Note 29 — Chapter VIII

Newton Bateman was born at Fairfield, New York, July 27, 1822, and migrated with his parents to Illinois in his boyhood. He was graduated from Illinois College, in Jacksonville, in 1843, and was honored as one of the ablest men in the alumni of that institution. He first knew Abraham Lincoln in 1847, and knew him with increasing intimacy during the years of 1859 and 1860 when Mr. Bateman was in Springfield. Mr. Bateman served as Superintendent of Schools of the State of Illinois continuously from 1859 to 1875, except for the single term 1863-65. During his administration the school system of Illinois made notable progress, and he is remembered as having done large things for the educational system of his State. He was the author of the plan for the education of all the children of all the people of the State at the expense of all the property of the State. He wrought his system into the new constitution of Illinois, adopted in 1871, while he was at the zenith of his power. He was repeatedly re-elected, his defeat in 1862 being a defeat shared with the whole Republican ticket of the State in an off-year election when nearly the whole North, weary of the war which had scarcely begun, defeated partly by hostility and partly by lethargy the party and the policies that had sent Lincoln to the White House; and Bateman was triumphantly re-elected when Lincoln was re-elected, and for many terms thereafter. He established the Normal School system of the State; and his work was monumental in the life of the State University. Few men deserve so well to be remembered with honor in Illinois.

At the close of his long term of service as Superintendent of Schools, he became President of Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, from 1875 to 1893. He was small in stature, and by his friends was familiarly called "Little Newt," but was held in high regard as a man of honor and an educator of note. Besides his published reports and addresses, he compiled a large encyclopedia of men of Illinois,—a kind of "Who's Who" of much value. His family at one time proposed to gather and issue a memorial volume of his addresses, but the plan appears not to have been carried out. He died of angina pectoris at Galesburg, October 21, 1897.