The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-10-18

l (Exclusive Service The Survey Press BureaW.
 | What high school may be to a town | is being more broadly understood and more widely discovered. But inventive genius was required to create a civic cen- ter for three cities around one high Peru and Oglesby, III.
 The natural rivalry between towns growing up separately so close together long delayed that cooperation through which each of them could hope for mod ern equipment and service. There was one citizen, however, who had grown up with the towns whose dempcratic hope for united action to promote the public welfare was undaunted.
 Public Spirited Industrial Pioneer He had come to America in 1853 at IS years of age from Schleswig- Holstein to to their development. Returning to Ger many, he met his future partner and life long associate in business, the late E. c. l Hegeler, who developed inventive genius and masterful yet democratic manage ment After another years study at Heidelberg, the two young students in 1851 located at this point in Illinois be-
  posit to tn eWisconsin zinc ore fields. Here they planted the Matthiessen- Hegs- Ter Zinc Works and with their scientific equipment. thus patiently and thoroughly acquired their great success was achieved, not by any "luck" or specula- tive chance, but by foresight, which was even more scientific than prophetic.
 l Nearby are quarries which supply rock | for three great Portland cement works and also for the manufacture of glass. These quarries furnish labor for 750 men The coal deposits have developed 1 coal mines now supporting 7544 mine workmen | and their families. Including the three zinc plants these industries and the rich soil productive of the staple crops valued annually at s12,000,0Oo, support within a
 rs dius of n miles a population of 65,OO0, very cosmopolitan in birth and language. l The work of the pioneer captain Of in- dustry was from first to last for others ar much as for self. for the whole com n1unity even more than for his famiiy W ell aware of what he owed to education. hc coveted for his fellow workers ano
 townsfolk tho best schools available After the grade schools were well estab lished. he first suggested a township high school for the three cities. When the bond issue for it was voted down. De' cause of the rivalry of the three cities, ne quietly and vncomplainingly awaited the
 next opportunity to suggest and support
 the proposition again. telling his neigh
 bors that .'the children should not suffei | for any failure of their elders"
 Civic Center Institutions
 Tn 1898 their parents thought so too and voted to erect the La Salle-Peru Township high school. Eve years later Mrs. F. w Matthiessen erected Man. ual Training and Domestic Science build- irg Both are finely equipped with every
 modern appliance from physics labora- l.tory to all the apparatus of practical agricultural department from forge and
 lathe to a gas stove and a needle, from
 microscopes and dissectng instruments for biology to an art studio and a fine
 collection of pictures and statues which
 overflow the museum upon the school room walls and into the railways. An
 assembly hall seating 600 people, modelled
 after the Little theatre in New York
 city, is shared with the community.
 Loving nature, the family has always Ilet their fellow townsfolk share the rest
 and recreation which. they have had ir their beautiful Deer park" surroundinl
 the summer homestead outlying th'