fraternity, in which he has had conferred upon him the degrees in the blue lodge, chapter and council. He is one of the best known young politicians and business men in the state, and there is every prospect of a brilliant career before him. Of a genial nature, he wins many friends and retains their warmest regard.

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ROFESSOR S. D. FESS, teacher of history and law in the Ohio Normal University, at Ada, entered the university as a pupil in 1881 and graduated in 1889, but has been a teacher in the institution ever since 1887. Besides the branches mentioned he has also taught mathematics and civil government. In 1892 he took up the study of law and in 1895 was admitted to the bar by the supreme court, Judge Troop being the president of the board of five judges. He at once entered upon the practice of law, as a member of the firm of Clark, Axline & Fess; but he devotes his attention now more to the teaching of law than to the practice of his profession as a lawyer. As an attorney he takes cases only in the higher courts. The degree of Doctor of Law has been conferred upon him. The law department in the institution where he is teaching is his own creation, and is still his own by proprietorship. The "College of Law" was established here as early as 1884, but in 1894 it was reorganized.

Professor Fess was born at West Newton, Allen county, Ohio, December 11, 1861, a son of Henry Fess, who died in 1866. His mother is still living at West Newton with the younger children. Her name before marriage was Herring. She had three brothers who were killed in the late war. The Professor was brought up in the principles of Democracy; and his father was a Democrat; but at the age of sixteen he began to read up on the main issue between the two great parties, with the result of becoming a Republican. In his acquirements and doctrinal standing he is not the creature of a college, as he has made himself what he is. As he was only five years of age when his father died and there were seven children left with his mother, he was placed in the care of another family, to work for his board and clothes and a districtschool education. Accordingly he was employed to work on a farm during the season of farm work and attended school during the winter. At about the age of fourteen he commenced clerking in a store, and in a short time became a mail-carrier between West Newton and Lima. After a time he managed to pay his way partly through a college course, aiding himself in funds by teaching school at intervals. In 1886-7 he taught the high school at Westminster, Allen county.

In 1884 he began to make public speeches on political topics, led to this probably by his natural ability as a debater, which he had exhibited ever since he was a boy. In 1895 he took a prominent part on the political rostrum, making a brilliant record, and in 1896 he started out early and with great zeal in the Republican campaign, under direction of the state committee. In a debate on the financial question, held on the fair grounds at Ada, he defeated John P. St. John, of Kansas, and, besides, he had many other debates with leading Democrats and Populists. During the hotly contested campaign he made more speeches than any other man in Ohio, traversing all the western and northwestern part of the state and speaking at most of the county seats; he delivered eight public speeches in Toledo alone.

Professor Fess is in line with every policy of the Republican party, advocating protective tariff and home industries, and maintains that we can make everything that we use, and that by a protective tariff we stimulate, encourage and advance the interests of invention and commerce. He is thorough on the politico-economical questions of the day, which comprises the tariff and industrial issues of the various parties. He thinks that reciprocity adds to the foreign market with no loss to our home market, while free trade adds to the foreign market by reducing the home market. This nation cannot maintain its rank with other nations unless it adopts the standard of the nations with which it deals. Money that will not circulate in all the civilized countries of the world is not good for any one country. Silver is used to-day in small exchanges, but it is not adapted to large transactions. As trade grows silver will be discredited. This nation will continue on either a silver or a gold basis until we can have a double standard by international agreement. If we are on a gold basis we can use all of our silver and paper; but if we are on a silver basis we can not circulate a dollar of gold. Logic, experience and the history of all countries prove that if we are placed on a silver basis every business has to be readjusted, and that would destroy thousands of institutions that are doing business on credit. The man who has a mortgage would be apt to lose his security, because silver, being a fluctuating medium, would not have a fixed value, and moneylenders would either refuse to loan or require payment in gold. Silver having driven out gold, and the business still done on a gold basis, every debtor in a future contract would have to pay in silver at a gold rate.

Professor Fess is a popular institute lecturer, having appeared before bodies of teachers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana. The lecture on "A.

Lincoln" has been given over two hundred times, up to 1897.

As to the fraternal orders he is a Knight of Pythias; and he is a leading member of the Young Men's Christian Association, and was sent as a delegate to the international convention at Philadelphia in 1887, and since that time he has attended nearly all the conventions of that society. He is also an efficient Sunday-school worker, having a class of three hundred in the Methodist Episcopal church.

The Professor married the daughter of Dr. Thomas, of Lancaster, Fairfield county, Ohio, and has

two sons.

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ROFESSOR H. S. LEHR, the founder of the Ohio Normal University at Ada, Hardin county, is one of the leading Republicans of the state. In 1866 he came to Ada as a teacher in the city schools, continuing in that position for five years. At the end of that time he had one hundred and twenty students from other sections of the country, and he conceived the plan of the Ohio Normal University. In 1871, with the assistance of some of the citizens of Ada, he established the Northwestern Ohio Normal School, as the present institution was then named, and it has since grown to be one of the leading institutions of learning in the United States. That year (1871) he purchased the four acres of ground which constitutes the campus and erected the first buildings. The school opened with two hundred and fifty-three students and the last year (1895–6) it enrolled the prodigious number of three thousand and seventy-three,and all this, too, without that wild-fire advertising that has characterized many other institutions of learning. The buildings are large, of modern style, well furnished and provided with all the modern appliances for teaching chemistry, physics and electricity. The literary halls are large and commodious and beautifully furnished, and there is also a handsomely furnished reading-room. Every feature of the institution is pleasant and attractive.

In the fall of 1875 the Northwestern Normal School, then located at Fostoria, Seneca county, was consolidated with this institution, and afterward the name of the institution was changed to its present form, The Ohio Normal University. It is non-sectarian, but religious, moral and refined, and conducted still as a private institution. Of course, with the astonishingly increased number of students new buildings have been erected.

Professor Lehr and his colleagues here have always taught the doctrine of protective tariff, while all other colleges in the state teach the doctrine of free trade.

The subject of this sketch first became a teacher in 1854, in Wayne county, this state. In 1860 he took a very active part in the support of the Republican party as a public speaker and otherwise in the celebrated Lincoln campaign. In 1861 he offered his services in the cause of the Union, but was rejected on account of disability, but the next year, when he offered himself again, he was accepted, in the Eightysixth Ohio Infantry, and served in the army in West Virginia. In 1864 he again enlisted, in the One Hundred and Seventy-sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and was stationed at Nashville, Tennessee, and was in the battle at that place.

He has never been a candidate for office, but has held the office of county examiner of schools for Hardin county, from 1870 to 1876. Twice has he been proposed for the governorship of the state, and three times also for a seat in congress, but every time he considered his duties at the college paramount. He foresaw Bryan's nomination for the presidency of the United States two years previous to its occurrence, and on account of his mentioning it at the time as a possibility a report gained currency that he was the original Bryan man, etc.; but Professor Lehr is and has always been a thorough Republican, a McKinley man, and in favor of protective tariff and the gold standard. From 1868 to 1890 he took a very active part in the politics of the time, participating in the county, congressional and state conventions of his party; and during that time he took some part as a public speaker on public affairs from the rostrum in Hardin, Allen, Hancock and Wyandot counties. He has ever been an earnest and able advocate of all the principles of Republicanism, emphasizing the protective tariff, sound money, gold standard, etc. He believes the tariff can be regulated to suit all classes in all periods; and as to money he believes that the state and private parties should not be allowed to issue currency, but that this function should be held exclusively by the general government. He holds moreover that the general government should issue interest-bearing bonds of small amount, to be sold by the postmasters to wage-earners, so that the national debt should be confined to the citizens of this country instead of being scattered abroad in England and Europe as at present. In regard to the liquor traffic he is a strong believer in prohibitory laws.

Professor Lehr is a close thinker, a student and a man of great vigor and activity, and has accumulated a fair amount of property, comprising two good farms, a good residence in the city, etc.

Professor Lehr was born March 8, 1838, in Mahoning county, Ohio, his parents having emigrated to this state from Allentown, Pennsylvania, the year

previously. He was married October 30, 1866, to Miss Albina J. Hoover, of Stark county, this state, and they have two daughters,-Hattie M. and Sarah L.

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The

HARLES BURLEIGH GALBREATH. world instinctively pays deference to the man whose success has been worthily achieved, who has acquired high reputation along the line toward which his energies have been directed, and whose social prominence is not less the result of an irreproachable life than of recognized natural gifts. It is a pleasing indulgence to write the biography of a man of this character. The country has produced many brilliant men who in military or civil life have won prominence and honor; most of our noblest and best men are self-made, and Mr. Galbreath is a representative of this class, for his life has been devoted to labors wherein wealth and influence availed little or naught, the measure of success depending upon the mentality, intellectual acquirements and broad culture of the individual. Mr. Galbreath has left the imprint of his individuality on each place in which, for any length of time, he has resided, and has opened to many the portals of knowledge, wherein memory's casket may be filled with the choicest gems-the only treasures which we may safely call our own. As journalist, lecturer and educator he is widely known, and is now occupying the responsible position of state librarian in Columbus. Familiarity, through the medium of books, with the most gifted minds of every nation and of every clime has well qualified him for this incumbency, and his broad knowledge enables him to supply to the patrons of the library those volumes which will bring to them that which they seek in the realms of literature.

Mr. Galbreath was born in Fairfield township, Columbiana county, Ohio, on the 25th of February, 1858, and is of Scotch-Irish lineage. His ancestors were natives of the Emerald Isle, whence they crossed the broad Atlantic to North Carolina; but they entertained strong anti-slavery views, and their teaching and principles on that question so aroused the antagonism of the community that they were forced to leave their southern home. Accordingly they took up their residence in eastern Ohio, then an unimproved region, but slightly altered from its primitive condition. They made their home in Columbiana county, near the birthplace of Edwin Coppock, who became famous in connection with the historic events that occurred near Harper's Ferry. Until thirteen years of age Mr. Galbreath attended the country school of the district in which he was born, but was then forced to abandon his studies for a period of two years, owing to the

serious illness of his father. He, however, displayed special aptitude in the schoolroom and readily mastered the elementary branches taught in the neighborhood. Subsequently he attended school through the winter months, and by working in a sawmill during the season when school was not in session he secured the funds which enabled him to continue his studies in the high school of New Lisbon, Ohio. At the age of seventeen he began teaching, and later completed the high-school course. In September, 1879, he entered Mount Union College, where he was graduated four years later with the degree of Master of Arts. The persistence which enabled him to secure his education in the face of the greatest difficulties has been one of his most marked characteristics, and has been one of the most potent elements in his continued advancement on the highway of success.

On the completion of his collegiate course Mr. Galbreath was elected principal of the schools of Wilmot, Stark county, Ohio, where he remained until 1886, when he resigned to accept the superintendency of the schools of East Palestine, Ohio, where he continued for eight consecutive years. His comprehensive understanding of the needs and requirements of public schools and his deep and earnest interest in the work made him exceptionally successful, and the high appreciation which the residents of Palestine entertained for him was shown by the unanimous call which was given him to continue as principal of their school, and the universal regret which was felt when his determination to resign was made known. In 1893, however, he accepted a position as a member of the faculty of Mount Hope College, of which institution he became president three years later. During his residence in East Palestine he served for two years as editor of the Republican Reveille, and while in that position he strongly advocated the night-school bill, introduced by Hon. J. I. Brittain and now a law. His educational labors have included considerable institute work, in which he is particularly successful. He is a lecturer of note, a forceful, earnest, eloquent and entertaining speaker, who at once holds the attention of his auditors and impresses them with thoughts not easily forgotten. He is a writer of high literary merit, of fluent and graceful style, and his publications have been favorably received throughout the country. His breadth of thought, his extensive researches into the fields of knowledge and his strong native mentality enable him to handle with ability a wide range of subjects and peculiarly fit him for his present position as state librarian to which he was appointed in 1896 by the library commission created by the seventy-second general assembly of Ohio.

On the 29th of July, 1882, Mr. Galbreath was