Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Education wasn’t always the norm
The front page of the Arkansas Gazette published at Little Rock 100 years ago today was gray with speculation about the Great War. “Huns” (Germans, enemies) were rumored to be invading the (possibly) capitulating Russia (former friend, now enemy) from Finland, and “Japs” (Japanese, friends) were said to be about to invade Siberia to help some Cossack (friend?) fend off Bolsheviks (enemies).
In Washington, a conference would meet to discourage labor strikes; and a U.S. senator had declared himself against shipyard bribe-takers and slackers.
And in Arkansas, an expert was coming from Memphis to exhort the South to feed herself.
So … grayness. But wait, what is this? Way down at the bottom of the page, an item datelined Conway:
Not Likely to Accept
A Fort Smith dispatch in the Gazette this morning, to the effect that president B.W. Torreyson of the State Normal School has been elected to the superintendency of the Fort Smith public schools and would probably accept, created much alarm here, but Mrs. Torreyson made a statement that it is entirely impossible that Mr. Torreyson will give favorable consideration to the proposition.
For one thing, she said, Burr Walter Torreyson was in Washington attending a war conference of school and college executives with the U.S. commissioner of education, P.P. Claxton. For another, he did not want to be superintendent of the Fort Smith public schools.
“It is really nothing new,” said Mrs. Torreyson, referring to the Gazette dispatch. “Mr. Torreyson has been elected to the Fort Smith position almost every year since he left that city.”
He’d left in 1905, hired away to super-intend public schools in Little Rock. Torreyson and his popular wife, Alice, were big hits in Little Rock and much reported upon.
I especially enjoy a report from Dec. 14, 1909, that he intended to use the newfangled phonograph to teach their little daughter, Elizabeth (1901-1974), to speak foreign languages. The machine came with 30 records, and books.
Prof. Torreyson explained yesterday that it is much easier for a child to learn the accent of
a foreign language than an older person, and that by carefully listening to phonographic records in any language a child might be able to study the accent in that language long before time to take up the study of the grammar and other parts of the language.
This familiarity would come in handy for the child when the time came to study the language at school, “inasmuch as many instructors in foreign languages in high schools are not adept in accent in the languages which they teach and hence able to give but little aid along that line.”
That report called him “professor” because, after four years as head of Little Rock schools, he had recently accepted a newly created appointment to the University of Arkansas. Of great importance, his job as the state’s first professor of secondary education was funded by the General Education Board — of New York. It made him Arkansas’ state high school inspector.
For eight years, he traveled around inspecting schools and urging teachers to improve their own education. He effectively developed the standard curriculum taught in state high schools — of which there were too few. Yes, once upon a time in Arkansas, there were very few high schools.
And once upon a time just a few years before there was a school inspector, there was no state funding for public schools. That changed during the legislative session of 1911, under pro-education Gov. George Donaghey — but not without a fight.
For an eye-opening perspective on just how far support for public education came in this state during the first two decades of the 20th century, look up “History of Public School Education in Arkansas, 1900-1918.” It is the dissertation of one William Oscar Wilson, candidate for master of arts at The University of Chicago in 1918. Wilson’s graceful prose enlivens 180 pages on the crusade to impose literacy upon an indifferent and sometimes hostile populace. You can find it at arkansasonline. com/22618dissertation.
In 1917, Torreyson was elected the second president of the Arkansas State Normal School at Conway. “Normal” schools did not teach normal people, they taught norms — the standards that guide teachers what to teach. This was the state teachers college. He led it until his retirement in 1930, due to poor health.
So why did Fort Smith education boards go on voting for Torreyson to be their school superintendent?
“Fort Smith is my old home and Mr. Torreyson spent 15 years in the schools of that city,” Alice Torreyson told the Gazette 100 years ago. “We both love Fort Smith and her people very much, but Mr. Torreyson feels that his work in that city has been accomplished, and I am sure that under no circumstances would he consider the acceptance of the place to which he has been elected.”
Nevertheless, on March 18, 2018, the Gazette reported that Dr. St. Cloud Cooper, president of the Fort Smith Board of Education, was convinced he was still in negotiations.
Finally, March 20, the paper reported that Cooper had received a telegram from Torreyson definitively stating that, no, he would not accept.
This was a popular guy. A farmer’s son, Torreyson was born and educated in Hillsboro, Va., according to one seven-volume … let’s call it an encyclopedia of important people, published in 1904, The Province and the States: A History of the Province of Louisiana Under France and Spain, and of the Territories and States of the United States Formed Therefrom.
The entry for Torreyson adds an S to his middle name, but otherwise persuasively argues:
Torreyson’s whole life, since reaching manhood, has been devoted to educational work. As an instructor he has few equals. He realizes the nobility of his profession and takes pride in elevating the standard of the schools entrusted to his charge.
If I were a municipal public school, I would like a man like that to be my superintendent, too.
Torreyson died after a stroke May 29, 1932, and is buried at Fort Smith’s Forest Park Cemetery. State Normal became Arkansas State Teachers College, and Alice served 32 years there as a counselor and dormitory hostess. Her retirement in 1949 was noted in the statewide newspaper. She died in 1974 and lies beside her husband.
You’ll find the name Torreyson today on the library of the University of Central Arkansas, direct descendant of State Normal, which continues to educate many of the state’s teachers.