George Pliny Brown ~ Educator, Administrator, Publisher, and Author

Photo and information taken from the
Souvenir & Homecoming Edition of The Miami~Gazette
October, 1906

George P(liny) Brown became a distinguished teacher and publisher. He was born on November 10th, 1836 in Lenox, Ohio (Ashtabula County). He was a graduate of Grand River Institute in Austinburg, Ohio. He started teaching when he was 16 years old. He taught in the schools of Waynesville, Ohio from 1854 to 1860. He was the superintendent of the new Union School in Waynesville from 1858 to 1860.

In 1885, the students of Jesse T. Butterworth, Samuel Scott and George P. Brown established the “Old School Association”, an alumni association that met annually in Waynesville. The association commemorated the early pioneer teachers of Waynesville who taught in the pre-1858 public schools in Waynesville and for a short time in the new Union School a decade before the Civil War. It was dedicated to preserving the memory of those times. In 1887 they added the name of teacher Thomas Collett to the list. During the great Home-Coming of the Waynesville School in 1906, both George P. Brown and Rev. Samuel Scott were present.

In 1855, George P. Brown had married Mary Louise Seymour and they had four sons: C. C., F. S., Ralph and Walter.

In 1860 the Brown family moved to Richmond, Indiana where he became superintendent of schools for seven years and of New Albany schools for one year. In 1869 he tried his hand at publishing. During his life, George P. Brown wrote many articles for a variety of educational journals and books on education. Also in 1870, he became the first mathematics instructor at the newly founded Indiana State Normal School in Terre Haute. Also around this time he practiced Law for a while. For the next two years he was the principal of Indianapolis High School and then he was appointed superintendent for four years. He then became a representative of the D. Appleton Company publishing house for a few years.

In 1879 he became the second president of the Indian State Normal School, which later became Indiana State University. He resigned in 1885. He moved to Topeka, Kansas for a short time and was an agent for A. S. Barnes and Company. He moved to Bloomington, Illinois where he bought and edited the “Illinois School Journal” and he organized and was president of the Public School Publishing Company of Bloomington, Ill. George P. Brown wrote six books one of which, not surprisingly, is entitled, Religious Instruction in State Schools (1891). He died February 1st, 1910 in Bloomington.

For more information see website:
http://www.indstate.edu/aboutisu/brown.html.