Howard-Greene-Monroe County IN Archives Biographies.....Ogg, Robert Alexander 1848 - 
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Author: Jackson Morrow

ROBERT ALEXANDER OGG.

    Of high professional and academic attainments and ranking among the foremost
educators of the state, Robert Alexander Ogg, the efficient and popular
superintendent of the Kokomo public schools has achieved marked distinction in
the noble work to which his talents and energies have so long been devoted, and
judging by the past it is safe to predict for him a future of still greater
usefulness and honor. Not only as a teacher and manager of schools has he made
his presence felt but as a citizen in the daily walks of life, his influence has
tended to the advancement of the community and the welfare of his fellow men,
while the several responsible public positions to which he has been called from
time to time bear testimony to his ability to fill worthily high and important
trusts. His name with eminent fitness occupies a conspicuous place in the
profession which he adorns and his career presenting a series of successes such
as few attain has gained for him much more than state reputation, as a
successful organizer and manager of educational interests.

    Superintendent Ogg is a native of Noble county, Ohio, born near the town of
Summerfield on December 14th, of the year 1848. Paternally he is descended from
sturdy Scotch ancestry and traces his genealogy back a number of years to
Ireland from which country his grandfather, Alexander Ogg, in 1770, emigrated to
the United States, and settled in Maryland, where in due time the family became
widely known. Robert Washington Ogg, the superintendent's father, was born in
the above state, but spent his early life in Belmont county, Ohio, and moved to
Noble county, Ohio, when he married, thence in 1866 to Greene county, Indiana,
where he located on a farm near the town of Solsberry. His life was devoted to
agricultural pursuits.

     Superintendent Ogg spent his childhood and youth in the state of his birth
and at the proper age entered the public schools in the county, where he early
displayed the powers of mind and desire for study which subsequently won for him
honorable distinction as a scholar and success as a teacher. When seventeen
years old he accompanied his parents upon their removal to Indiana, and the
following year entered the State University at Bloomington, where he prosecuted
his studies until completing the prescribed course and receiving his degree in
1872, the meantime devoting part of his vacations to teaching, by means of which
he was enabled to finish his education, according to prearranged plans. His
record as a student was in every respect creditable and he was graduated with an
honorable standing in a class composed of an unusual number of bright and
ambitious young men, among whom were Hon. George W. Cooper, of Columbus, who
served his district with distinguished ability in congress, and Hon. Pierce
Norton, late of Indianapolis, and for some time a leading lawyer and jurist of
that city, besides others equally renowned in their respective vocations and
professions.

    After completing his university course Superintendent Ogg decided to devote
his life to educational work for which he had already manifested a strong
predilection, and having made up his mind to this end, took advantage of every
opportunity of adding to his knowledge and increasing his efficiency for the
practical duties of the noble calling in which he had engaged. Following his
graduation he took charge of the schools of Elletsville, and three years
afterward of those of Mitchell, which under his management made rapid
advancement and won for him honorable repute as an able instructor and later he
was chosen principal of the New Albany high school, which position he filled
with credit to himself and to the satisfaction of superintendent, students and
public, for a period of eight years. Superintendent Ogg served eleven years as
superintendent of the public schools of Greencastle and gained recognition among
the leading educators of the state. Resigning his position in the latter city in
1898, he accepted the superintendence of the public schools of Kokomo, which he
has since held, and in which perhaps the greatest of his labors as an educator
and manager have been thus far accomplished. His great force of character and
ripe scholarship, together with his ability as an organizer enabled him to bring
to his work in this city the results of his professional experience with marked
effect, and it was not long until the schools under his supervision advanced to
the high standing of efficiency for which they are now noted. The teaching force
during his incumbency has been increased from forty-nine to seventy-four and the
enrollment of pupils from two thousand two hundred and ninety, to two thousand
nine hundred and fifty-one, while many things tending to lessen the teacher's
labors and at the same time make them effective have been introduced; the course
of study throughout has been modified and improved, the latest and most approved
appliances purchased and everything in keeping with modern educational progress,
tested and where practical retained.

    Superintendent Ogg takes great interest in his teachers, all of whom are
selected with especial reference to their ability to fill acceptably the
positions to which assigned, the force being increased from time to time by such
graduates from the high schools as he deems best fitted for the work. In fact he
encourages many of the high school students to enter the teacher's profession
and to this end devotes considerable time to pedagogic lectures and instruction
on this important and far-reaching subject, being greatly prized by those who
contemplate making the school room their chosen field of endeavor. That the
advantage of a liberal education may be generally disseminated, he has
encouraged young people of the county to attend high school by giving them every
possible consideration.

    In addition to the duties of the superintendency Mr. Ogg is deeply
interested in educational matters throughout the state and from time to time, he
has been honored with important official positions in various societies and
associations, which make for the good of the work and the advancement of the
teacher's profession. He was formerly an active and influential member of the
Southern Teachers' Association, which he served one year as president; in 1897
he was president of the State Teachers' Association besides holding the
honorable position of president of the elementary department of the National
Association, the largest and most important organization of teachers' of the
United States. As a member of many inportant committees in those bodies, his
influence has been felt while his suggestions have always commanded respect and
carried weight. He has also served on a number of the leading-committees in the
City Superintendents' Association, besides taking an active part in the
discussions and general deliberations of the organization, advocating certain
measures with masterly force and skill and opposing whatever he deemed dangerous
to the progress of educational thought.

    Superintendent Ogg is widely and favorably known as an institute worker and
lecturer on educational subjects. He is an easy and pleasing speaker, and at
times forceful and eloquent, his familiarity with the subject under
consideration with his full command of strong and vigorous English making him
popular with his audiences and to no small degree a master of the public
assemblages. Before his classes he entertains and instructs at the same time.
His style is direct and forceful, entirely free from redundancy, his perception
is keen and his analysis acute and in all of his work he selects from a choice
vocabulary the precise words that convey his meaning accurately and elegantly.
His work in every department of education is characteristically practical and in
teaching, in superintending and in devising or modifying the course of study, he
possesses to a remarkable degree the sense of proportion and fitness. Continuous
application through a period of thirty-six years has given him a clear and
comprehensive insight into the philosophy of education and the largest wisdom as
to method and means of attainment of ends, while his steady growth in public
favor wherever he has labored and his popularity with teachers and pupils have
won for him educational standing. He possesses the personal charm and tact which
make him popular with the young and it is nothing unusual to see him on the
street surrounded by a group of urchins, some of them clinging to his arms and
all listening intently to what he may be saying. By entering into their spirit
and pastimes, sympathizing with them in their troubles, listening to and
settling their disputes and making their interests his own, he has become the
idol, almost, of the juveniles of the city, his being one with them rendering
the teachers' work easy and adding greatly to his own popularity, not only with
the children but also with the adult portion of the populace.

    Although a school man in the broadest and best sense of the term and as
such, making every other consideration secondary to his professional and
official duties, Superintendent Ogg has never become narrow or pedantic as have
so many whose lives have been spent in intimate association with the immature
minds within the four walls of the school room. He is a well rounded,
symmetrically developed man, fully alive to the demands of the times, thoroughly
informed on the leading questions before the public and takes broad views of men
and things. By keeping in touch with the times and the trend of current thought
he is enabled to discharge the duties of citizenship in the intelligent manner
becoming the level-headed American of today, and his acquaintances with the
history of the country and its institutions makes him in the true meaning of the
word a politician, but not a partisan. In state and national issues he votes
with the Republican party, but in local matters and issues he is practically
independent, voting as his judgment dictates, instead of obeying the behests of
party leaders. He believes in progress in other than the profession to which he
belongs and to attain the end manifests an abiding interest in whatever makes
for the material advancement of the community, encouraging all worthy
enterprises and lending his influence to means whereby his fellow men may be
benefited, and made better. He is in hearty accord with laudable and healthful
pastimes and sports, such as base ball, basket ball, hurdle and foot racing, and
all kinds of athletics that tend to develop and strengthen the physical powers.
These he encourages among the pupils of the schools, believing that development
of the body as well as the mind and heart to be essential to the make-up of the
scholarly and well rounded man.

    Our subject owns a farm in Greene county, which he purchased in a wild
condition and with his own hands helped to clear and ditch, developing the land
from a marshy state into a fine and productive place. For a month each summer he
hies away to his farm and spends the time as a tiller of the soil. In this way
he finds rest and recreation which the arduous duties of his office render
imperative, and later returns to his work in the city, strengthened and
refreshed in body and reinvigorated in mind. He has his farm thoroughly under
drained and improved with substantial and comfortable buildings and from its
cultivation no small part of his income is derived.

    Superintendent Ogg was married in the year 1877 to Louise Hutcherson, of New
Albany, Indiana, but at that time living in the town of Mitchell, where the
ceremony was solemnized. The two children born of this union died in infancy.
Superintendent and Mrs. Ogg have opened their home and hearts to several nephews
and nieces whom they have partially reared and to whom they have devoted the
same consideration and affection they would have shown to their own off-spring.
Both are well known and highly esteemed in social and religious circles, moving
as .they do in the best society of their city and being active and prominent
workers in the Methodist Episcopal church. Both are deeply interested in the
Sunday school and have done much in their respective lines of endeavor to bring
it up to the present high and flourishing condition. The superintendent now has
charge of about thirty-five young men. the majority of them students of the high
school, who profit by his analysis and interpretation of the word of God. He is
a man of commanding influence in his church, both in local and general matters,
stands high in the councils and deliberations of the organization in Kokomo. He
has also been prominent in the state Sunday school work, being for several years
a member of the board of directors of the State Association, attending at
intervals the various conventions under the auspices of the State Sunday School
Association, besides being a delegate to the interdenominational conventions, in
all of which bodies his voice has been heard in behalf of better methods of
instruction and a higher grade of teachers, for what he considers one of the
greatest and most important fields of labor ever vouchsafed to human
instrumentality. The Beta Theta Phi Society, a college fraternity, is the only
fraternal organization with which he is identified, nevertheless he is in
sympathy with the ends which secret benevolent societies have in view and to the
extent of his ability and influence strives to live up to the high standard of
manhood and citizenship which they enjoin. He was for six years a member of the
board of trustees of Indiana University.

    Superintendent Ogg is a gentleman of pleasing personality, refined and
cultured, courteous in his relations with his fellow men and retains the warm
and abiding friendship of all with whom he associates. His individuality, which
is very distinct, is impressed upon any work with which he is connected, and in
the accomplishment of a purpose, he is willing to assume any amount of labor
required or any measure of responsibility incurred. In brief he is a
broad-minded, manly man, a credit to his profession, a leader among the
educators of the state, and a gentleman without pretense whom to know is to
respect and honor.


Additional Comments:
From:

HISTORY OF HOWARD COUNTY INDIANA
BY
JACKSON MORROW, B. A.
ILLUSTRATED
VOL. II
B. F. BOWEN & COMPANY
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA

(circa 1909)

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