Background
He was born on July 27, 1822 at Fairton, Cumberland County, New Jersey, the son of Bergen and Ruth (Bower) Bateman. He was of Scotch and English ancestry.
He was born on July 27, 1822 at Fairton, Cumberland County, New Jersey, the son of Bergen and Ruth (Bower) Bateman. He was of Scotch and English ancestry.
The toilsome, leisureless, moneyless life of the frontier could not cool the boy's eagerness for an education. With $2. 50 in cash and only four months of preparation behind him he entered Illinois College, of which the Rev. Edward Beecher, a son of Lyman Beecher, was president. Plain living and high thinking characterized the five professors and rather less than forty students, but young Bateman, in order to stay in college, boarded himself for four years on so narrow a margin that he permanently injured his health. Upon his graduation in 1843 he went to Lane Theological Seminary for one year, but left on account of illness and traveled the country for another year as an agent for a historical chart.
After various teaching experiences in St. Louis and in St. Charles, he became in 1851 principal of the main public school in Jacksonville. To this position he later added that of county superintendent of schools and in 1857 the principalship of the Jacksonville Female Academy.
In 1858 the Republican state convention nominated him for state superintendent of public instruction. He was elected and served, 1859-63 and 1865-75, being defeated in the election of 1862. With others he began in 1858 the movement that established the state Normal University. He helped found and for a time edited the Illinois Teacher. During his tenure of office the common school system of the state was developed and brought to a high degree of efficiency. His practical sagacity as an administrator and his statesmanlike view of the major aspects of public education are exemplified in seven biennial reports, which were studied with interest all over the United States and even abroad.
Bateman's head projected only a little above the elbows of his friend Lincoln, who was wont to introduce him as "my little friend, the big schoolmaster of Illinois. " He was a member of the committee of three that drafted the bill creating the United States Bureau of Education. He was a member of the state board of health 1877-91, was appointed an assay commissioner by President Hayes in 1878, was president of Knox College 1874-92 and president emeritus from his retirement until his death. His last undertaking was the editing of the Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois. He died in Galesburg of angina pectoris.
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
In 1850 he married Sarah Dayton of Jacksonville. She died in 1857 and in October 1859 he married Annie N. Tyler, who had come to Jacksonville from Massachusetts. She died May 28, 1878.
