The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-01-13
DIR. HOSMER'S LIFE
 AN INSPIRATION

To the Editor of The Age-Herald, Dr. S. M Hosmer is dead! This an nouncement coming so unexpectedly, puts my mind to work.
 Pity" exclaimed I, that such man
 should have to die. A man whose lire was so full of useful service I knew him before he married-a tall, athletic young man, I remember the day in 1863, in Au- gust. passing his home near what is now Adger, on my way to see my sister, who lived about 25 miles from Jonesboro. F. M. Hosmer had bought land and had just built a house and dug well. By the well in the yard was large pile of coal. Dig ging the we'll he cut through vein or coal. He had little idea what that land was worth.
 He stopped me and asked me to stop and take dinner with him; said he wanted to talk about going to school. When went into the house I discovered little babe in a home made cradle, his hrst born. We discussed the question of ms going to school. It was a serious proposl- ton to give up that comfortable home and start to school, having wife and babe to support.
 $, to do so. The result of that deliberation was that the opening of the school at
 Pleasant Hill, September l, found him and his family living in a house put up by himself right near the school house, ana he a pupil in the school.
 He was in classes of small children, in spelling, but being a man, he entered the class of young men and women in the fourth reader in arithmetic, English nh AlthnI1oh q
 beginner in these studies, he by hard
 work soon caught up so that he could hold his own with the best and brightest in these classes. It was interesting to see
 him standing in class of small boys and girls at the foot, for the class stood in a semi-circle, and word that was missed
 was passed to the next pupil, the one spelling it going up above those who missed it. This required courage on the
 part of man, six feet tall and having a family It put him to the test. The same in the reading class. Several days
 passed without his reading sentence.
 Pupils in the class tapped one another
 when a mistake was made, and it was passed to the next pupil, and so down the class until one read the sentence cor
 rectly, who turned down the one or ones
 who missed reading it. He did not stand
 at the foot in those classes very many
 days. By hard work he was soon able
 to read and hold his own in said classes.
 l mention these things because they
 show what will a man must have to
 enter and continue in such a school. It
 was not long before he took up the study of algebra, Latin grammar and other higher branches He was in school here
 two years, and in this time he got pretty
 thorough in spelling, reading, writing, arithmetic, English grammar geography, algebra, geometry and trigonometry, An
 drews & Stodard's Latin grammar An
 drew's Latin Reader. four books in
 Caesar and four books in Virgil, rhetoric and English composition.
 At the end of the two years Prof. w. D.
 Mclaughlin resigned the principalship of the Red Mountain academy to accept the
 professorship of Greek and Latin in Cum
 berland university, and Mr, Hosmer was
 elected to take his place. He accepted the position and taught the school very suc- cessfully, notwithstanding there were
 pupils in said school about as far ad- Vanced as he was This the third year of his school life was his best. no doubt
 as he had to study hard to keep ahead of the pupils and teach them.
 At the close of this school he brought
 his wife and children back to Plea mt
 Hill, Mrs. Hosmer having agreed that if
 he would leave her and the children at
 Pleasant Hill, she was willing for him to go to Greensboro university. So he
 university and after spending two years there he joined the North Alabama con
 ference and began the work of the itin-
 erancy.
 One fact worth mentioning is, he kept
 up his studies while he discharged the duties of the itinerant, and at the close
 of the year at Greensboro he took an examination in the senior studies, passed and at the commencement he received