JOHN MACDONALD

JOHN MACDONALD was born at Linshader, on the western coast of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, on February 6, 1843. When he was a child his parents moved to Gairloch, in the west of Ross-shire, situated on an inlet of the Atlantic. It was in this picturesque country that MacDonald received his elementary and high-school education, for in those days, as in these days, instruction in the higher studies was given in the parish schools.

In 1862 young MacDonald went to London to seek his fortune, and not finding it, crossed the Atlantic in 1866 to New York. Two years later he went westward, "not knowing whither he went," but bound to find some haven. He found it in 1870, in Shawnee county, on or near the Wakarusa.

Shortly afterward he began to teach, and he has been connected with the public schools in some way until now. He served as superintendent of the Shawnee county schools from 1877 to 1881 and from 1883 to 1889. In December, 1889, he bought the Western School Journal, and he is still its owner and editor. Mr. MacDonald was a member of the Kansas State Board of Education from April, 1909, to April, 1915. He was president of the Kansas State Teachers' Association in 1898. He is now, and has been a number of years, president of the Educational Press Association of America, and he was many years a member of the board of directors of the National Education Association. He has been a member of the Kansas State Teachers' Association since the early seventies, and of the National Association has been a life member since 1886. There are two national meetings—the National Educational Association in July, and the Department of Superintendence in February or March. Mr. MacDonald seldom misses a meeting. The following shows his record of attendance since 1886: 1886, Topeka; 1887, Chicago; 1890, St. Paul; 1891, Toronto, Canada; 1892, Saratoga Springs, N. Y.; 1894, Asbury Park, N. J.; 1895, Denver; 1896, Buffalo, N. Y.; 1897, Milwaukee; 1898, Washington, D. C.; 1899, Los Angeles; 1900, Charleston, S. C.; 1901, Detroit, Mich.; 1902, Minneapolis, Minn.; 1903, Boston; 1904, St. Louis; 1905, Asbury Park and Ocean Grove, N. J.; 1907, Los Angeles; 1908, Cleveland, Ohio; 1909, Denver; 1910, Boston; 1911, San Francisco; 1912, Chicago; 1913, Salt Lake City; 1914, St. Paul, Minn.; total, twenty-five meetings.

Of meetings of the Department of Superintendence, always held in February or March, the editor of the Journal attended at Chicago in 1887; New York, 1890; Philadelphia, 1891; Brooklyn, N. Y., 1892; Boston, 1893; Cleveland, 1895; Jacksonville, Fla., 1896; Indianapolis, 1897; Chattanooga, Tenn., 1898; Columbus, Ohio, 1899; Chicago, 1900; Chicago, 1901; Chicago, 1902; Cincinnati, 1903; Atlanta, GA., 1904; Milwaukee, Wis., 1905; Louisville, KY., 1906; Chicago, 1907; Washington, D. C., 1908; Chicago, 1909; Indianapolis, 1910; Mobile, Ala., 1911; St. Louis, 1912; Philadelphia, 1913; Cincinnati, 1915; total, twenty-four.

Mr. MacDonald is not a graduate of any college, but he has the equivalent of a college education, acquired at institutes which were open in the evenings for the benefit of persons who had to earn their living during the day. The teachers and instruction were of the best. For instance, in London, English was taught to MacDonald by Dr. F. J. Furnivall, one of the greatest Shakesperian[sic] scholars of his time or of any period, and he too had the rare privilege of hearing lectures by John Ruskin and other eminent men in letters and art.

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