Birth of the Minnesota Education Association

Birth of the Minnesota Education Association. . August 27, 1961, marked the centennial observance of the founding of the M E A. This organization, with its more than 28,000 classroom teachers and administrators and with its headquarters in St. Paul, was formed at Rochester during the early days of the Civil War. John Ogden, principal of the First State Normal at Winona, and Jabez Brooks, later president of Hamline University at Red Wing, hoped that through organization the teaching profession might advance the cause of the common school and thus better serve the needs of the new state., Meeting in the little Baptist Church at the bend of the Zumbro River west of the Mayo Park bridge, some 50 pioneer teachers of Minnesota dedicated themselves "to elevate the character and advance the interests of the teaching profession and to promote the cause of popular education." Benjamin F. Crary, state superintendent of public instruction, St. Paul, was elected president of the association at this first meeting; A. D. Williams, president (principal), Wasioja Seminary, vice president; S. T. Jones, village schoolmaster, Mantorville, secretary; and O. O. Baldwin, superintendent, Rochester, treasurer., From the past of each of us come enduring memories of a classroom teacher who took our hand and helped to make of our lives something better than it might otherwise have been. To their memory this marker is dedicated.