man's error to prolong a public frame
of mind positively detrimental to the value of the institution." 41 The writer
further called on people to believe in Cotton and not to expect him to denounce
one of his own teachers publicly 42 The controversy continued the next month 43
but rather humorously was brought to a close by a brief editorial entitled
"The Modesty of Uncle Sam" which pointed out that lectures on sex hygiene
could not be sent through the mails. The editor suggested:

That if we place sex biology and hygiene in the curriculum
of the public schools we may one day find our pupils
refused transportation on trains pulling United States mail
cars. 44

The war years 1917-1918 saw a diminution of the number of faculty and
students and the appearance on the campus of a Student Army Training Corps
unit. Five faculty members served overseas in the armed forces, another
worked for the YMCA in France, and a seventh did educational work for the
federal government. Those remaining at school proudly listed the names of 311
former teachers and students who went to war. Of the 132 who graduated in
1919 only eight were men. 45 The members of the Student Army Training
Corps, bivouacked in the local YMCA and schooled and drilled at the campus,
were intended to be officer material. The war ended before they were needed.
They gained notoriety by washing down the halls in the main building with the
fire hose and by a rather lackadaisical attitude toward their academic activities.
In brief statements collected by one of their displeased instructors, historian
Albert H. Sanford, once wrote of the "dull and academic work" some of which
he dropped in favor of "Physical Training," and another denounced "slinging
hash, pearl diving, and juggling maps." 46 The remaining faculty worked with
the patriotic fervor of those years making various contributions to the cause of
victory and duly reporting their activities to the president for inclusion in the
school catalog. 47 Those still at home also brought honor to the institution. The
president won election to high office among the state normal school heads,
English professor Bessie Bell Hutchison became an executive of the Western
Wisconsin Education Association, and Carl Sputh led the Wisconsin Physical
Education Association. 48 At war's end the president served on the committee
to erect a soldiers and sailors monument in La Crosse. 49

Otherwise uneventful years after the war were interrupted by a "Spartacan"
revolt in 1919. On occasion of a normal basketball title victory, students

The Early Administrations

marched out of classes and headed downtown for a victory celebration. Halted
by the president returning from lunch, the rebellious students returned three
hundred strong to the normal building after being promised a dance that
evening. Several of the leaders were brought before a stern faculty committee
which held a "hearing" on the matter. This time the press sympathized with
the students.

When the local normalites became the state champs in
football a year ago last fall, school was voluntarily
dismissed as a matter of course, and the entire student
body paraded the business district, banners flying and
bands playing. Although the school spirit has not been
overly strong on account of disrupting effects of the
S.A.T.C., the boys and girls of '17 had not forgotten the
good old days. 50

With his usual vigor Cotton addressed the public on the question of teachers'
salaries, equalization of taxes, and on the need for state and federal aid to
education. He asserted that the nation should support the education of its
children in order to fulfill the "promise of democracy." He also spoke of the
value of the normal to the community, and at the fall semester opening in 1923
he estimated that the school's students spent one-half million dollars. On
another occasion Cotton blamed the regents' action of discontinuing the college
course for the drop in enrollments. 51

In these last years of his career at La Crosse, Cotton found it difficult to make
financial ends meet in an era of penny-pinching budgets. To keep his good
faculty, he sought to raise salaries; to raise salaries he had to cut elsewhere. He
thus incurred the distrust of some faculty, the displeasure of several
businessmen demanding payment of overdue bills for supplies, and
subsequently the concern of the board of regents. Among the rather
straight-laced faculty which he had assembled from Indiana, Illinois, and
Wisconsin, such a situation was not only indicative of bad administration but to
some was essentially immoral. Asked to resign, Cotton was given an
opportunity for a hearing before the regents which he decided not to accept. 52

President Cotton left indelible marks on the La Crosse school by the
introduction of physical education as a special field of teacher training and by
faculty appointments of lasting influence. For many years before his
appointment as president of the La Crosse school, he had advocated physical
education for school children. Although the impetus for establishing this
speciality in the normal school system came from elsewhere, Cotton welcomed
that special field to La Crosse. Apparently, he viewed it as a separate entity, for
he designated it a "School of Physical Education," and gave the title of
"Director" to its first head, Carl B. Sputh, the only staff member to hold that
title at the time. The School of Physical Education also had its own curriculum
bulletin. 53 Thus began an area of specialization which remains La Crosse's
major effort in teacher training. Faculty appointments made by the first
president included twenty-one who remained until retirement. Their
educational careers were inextricably interwoven into the fabric of the school's

The Early Administrations

history. Their average term of service was thirty-three years and they
represented sixty percent of the instructional faculty during the last year of his
administration. They provided a continuity of staff which carried the school
through the next administration without interruption of its services to the
community.*

Ernest A. Smith

Upon President Cotton's resignation in the summer of 1924, an executive
committee consisting of historian Albert H. Sanford and geographer Clayton A.
Whitney was given the presidential powers and duties. This committee
assumed the usual functions of the presidential office until July, 1925, when
Ernest A. Smith, appointed in the spring of that year, became La Crosse's
second president. Sanford and Whitney left their temporary joint presidency
praised by La Crosse regent A. W. Zeratsky and their colleague Walter
Wittich. Zeratsky wrote:

Drafted into service when the school needed them, these
men have shown a keen insight and sympathetic
understanding of the problems confronting the school. It is
not an easy task carrying a double load of teaching and
administrative work. However, they gave graciously of
their time and efforts and under their able leadership
much progress was made. Standards generally were
raised; the rural and training departments reorganized

Ernest A. Smith served a short term (1925-26)
as La Crosse Normal's second president.

*The twenty-one: Lincoln K. Adkins (mathematics), Rena M. Angell (art), Adolph H. Bernhard
(chemistry), Oren E. Frazee and Anna Wentz (biology), David O. Coate, Bessie Bell Hutchison,
and O. O. White (English), James A. Fairchild (physics), Albert H. Sanford, Myrtle Trowbridge,
and William M. Laux (history), J. F. Rolfe, Everett L. Walters and William H. Sanders (education),
Martha Skaar and Florence S. Wing (library), Clayton A. Whitney (geography), Hans C. Reuter,
Emma L. Wilder, and Walter J. Wittich (physical education), and Sarah Bangsberg (Dean of
Women).

The Early Administrations

and placed on a basis of efficiency; deficits in school
accounts were wiped out and all school activities and
organizations were placed on a sound financial basis. 54

Wittich, also reflecting the concern and displeasure of some faculty concerning
events of the latter years of Cotton's administration, said:

These two men, the executive committee, have done a
good piece of work. They have captained a derelict safely
back to port. 55

At the time of his appointment President Smith was superintendent of schools
in Evanston, Illinois. He had a formidable background in formal education and
in educational service. A native of Ohio, he held bachelor's (1888) and master's
(1891) degrees from Ohio Wesleyan University and a doctorate from Johns
Hopkins (1900). He studied further at Oxford (1906) and the University of
London (1907). He taught history at Allegheny College (1898-1910 and
1913-1916) and at Princeton (1910-1913) where he became acquainted with
Woodrow Wilson. He held the office of superintendent of schools in Salt Lake
City (1916-1920) and in Evanston (1920-1924). A prolific writer, he published,
among other works, The History of the Confederate Treasury (1901), The
Diplomatic Contest for the Ohio Valley (1909), and Allegheny, A Century of
Education (1915). 56

An acquaintance of fifty years wrote of Dr. Smith's years at Allegheny that
he was thought of as "a wonderful teacher, a wise friend, and a most popular
and beloved professor on the campus," and that "he had a special genius for
working with young people." 57 Professor Leon W. Miller spoke of him as a
kindly, democratic person. Other faculty people regarded him as rather
eccentric and arbitrary. It was the opinion of a life-long friend that the new La
Crosse president was ill when he took the post, and that his unusual behavior
on certain occasions was the result of that illness. 58

Dr. Smith came to La Crosse highly recommended on the basis of his
scholastic activities and previous positions. Besides distinguished careers as a
history professor at Allegheny and Princeton, he gave courses in education and
directed teacher training at Northwestern University. In 1912 at Princeton he
was voted an honorary member of the graduating class and named the most
popular assistant professor. 59 As superintendent of schools in Salt Lake City,
he carefully reported the conditions of the public schools to the board of
education annually. He also persuaded the board to erect new buildings, repair
old ones, and raise teachers' salaries. He coped well with the problems arising
from the severe winter weather of 1917 and influenza epidemic of 1919. He
asked for more care in assigning students to schools for "sub normals"
because of the unnecessary stigma placed on such students.

During the war years, the school system over which he presided participated
vigorously in the national effort. School youngsters wrote essays on buying
bonds, supported the liberty loan drives, and organized thrift campaigns for
war saving stamps. The junior high school became an established institution
under Smith's superintendency. As his predecessor, Fassett Cotton, had done
in Indiana, Smith supported the separation of junior and senior high schools in

The Early Administrations

Salt Lake City. In his last year at Salt Lake he reported proudly that almost
ninety-seven percent of the school population in the city was enrolled, a new
high. His closing words were characteristically gracious thanks to those who
had worked for him through the years. 60 As superintendent of schools in
Evanston, Illinois, he put special emphasis on improvement of elementary
education, health and physical education, instruction of music and art. 61

Little of President Smith's short tenure at La Crosse comes to light. At
announcement of his appointment as president, the faculty sent its cordial
greetings and pledged its "loyal support to your administration." It received in
reply a telegram which referred to the "highly reputed staff of educators" at
the school. 62 The commencement date was changed so Dr. Smith might
address his new charges and the community. A surprise visitor at the
commencement was the Rev. William H. Crawford, head of the Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. President of Allegheny when
Smith had taught there, Crawford spoke of the new president as a "scholar,"
and "inspiring leader," and "a friend of the younger people." 63

In his address, President Smith spoke of the important role of the public
school in American society. He told his listeners democracy required education
to train youth and the public must provide the funds for it. Increasingly, he said
further, modern education freed from prejudice and blindness, a freedom
important in the teaching of young people. He spoke, too, of the "new
learning" as the system by which the teacher leads the child rather than forces
him to learn. And he concluded that Wisconsinites long ago had decided "only
the best shall serve the state." 64

In session with his faculty, Smith dealt with the usual problems of publicity,
high school visitations, and class attendance reports. 65 He spoke to the faculty
on administrative policy taking as his theme his salutation to students: "To
those about to live--live more broadly and more richly, greetings." 66 He urged
assembled students to be proud of their school and to respect it as they did their
fathers and mothers. He raised the question of disorder in the halls and
libraries to the faculty and then decided to address the students themselves on
the matter. With his support the faculty adopted a general statement on
"honorary and professional fraternities" which in turn permitted establish-
ment of Phi Epsilon Kappa for physical education. Within little over a year,
Smith accepted an offer to become president of Toledo University. Two months
later he died. Only two weeks before his death he had thanked faculty members
at La Crosse for their cooperation, fidelity, and sincerity. 67 His death, wrote a
local editor, ended the opportunity which he had been offered to promote
democratic education in a municipal university:

The opportunity to pioneer in this branch of education, the
prospect of making a great contribution to educational
advancement, the certainty--with success--of creating an
important personal reputation, were all inherent in Dr.
Smith's new post. And all this fruition of his life's work in
education has been denied him. 68

The Early Administrations

George M. Snodgrass

The regents again appointed Professors Sanford and Whitney to serve as an
executive committee until the board found a new president. This second
interregnum ended with the selection of George M. Snodgrass "on the
unanimous recommendation of the Special Committee of the Board." 69 A
product of Hamline, Northwestern, and Wisconsin universities, he was at the
time of his election director of teacher training at Superior State Normal. He
had taught grade school at Wausau and high school at River Falls where he was
principal from 1901 to 1904. During the next twelve years he worked as
supervising principal at Alma, Barron, Neillsville, and Oconto, and as principal
of the Barron County Normal at Rice Lake. In 1916 he became director of
teacher training at Superior Normal. In this position he participated in
numerous educational associations. In the viewpoint of a local newspaper he
was "peculiarly qualified to assume leadership in a state normal school." 70 On
the eve of this appointment, the local regent encouraged Snodgrass "to put our
best foot forward." Apparently he did just that, for the regent commented a
few weeks later:

Frankly, I did not believe it possible for a man to make so
many fine impressions and so much headway with school
people and citizens generally as you have made in the
short time you have been here. I can see only successful
and happy days ahead of you here. So far as I am
personally concerned, in the short time you have been in
charge of the school, a great load has been lifted off my
shoulders.... 71

Professors Albert Sanford (left) and Clayton Whitney (right) served as an executive
committee while the board of regents searched for presidents to replace Cotton and
Smith.

The Early Administrations

Years later, Otto Schlabach wrote on the termination of his regency:

With the exception of two or three incidents at board
meetings, all in relation to other schools, these five years
have been very pleasant. The thing that is outstanding in
my mind and that I have appreciated the most, has been
the contact and association with you throughout these five
years.... No school in the system enjoys the confidence
and goodwill of the brand that this school does and that
...is altogether due to the modest and honest manner in
which you have presented the facts and needs of this
school. 72

Snodgrass enjoyed high esteem among his contemporaries. At the time of his
appointment to the normal at Superior, a friend wrote Superior President V. E.
McCaskill: "I am not surprised to learn that you have found George M.
Snodgrass a prince ....He is practically without Original Sin (a thing that both
you and I have to contend with)." 73 On the occasion of his death in 1939, his
fellow-presidents described him as "quiet, modest, unobtrusive," a "cultured,
friendly gentleman," a "human, lovable man," a "kindly gentleman," and "a
conscientious public servant...kindly, honest, sympathetic." 74

In his first speech to students in assembly President Snodgrass embodied the
main theme of his philosophy of education. "I am a firm believer in hard work
and sound scholarship in the school," he said, "It is no place for loafers. A
degree, if worth anything, must have high standards behind it." 75 He also told
the students he believed in them and he liked working with young people. He
also noted his pleasure in heading an institution which trained teachers in
physical education. In his view that area had been neglected too long in the
schools of Wisconsin. But he also called on the devotees of physical education
to recognize that the lasting values in life were scholarly in nature. In turn, the
scholar should acknowledge the importance of physical well-being.

President Snodgrass was equally at home talking about Shakespeare or the

George M. Snodgrass, a proponent of liberal
arts, was president (1927-39) when the normal
school achieved teachers college status and began
granting four-year degrees.

The Early Administrations

problems of supervision in education. He spoke seriously to young
Presbyterians on "The Fine Art of Living" and humorously to the League of
Women Voters on "Civilized Loafing." He was highly articulate on the
importance of democracy in education and enthusiastically endorsed the idea of
schooling for the masses. 76 Education, he told the D.A.R., "should be the
chief concern of democratic government." 77 He was convinced that traditional
education which emphasized rote learning should be replaced by the
progressive educational idea to liberate the capacity to learn. "Teaching a child
to think and allowing him to think is the only way to educate him" he told a
local civic group. 78

During Snodgrass's twelve-year administration, La Crosse, together with the
other normal schools in Wisconsin, achieved teachers college status and began
granting four-year degrees. In the course of this change-over, the president
sought to get the faculty to increase the liberal arts components in teacher
training, especially in physical education. His efforts in that regard were
frustrated, but he continued to believe in his proposals and to speak in their
behalf.

La Crosse also weathered the depression including a threat to close it
together with River Falls, Eau Claire, and Stevens Point. In the face of this
possibility, Snodgrass told a worried local public, "to close any of their
[colleges] doors now would be to prevent students from the homes of farmers,
laborers and tradesmen from attaining intellectual improvement." 79 A year
later he proudly asserted that the La Crosse college had operated very
economically during the difficult period just past and at the same time had
initiated higher standards of scholarship and enriched the course offerings. He
persisted in the quest for new buildings and saw the erection of a women's
gymnasium for physical education, a heating plant, and the beginnings of a
campus school--the latter two after tortuous and complex dealings with the
Public Works Administration of the federal government. 80

Perhaps for the status of the school in the academic world and the local
community, Snodgrass' successful pursuit of accreditation by the North Central
Association was his most important contribution. In seeking and obtaining such
recognition, Snodgrass took a different viewpoint of its importance than most
presidents of teachers colleges in the country who expressed preference for
accreditation by Teachers College Association. It was his view that the school
and its students would benefit from such recognition. As a result of his efforts
La Crosse was accredited in the spring of 1928 as a teacher-training institution
only. The North Central Association did not yet regard the four-year degrees at
La Crosse as equivalent to "standard" college and university courses and
therefore required special certification by the president of cases that might be
so considered. 81 Accreditation did not come easily; and it was only a first step
in an uphill struggle still going on to achieve adequate recognition both inside
and outside the community in which the school exists. During the presidency of
Mr. Snodgrass, the North Central Association renewed approval in 1930, 1933,
1934, and 1936. 82 In addition the American Association of Teachers Colleges
extended accreditation to La Crosse which it renewed repeatedly over the
years. 83 Following such recognition by the North Central Association, the
president proudly announced enriched offerings in science, art, and physical

The Early Administrations

education and that the La Crosse faculty, through summer study, was steadily
being improved. He also wrote that the number of special students
(pre-professionals and liberal arts generally) had increased because:

Young people in the vicinity of La Crosse are realizing that
academic courses at the local institution are offered by
men and women of high scholarship and teaching ability,
and have become aware of the fact that credits earned
here can be transferred without loss to colleges and
universities throughout the country. 84

Meantime the president dealt with the various matters requiring his
attention and efforts. After a rough-housing involving freshmen he announced:

We do not believe in hazing, and before anything
happens, as it has at other schools, we draw the line where
hazing in any way could result in injury or exhaustion. 85

He told a group of young people they ought to recapture the restraint practiced
by their fathers and return to "some of the simpler virtues of life." 86 When
proponents of a proposal to establish a single board of regents for higher
education in Wisconsin presented their proposition, Snodgrass opposed it
because he did not believe "any one board would understand the problems of
so many institutions." 87
Near the end of his career Snodgrass faced the charge of radicalism from an
irate relative, Janesville attorney Paul N. Grubb. Grubb accused him of
fostering propaganda at La Crosse in favor of the New Deal, La Follette, and
FDR, all to the detriment of the college and society in general. Grubb wrote to
governor-elect Julius Heil that while he did not want to cause Snodgrass any
grief,

it might be well to call him onto the executive carpet and
explain to him that after all the state teachers college at La
Crosse is not an institute for the teaching of politics, but
rather supposedly an institution in which a moderate
degree of higher learning is imparted into persons who are
going to teach, and that if in the course of their work at
this college they learn about some of the subjects which
they are going to teach that would, after all, be fulfilling
the function of the institution. 88

Grubb also complained of forty years of "La Follette" propaganda fomented
by university professors "who make every effort to shake their [student] faith
in every honest, decent kind of economics and religion." He further accused
the high schools, and specifically the one at Janesville, of no longer teaching

such things as reading, writing, arithmetic, geography,
history, latin [sic], etc. They do have courses which carry
those labels but the teachers are frankly political
propagandists for the New Deal and the La Follettes. 89

The Early Administrations

Snodgrass sharply denied the charges of radicalism and dereliction in the
schools and characteristically commented to a friend that

our present problems are more deep-seated than any
party, that democracy itself is on trial on this earth, and
that only by intelligence, broad sympathetic understanding
and courage can the ideals of our fathers be
perpetuated. This is the only program that I can support
under whatever label it may operate. 90

Heil did not call him on the carpet, perhaps because death intervened, perhaps
because better judgment prevailed.

President Snodgrass as his predecessor, President Cotton, left a continuing
influence through appointments to the faculty. Among his appointees were
nine whose careers individually exceeded twenty-five years of service and
together averaged thirty-five years. They devoted their professional lives and
very often much of their private lives to the university.*

*The nine: Alvida Ahlstrom (French language and literature); Thomas Annett (music); Milford A.
Cowley (chemistry); Catherine Crail (library); Alice Drake (elementary education); Lora Greene
(Registrar); Edgar C. Knowlton (English); Theodore Rovang (biology); and Marie Park Toland
(speech). All were granted emeritus status upon retirement.

The Early Administrations

NOTES

1. For biographical information on Cotton see: Mary W. Wayman, "The Work and Influence of
Fasset Allen Cotton in Education," (master's thesis, Ball State Teachers College, Muncie,
Ind., 1945), pp. 9-11; Legislative and State Manual of Indiana for 1903 (Indianapolis: 1902),
p. 137; Commemorative Biographical Record of Prominent and Representative Men of Indianapolis
and Vicinity (Chicago: 1908), pp. 445-447; E. E. Moore, Moore's Hoosier Cyclopedia
(Connersville, Ind., 1905), p. 139; La Crosse Tribune, Jan. 6, 1909, and Feb. 3, 1909; and Jacob
Piatt Dunn, Greater Indianapolis, The History, The Industries, The Institutions, and the People
of a City of Homes (Chicago:1910) II, 1026-1028. His career in Indiana was broadly praised at
the time of his death. See Indiana Biography, XXV, (Indianapolis: 1942), pp. 62-63.
2. Wayman, pp. 13-21. The synopsis comes from Cotton's report of 1904.
3. Cotton to B. T. McFarland, Superintendent of Public Instruction (Indiana) Letters, 45:523-33,
Indiana Historical Society Library, Indianapolis, Ind. Hereafter this source is cited as SSPI.
Cotton wrote voluminously; there are twelve volumes of letters alone for the years
1903-1905.
4. La Crosse Tribune, Nov. 5, 1909.
5. Ibid., Nov. 10, 1911. Cotton approved of Booker T. Washington's methodology at Tuskegee
Institute after a visit to that school. Especially he praised Washington's teaching of the "Joy of
Work." See Indianapolis News, Mar. 1, 1905.
6. Wayman, p. 23.
7. Ibid., p. 27. Compare the following statement on physical education which appeared in the
school catalog for over twenty years after 1914 with some minor changes in wording.
Athletes who could play football, baseball, and basketball were early to
be had, and some have had fine athletic teams in all the high schools of
standing in the state, but little else. The few were trained in a special
kind of work, but the many were merely permitted to look on at the
games.

This statement does not underestimate the value of athletics, but it is
intended to emphasize the fact that athletics and physical education are
not synonymous terms. Athletics is but one branch of physical
education--a branch that has its value no less than its limitations.
See Bulletin of the State Normal School, La Crosse, Wis., School of Physical Education, May,
1914, p. 11, and AnnualBulletin, State Teachers College, La Crosse, Wisconsin, 1934, p. 91.
8. Wayman, p. 27. Two publications illustrate Cotton's interest in industrial and agricultural
education. One, with Martin L. Fisher, was entitled Agriculture for Common Schools (New
York, 1911) and another, with Eldreth G. Allen, Manual Training for Common Schools (New
York, 1910).
9. Wayman, p. 31.
10. Ibid., pp. 31-32.
11. Fassett A. Cotton, "The School and the Community, " The Educator-Journal, IV (Feb., 1904),
257-260. The first La Crosse catalog embodies Cotton's educational philosophy in the curriculum
and in the explanations of the purposes and functions of the school. The tendency toward
practical training has persisted through the history of the school although it is less apparent
today than it was fifty years ago. The La Crosse Normal, it appears, was truly Cotton's
creation. See Bulletin of the State Normal School, La Crosse, Wisconsin, June, 1910, esp.
pp. 11-48.
12. Fassett A. Cotton, "The Township High School System of Indiana," The School Review, XII
(Apr., 1904), 274.
13. Wayman, pp. 49-98. For a summary of Cotton's role, see pp. 97-98.
14. Cotton to Scribners, D. C. Heath, Scott, Foresman, and the American Book Company, May 2,
1904, SSPI, 54:7-10. Among books considered were such substantial titles as: American
Leaders and Heroes, The City of Seven Hills, Stories of Pioneer Life, Great Americans for
Little Americans, Old Stories of the East, and Story of the Chosen People.
15. Cotton to J. W. Dunn, May 2, 1904, SSPI, 54:16.

The Early Administrations

16. Cotton to Mr. Wilson, Jun. 24, 1904, SSPI, 54:459.
17. See, for example, Cotton to Maggie Stanton, May 11, 1904, SSPI, 54:104, and Cotton to
C. M. McDaniel, Dec. 8, 1904, SSPI, 51:231.
18. Cotton to Robert Newbolt, May 28, 1904, SSPI, 51:130.
19. Cotton to J. T. Giles, Dec. 1, 1904, SSPI, 51:137; Cotton to J. H. Holliday, Dec. 15, 1904, SSPI,
51:287; Cotton to S. C. Hanson, Jan. 9, 1905, SSPI, 51:481; Cotton to E. E. Rice, Dec. 12, 1904,
SSPI, 51:251; Cotton to Supt. Whiting, Jul. 2, 1904, SSPI, 51:491; Cotton to J. M. Culver,
June 11, 1904, SSPI, 51:364; Cotton to Orville Brewer, Aug. 4, 1905, SSPI, 51:463; and Cotton
to C. M. McDaniel, May 10, 1904, SSPI, 54:95.
20. Cotton to H. S. Kaufman, Aug. 7, 1905, SSPI 57:491.
21. Cotton to H. B. Brown, Aug. 18, 1905, SSPI, 57:570.
22. Cotton to W. O. Protsman, Jul. 8, 1905, SSPI, 51:248, and Cotton to Henry C. Starr,
Jul. 8, 1905, SSPI, 51:250.
23. Cotton to George B. Lockwood, Aug. 11, 1905, SSPI, 57:531.
24. The Educator-Journal, VI (Apr., 1906) : 376-377.
25. Cotton to D. O. Coate, Jul. 8, 1905, SSPI, 57:246. Coate followed Cotton to La Crosse where he
remained as a member of the English Department until his retirement.
26. See, for example, F. A. Cotton, "The Teacher's County Institute," The Educator-Journal, IV
(Jul., 1904): 488-490; Cotton, "The County Institute, The Educator-Journal, VIII (Oct., 1907):
133-134; and Cotton to L. L. Robinson, Nov. 18, 1904, SSPI, 51:85-86.
27. National Education Association, Fiftieth Anniversary Volume, 1857-1906 (Winona, Minn.:
1907), p. 139.
28. La Crosse Tribune, Nov. 11, 1909. For more words of praise see alsoLa Crosse Tribune, Jan. 6,
1909, and Feb. 3, 1909; Indianapolis Star, Feb. 4, 1909; and Dunn, Greater Indianapolis,
pp. 1027-1028.
29. The first faculty were: James O. Engleman, vice president; Albert H. Sanford, history and
civics; Adolph Bernhard, physics and chemistry; David O. Coate, English; Lewis Atherton,
biology and agriculture; William A. Austin, mathematics; Levinus P. Denoyer, geography and
geology; Ernest D. Long, Latin and German; Mrs. Homer E. Cotton, music; Elizabeth W.
Robertson, drawing; Bessie B. Hutchison, English; Ada F. Thayer, physical training; Margaret
Spence, domestic science; William H. Sanders, principal, Training School Department; Lilian
Bettinger, Training School grades seven and eight; La Verne Garratt, Training School grades
five and six; Lottie L. Deneen, Training School grades one and two; Clara D. Hitchcock,
Training School kindergarten; Florence Wing, librarian. Cotton listed himself as president
although his legal title was principal. He taught a course called School Economics and was in
charge of the two-year Country School Course.
30. La Crosse Tribune, Jul. 7, 1909, Jul. 16, 1909, Jul. 22, 1909, Aug. 3, 1909, and Aug. 20, 1909.
31. Ibid., Sept. 15, 1909.
32. Ibid., Oct. 25, 1909, Nov. 5, 1909, Jan. 29, 1910, Nov. 5, 1910, Mar. 5, 1919, Oct. 3, 1923, and
Oct. 19, 1923.
33. Board of Regents of Normal Schools (Wisconsin), Report, Sept. 10, 1914, p. 68.
34. Ibid., Feb. 7-9, 1912, p. 66; Sept. 10-11, 1914, pp. 67-68; and Apr. 10-11, 1917, p. 14.
35. Ibid., Feb. 7, 1914, p. 59.
36. Kronshage to Thomas Morris, April 28, 1912, Kronshage Papers, Box 1, Wisconsin State
Historical Society, (hereafter cited WSHS), Madison, Wisconsin.
37. Kronshage to Morris, Apr. 22, 1912, Kronshage Papers, Box 1.
38. Racquet (newspaper), Nov. 15, 1912.
39. La Crosse Tribune, Nov. 26, 1913.
40. Ibid., Dec. 10, 1913.
41. Ibid., Dec. 1, 1913.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid., Dec. 10, 1913, Dec. 11, 1913, and Dec. 13, 1913.
44. Ibid., Dec. 15, 1913.
45. The faculty were: Lincoln K. Adkins, Marshall A. Goff, G. H. Heineman, Joel R. Moore,
Russell V. Morgan, Clyde R. Moore, and O. O. White. See the Racquet (annual) for 1917 and
1919 and The Bulletin of the State Normal School at La Crosse, June, 1918, p. 48.
46. Walter H. Baum and Jay Are, "My Experience in the S.A.T.C.," Sanford Papers, University
Archives, ARC, UW-L. Slinging hash and pearl diving is army jargon for cooking and washing
dishes.