BIO: David S. Keith, Tillard Pen Pictures, 1911, Blair County, PA

Contributed April 2003 for use in the USGenWeb Archives 
by Judy Banja <jbanja@comcast.net>

Copyright 2003.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
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_________________________________________ 

                Pen Pictures of Friends and Reminiscent Sketches
                                by J. N. Tillard

             Altoona, PA: William F. Gable & Co., Mirror Press, 1911 

                         Creative Genius and Organizer

     PROF. DAVID S. KEITH, Who Laid The Foundation for Our Splendid Public 
                   School System, Can Rest Upon His Laurels

THE late Bishop Fowler, in his lecture on "Great Deeds of Great Men," declared 
that "an army of sheep with a lion for a leader would accomplish more than an 
army of lions with a sheep for a leader."
  While the simile is not exactly applicable to the subject of this sketch, yet 
the great truth implied as to the leadership of men is luminously stated in the 
epigram.
  Did you ever see Professor David S. Keith stop to speak to a child on the 
street? Nothing leonine in his appearance, surely, but for all that he was in 
possession of a masterful power and marvelous magnetism that easily made him a 
master of men. There was no blatant self-assertion in his manner or pompous 
assumption of dignity, but, as an organizer, leader and inspirer of team work 
among his subordinates, he was unsurpassed.
  Many years ago the writer was one day crossing the Twelfth Street Bridge, when 
he saw striding toward him the then new superintendent of the city schools. His 
face had a serious expression and, as he strode along, his head was bowed in 
thought, probably pondering some of the perplexing problems of his new position. 
Suddenly his attention was attracted by a crying child. A little one, with arms 
and face resting on the iron railing of the bridge, was sobbing out some 
childish grief. In an instant the professor's hand was on her shoulder and the 
smile that lighted his face, as she looked up, was so contagious that it was 
instantly reflected in her own. A very little thing, say you? But the man who 
has in the depths of his being the sort of magnetism that can dry the tears of a 
child with a smile and bring comfort with a glance is no ordinary man. He has in 
him the potentialities of greater things.
  Professor Keith came here a generation ago. The school children of that day 
are now middle-aged men and women, but the kindly affection they acquired for 
him as children has never been dissipated. For a short while he was a teacher 
and upon the death of Superintendent Miller was elected to the vacancy, and 
under his management the little schools of the village developed into a system 
of education that any municipality might be proud of. For, no matter what 
interested detractors may say of the shortcomings of the public schools, in all 
the world's history there was never better educational work accomplished than is 
being done right here. While some other departments of municipal work may have 
lagged, or false steps taken that had to be retracted, the most venomous critic 
could not find much in the progress of the city's schools, either in the matter 
of buildings or methods employed, measuring them by results, to cavil over. 
Superintendent Keith was neither a reckless innovator nor an ultraconservative. 
His business sagacity was great and both as an educator and business manager he 
excelled. Whether he was selecting a teacher for a difficult place or locating a 
site for a needed school building, his judgment was equally sound.
  In slang parlance, he "was always on the job." School directors, as well as 
teachers, always found him "guide, philosopher and friend." While he never 
usurped any powers that were not his and never assumed dictatorial manners, he 
always kept his eye upon the growing needs of the district, and it was more 
frequently he, than the directors, that saw when the next school building would 
be needed, fixed the exact locality where it would be most convenient to the 
largest number of pupils and saw to it that the needed plot of ground was 
secured before advance in values made the price prohibitive.
  Modest and retiring in demeanor, he was not an orator and never sought public 
acclaim, but in the council chamber and at the directors' board he generally had 
the final word, for the reason that it was usually obvious to the dullest 
intellect that his word was weighty and his logic sound.
  This, of course, involved probity of character and sincerity of purpose. No 
man can serve two masters, and there was no petty politics or personal ambition 
mixed up with his motives. He was serving the public faithfully, loyally and 
well. He loved his work for its own sake and followed the beckoning finger of 
duty wherever it led him without much thought of personal consequences. Even, 
without much mental acumen such transparently honest men always have weight with 
their fellows, and when there is added such keenness of business strategy as 
Professor Keith possessed, coupled with strong personal magnetism, they are 
bound to be a power in the community.
  So, outside of his school duties, he was a source of strength to the entire 
business fabric of the city. There was probably no other financial force that 
contributed so much to the material growth of the town as the building 
association, and in these enterprises he was a conspicuous factor. His 
organizing talents found congenial expression in this direction and many a poor 
man acquired a home because Professor Keith advised, counselled and pointed out 
the way. This community owes much to a few men who organized and managed these 
associations, and to their honor, be it said, none of them proved faithless to 
their trusts.
  But great as was his business genius, he would never have found his true 
vocation in any other field than the school room. A ripe scholar and original 
thinker, his sympathetic nature peculiarly fitted him for a teacher and endowed 
him with the power to impart knowledge to others. He instinctively knew how to 
open the windows of the darkened mind, to inspire the ambition of the sluggish 
and win the confidence of the timid. He had par excellence the faculty of 
placing himself in the other's place and analyzing the processes of the other's 
mind. He was not a perfunctory crammer with facts, but an enthusiastic developer 
of ideas. He did not regard education as an end, but as a means thereto. He had 
no notion of so loading either pupils or teachers with the weight of their armor 
that they had no strength left to wield their weapons. He wanted to equip and 
not oppress them; to place in their hands the power that would enable them to 
subdue the hostile forces of the earth and go out into life with a cheerful 
mien, able to hew out their own destinies and leave the world better because 
they had lived in it.
  But the greatest gift with which he was endowed was his ability to organize 
and keep at the highest point of efficiency a teaching staff. Strong, patient 
and kind and, with an ability to measure the relative powers of men and women 
that never failed him, he was always able to fit the worker to the task. 
Recognizing the fact that the secret of success was harmony with environment, by 
the alchemy of sympathetic kindness, aided by his instinctive knowledge of human 
nature, he was able to convert failures into successes, and by a skillful 
adjustment enable a desponding teacher to snatch victory out of apparent defeat.
  How many old teachers are there in the Altoona schools today who will not 
remember times when the superintendent came to the rescue with a bit of advice 
or encouragement that brought order out of chaos and caused the mountain to sink 
to the level of the mole hill? He never nagged, or maliciously placed a teacher 
in an impossible position. He played no favorites and always stood ready to help 
those who needed it most.
  As the years grew upon him, he became more conservative in business matters 
pertaining to the schools, and who shall say that his judgment was not just as 
sound as it had ever been? By his wise forethought and prudent conserving of 
funds he saved to the school district during the years of his administration 
many thousands of dollars and always hesitated about radical departures into 
unknown fields. He understood the struggles that the people of the city had gone 
through and was always against imposing needless burdens. There is a world of 
tendency on the part of the self-satisfied youngster, who thinks he sees a new 
light and imagines that he is living in a suddenly regenerated world, to 
criticise the methods of the veteran and call him a mossback, not realizing 
that, after all, it is only the same old straw that his predecessor has threshed 
over a thousand times, looking for the possible grain of wheat. He may find the 
new grain by a new process, but it is likely to prove costly.
  No matter what the future may have in store, the past, at least, is secure, 
and the keen, kindly and capable man who for so many years held the destiny of 
the Altoona schools in his hands can rest upon his laurels, with the full 
assurance that the great public has appreciated his services and will ever hold 
him in the kindly remembrance that he so justly deserves.

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