HISTORY OF SANTA CLARA COUNTY 525
GRENVILLE C. EMERY.--A.R., Litt. D.
EDUCATOR
SURNAMES: JONES, PIKE, DOWNING, MONROE, DOLD,
The teaching profession has ever attracted to itself the leading men of
every age and generation, and will doubtless continue to do so. The
splendid opportunities offered for men of unusual capabilities, and the
ever-increasing need for men of superior ability and strength of
purpose, make this field one of unusual interest and opportunities.
Among the most prominent educators of the secondary schools in the
state of California must be mentioned the name of Grenville C. Emery,
the headmaster emeritus of the Harvard School (Military) of Los
Angeles, Cal., of which he is the founder. In collaboration with
William F. Bradbury, headmaster of the Cambridge Latin School, he
edited a series of algebras which are still used, not only in Boston
schools, but in many otehr important educational centers of the East,
also in the Harvard School of Los Angeles, and in the Seale Academy.
He was born in Ripley, Maine, July 19, 1843, a son of John G. Emery, of
English descent and of Welsh extraction on his mother's side. His
father married Miss Mary Stanley Jones, born in New Hampshire, and was
from prominent pre-Revolutionary stock; he came around the Horn to
California in 1849. As early as 1847 he had constructed the rairoad
through Lewiston, Maine, and was a prominent and active business man.
He returned to Maine from California and engaged in the mercantile
business; farming also engaged his attention. Mr. and Mrs. Emery were
the parents of four children, of whom Grenville C. Emery is the
youngest, and the only survivor. He began his education in the public
schools of his native town; later attended the Corinna Union Academy,
of which his father was a trustee; upon graduating from this
institution.
Doctor Emery's first marriage united him with Miss Ella Pike, of
Livermore Falls, Me., and they were the parents of seven children, of
whom only two are living.
Laura J. Emery and Mrs. Ellen Emery Downing of Los Angeles, Cal. Mrs.
Emery passed away December 22, 1913, at Los Angeles. His second
marriage occurred December 22, 1920, when he was united with Mrs.
Katherine D. Monroe, nee Dold, a native of Kentucky, born, reared and
educated in the schools of Louisville. She is the parent of one son by
her first marriage, Charles Mattison Monroe, a student at Seale
Academy. After graduating from Bates College, Doctor Emery accepted a
position as teacher in the Boston Latin School the oldest school in
America with a continuous history. Doctor Emery was matter in this
school for fifteen years and rose to be head of the department of
mathematics.
Doctor Emery is the founder of the Harvard School (Military) of Los
Angeles. The history of the school really began in 1849, when the
father of its founder mounted the stage-coach in Maine, and finally
reached California around Cape Horn, to mine for gold, and to drink in
the wonderful possibilities and beauties of the state for the pleasure
and enchantment of his family on his return to the East two years
later. The cornerstone was laid in 1900. The founder, cherishing and
treasur-
ing up this boyhood knowledge, had come at last from the oldest and
most renowned school in the United States, the famous Boston Latin
School, to build up in Los Angeles a school which might have the right
to claim, in general, not only equality with the old school, but also,
perhaps, in many things, superiority. Its motto
carved on the proscenium arch of the handsome ass-embly hall, which is, as it were, the heart of the Harvard School, is:
"To thine own self be true.
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
In the words of Doctor Emery are found the true
aim of the founder: "My aim was to found a decent
school. I like that word 'decent'; it means a great
deal and is a favorite adjective of President Roose-
velt." The Harvard School is intended to fit boys for
college, for technical school, and for business
careers. Its legal name is "The Harvard School
Upon the Emery Foundation."
During the year of 1920 Doctor Emery removed
to Palo Alto, under the eaves of Stanford University,
for the purpose of establishing the Seale Academy, a school of like
aims and character as that of the Harvard School. The old Seale mansion
and estate, with its beautiful lawns, quiet pathways and avenues, and
wealth of old trees and beautiful shrubbery and flowers, was selected
as a desirable site for the school.
The buildings consist of Seale Hall, Colonial Hall, Gymnasium Hall, the
Chemical Building, and the Gymnasium proper. It is the policy of the
school to make physical training quite as thorough as mental training.
Of the fifteen-acre campus, eight acres are a wooded park and the
remaining seven acres are clear, and wholly given over to the drill,
the sports, and the games, the municipal swimming pool being at an easy
distance. All the games and sports, and the drill, are taught by
competent men. Military drill is the best form of exercise that has
been discovered, which can be practiced by the whole school all the
time with so much physical and all-round educational gain for each
individual boy. The Seale academy has become an accredited school, and
its graduates are admitted to the University of California and to
Stanford University without examination upon the recommendation of the
head-master. The courses of study conform in all essentials to those of
the best high and grammar schools of the state. There is an enrollment
of about fifty lads, and a bright and prosperous future is predicted
for the Seale Academy, which is creditably filling a long-felt need.
Doctor Emery is one of the ablest teachers of mathematics in the
secondary schools of the state, as well as one of the best-known and
most successful instructors of boys in the country. Mrs. Emery is
an accomplished, cultured woman, who enters heartily into the
work of building up the school and occupies the important position of
treasurer. Doctor and Mrs. Emery have expended much energy and a large
amount of money to increase the efficiency and influence of Seale
Academy, and what is more, they propose to give their lives to this
work.
As a fitting close to this interesting biographical sketch of this noted instructor are his own words:
"Perhaps the most potent elements in our efforts for the
accomplishment of the training of boys is the memory of our own boy who
has passed beyond, but whom we hoped to educate highly in all the
essentials which go to make up true manhood. Being deprived of this, we
try to exercise just the same vigilance and care in the education of
our neighbor's sons as we had hoped to bestow upon our own flesh and
blood."
Transcribed by Marie Clayton, from Eugene T. Sawyers' History of Santa Clara County,California, published by Historic Record Co. , 1922. page 525
SANTA CLARA COUNTY HISTORIC BIOGRAPHIES
SANTA CLARA COUNTY HISTORY AND GENEALOGY