Guernsey County Biographies

JAMES K. PARKER

The subject of this sketch was born September 22, 1817, the first of eight children. His educational advantages were above the average of his time. Boys from that log schoolhouse have since become eminent as teachers, ministers, lawyers, statesmen, poets, and teachers.

Professor Parker frequently spoke of the impressions made on him when but eight years of age, by a noble young lady then his teacher. His mother, an educated lady from the State of Maine , and a teacher of experience supplemented the school room work.

In 1834, when but seventeen years of age, with the consent of his parents, he became private tutor in the family of a gentleman living in the Ohio valley some twelve miles above the Parker home. For the three months" service he received thirty dollars and board. This money, with five dollars sent him by his father and fifteen dollars earned in the cooper shop during recreation hours while at college, paid all expenses during five months spent at Hanover College , Hanover , Indiana , including deck passage both ways on a steamboat, and left a whole dollar in his pocket on reaching home. More teaching, more selfdenial, more college training, until 183!). when he entered upon what proved to be an unusually long and useful career, in a number of cases educating three generations in one family.

Being a born Yankee, the school furniture he made was comfortable and convenient. Throughout his career as a teacher when apparatus was needed that he could not buy he often made it.

Modest and unassuming he constantly sought to improve himself, and delighted in the companionship of the learned about him. At the founding of Clermont Academy he entered an organization known as "The College of Teachers." From a bound volume of the Western Academician, their official organ. 1838, we find that the young principal assoc1ated with such men as the Picketts, B. P. Aydelott, Alexander Campbell, Calvin E. Stowe. and Joseph Kay. With some of these Professor Parker was on very intimate terms. He and Dr. Ray had many consultations as to the arrangement of the latter's system of mathematics. However, Parker's modesty never permitted him to speak of anything save benefit received.

I have tried to decide in what branch he was most proficient, but cannot. His success as an instructor in natural philosophy was remarkable, his profound knowledge of the various departments of science, his skill as an experimenter, his inspiring way of teaching language, and the ability of putting his own enthusiastic love of knowledge into the hearts of his pupils, made him as one among a thousand. Being a true Christian, the spiritual and moral interests were not neglected. He loved his pupils and that love was returned. We are all mourners to-day. Without endowment, save the rich hearts of his teachers, many a poor boy, without means with which to pay his way, will drop a tear in memory of his benefactor.

Work was not confined to his own schoolroom. He had no place for selfishness or jealousy. He may truly be called the father of the "Clermont County Teachers' Institute." At his suggestion it was organized in 1848, and under his watchful care it lived. For years he would load a wagon with apparatus to be used and accompanied by his wife would go to the place where the Institute was to be held. It was he, who, going early in the morning to the place of meeting, would set up the clock he had taken, sweep out, dust furniture and ring the bell for the younger teachers, whom he was to instruct and who would enjoy the tidy appearance without knowing whose work it was. During those early years he asked no remuneration and received none. He had his reward, however, by seeing such an improvement in Clermont teachers that there were heavy draughts made on their ranks for men and women fitted to fill places of trust and honor and the improvement of the schools of the county. Many of these teachers were his own intellectual children.

Each of the other professions has been honored by Clermont Academy students. For years, the only county building at Batavia without a sample of this man's work, was the jail.

That which was most prominent in Professor Parker was his conscience. An ? steamboat captain, who made men his study, years ago said to the writer: "I never knew but one man who lived up to his conscience, and that was Teacher Parker." J. H. Baker.
(Source: Educational History of Ohio by James J. Burns.  Published 1905)

 Submitted by Linda Rodriguez