San Francisco County
Dr. HOMER B. SPRAGUE
President of Peralta Hall.
(The following biographical sketch of Mr. Sprague is taken largely from The Cosmopolitan magazine, London, England.)
Homer B. Sprague is a native of Sutton, Massachusetts. He was the second of nine children. His father was a hard worker, a man greatly respected for his unusual intelligence and high moral character, successively a blacksmith, a skillful maker of axes and adzes, and a farmer. The family had more brains than money, and the boy was trained up to assist in supporting the rest. At the age of nine, he was accordingly set to work in Lovett’s cotton factory, in East Douglas, Massachusetts; afterwards at shoemaking for Simon J. Woodbury, of Sutton, and Joel Bacheller, of Northbridge, and at agricultural employment on his grandfather’s and his father’s farm, in South Sutton.
At Leicester
Academy, Massachusetts, which he entered in 1847, he was noted for his
industry, usually rising for study at five o’clock in the morning, summer and
winter. Obliged to practice the very
strictest economy, he, for a long time “boarded himself,” in a little room at
the top of the academy building, where he lived mostly on bread and milk. When he entered the institution, and for a
year afterwards, he did not believe it possible that his father could spare the
means to give him a liberal education, nor that sufficient funds could be
obtained otherwise. It seemed like a
vain dream; but the principal, Rev. Josiah Clark, one of the most gifted
teachers of Massachusetts, conceived an extraordinary attachment for him, and
from the first insisted that he should go to Yale. He was the valedictorian of his class at the
academy in 1848, closing his oration with original poetry in blank verse –“very blank,” he used to say.
He entered Yale in
1848, occupying a room in South Middle College, first floor, north entry, back
corner. He had not money enough to carry
him through the first term. Accordingly, upon admission, he bought a saw and
ax, and began to earn something by sawing and splitting wood in the college
wood-yard, after the manner of the present Senator Dawes, of
Massachusetts. This labor was too
severe, and he soon found easier and more remunerative employment in private teaching. While in college he was elected “First
President” of Linonia, and, by a nearly unanimous vote, editor of the Yale
Literary Magazine; also class valedictorian.
He took many prizes, and received many honors from the college
authorities and from his classmates. He
was the first student that ever gained the hundred-dollar De Forest gold medal.
Upon leaving
college, having received the degree of Bachelor of Arts, he continued to
support himself by teaching, engaging at the same time in the study of law and
literature. He lectured, and often wrote
for the newspapers. At New Haven,
Connecticut, he taught in Mayor Skinner’s school and General Russell’s school
at Worcester, Massachusetts, and the Worcester Academy. At both places he had private pupils in Latin
and Greek. Three years after graduation
he became Master of Arts. The
anti-slavery agitation was now approaching its climax, and many fiery speeches
and newspaper articles were spoken or written by him. Some of these were printed in pamphlet form
by State and national anti-slavery societies.
His father had been one of the original Liberty-party men.
A vacancy suddenly
occurring in the office of principal of the public high school in Worcester,
Massachusetts, Mr. Sprague, who was then a member of the city school board, was
induced to take the position, which he retained for more than three years.
Some of the ablest
men in the nation, among them ex-Governor Daniel H. Chamberlin, editors Walter
Allen and Henry Boyden, President, David Brainerd Perry, and others hardly less
distinguished, were among his pupils; and they have often expressed their deep
sense of obligation to him for the training and inspiration they then
received. Returning to New Haven he
became for a short time principal of the Webster school, and afterwards a member
of the school board of that city. The
New Haven teachers were warmly attached to him, and, on his entrance into the
army, signified their friendship by costly presents, among them an elegant
sword, still in his possession.
On the breaking out
of the war he had been practicing law in Worcester and New Haven with marked
success, though “not long enough,” he used to say, “to do much harm!” He immediately threw open his office as a
recruiting rendezvous. He made many
patriotic speeches and wrote many newspaper articles, urging a vigorous
prosecution of the war, stimulating to a love of the Union, and arguing
vehemently in favor of the immediate emancipation of the slaves as a war
measure. He persuaded many to enter the
service. For the Seventh Connecticut
Infantry he recruited at his own expense a company of fifty men, to whom he
administered the oath of enlistment, and who unanimously elected him Captain;
but the entreaties of family and friends, for he was married and had three
children, prevented his acceptance at this time. Later on, when the strife grew darker and
more bloody, and when it became evident that the fighting was to be more
desperate and prolonged, he, with Lieuteuant J. F. Clark, recruited another
company of one hundred men for the Thirteenth Connecticut Infantry. This was in the fall of 1861, and the winter
of 1861-’62. Unanimously elected
Captain, he could no longer resist the call of his country. He now entered into barracks with his
soldiers in New Haven in December, 1861, and drilled them daily in the school
of the solider and of the company.
In March, 1862, he
left with his regiment for the Department of the Gulf. Here his anti-slavery views brought him into
collision with General B. F. Butler, at New Orleans, in the latter part of May,
1862, when at some personal peril he dared to disobey an order commanding him
to deliver up a fugutive slave to the owner.
Of this incident, the editor of the Waterbury
(Connecticut) American, the late
Major John C. Kinney, in his issue of August 9, 1868, who was present at the
time and cognizant of the facts, says: “Colonel Sprague was also appreciated in
the regiment as the only man in the department who ever caused General Butler
to retract an order, or in other words, ‘to take the back track.’ The Colonel’s action prevented a slave, who
had sought his protection, from being returned by order of Butler.”
Amusing accounts of
his disputes with slaveholders were published in the New York Tribune and other papers.
For four years he was
in the service, receiving successively commissions as Captain, Major,
Lieutenant-Colonel and Colonel, and sharing all the hardships, sufferings and
dangers of active warfare. In the battle
of Irish Bend, Louisiana, April 14, 1863, while charging at the head of his
company on a rebel battery, with sword brandished, and shouting, “Come one,
boys!” he felt a stinging, benumbing shock in his right hand and arm, and blood
spurted in his face. A rebel rifle ball,
that but for his uplifted sword would have pierced his forehead, had splintered
on his sword-hilt in front of his eyes, portions of the lead tearing open his
wrist, and making what the surgeons called “a very pretty wound,” while other
pieces of the bullet entered his face and right arm, where some of them still
remain imbedded. Getting a handkerchief
bound tightly upon the disabled wrist, he continued in the fight till victory
was won.
Twenty-three years
afterwards, in 1886, he was appointed, with Majors Kinney and Frank Wells, by
the legislature of Connecticut, a committee to restore to its original owners
the beautiful silk flag so captured at Irish Bend, bearing the inscription,
“The Ladies of Franklin to the St. Mary’s Cannoniers.”
On the 7th
of March, 1863, a State election approaching in Connecticut, Captain Sprague,
while facing the enemy in the swamps of Louisiana, feeling that it was of vital
importance that the troops at the front should be sustained by the voters at
home, wrote an intensely earnest address to the people of Connecticut, closing
with the words, “Let us make a clean sweep of the secessionists; you at the
ballot-box, we on the battle-field.”
This address was extensively signed by Connecticut officers and men of
both political parties, at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and was published in the
Connecticut papers. It contributed
largely to the victory of the Unionists at the polls in that darkest period of
the war.
On the terrible 14th
of June, 1863, when the Thirteenth Connecticut, having fought its way step by
step up to the very breastworks of Port Hudson, lay shattered and mangled under
the muzzles of the enemy’s guns with several other regiments behind and beside
them, the commanding general, Banks, sent one of his aids, calling for a
storming column of 200 men to leap into the enemy’s works at that point. Captain Sprague immediately volunteered, and
the number was nearly made up, when the proposed dash of the 200 into the rebel
works was countermanded.
In the Waterbury American, August 1868, is the
following statement: “Colonel Sprague was noted in his regiment not less for
his thorough knowledge of tactics than for his unflinching bravery. When General Banks, after his second defeat
at Port Hudson, called for a storming column, the Colonel was the first man who
volunteered. * * * * We speak of what we
know.” The writer of this statement
(the italics are his) in the Waterbury
American, Major Kinney, here refers to the celebrated storming column of
1,000 men called for by Banks’ famous general order No. 49, Headquarters,
Department of the Gulf, June 15, 1863.
The day before had witnessed the disastrous and bloody repulse of the
Union forces in their assaults on the rebel works. On receipt of Banks’ order at 9 A.M., June
16, Captain Sprague immediately dispatched a special messenger, notifying the
commander that he and Lieutenant Kinney, who was occupying the tent with him,
volunteered in this forlorn hope, and requesting that their names be
enrolled. This was before they had learned
of any others being willing to volunteer.
Captain Sprague then at once called his own company together, read to
them the order of General Banks, told them that he had already joined the
storming party, and appealed to their patriotism to follow his example. There were present at this time investing
Port Hudson, forty-one regiments of infantry and cavalry, besides many
batteries of artillery, and the large and well-appointed fleet in the
Mississippi river. To all of these,
General Banks eloquently appealed, urging them to come forward and fill up the
forlorn hope. The result was that
sixty-five commissioned officers and nine hundred and eighteen soldiers and
marines joined this storming column. Of
this number, Captain Sprague’s regiment alone furnished fifteen officers and two hundred and twenty-five enlisted men! In his diary of that day, June 16, among
other similar memoranda about this forlorn hope, is the following. “I have in my pocket about $220 in treasury
notes, of which, in case of my death (in this assault), I wish $200 sent to my
wife, New Haven, Connecticut, by Adams Express.
The remainder will pay my servant.
I wish my remains to be sent to New Haven for interment. Lieutenant Tibbets or Dr. Clary will see to
the execution of the foregoing.” He and
others made their wills, and quietly transferred watches, money, etc., to those
who had not volunteered.
The time fixed for
the assault was the morning of July 4; but, the day before, rumors had arrived
of the capitulation of Vicksburg, and Banks wisely waited for confirmation of
the tidings, which speedily came, rendering the attack unnecessary.
Of the Thirteenth
Regiment, General Grover, commanding the Division, afterwards wrote: “It is one
of the best in the army, and is entitled to great consideration for its
distinguished services.”
In recognition of
this offer of his life for his country, and of other services, Captain Sprague
was made Colonel by Brevet, “for
gallant and meritorious conduct.”
In the heat, of
Sheridan’s battle of Winchester, September 19, 1864, when our lines recoiled
before the overwhelming advance of Early’s army (see Harper’s Monthly for November, 1864, for the best account* of this
terrible battle), Colonel Sprague, being in command of the Thirteenth
Connecticut, held his position to the last in obedience to direct orders,
holding the enemy back in front by fierce fighting, until they closed upon him
on both flanks and rear, and he found himself in what appeared to be the very
center of the rebel army.
After some months
of imprisonment at Danville, Salisbury and Richmond, he was paroled to
distribute supplies of clothing sent on by the United States Government through
the Confederate lines. He now saw what
no United States officer had been permitted to see before him, the inside of
some of the worst prison pens of the South.
He engaged in
repeated attempts to escape, one of which was attended by fatal results. The others were baffled. At last, when he was greatly reduced by
sickness and hunger, and was expecting to die in prison, the rebel commandant,
who was really a kind gentleman, and formerly a Yale student, seeing Sprague’s
decline, offered to parole him, and give him good food, good clothing, and good
quarters “if he would assist a little in clerical work at the commandant’s
headquarters.” Colonel Sprague replied,
“My business is to do your Confederacy as much harm as I can. That
is necessary. It is not necessary that I should live.” Freemasonry saved his life.
After nearly six
months’ imprisonment he was exchanged, and immediately rejoined his command;
but it was more than two years before he regained his full bodily
strength. Acting for the most part as
president of courts martial and military commissions, he was not mustered out
until the last of April, 1866.
In September, 1866,
he became Principal of the State Normal School at New Britain,
Connecticut. In the spring of 1868 he
found himself, without having sought the position, a representative of New
Britain in the State Legislature. He was
appointed “House Chairman” of the Committee on Education. He gave his energies to three measures, in
all of which, after a hard struggle and much maneuvering, he was entirely
successful: (1) the rehabilitation of the Normal School, establishing it upon
the firm basis on which it has stood ever since: (2) trebling the amount
previously appropriated for teachers’ institutes in Connecticut; (3) abolishing
the rate-bills (i.e. tuition bills), and so making the schools of Connecticut
more nearly free than they had been
before.
In the summer of
1868 he accepted the professorship of rhetoric and English literature in
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
Here his labor was very severe, all the instruction of four hundred
students in rhetoric, English literature, elocution and essay-writing, devolving
upon him. While at Ithaca he strongly
urged in newspaper articles the establishment of chairs of didactics or
pedagogics in colleges. This is believed
to have been the first public advocacy of that feature now recognized as of
educational importance in some of the great American Universities.
His position at
Cornell he resigned, to accept the principalship of the Adelphi Academy,
Brooklyn, New York. The following from
Hon. F. M. Finch, Judge of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York, explains
itself:
My Dear Professor:-
The accompanying resolution on your
resignation as professor in Cornell University, was passed at a meeting of our
executive committee. Strongly as it is
phrased, it scarcely does justice to our great appreciation of the ability with
which you filled your professorship, and our unwillingness to see you go
elsewhere. If any poor words of mine can
strengthen your assurance of our regard for you, both as a professor and a man,
you are at liberty to use this note for that purpose.
Resolved, That in accepting the resignation of Prof. Homer B.
Sprague, the trustees desire to express their confidence in his ability and
capacity as an instructor, and their great regard for him as a man; and also to
express their regret that circumstances render it necessary to dissolve
relations which have been so invariably
pleasant, and which the trustees would gladly have seen prolonged.
A true copy from the minutes. Attest:
F. M. Finch.
Secretary Board of Trustees, Cornell
University.
In Brooklyn he
found the academy in at state of great depression; but by extraordinary
efforts, judicious organization and skillful management, he contributed to
build up the Adelphi to an unprecedented height of prosperity. In 1872 he was, unexpectedly to himself,
honored with the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by the University of New York.
In 1876 he accepted
the position of Head Master of the Girls’ High School in Boston,
Massachusetts. This is the largest
institution in New England for the high-school education of young women. He held the head-mastership for nine
consecutive years, introducing some features of permanent value, and making
himself felt in important educational movements.
In 1877 he
originated, and with great labor established, on a plan of his own, the
Martha’s Vineyard Summer Institute, at Cottage City, Massachusetts. This claims to be the oldest, the largest and
the best of the non-Chautauqua summer schools.
Nearly forty summer schools, on nearly or exactly the same model, in
successful operation attest at once the value of such institutions, and the
wisdom of his plan. Into this institute
he drew some of the foremost educators of the nation. He held its presidency until he resigned it
just before his departure for Europe in 1882.
At Cottage City,
which was his summer home for thirteen years, he not only established the
celebrated summer institute, with its thirty or forty teachers and hundreds of
students, but he also, originated the public library, donating the first books
for a nucleus, and, by cards and handbills at his own expense, calling the
citizens together and pressing the matter upon their attention. By energetic and persistent effort he secured
the establishment of the money-order department in the postoffice there. At his own expense, also, and after a good
deal of personal exertion, he induced that community to form a Rural
Improvement Society. This association
has contributed much to render that beautiful summer resort still more lovely.
All this while,
during his nine years in Boston, his pen never rested, but was busy writing
articles mostly appearing as editorial, but often over his own signature
attacking abuses and insisting on educational reforms. His pamphlet on free text-books in the public schools was influential in securing
that great measure of educational progress in the State of Massachusetts.
After Boston, he
spent a year and a half in California.
Returning to the East, he was made president of the University of North
Dakota. In the four years of his
presidency, among other marks of unmistakable progress, the numbers grew from
sixty-five to nearly two hundred; the standard of preparation for entrance was
raised one inserted year; a complete normal department was organized; a course
in letters was added, three literary societies, an athletic association, and a
Young Men’s Christian Association were founded; military and gymnastic drill
was introduced; regular training was begun in elocution and oratory; vocal and
instrumental music and drawing were brought in, a professorship of physics was
established, and a professorship of biology, each with its appropriate
laboratory; a handsome magazine was successfully published; and the first two
senior classes were graduated with quite brilliant success.
Among the
publications of Mr. Sprague are carefully annotated editions of some of the
masterpieces in English literature, including select works of Chaucer, Spenser,
Bacon and Bunyan, Milton’s Lycidas,
Comus, Hymn on the Nativity, and first two books of Paradise Lost; Shakespeare’s Hamlet,
Macbeth and Merchant of Venice;
selections from Irving’s Sketch Book;
History of the Thirteenth Connecticut; and many lectures, essays and
addresses, mostly educational or patriotic.
He was president of the oldest of the great educational association of
the country, the American Institute of Instruction, in 1883-’84, declining a
re-election.
In addition to his
university work, he addressed many teachers’ institutes in North Dakota. He was president of the North Dakota
Teachers’ Association for the year 1888, but refused re-election. He is the author of the principal sections of
the article on education in the constitution of North Dakota. With much expense of comfort, labor, time and
money, he secured the incorporation of those provisions in the fundamental law
of the new State. The phraseology
proposed by Mr. Sprague for these sections was unfortunately changed (see the
magazine Common School, October 1889,
pages 5, 6, 7, showing the propositions as Mr. Sprague formulated them), but
the substance is nearly identical with his.
Especially is this true of the most important, viz., the first
section. In this section, for the
first time in any national or State constitution, the vital importance of
thorough education, not of a few, not of a majority, not of the great mass
even, but of EVERY VOTER, is distinctly enunciated. A standard is thus uplifted which entitles
that new State to a place in the very van of the armies of education.
In the creation of
this ideal in her constitution, North Dakota leads all her sister States. Said Mr. Sprague, “I desire for myself no
other epitaph than this: ‘He originated
the leading sections of the article on Education in the Constitution of North
Dakota.’ ”
.
Transcribed by David
Rugeroni.
Source: "The
Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 2, Page 228-244, Lewis
Publishing Co, 1892.
©
2005 David Rugeroni.