User:UtahEducation/Sandbox

Frontier schoolteacher (1860-1869)
A PRIVATE SCHOOL HOUSE Built by Brigham Young for His Own Children stood on this corner lot 1860-1903 This early school was directed by Eli B. Kelsey, who in soliciting additional students announced in the "Deseret News", December 12, 1860, as follows: "President Young not only intends it to be used for the education of his own family during the day, but proposes it to be thoroughly devoted to further educational purposes in the evenings, including the teaching of vocal music. "Mr. David O. Calder will open therein two classes for young persons of both sexes, in order that a competent number may be thoroughly taught this simple and beautiful science, so that a uniform system of teaching may be adopted throughout all the schools of the territory, the produce of the valley will be taken in payment for tuition."

He came to Utah Territory in 1861 settling in Draper. In 1862, he was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

- Crosley, p. 415 - Although Park was a stranger in Utah, his skills secured him a position as a teacher in the small town of Draper. He taught school in Draper until 1863, at which time he went to Oregon and taught for a year. Returning to the Salt Lake Valley in 1864, he resumed his old teaching position in [P. 416] Draper. Park's teaching methods quickly earned for him an excellent reputation in the area.

- Moffitt, p. 16 - “The fame of schoolmaster Park came with his first year of teaching at Draper. . . Following his return from California, this master teacher went again to the cove below the Wasatch range. . . His school was a “show” school for those interested in education throughout the Mormon colonies.”

- Moffitt, pp. 16-17 - “During the latter part of the 1860-70 decade plans were in the process of development for the re-opening of the University of Deseret. For more than a decade and a half this institution was non-existent. Those responsible for the administration of the University quite naturally turned to Dr. Park at Draper. . . Concerning the problem of this transfer, the Deseret News states:  ‘His school at Draper in South Willow Creek in this county has always been estimated by those who have been familiar with it, as the best in the Territory’. . . It is significant that as late as twenty years after he left the small school, Draper students desiring to attend normal school at the University enrolled in larger proportionate numbers than did those from elsewhere in the Territory or even in Salt Lake County. In 1887 twenty-five per cent of all university normal students gave their address as ‘Draper.’”

- Chamberlin's Park bio, p.12 – “Arriving at the frontier state of Iowa, he engaged to teach school for the year 1860-61 in the progressive and growing town of Muscatine. . . Apparently because of the threatened outbreak of the Civil War, it was decided not to employ an male teachers in the Muscatine schools for the next year, 1861-62. Under the circumstances, with the closing of the school year, Dr. Park and three young friends decided to try their luck in the new Colorado goldfields. At the end of summer they abandoned this adventure – his Muscatine friends to return East, he to continue toward the West Coast, which he had set as his objective. . . He. . . arrived at Salt Lake City on September 30, 1861. . . Dr. Park decided to remain in Utah over the winter. . . Rejected at Mill Creek because he was an outsider, he continued on to Draper on South Willow Creek where he was finally employed to teach the village school.”

- Chamberlin's Park bio, p. 13 – “At Draper he spent the two weeks before the opening of school in aiding in the harvesting of crops, digging carrots and husking corn. . . [T]he South Willow Creek school almost at once. . . became outstanding. While Dr. Park evaded anything in the nature of medical practice, in emergencies that arose from time to time he applied his knowledge in that field and occasionally served a dentist. In general he became so much interested in and so much one with the people by the spring of 1862, that he had joined their church, had installed himself in the heart of every student and, among the residents, had formed friendships that were to endure throughout life. In engaging Dr. Park to teach the school trustees had told him: ‘We are a poor people, and we have very little ready money. We can pay your board and lodging and give you part corn, part wheat and part potatoes for your compensation.’ However, when at the end of the spring quarter he announced his decision to continue on to the West Coast, twelve leading citizens of Draper pledged themselves to pay him a salary of $1,200 a year in gold whenever he might choose to return.”

- Chamberlin's Park bio, p. 13 – “Arriving in Oregon at the end of the summer with but $2.00 in his pocket, he found employment for 1862-63 in a small subscription school in what was then the thriving town of Wheatland on the Willamette river. ..

- Chamberlin's Park bio, [p. 14] [He worked as] operator of a flat boat, then as clerk, and finally as bookkeeper and manager [of a store]. While his prospects [as a merchant] seemed bright, he relates that he was filled with an unaccountably strong desire to return to Utah and with the firm conviction that his life’s work lay in the field of education.”

- Chamberlin's Park bio, p. 14 – “Returning to Draper in 1864, he found the offer made him two years earlier still held good. . . Dr. Park, with the cordial support of the trustees began at once to provide blackboards, maps and charts for the new, well-lighted rooms. . . A student of those days has reminisced:  ‘The [school’s] walls were soon covered with maps and charts illustrative of all departments of knowledge. Models and globes rested on the broad window seats. A tellurion, a miniature illustration of the planetary system, was provided. . . with the aid of the village woodworker.

- Chamberlin's Park bio, p. 15 – “From a little country village, with a population of but 300, secluded in a corner of the Salt Lake Valley, in a brief period of five years that still stands out as its golden age, went forth a surprising number of men who later achieved high success; and in that village developed a spirit and movement that in time spread beyond it and inaugurated in Utah an educational regeneration. Never was the potential power of the good teacher more strikingly demonstrated.”

- Chamberlin's Park bio, p. 16 – “In 1869 the fame of Dr. Park and his unique school on South Willow Creek had spread far and wide. . . [W]hen. . . it was decided the time had arrived to place the University of Deseret upon a basis more consistent with its name and purpose. . . Dr. Park was the unanimous choice of the Board of Regents and other leaders to undertake the task. He was formally elected to head the institution on March 1, 1869, just one week before the school was scheduled to open for the spring quarter.”

University president (1869-1892)
In 1869, he became president of the University of Deseret, the predecessor of the University of Utah.

Morgan Commercial College
Website for the monument and plaque - "Morgan Commercial and Normal College" URL = http://www.publicartinla.com/other_cities/slc/college_utah_marker.html

Text: "Organised January 1868. On this site, John Morgan, noted Civil War veteran, LDS missionary and Church leader, established the first successful educational institution in the territory of Utah. Here was established in the Morgan College in 1870, Utah's first free public library and reading room, and here many of the future pioneer merchants, bankers, educators, and Church leaders received their educational training."

Note: Include a link to the John Hamilton Morgan Wikipedia article in any mention that you make to the College in the John R. Park article.

Consolidation
Moffit, p. 56 - "The small district and the ungraded school was deeply entrenched in the pattern of social thougth of the civil, the Church, and many of the educational leaders of that time. Of the 850 schools reported in 1896, 576 were completely ungraged and 160 were only partially graded.  With this issue Park worked unceasingly. An examination of the minutes of the Board of Regents provides substantial evidence of this educational leader's efforts in this direction.  For example on September 30, 1878, after having done almost the same identical thing before on repeated occasions, park presented his plan for reorganization of schools.  For a time he centered his efforts on some pattern that could be affiliated with the University and proposed to use this as a "model school" for the entire [p. 57] Territory.  On that date Regent Jennings proposed the Board of Regents procure the 17th Ward School House "to commence a graded school in connection with the Institution (referring to the University). . ."

Moffitt, p. 58 - "Throughout the entire decade following 1880, Park kept the issue of consolidation and better grading of the schools before the people and particularly before the University Regents. He, more than anyone else, seemed to realize that the University could not exist only in name until some educational foundation existed below this "higher" institution of learning.

Moffitt, p. 61 - "Park made the following summary, descriptive of educational advantages resulting from consolidation in twenty-four significant statements. The have frequently been referred to throughout the nation as educational leaders have elsewhere analyzed the issue of consolidation.

- 1st     The county system would secure just as many schools as the necessities of the community demand, each being an integral part of the one central organization, and at the same time would meet the wants of the particular locality in which it is placed. - 2nd   It would dispense with a large number of school officers. - 3rd   It would allow school officers a compensation for their services if necessary, as their number would be greatly reduced, and they could thus afford to spend time and labor in the interests of the schools. [p. 62] - 4th   It would establish a more uniform rate of taxation. - 5th   It would simplify the school law, and it would thus be better understood and better executed. - 6th   It would furnish more uniform and equal advantages to every child and citizen. - 7th   It would allow a child to attend where his own interest would be best subserved. - 8th   It would prevent strife about district lines. - 9th   It would diminish the aggregate expenditure for schools. - 10th  It would secure a more efficient system of school inspection and supervision. - 11th   It would secure a permanency of of supervision. - 12th   It would secure permanency of teachers. - 13th   It would secure a better class of teachers. - 14th   It would secure better compensation to competent teachers and less employment of incompetent ones. - 15th   It would secure better school houses and keep them in better repair. - 16th   It would secure better furniture, apparatus and other school appliances, and secure a good public library for each county. - 17th   It would enable each county to establish a system of graded schools. - 18th   It would result in more uniform methods of teaching, hence greater progress would be made. - 19th   It would secure better records and more reliable statistics. - 20th   It would prevent nepotism generally, that is, it would secure employment of fewer nephews, nieces, sister-in-law and objects of charity. [p. 63] - 21st   It would insure greater interest on the part of the community in each school. - 22nd   It would unite all the school interests of the county and of the state towards one common end. - 23rd   It would give aim and purpose to each school, to every teacher and to every pupil. - 24th   It would encourage legitimate ambition and competition among the pupils of the same school, and among those of different schools.

Graded schools
Moffitt, p. 52 - The educational experiences and contacts of Dr. Park while at Draper gave him an insight into many of the needs of Utah's schools. However it was during his time of service as president of the University that he became convinced that a radical change in 'organization' and 'gradation' must be effected if the University were to 'head-up' the schools of the Territory. Grading began in the Eastern States more than a quarter of a century before Park came to the University and in certain areas was common at that time. The impoverished schools in the early Utah settlements were ungraded for more than another quarter of a century. They started from no grade level and worked toward no particular goal.

The pattern of school organization legally created in 1852 permitted innumerable districts. These were administered by ineffective trustees who knew little or nothing of the advantages of graded schools. The new University principal at once recognized his predicament. How could a univeristy exist without provision made for student advancement leading in the direction of advanced education? He later described this lack of a plan as one by which the child was "forced to turn back every year in his studies to repeat the same eternal round until the monotony disgusts him with school and all its associations."

Community leader and State Superintendent of Public Instruction (1892-1900)
In 1895, Park was elected as Utah Superintendent of Education on the Republican ticket.

Willey, p. 106 - "The former common school powers of the Board of Regents now passed to the newly created State Board of Education. That body appointed Dr. Park to serve as its first State Superintendent of Public Instruction.  Superintendent Park served in that capacity until 1900.  His tenure produced many Biennial Reports of a Horace Mann or Henry Barnard flavor.  The reports dealt with the need for district consolidation, increased teachers' salaries, and improved standards for schoolhouse construction and pupil furniture.  Contents of the reports paved the way for mandatory consolidation along county unit district lines.  Such legislation was effected in 1915."

Moffitt, p. 86 – “A program to advance the status of teachers in Utah had been advocated by Park, while at the University. In his position as state superintendent he more vigorously attacked this problem. He called the local prejudice toward teacher employment ‘disgraceful meagerness.’ With unbounded courage he worked to secure increased pay for teachers. He clearly foresaw that when teachers were able to secure more money for their services elsewhere than in the schools they would leave teaching. He condemned the low teacher salaries paid because he said, ‘it must be evident that such a pittance is not enough to induce men and women of superior ability to remain in the profession of teaching.’ Almost half a century after these words were uttered we again see the truth of his statement, with a currently existing shortage of teachers entering teacher-training institutions because of a lack of adequate salary inducements.”

Moffitt, p. 87 – “he insisted that the function of the library was not only to provide books but to aid youth in discriminating among books. To him, ‘a love for good literature [was] almost as essential to right character building as a love for moral associates.’ His interest in library development bore fruit. He became superintendent in 1896 and in his 1898 report he declared, “there are nearly three times as many libraries and twice as many volumes as there were in 1896.”

Chamberlin's Park bio, p. 23 – [H]e became our first State Superintendant, a position he held until his death on September 29, 1900. During his four years as state superintendant. . . [h]is reports [were] models of what such documents ought to be.”

Personal and family life
Park adopted several children as his own, but he never married.

Moffitt, p. 99 "The Supreme Court held that in the light of the fact that the couple had accepted a Church sealing noted by the ceremony of marriage and of divorce, there had been a legal marriage but that any attempted divorce without legal award was null and void. A portion of the concluding statement indicates the justification of the higher court for reversing the decision of the lower tribunal:  "While the church could solemnize a marriage, it had no power to dissolve it. . . . We are of the opinion that the finding and holding of the court that the plaintiff and Dr. John R. Park were never married, and that she is entitled to no part of the estate must therefore, be reversed, with costs, and the cause remanded."

Park's surviving widow wasn't entitled to maintenance from the estate.

Legacy
Upon his death in 1900, Dr. John R. Park bequeathed his entire fortune, plus his library, to the University of Utah.

Chamberlin's Park bio, p. 9 - "John R. Park once said: 'Achievement seems to be the ultimate standard of merit.  Good intentions and plausible theories adroitly paraded may win our love and admiration for a time, but it is after all what we do, what we carry out in practice, that really determines the final estimate that the world sets on our values.'  If we apply this test to the life of Dr. Park himself, the conclusion is inevitable that he must take rank as one of the outstanding pioneer builders of our commonwealth and as probably the greatest single personal factor in its educational history."

Chamberlin's Park bio, p. 25 – “He taught subjects and principles, rather than problems and facts except as facts were the means to the understanding of some general truth. Above all other things he taught his students to think and act independently.”

Chamberlin's Park bio, p. 25 – “Always full of hope and always radiating good cheer and unbounded enthusiasm, impartial in judgment, patient and sympathetic, dignified but cordial and friendly in his relations with students, he not only won their profound respect,. . . but he won their hearts.”

Chamberlin's Park bio, p. 26 – “It was as a builder of character in his students that he was most outstanding.”

Chamberlin's Park bio, p. 27 – “His spirit still potently abides in. . . the heart and work of every man and woman throughout our great State who has been touched by a truer appreciation of the high ideal and calling of the teacher.”

Moffitt, p. 33 - "John Park was in a unique position to partially curtail th[e] religious hatred [between Mormons and non-Mormons] on the University level. He had joined the Mormon Church after coming to Utah, but had not become a religious enthusiast.  He had great vision of intellectual and academic freedom, and he sincerely believed in education for all.  It therefore meant much to him when he could announce that the University was 'non-sectarian, open to both sexes, free tuition.'"