Fresno County, California Biographies

Source: History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of 
the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with 
its growth and development from the early days to the present (1919)

History By Paul E. Vandor 
Illustrated, Complete In Two Volumes 
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1919
 
Notes: Missing+page1185-1186

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives 
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


PROF. CHARLES L. GEER.� Prominent among the men and women 
in the California pedagogical world is Prof. Charles L. Geer, principal of 
the Coalinga high school, and supervising principal of the Coalinga grammar 
schools, who has been an educator all his life and comes very naturally by 
the profession, as his father and mother both taught school before him. His 
early education was obtained in the public schools of Dakota, and Iowa, and 
so apt was he in his work, that he had finished the grammar school at the 
age of ten years. He came to California in 1897, and graduated from the 
Campbell high school at Santa Clara, after which he entered Stanford Uni- 
versity and was graduated from that institution in 1907. He then received 
the degree of Bachelor of Arts ; but his natural ambition would not permit 
him to be satisfied with that, so he returned for a year of graduate work. 
What is more, he worked his way through college, and he became an assistant 
in the English department. He went in for the stiff course in "Argumenta- 
tion" there, and while at Stanford won the first Bonnheim prize given for 
debating. What gifts he had as a deep thinker and a fluent talker, he further 
improved by hard study and severe discipline. 

After finishing his work at Stanford, Professor Geer became a teacher 
in the Paso Robles high school, and held that post for three years. In 1911, 
however, he was called to the Coalinga high school. At first he accepted a 
position as instructor only; but in 1915 he was made principal of the high 
school, and in 1918 he was made supervising principal of the Coalinga gram- 
mar schools. 

Since coming to Coalinga, Professor Geer has done much to advance the 
interests of higher education in this vicinity. He is a strong advocate of 
physical education � the building up of the body, with the training of the 
mind ; and this is now compulsory in the Coalinga system, with the result 
that his pupils have made the best record in the Valley in physical standards. 
Not only that, but some of his students have graduated from the Coalinga 
high school in the past three years to attain the highest scholarship and many 
of the first prizes at the university and in the colleges of the state. 

Among other things successfully advocated by Professor Geer has been 
that of the intermediate school system of Coalinga. The first intermediate 
in the Valley. Over one hundred students from all over the valley are brought 
to the school in auto buses, and this gives the outsiders a far better chance 
for advanced education. 

Some years ago Professor Geer married Miss Mary Benzing, a daughter 
of Alameda, Cal. ; and two children have blessed their union � Ruth and 
Charles L., Jr. The Geer hearth is a happy one, and the Geer household the 
center of a warming hospitality. Professor and Mrs. Geer are leaders in the 
social and intellectual circles of the town, and he is a member of the Coalinga 
Chamber of Commerce as well as the Growler's Club.