Ozaukee County News Articles
A PIONEER EDUCATOR OF OZAUKEE COUNTY
by Theodore A. Boerner
Extracted from the
The Wisconsin magazine of history:
Volume 11, number 2, December 1927
Used with permission of Wisconsin Historial Society
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org
It has been said that "a prophet hath no honor in his own country." That the truth of this saying is made more evident by an occasional exception was shown by an unusual celebration in the city of Cedarburg about twenty-two years ago, when Charles Lau, principal of the Cedarburg schools for more than thirty years, was the honored guest of the community, assembled in the Turner Hall to rejoice with him on the completion of his fiftieth year of active service as a teacher in the schools of Wisconsin. It was a well deserved recognition of a life devoted from its very beginning to the cause of education.
Charles Lau was born September 22, 1836, in Brunn, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Germany, the son of Johann Lau, teacher of the Dorf-Schule at Brunn. His education was begun in his father's school, with instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic, and Latin. It is interesting to note that reading in this school was taught by the phonetic method, Lautier Methode> of which Mr. Lau ever remained a consistent advocate. From Brunn he graduated to the Stadt-Schide in Brandenburg, where the course was largely classical, with instruction in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The final preparation for his life work came in a district school near Cedar Lake, Washington County, Wisconsin, taught by Dr. Wendell, which Mr. Lau attended primarily for the purpose of learning the English language. The next winter found him teacher of this same school for a term of three months at a salary of twenty-two dollars a month.
Charles Lau was eighteen years of age when in 1854 the whole family, father, mother, four boys, and two girls, emigrated to America. The trip was made on an American sailing vessel, six weeks being spent on the ocean. The captain, however, pronounced it his most delightful trip because of the Lau family, who, having organized as a mixed chorus, lightened the passage with song. Arrived in America, the family settled on the southeast shore of Cedar Lake in Washington County, Wisconsin, their first American home being a rude windowless and floorless log house. And from this humble abode Mr. Lau started out on his career as teacher. The chronological record of that career is brief: from 1855 to 1856 in the district school near Cedar Lake; 1856 to 1859 in Granville, Milwaukee County; 1859 to 1874 in Mequon and Thiensville, Ozaukee County; 1874 to 1909 in Cedarburg, Ozaukee County. That makes fifty years in Ozaukee County. And the quality as well as the length of his service justly gave to Mr. Lau a commanding place in the educational affairs of the county.
"By their fruits ye shall know them/' When Mr. Lau began to teach at Cedarburg the school was housed in a two-room building. When death ended his labors in 1909 two fine structures graced the school grounds, a fully equipped graded school of eight rooms and a high school building of equal size. From the first it was his aim to raise the standard of his school, and it was not many years before he had a high school in operation which attracted students from all parts of the county. But even before the high school was established Mr. Lau found time to give instruction in higher than graded school branches, to such good purpose that his pupils had no difficulty in passing the entrance examinations of the University of Wisconsin. The work of the whole school, however, from the kindergarten to the high school, always received Mr. Lau's closest attention. It was, in fact, in the lower grades that he achieved his most notable results, for he worked on the principle that a higher education is of little value unless it is well grounded.
Perhaps the character and quality of Mr. Lau as a teacher is best revealed in the manuscript of one of his addresses now in the possession of the writer. It is written in that clear, perfect script which all his pupils will remember as a peculiar characteristic of Mr. Lau. A firm hand, every letter perfectly formed, every word properly spaced so that "he who runs may read"–in these days when fine handwriting seems, alas, to have become a lost art, it is really delightfully restful to pore over so perfect a manuscript. The sight of this old paper reminds the writer of those ancient fundamentals of a good education on which Mr. Lau always laid peculiar stress: reading, writing, and arithmetic. The range of modern scholarship sends us so far afield that the importance of these ancient fundamentals is sometimes lost to sight, and young men and women are launched into higher courses before they have learned how to read, write, and figure. But Mr. Lau believed in building well at the foundation, and it was his constant aim to see that his pupils were well grounded in these fundamental subjects before they ventured on higher flights.
The writer, who attended the Cedarburg school when Charles Lau began his work there, would be glad if possible to describe in detail that educator's method of teaching. But the lapse of fifty years of busy life in other lines has somewhat dimmed the picture. However, a letter received from Mr. Lau's youngest son ( John Arnold Lau, formerly principal of Rock Island High School, Illinois, and now a publisher of schoolbooks in Chicago) throws some light on the subject. "Strange as it may seem," he writes, "I find myself somewhat at a loss to put a finger on the essence of father's teaching method. The only advice he gave me when I began teaching was: 'Never go before your class unprepared.' After I got to teaching, we seldom, if ever, discussed methods. While he was my teacher, I was at the age where anything like serious thought about methods was rather taboo; it simply did not occur. I was interested in subject matter; I took methods for granted–did not think about them. This I know, that when father first began to teach the older boys high school subjects like physics, botany, and geometry, he did so by the laboratory method. This was not original, but somewhat new for an ordinary schoolmaster. Instruction in those days, as you recall, was largely academic; that is, from the book. Father either rigged up or bought apparatus, and insisted on experiment in physics. Botany was a study of actual specimens. Geometry was a process of understanding and thinking in terms of lines, angles, and planes, rather than swallowing whole the demonstration and glibly saying amen, with the usual 'Q. E. D.' I think I got my insistence on knowing how and why in history from an unremembered training in father's classes, in which he evidently wanted us to know about the relations between events, periods, and persons. In brief, father was strong for 'thinking through'–self activity (nothing new since Socrates, but he did pioneer in self-reliance in thinking). I think that was what helped most of his students at the University later. Of course, thoroughness was a fetish–thoroughness in fundamentals." Another student (Hugo Krause, of Chicago) briefly states the general verdict: "What we learned from him we learned well."
Mr. Lau's success in his work at Cedarburg soon attracted the favorable attention of educators from all parts of the state, and his services were in frequent demand at teachers' institutes and meetings. He was probably one of the earliest exponents in Wisconsin of the Pestalozzian idea of teaching, involving the three principles that "education must develop the child as a whole, education must guide and stimulate his activities, and all education must be based on intuition and exercise." There is no doubt that in his many years of demonstrating these principles Mr. Lau made a profound impression on the educational practice of the state. Certain it is that all who came in contact with him could feel that he was thoroughly in earnest, that his work was guided by a rare singleness of purpose, and that his whole life in fact expressed an intense devotion to the public school as America's most precious institution.
The school was indeed Mr. Lau's life. Quoting from the address above referred to, which was delivered on Decoration Day: "The question before us," he said, "is, are our public schools doing all that we have a right to demand of them to prepare our young people to become patriotic, intelligent, moral, and industrious citizens? Our public school system must have life in itself; no dead forms will suffice. It must be American in its deepest significance, liberty loving, liberty promoting. As a friend of true liberty it must encourage industry and sobriety; it must inculcate love of order and respect for law; it must impress upon its pupils the responsibility of office-holding with more patriotic and less selfish ends in view; it must teach the sacredness of the ballot-box, the emblem of a freeman's power and the pledge of a freeman's honor; it must graft upon the minds of its pupils the value of American citizenship. But above all the public school must emphasize character. This is but a recurrence to the principles of our fathers. To the promotion of character our schools must address themselves, or all our boasted liberties will become unbridled license, and our property and lives be at the mercy of the incendiary and the bomb-thrower."
Striving after these ideals, Mr. Lau lived and worked. How well he succeeded is shown in the hundreds of lives that in the course of half a century of teaching had felt his guiding hand, as well as in the high esteem in which he was held in the community which he directly served. For he was a part of the life of the town and made his good influence felt in many ways outside of his regular school work. But in the hearts of his pupils, many of whom are now grayheaded men and women, he holds a place which nothing can shake. With particular pleasure and appreciation they will recall with what patience and self-denial Mr. Lau organized a school choir and labored night after night to teach them to sing; how he drilled them in the periodic school plays and carried on his devoted shoulders the burden of director, stage manager, prompter, and what not besides; how he guided them in the reading of good books and led them into a knowledge of the classics in two languages; how with the utmost gentleness and consideration he smoothed out the occasional troubles and strifes of his young charges; how he took a deep and fatherly interest in their aims and ambitions; how he shared in their sports and on one memorable occasion batted out a home run–precious recollections! No wonder that as time went on he was feelingly and lovingly remembered by his former pupils as "Papa Lau."
It is unfortunate that the records and documents accumulated by Mr. Lau are no longer available. Most of these were lost in a fire which destroyed the old high school building at Cedarburg. Only a few documents remain, several of which may however be of historical interest. One of these is an Ozaukee County teacher's certificate issued to Mr. Lau in 1864 by Superintendent Frederick W. Horn, once a considerable figure in the political life of Wisconsin. Another is a state teacher's certificate issued in 1871 by State Superintendent Samuel Fallows of beloved memory. But perhaps the most interesting document is a teacher's contract of 1862 with School District No. 14 of Mequon, in which it is agreed that the salary of twenty-five dollars a month shall be paid "whenever there is money in the treasury!"
Mr. Lau remained active in the Cedarburg schools until within a few months of his death, which occurred July 10, 1909. Quoting from the Cedarburg Neivs, "Professor Lau was a modest but energetic man who never sought notoriety, although he was urged and could have accepted positions of prominence. He has ably conducted our schools, and it was principally through his hard and diligent work that our city is classed today as having one of the best conducted and equipped high and graded school buildings in the state." Recently there has been started among his former pupils a movement to erect in Cedarburg a suitable monument to the memory of Charles Lau. However that may develop, the school itself will ever be his monument.
To see the article as it appeared in the magazine and a picture of Charles Lau, please go to:
http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/u?/wmh,5867
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