The Falls City tribune., 1910-11-04
.J.W. CRABTREE E.

tendent of Public Instructions is one
that commends itself in the highest
degree To the rank and file of both
school men and school patrons inter
ested in the progress of the schools
of our state.
Among the teachers of the state
there is perhaps no other man so
well known.
During the seven year that Mr..
Crabtree was inspector of the schools
for the University of Nebraska, he
had the opportunity of coming into
the closest touch, not only with the
faculty of the state university and all
the many high schools in the state,
but also with the faculties of all the
other colleges and normal schools.
This splendid opportunity for discov-
ering the conditions and needs of all
the various public educational insti-
tutions of the state, Mr.. Crabtree
made wise use of, it seeming ever to
be his purpose not only to know per
s~onally the men and m who wer
carrying on the work of the schools,
but to seek ways to help them TO in
crease their efficiency and to make
their schools stronger. There are
many teachers and superintendent in
all parts of the state who feel that
much of their success has been due
to his kindly interest and wise II
sci at %critical. times in their careers.
Mr.. Crabtree is a man of strong
personality, a personality that in
spires the best efforts of those who
work under his direction. He has
a broad way of looking at things, a
Keen perception and sympathetic
understanding of the difficulties I'M
Ger which teachers and superintend-
ents are working.
Mr.. Crabtree is to a large extent
and in the very best n of the
word self-made, his parents having
been pioneer Cass county farmers and
his common school education having
been obtained by alternately working
on his fathers farm and attending
country school until he entered the
state FORMAL of which institution he
is 4 graduate.
While carrying on his work at the
state normal, he spent some time
teaching country schools to help a
the expenses of his education. At
other times he chopped wood and did
chores for the professors, and during
summer worked as a farm hand. This
is the way of getting an education
that develops the best quality of man
hood, develops men, ready and cap
able for service to the world.
The excellence of Mr.. Crabtree's
work as country teacher attracted
the attention of the school board of
Ashland, who offered him a position
in the Ashland high school. After
one year in that position he was ad-
vanced to the superintendency where
his work was so successful that, that
period is looked back upon in Ash
land as an epoch in its school his
tory,
From Ashland he went to the state
university as instructor in mathe-
matics, then into the principalship of
the Beatrice high school, from which
position, however, he was soon re-
called by the university and made in
%structor of the high schools. After
an experience of seven years in that
position he was elected to the presi-
dency of the State Normal school at
Peru, "A position which he held for six
years and would still hold had he not
been too big and broad a man to let
petty, narrow ~partizanship dictate to
him in his management of the insti-
tuition under his charge.
Mr.. Crabtree, while a republican in
politics, believes and has testified to
that belief by the sacrifice of a posi-
ton, that the educational institu-
tions of our state, both great and
small should be run not in the inter