Re-Post from my original blog (I will be presenting a paper on Mayo in the next month)
William Leonidas Mayo, the founder and 1st president of East Texas Normal College (today known as Texas A&M University-Commerce), was a progressive maverick in Texas education who formulated a moralist and distinct educational philosophy that is still used today. Beloved by the community and many students and staff, President Mayo exceeded all expectations and changed the trajectory of Texas’s public higher education. His strong leadership allowed ETNC to grow into a teaching college and today as the second largest institution in the Texas A&M University system. In 1947, a tribute to Mayo stated that the professor naturally “fabricated the nucleus and outlined the course for the development of one of Texas’s leading teachers colleges” (photograph of William L. Mayo, taken early 1900s, TAMUC website).
In order to understand Mayo’s philosophy on education, it is necessary to take a look back on his past. Mayo was born on November 3, 1861, in the rural countryside of Kentucky. His childhood involved basic schooling and training in agricultural studies– since he was raised by parents who did not have a traditional income, money was constantly a problem, later influencing his decision to open a college for lower-income families and students. After excelling in his basic studies as a child, Mayo became a full-time teacher at age 15 after his regular teacher was elected the sheriff of Little Mud, Kentucky, and he successfully aced the teacher’s written examination. In the rural plains of Eastern Kentucky, William Mayo fell in love with education, became connected with his students, and developed a strong philosophy that still exists at Texas A&M University Commerce– the purpose of higher education is to create a desire within a student to question the world’s ideas and stir him/her to discover the meaning in ideas.
After teaching at primary schools in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Texas, William Mayo graduated from Central Normal College in Danville, Indiana, with a Bachelor of Arts degree (1883) and began his pursuit to change the higher education system in the Lone Star State. In 1889, he opened up a school in Cooper (sixteen miles northeast of the present-day location in Commerce) that would become North Texas Normal College. The school, which was housed in one building that contained classrooms for thirty students and an apartment for the Mayo family (Mayo would marry Etta Booth in 1891 and had eight children during his life), provided academic schooling and counseling for lower-income and uneducated students in the rural country. He once wrote, “every person, whatever his vocation in life, ought to possess this amount of knowledge, in order that he may perform intellectually his part as an active American citizen.” Mayo was the first educator in Texas to make available a year-round instructional curriculum that provided students with the tools of success through an activist approach to education (as a progressive, May had ideas of knowledge he desired to spread with the students that aimed to make academic institutions more effective agencies of a democratic society). Though successful in the first year, Mayo’s college struggled to stay financially afloat, as there was other higher-academic competition in North Texas, such as Austin College and North Texas Female College (later renamed Kidd-Key College) in Sherman (photograph of the original college building in Cooper, TX, 1892, TAMUC Special Collections–Digital).
Professor Mayo’s college in Cooper burned down in 1894, paving the way for the City of Commerce to offer land and money to Mayo in exchange for relocating the college. In the fall of 1894, East Texas Normal College opened its doors again in a rented space on Main Street in downtown Commerce. Commerce proved to be a great location as the railroads brought the students into town each morning. In the first year in Commerce, eighty-eight students enrolled in the college, and that number increased dramatically after parents heard the success of Professor Mayo’s college. Wishing to keep students at his school and encouraging more to attend, Professor Mayo was one of the first educators to open his institution to women, as coeducational studies became the norm at the college (women were required to complete the same tasks as men, such as crafting and giving speeches). Moreover, the fees to attend were kept at minimal pricing, allowing students from rural and poorer backgrounds to have a quality education that was accessible and affordable. Along with two other zealous professors, Mayo utilized a variety of literature/ texts in his classes and encouraged all students to express their opinions and learn, regardless of economic means. This conservative approach of management in the classroom led Mayo to firmly believe that student learning was not something to be received; it required an active and constructive participation. Therefore, the teachers were expected to establish practices that drove “contemporary, student-centered, civically engaged pedagogy,” and facilitate more direct student learning, rather than control it– he would note in his memoirs that “the classroom is the place for the pupil to learn how to use his [/her] own powers, and if the teacher usurps this, he is the meanest of tyrants- a tyrant of human souls.”
At the turn of the twentieth century, East Texas Normal College continued to attract many male and female students from Commerce and surrounding areas. A massive coeducational dormitory was constructed on new land in 1899, providing housing and board for those who wished to pay the small fee and study and live on campus (one-hundred-and-sixty students were housed in this residence hall). Though two large fires subsequently followed in 1907 and 1911 (of both which destroyed the newly-renovated college hall, science laboratories, and library), President Mayo was determined to finish his mission and provide the best for his students. With the City of Commerce’s help, the campus was reconstructed (including a new campus library which held over 13,000 volumes). Professor Mayo became a popular administrator among the campus residents, often chatting to them in between classes and helping the students with maintenance/ facility problems. It was his belief that by using his own labor as much as possible, he would save money (thus allowing his health to suffer in his 50’s)– “by applying my own labor to our work,” he once wrote to his brother, “I can save over $200 that would go to carpenters.” Working on average twenty hours/day, Professor Mayo was constantly looking for new ways to entertain and retain his growing student population– he was dedicated in achieving his goals. He also reassured parents that his college would provide disciplined education (and his college’s curriculum was “far superior” to that “offered by the elitist traditional liberal arts colleges) and frequently criticized the traditional lecture system. In the 1896 East Texas Normal Catalog, he noted that “the pupil [at other institutions] sits at the feet of the instructor and accepts, without thought or question, everything that is said. He takes notes on the lecture, then goes to his room and memorizes them. He learns to follow, not to lead; to accept the opinions of others, not to think for himself; to read the results of their investigations, not to make these investigations for himself. Such is not an education.” Thus, his college provided a carefully-constructed liberal arts education that was practical and cultural, and provided the tools that emphasized the words “learning by doing” (photograph of TAMUC campus in 2015, TAMUC website).
Professor Mayo became a father figure to all the male and female students on the Commerce campus. And the instructor even considered himself as a parental figure, once writing, “if a father wants to make a son a carpenter, he does not sit him down and lecture him about carpentering; instead, he gives him tools and puts him to work on a definite plan.” Professor Mayo took great interest in the daily lives of students and served as a role-model for all, in the classrooms, on the grounds, and in the chapel. He required every student to embrace the philosophy of learning and expel their strengths on to many aspects of their lives. The professor also led weekly chapel services, where students would sing hymns, say a devotional prayer, listen to a bible reading, and absorb an inspirational speech from President Mayo. James Marcus Bledsoe, a student who attended the college in the early twentieth century, wrote that “may a time have I filed out of the Chapel Hall, after listening to one of those masterful addresses of Mayo, boiling over with enthusiasm and determination… with a feeling that there was absolutely nothing impossible for me to attempt and accomplish…” Moreover, the Mayo family lived among the students, and though frequently interrupted by students who needed help with some personal and/or academic problems, were always willing to help. In class, Professor Mayo was a strict disciplinarian– one student wrote that the professor demonstrated his authority by “boxing unruly students on their ears, sending others home for infractions, and insisting upon exacting standards for English instructions.” Although he was strict, Professor Mayo held his pupils to superior academic and personal standards, and the results of his active education philosophy showed from the vast array of success of the college’s graduates. Sam Rayburn, a 1903 graduate of the college who became the longest serving Speaker of the House of Representatives, noted before his death in 1961 that “Professor Mayo instilled the importance of having an objective in life and the need to bend every energy towards it. If teachers today are able to inspire students as Mayo did, our American future is secure.”
Under Professor Mayo’s guidance and management, male and female student enrollment increased, faculty scholarship progressed, and alumni successes instilled lasting values among many institutions. In 1917, the school had two-thousand students enrolled. Unfortunately, on March 14, 1917, President Mayo suffered a heart attack and passed away, ten minutes before the State House of Representatives approved to give funds to the college. In 1918, the college officially became accredited. Since Mayo’s death, East Texas Normal College became East Texas Teacher’s College (the college trained more teachers than any other institution in the state for several decades) and then East Texas State University. In 1996, the institution was renamed to Texas A&M University-Commerce after the university joined the A&M academic family. Mayo’s efforts in approaching education in a radical and progressive style allowed rural folks from lower-income families to have a chance at broadening their intellectual scope. And thus, the university which I am proud and honored to work at, today provides resources and academic material to many students who are first-generation pupils. Academic programs on campus have expanded since the early decades of the twentieth century and alumni continue to spread their talents and collegiate-learned skills to various places around the globe. Jerry D. Morris, the president of East Texas State University, once spoke of Mayo’s practices in making civil issues and community service parts of the curriculum: “[He] demonstrated strength and wisdom, and possessed an inspired vision, based upon the soundest of principles.” Dan R. Jones, the former president of Texas A&M University-Commerce, once said “Professor William Leonidas Mayo brought to Northeast Texas a vision: to transform the face of a region through education.” In sum, William L. Mayo’s legacy is firmly grounded within the concrete structures and academic curricular framework of the campus, and his philosophy of allowing all kinds of students to actively take charge in their pursuit to success remains very much alive (photograph of Sam Rayburn, 1950s, Famous People).
Professor Mayo’s College Motto: “Ceaseless Industry, Fearless Investigation, Unfettered Thought, Unselfish Service to Others.”
For more information: Jan Tolar Modisette, William Leonidas Mayo: More Maverick Than Modern (EdD dissertation, Texas A&M University-Commerce, 2012).
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