"Last of the Classical Scholars" - Dr. Oscar Henry Cooper - Panola County, TX Submitted by East Texas Genealogical Society P O Box 6967, Tyler, TX 75711 21 August 2002 Typed by: Janet Cook Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ***************************************************************** All documents placed in the USGenWeb Archives remain the property of the contributors, who retain publication rights in accordance with US Copyright Laws and Regulations. In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, these documents may be used by anyone for their personal research. They may be used by non-commercial entities so long as all notices and submitter information is included. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit. Any other use, including copying files to other sites, requires permission from the contributors PRIOR to uploading to the other sites. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. ***************************************************************** Originally published in the East Texas Family Records, Volume 13, Number 1, Spring, 1989, by East Texas Genealogical Society. PANOLA COUNTY - "Last of the Classical Scholars" - Dr. Oscar Henry Cooper By: Leila B. LaGrone Carthage, Texas Given on the 1850 Census of Panola County, Texas, is William H. Cooper, M.D. age 27, a single man with property valued at $300. His exact time of arrival in Texas is not known; but he came from Ohio and settled on the Henderson-Carthage Road. He was mentioned in court minutes in the 1850's, and he was exempt from the Civil War Service because he was needed at home. Panola County Marriage Records show that William H. Cooper married Catherine Hunter Rosser on January 30, 1851. She was the daughter of Col. John Rosser. Panola County Census for 1860 gave William H. Cooper's family as number 821 with two children and two extra adults in the household. That census showed the following: "William Cooper, M.D., age 38, from Ohio, worth $15,000; Catherine Cooper, age 28, housekeeper, born in Virginia; Oscar Cooper, age 8, born in Texas; Orra Cooper, age 1, born in Texas; John Roper, age 20, Medical Student, born in Virginia; and Susan Harris, age 40, housekeeper." It is possible that the young medical student was Catherine's brother, for in some cases her maiden name was spelled Roper, rather than Rosser. Dr. William H. Cooper, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, really came to be remembered for his son, Oscar H. Cooper, Ph.D. who became a disting- uished leader in Texas education. Dr. Cooper, Sr., died in 1869 and was buried at Old Macedonia Cemetery, near his own plantation. He was one of several doctors who were exempt from military service because they needed to guard the health on the home front. However, Dr. William H. Cooper did participate in the "Battles of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill", according to his son. Oscar H. Cooper grew up on his father's plantation in the Old Macedonia area of Panola County. His mother taught him to read and write while he was very young. At the age of five, he walked a mile to attend school in a one-room log school house. There he learned, as a declamation, "Patrick Henry's Speech to the Virginia Convention." At eight years old, he attended school in Carthage, taught by Professor Chatham, in an old frame building on the Northeast corner of Carthage Square, where he began the study of Latin. Dr. Cooper's own letter explained his studies at Carthage, and beyond. The letter was written to Mrs. Theo Marcus, daughter of his first teacher of German, Mr. Sigmund Rosenbaum. It was written from the Department of Philosophy and Education, Simmons University (now Hardin-Simmons University) where he held the chairmanship until his death in 1932. The letter says, ". . . I was a pupil of your father in the latter part of the year, 1864, and the early part of 1865. I was a pupil at first at Carthage, and when your father removed to Marshall, I went up to Marshall and boarded at Col. S. D. Rainey's ... I knew your family and have always cherished the opportunity I had of learning German with your father. He was a scholarly man, had studied, I believe, at the University of Munich. "When I began my lessons with him, we had no book, so he wrote the lessons out for me. He heard of a German textbook over in Rusk County and I rode the thirty miles there and back to Dr. Reddick's and got the book. I was a pupil of your father's at the time when the War closed; I was a guest as I remember at several meals. "My father was fond of your father and persuaded him to take me as his only pupil in Carthage. Your father's school in Marshall was in his residence, and my memory is that he had about twenty pupils. I did my work at Col. Rainey's and went to the school for recitation. . . This was apparently the educational arrangement called at the time "Marshall University", for the dates fit, and Dr. Cooper was almost eighty years old when he wrote the letter. His preparation for college was so thorough that he passed Entrance Exam- inations to Yale without conditions, at age 15, and he graduated there in 1872 with "an A. B. Degree and high standing academically". Yale was so impressed with his potential for greatness that he was invited to return and prepare for a professorship there. He turned down the invitation so that he could return to Panola County, Texas, and help his widowed mother. O. H. Cooper began a teaching career at Woods Post Office, in Panola County. His record of being an outstanding scholar soon became well known. He assisted in organizing a curriculum for Henderson; and he was employed as President of Henderson Male and Female College from 1873 to 1879. Then, he taught two years at Sam Houston Normal Institute (now Sam Houston State University at Huntsville). During that time, he worked closely with the governor, Roberts, chaired a TSTA Committee working to found the University of Texas. Yale called Dr. Cooper back in 1881, as a tutor and graduate student. In the year 1884-1885, he studied at the University of Berlin, Germany. Returning to his home state, he served as principal of Houston High School. He married Mary Bryan Stewart in 1885. In 1886, he was elected State Superintendent of Education, an office which he held for four years. Those years saw the development of written examinations for Teachers' Certificates, the establishment of a Permanent School Fund, and emphasis on local school support through taxation. Galveston Public Schools then claimed him as Superintendent of City Schools from 1891 to 1896. During his tenure there, he conducted schools for teaching methods; and Galveston Schools received a gold medal from the Paris Exposition, for the best-working school in the United States. In 1896, 0. H. Cooper. came back to Carthage. A new establishment of "Carthage Male and Female Academy" was a private school and Cooper became a teacher there under the direction of Superintendent L. C. Libby. Mrs. Carror Malone, one of the students, admired Dr. Cooper who was her teacher in that institution. She learned so much from his classes that she determined to follow him to Baylor University, when he was named President of the University in 1899, after three years as head of Carthage Schools. Baylor had a great deal of expansion and growth; but Mrs. Malone had funds to stay only one year. She wrote many notes of praise in her scrapbook through the years. In 1902, Dr. Cooper left Baylor and accepted the Presidency of Simmons College (Hardin-Simmons University) at Abilene, Texas. He resigned that position in 1909 to head "Cooper's Boys' School" at Abilene, where he worked until 1915. Then, at age 63, he resigned again to accept a job With more teaching and less administration, Head of Education and Philosophy Department at Simmons, where, as a teacher of philosophy, he wrote the letter quoted above. O. H. Cooper, Ph.D., received every honor available in the field of Education. The University of Nashville, Tennessee, awarded him the "Doctors Degree of Literature and Letters". He was named a Fellow of Texas State Histor- ical Association, President of Texas Colleges, author of numerous Articles, and co-author of HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY, adopted and used as a textbook for many years, as well as being author of books of instruction for teachers. Dr. Cooper and wife, Mary, had three sons and one daughter; Oscar Cooper, Dr. Stewart Cooper, Herbert Cooper, and Mrs. Dan A. Gallager. Dr. Cooper's obituary had an impressive quote from the president of Simmons, Dr. Sandderfer, "He was one of the South's most outstanding educators and the last of the classical scholars in our State. Dr. Cooper was a scholar, an author, one of the greatest teachers I have ever known, and he was a Christian gentleman possessing cultural technique to a degree rarely found in one person . . . My feeling is that he was greater in the schoolroom as a teacher than anywhere else . . . He, more than any other one man in Texas, laid the foundation for our public school system, and he was the most potent factor in founding the University of Texas . . . He was a teacher seldom equaled anywhere and in any period of our history. " BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Cooper, Oscar H., "Letter to Mrs. Theo Marcus, from Abilene, Texas, Dallas, Texas, December 22, 1931 2. HANDBOOK OF TEXAS, The, Vol. I 3. Ingmire, PANOLA COUNTY, TEXAS, MARRIAGE RECORDS, 1846-1889 4. LaGrone, Leila B., "Know Your Heritage", PANOLA WATCHMAN, Jan. 29, 1979 5. LaGrone, Leila B. , "Old Macedonia Cemetery Inventory", 1970 6. LaGrone, Leila B., Etals., HISTORY OF PANOLA COUNTY, 1979 7. Morris, Ann, Etals., OBITUARIES RECORDED IN PANOLA COUNTY, TEXAS, 1921-1935 8. PANOLA COUNTY COURT MINUTES, 1952 and 1962 9. PANOLA WATCHMAN, Sept. 22, 1932 10. U.S. CENSUS, 1850, PANOLA COUNTY, Texas 11. U.S. CENSUS, 1860, PANOLA COUNTY, Texas