Volume 11 , Issue 6

Memories Of Castles At Alva OK - April 1935

The picture on the left shows Dr. James E. Ament, father of the normal school at Alva; the building at the far right was the administration building (Castle on the Hill -- or -- Old Main) of the Alva normal school which burned, March, 1935; and the big picture behind Dr. Ament shows Ament's dream building for a school he hoped to head and the castle idea for the original Alva building.

On April 7, 1935, Sunday, on page 59, this photo and article took up the whole page 59 of The Daily Oklahoma, that started with a letter that the Daily Oklahoman, Walter M. Harrison, managing Editor, wrote to Dr. James E. Ament, President, National Park Seminary, Forest Glen, Maryland, March 9, 1935. The headlines read: "Father of the Alva Normal Speaks."

"Dear Dr. Ament: Destruction of the grand old Normandy castle in Alva by fire last week reminds me of the important part you played in the development of the Northwestern State Normal School.

"It has been a long time since your old friends in Oklahoma have had any direct contact with you. I wonder whether you might not be willing to make the passing of this famous structure the occasion for writing in reminiscent vein of the trials and tribulations undergone by yourself in making this great achievement possible. I should be happy to have a manuscript from you, small, -- short or long -- and assure you that anything you might care to write would be received with a great deal of interest by the people of Oklahoma. With best wishes, I am Yours Sincerely, Walter M. Harrison, Managing Editor."

What follows is an article written by Dr. James E. Ament, first president of the Normal School at Alva and in 1935 was president of the National Park Seminary at Forest Glen, Md.

Dr. Ament wrote, "If it will be of any interest to the people of Oklahoma, I am very willing to tell of my part in founding and building the Normal School at Alva. It will be, however, but a brief tale and the difficulties that I underwent will, I think, disappear with the telling of them. Here I must reproduce what Prof. John Davis, the Central State Teachers college at Ada wrote you, and which you published in your paper, March 7 (1935) that it may be before your readers' eyes, and be further expose for my writing:

"Your editorial on the passing of the administration building at the teachers college in Alva is most timely, as those of us who were on the spot in those early days can attest. I was a member of the faculty at Alva when this building was first began in September, 1899 (sic), and for six years thereafter.

"While giving credit to those to whom credit is due, there is one man who should not be overlooked, the first president of the college, Dr. James E. Ament, the president of National Park Seminary, Forest Glen, Md. It was through his vision and energy and will that Northwestern came into being. He planned the building and personally supervised the laying of every brick.

"With a niggardly appropriation of $5,000 he built this magnificent structure costing more than $100,000 and furnished it like the palace of a king while everybody knew it could never be. During the first year of operation he filled this plant to overflow with prospective students, who came flocking from -- nobody knew where. After about a conservative estimate will rank it as the greatest school man who ever moved into Oklahoma."

Dr. Ament's Memories of Normal School

"In telling about my part in relation to the Normal school, I shall have to be personal and I hope that a seeming ..... (could not make out the next few words) will be pardoned, for I'll have to tell some things of myself to show why it was easy for me to bring about the building of the Alva Normal. I have an interested quality that enables me often to ..... (unable to read a couple of words) make everlasting friends but I deserve no credit for this than for the fact that I was born with brown hair.

"I want to say that it would have been difficult to fail with such men back of me as those of Alva. I had never seen a group of men like them, nor have I ever with one since. There was Sam Johnson, my right-hand man, and there was Hatfield, Captain Stein, Monfort, Noble, Crowell, Shafer, and I suspect a hundred others. There was no dissension among them. They were simply united to accomplish one end and I ask you, how could they have failed?

"As to the success of the school itself, I wish to say that I gathered about me a faculty such as few schools have ever had. There was Lisk, who is still with the school, and, in my judgment, the finest teacher of physics and chemistry in this county. Then take Captain De Blumenthal of the Imperial University of Russia, his father was the chief counsellor of the state to the czar and Mr. De Blumenthal had been brought up in the court. His gracious manners were so natural that the young people did not take offense at him, but admired them and the man. Most teachers of modern languages cannot speak the language they teach. Not so with De Blumenthal.

"Captian De Blumenthal now does translating work here in Washington, but does not like it. He told me, not so long ago, that he would infinitely prefer to teach. He liked Oklahoma, and it is a pity that Alva or some other school in the state does not secure him. He would take any school popular.

"Then among the faculty were such men as Henry Fel...., John Davis, Charles Locke, Robert Clark, Frederick Abbot, and many others. A school would simply have to succeed with teachers like these, the most devoted group that I ever knew to the cause of education.

"As to the way in which I got the money for erecting the building, I have said enough to show that my personal contacts helped me out. I conceived the idea of writing a sort of bond and having my friends in Alva sign it. I think something like a hundred of us appended our signatures and I took this bond with me to Illinois to ask a friend that I felt would never refuse me anything to come out and build the school. That friend was John Volk, of Rock Island, Illinois. Mr. Volk's lawyer said the bond was of no legal value, since Mr. Volk would be putting up a building for Oklahoma, instead of for this local group of men. I begged Mr. Volk to put up the building, and trust me to get his money. This he consented to do.

"I left the bond in his hands but he never had occasion to press the matter for let me say also that the legislatures Oklahoma in those days were composed of far-seeing men, and then I had the support of the governor, Cassius M. Barnes, a man who always had the courage of his convictions. He believed that the Alva people should have the school they wanted and he went his length to secure it for them. So, you will see that my difficulties really amounted to little. Circumstances and marvelous friends were back of all that I did.

"As to the building, I have been asked why I made a castle of it. I think it is due to the fact that, in my youth, I lived in a castle. I hope that the present legislature and board, will not make the mistake of thinking that a building composed of four walls and a roof that keep out the wet and the cold will afford just as food a place for a school as a building of a castle; that is, the merions and crenels, do not add greatly to the cost of the building. Any one looking at the plans of the old castle will find that I did not use machicolations where I could avoid it. I simply corbelled out instead of using the regular castle forms, excepting on some towers were machicolations looked best.

"You will be interested to know how I became the architect of that building. The board had employed Mr. Joseph Foucart as their architect. Mr. Foucart was a very good architect but he had no sort of idea of the functioning of an American normal school. He could no more have drawn the plans for such an institution than I could have drawn the plans for a brewery. I was a trained architect and I suggested to Mr. Foucart, that if he would let me make the plans, he could have his fee and the honor of being the architect, for I cared nothing for either of these things. Consequently, I was the sole architect of the building at Alva.

"I should be glad to know that the building will go up on exactly the foundation that I made, making any desired changes in the interior, and may I say, in this connection, that had I remained president of the school at Alva and needed more room, I had a plan for enlarging the old castle practically to any extent, and adding thereby to its actual beauty.

"Separate buildings scattered over the campus look smart but they are not good. Such versity where there are different schools, such as a school of medicine, a school of law, etc., but not for a normal school. It is well to have the entire institution under one roof, if possible.

"I want to say that, owing to the enthusiasm of the people, Mr. Volk and I were able to secure our help at such wages as helped us greatly. Infact, that building at the time it was turned over to Oklahoma was actually worth about twice what it cost the territory. Our men worked from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.,br />
"Professor Davis speaks of my furnishing the building fit for the palace of a king. That is true; but, unfortunately, I have forgotten just how I managed it. I think the furnishings cost something like $35,000.

"I am getting innumerable letters from all over the country from my old boys and girls expressing their sorrow at the burning of the old castle.

"I do not know whether you saw the reference made to me by General Johnson in his article, entitled My Early Days and published in the April, 1935, number of the Redbook. The reference is on page 105, and for fear you did not see it, I am reproducing it here:

"That president of the northwest normal school was a godsend to me. I was 14 when he came and opened his college in the second-hand church, awaiting the new building on the hill. The haphazard and fragmentary education on which I have touched was wholly disorganized. He was a scientific educator, and took a very special interest. He built where it was weak, and guided where it was not so weak, and enabled me to get through West Point four years later. His name is James E. Ament, and he presides now at the National Park Seminary in Washington. I have never known a teacher to compare with him. I proudly hold the diploma of that little college, although by an unorthodox route -- two years credit for my four years at West Point. Later I got credit for three years at West Point to add to one on a B.A. degree at California -- which made pretty good use of four years at the military academy."

"Of course, it is a great pleasure for me to have Hugh say, After he had gone through West Point and the University of California. 'I have never known a teacher to compare with him.'

"I received a very interesting letter from Mrs. Maud A Drake-Bingham, of Norman, Oklahoma. In this letter Mrs. Bingham said, 'If we could, we would call you back from that world of your choosing and say to you, Build it back for us. All the future youth of that more or less submarginal land need that inspiring structure as we needed it in the past.'

"Of course, it is idle to talk of my returning to Oklahoma, much as I should like to do it. There would be too many ties to break here at the national capital where I have lived for 18 years. Still, if I can help in any way to replace the old castle, I should be pleased to do it; for in my judgment the castle, down to the day of its destruction, was, perhaps, the most beautiful school building in the world.

"In closing her letter, Mrs. Bingham said, 'You may not remember me, but you once called me a brick.'

"Here is one of the morals that I wish to speak of. Of course, I do not remember calling Maud a brick, but the thing that I want to drive home is that a teacher, if he has influence with his students, is always teaching, whether he knows it or not, and he has got to be absolutely and always careful.

"W. C. Hall, writing from out in Idaho, said in his letter, 'I feel like general Johnson, that you were not only a godsend to me but to so many other young people.'

"In another paragraph he says, 'A few years ago I was visiting our mutual friend, T. Dudley Nash, who was our neighbor at that particular time, and I asked him this question: Was President Ament as big a man as I thought him to be, or was that just my immature judgment? To which he replied, 'I have never met his equal.'

"Nash had a good joke on me. For some reason I thought his parents were German, while in fact they were Irish. Meeting him on the street one day and stopping for a little chat, I asked 'Strechen Sie Deutsch?' I saw from his blank look that he did not understand and I went on to berate his parents for not teaching him German. I called it a shame that they should let him grow up without teaching him German. The poor fellow had not the remotest idea of why I took this stand, and for more than a year he pondered over it, when by a chance remark of another person he learned that I thought his people were German.

"Leslie Salter, one of the lawyers in the Insull case, wrote, 'One of the earliest recollections of my childhood was to watch the building of the castle from an upstairs window of our farm house.' How far flung was the influence of that old building! It is really beyond one's imagination.

"In an intensely interesting and amusing letter, Mrs. Anna Brown Moore, of Chicago, a relative of former President Hoover, wrote, 'You may have forgotten me but I could never forget you and Mrs. Ament. To my mind as a girl she was a goddess, and you had the power to frighten me speechless.'

"Of course, those were my salad days in the management of great institution. In fact, I was but little more than a youth myself, and I suspect I assumed a dignity to which I had no natural right.

"But how gratifying it is to receive all these letters from men and women now from 50 to 60 years of age, assuring me that my influence over them was not ephemeral, for it has been with them for good throughout their lives. Again, what a tremendous responsibility it argues!

"I remember Dennis Flynn visited the normal, and made a fine talk touching upon a very similar point His talk to the student body was helpful in several ways.

"Now I want to refer to just one more of the many letters, all practically in the same vein. The letter is from Mrs. W. G. Baer of Enid. Her letter covers a little more than three pages. In it she says, 'I believe my greatest success is in my home. I remember some advice you used to give us to the effect that if we wanted to know if a woman was a good housekeeper, go to her back door.'

"Now I do not remember ever making this statement but please note how it sticks through more than a third of a century, and again I say we teachers are always teaching, consciously or unconsciously, and should ever bear that fact in mind, though we should not let it make us stilted or unnatural.

"I do not know whether my friends would be interested in the things I have done since I left Oklahoma, or not. In the first place, I should like to say that Mrs. Ament and I spent a year at the University of Michigan, I, not matriculating as all as a student but simply living there in order to study the ways of the institution's great president, Dr. James B. Angell. I was privileged by Doctor Angell to be in his office on any occasion that I desired, or wherever I pleased to be in the institution. I had earlier made a briefer study of the work of William Rainey Harper, president of Chicago University, who was then spending the Rockefeller millions in building up that institution. So far as I know, no other man in the history of education ever did this kind of thing. It was my desire to know how other men worked and not be be simply a copyist of the president of the institution from which I had graduated.

"I spent a few years as president of the Missouri State Teachers college at Warrensburg and then answered a call to go to Pennsylvania where I became the head of the state normal school at the town of Indiana. Here, I think, I did my greatest work as an educator. The school became known as one of the most beautiful of its kind and achieved a national reputation. It was distinguished for having more men students in it than any other normal school in the United States had.

"I have had a few honors of marked distinction conferred upon me in these latter years of my life. I was made a Knight of the Holy Sepulcher, the oldest knighthood order in the world. Each knight receives a gold cross about three inches long, which opens and inside, preserved in wax, is a small splinter of what is supposed to be Christ's cross.

"In 1926 I received the diploma of the Academy International at Naples. At that time, i understood that but three other Americans held this diploma: They were Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University; Chief Justice Taft and Woodrow Wilson.

"I am also a Corresponding member of the Academie Latine, of Paris.

"I believe I am in every type of Who's Who that has ever been published in America, such as Who's Who Among Educators, in Finance, in the East, in the National's Capital, etc., etc., etc., as well as in Matthews's Blue Book of England. Sometimes doubts creep into my mind as to whether I really deserve such honors, but let us hope that I do.

"About 20 years ago I became imbued with the idea that I wished to become the head of a private school. After visiting quite a number of such schools, I felt that I would like to found a school de novo, and proceeded to make plans for such a school. I am a born dreamer and when I get started on anything of that kind, I am very apt to go a little too far.

"The building was made in the form of a great castle. There are 27 towers, I think, upon this building, and may I say that I went abroad several times, studying the crenelations on castle towers that I might not have any two on my castle exactly alike.

"Had my building been constructed, it would have been the largest building ever made by mankind. For instance, Windsor castle, one of the largest buildings in the world, covers about 13 acres. My castle would have covered 27 acres. It had many unique features, such as intra-mural passage-ways, etc., but which I cannot ask for space to describe. For instance, the cloister walk going around three sides of the inner of great court, affords a covered walk for inclement weather, more than a mile in length.

"I made this building so large so beautiful, and so perfect that the cost of its construction would have been about $12,000,000, so my millionaire friend who was back of me persuaded me to buy a going concern, and, consequently, I became the president 18 years ago of National Park Seminary. I never hated to give up anything so much in my life as the building of my great castle. It was the greatest dream of my life, and, of course, I was sorry not to realize it as I ever had done in other cases; but it may yet be built by some one. I would, in a way, be a joy for the whole world.

"I have found the work at National Park Seminary delightful and much easier on me with the passing years than the work of running a great state institution. Mrs. Ament is my right-hand man here in everything. Her abiding faith in me and her never-failing support have been the foundation of every worthwhile accomplishment of my life.

"I am sending you a photograph of myself taken but a few years ago, which you may want to use, since, excepting a very few, my Oklahoma friends have not seen me for more than a third of a century."
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