John William Heston Biography


	This biography appears on pages 794-798 in "History of Dakota Territory" 
	by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. IV (1915) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

	This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit 
	organizations for their private use. 

	Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval 
	system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other 
	means requires the written approval of the file's author.

	This file is part of the SDGENWEB Archives. If you arrived here inside
	a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at

	http://usgwarchives.org/sd/sdfiles.htm


				JOHN WILLIAM HESTON.  

	John William Heston, president of the State Normal School at 
Madison, South Dakota, has long been a recognized leader in educational 
circles and has done particularly notable work in the northwest in the 
upbuilding of the South Dakota Agricultural College, with which he was 
connected before coming to his present position. A native of 
Bellefonte, Center county, Pennsylvania, he is a son of Elisha B. and 
Catherine (Echel) Heston. His father, who was a coach manufacturer, 
served in the Fifty-fourth Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers during 
the Civil war.  

	After attending the public schools of his native state John 
William Heston continued his studies in the Center Hall Normal and in 
the Pennsylvania State College, from which he was graduated with the 
class of 1879, winning the Bachelor of Arts degree. Two years later his 
alma mater conferred upon him the Master of Arts degree and in 1894 he 
received the honorary degree of Ph. D. from the University of Seattle. 
Practically his entire life has been devoted to educational work. In 
early manhood he took up the profession of teaching, which he followed 
for three years in the country schools of Pennsylvania before entering 
the Pennsylvania State College. He taught in the preparatory department 
there curing his college course and was afterward elected principal of 
the preparatory department, remaining in that position for six years, 
on the termination of which period he was elected professor of the 
science and art of teaching, which was the first chair of the kind in 
any college in Pennsylvania. He likewise taught agriculture in the 
Pennsylvania State College. In the meantime he studied history and 
constitutional law under Dr. H. B. Adams of the Johns Hopkins 
University and after passing a most rigid examination was admitted to 
the Pennsylvania bar as an attorney in 1890. He then left the Keystone 
state to practice law in Seattle, but soon tired of that and reentered 
the profession of teaching, spending three years as principal of the 
Seattle high school. Later he organized the Washington Agricultural 
College, but resigned its presidency to accept the presidency of the 
South Dakota Agricultural College, in which position he was retained 
for seven years, or from 1896 until 1903, when it became necessary 
either to retire or become a figurehead and see unfit and incompetent 
men placed in important positions and the authority of the executive 
dissipated, for at that period political intrigue became dominant in 
the affairs of the school. When those conditions were forced upon Mr. 
Heston he preferred to retire and for two years was entirely out of 
school work. At the end of that time he was chosen president of the 
Madison State normal School, which position he still holds. Though 
connected no longer with an agricultural college, he is an enthusiastic 
advocate of vocational education and is especially interested in 
securing the introduction of agriculture in all public schools and the 
increased adoption of science in the school curriculum. His chief work 
has been done perhaps in two important educational institutions —the 
Pennsylvania State College and the South Dakota Agricultural College. 
The latter he transformed into a modern school in four years. His high 
professional standing can be best shown perhaps in quoting from those 
who have been his colleagues and contemporaries in the educational 
field or who have watched his work because of a keen interest along 
those lines. Dr. William Frear of the Pennsylvania experiment station 
said: "Dr. Heston has shown in his work here a remarkable understanding 
of human nature which has enabled him to deal with students in a manner 
preeminently successful. The same trait has enabled him to a degree 
greater than in any other case in my acquaintance to win the confidence 
of men of influence in various classes of society: an ability which 
would find large scope in the organization and management of a state 
university. Dr. Heston stood high as a scholar, but even higher as an 
energetic, whole-souled upright Christian gentleman; always ready to 
give the larger share of the glory to his coadjutors and subordinates."  

	Harry J. Patterson, director of the Maryland experiment station, 
wrote of Mr. Heston as follows: "I regard President Heston as one of 
the best teachers I was ever under and he has always been able to get 
his students enthusiastic in their work, As a college president he has 
proven his ability to place the work on a high plane, to procure and 
hold students, and has been popular with his coworkers. He is a good 
forceful speaker, a ripe scholar, a deep thinker and a man of affairs."  

	Mr. Aldrich, secretary of the regents of education in South 
Dakota, said: "Our college was in bad condition from internal troubles 
when Dr. Heston became president. The attendance was small and it did 
not have the confidence and support of the people of the state. During 
Dr. Heston's administration the attendance has grown remarkably, being 
now second or third in the United States- The people of the state have 
changed their opinion of the institution and have built, through 
legislative appropriations, five good sized buildings on the campus and 
authorized two more last winter. The Doctor is a genial gentleman, 
always very popular with students and patrons. His influence in 
educational circles is large and his acquaintance over the country 
quite extensive. His policies are broad and far-reaching and based on 
sound and civic principles. He is in full sympathy with industrial 
ideas."  

	The foregoing have been the opinions of people specially 
interested in education and the views of the public are perhaps even 
better expressed by quoting from an editorial in the Argus-Leader, the 
largest daily published in the state, relative to his work as head of 
the South Dakota Agricultural College: "The Agricultural College is not 
only one of the most flourishing educational institutions in the 
northwest, not only has experienced a most surprising growth and 
achieved a most flattering reputation, but it is an institution of 
especial interest and value to a state whose chief industry is 
agriculture. The Argus Leader desires to testify to the remarkable 
efficiency with which President Heston has managed the institution 
during his six years, incumbency, to the powerful stimulus which he has 
exerted among students and faculty, to the great growth in attendance, 
a growth which has quadrupled the number of students during six years 
and to the farsightedness, energy, persistence and high executive 
ability with which he has built up each department and strengthened the 
course of study. Dr. Heston has achieved a most flattering success and 
the people of the state have reason to congratulate the board of 
regents who secured him and the boards who have retained him and held 
up his hands. He is not only an educator of high culture and broad 
learning, but an executive officer who has produced results of far 
reaching value to the state. Dr. Heston has made a hobby of 
agricultural education. not only of the close study of cattle and 
crops, but of all that goes to enlarge the farmer's mind, to fill it 
with the ideas and the culture required to secure the highest and 
broadest results from the cultivation of the soil and the rearing of 
cattle. Realizing that the first interest of South Dakota lies in 
successful agriculture, he has conceived that the educational forces of 
the state should be wielded so far as possible to raise agricultural 
education to a higher plane, to broaden it and deepen it and to send 
forth upon the farms and ranges and through. out the state, hundreds of 
young men and women who will regard agriculture not as a common trade 
to be pursued indolently, indifferently and with little thought of 
methods and results, but as a profession requiring keen thought, 
thorough intellectual development and careful and complete training in 
all the history and philosophy designed to produce the highest results. 
Dr. Heston advocates that the rudiments of an agricultural education 
should be taught in the grade schools of the state, as it is beginning 
to be taught in the schools of Wisconsin, and that the more thorough 
education along this line should be given in the agricultural college."  

	At Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on the 16th of August, 1881, Mr. 
Heston was married to Miss Mary Ellen Calder, a daughter of Rev. James 
Calder, D. D., of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who for twelve years or 
more was president of the Pennsylvania State College. He was also 
active in the missionary field, serving the Methodist church in that 
capacity for seven years in China. His son was later a missionary in 
India for about seven years. Mr. and Mrs. Heston have two sons. Charles 
Ellis, the elder, married Miss Jane Bechtle, of Le Mars, Iowa, and they 
have one child, Elizabeth, He is an electrical engineer and is now 
general manager for the Mathews Brothers Electrical Company of St. 
Louis. For seven years he was with the United States government as 
special electrician and as such traveled all over the world on federal 
business, wiring all United States forts throughout the Philippines and 
in the other foreign possessions. The younger son, Edward Heston, is 
now a successful physician of Seattle, Washington. He was graduated 
from the Northwestern University at Chicago, where he took high rank as 
a student and as instructor in histological laboratory work.  

	Mr. and Mrs. Heston are members of the Baptist church and he 
belongs to the Elks lodge and has taken high ranks in Masonry, being 
affiliated with the lodge, chapter, commandery and the Mystic Shrine. 
He holds pronounced views on education, claiming that the vocational or 
practical plan is by far the best for the average citizen; that one may 
acquire culture, power and correct habits of work better from a study 
of the modern sciences than from the study of ancient languages. He has 
continued his advocacy of this idea until he has won over the strongest 
men in the state and the public-school curriculum is slowly but surely 
being changed to conform to this. In administrative affairs Mr. Heston 
holds that presidents and city superintendents should have their power 
granted by law. His views upon any vital question are not hastily 
formed or ill-advised, but are the result of close and discriminating 
study of every fact that bears upon the point at issue, and he is ever 
looking for broader and more effective methods of teaching, with full 
realization of the fact that education should be a preparation for 
life's practical duties and responsibilities.