William Henry Churchman

Background

William Henry Churchman was born on November 23, 1818 in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. He was of Quaker parentage, the son of Micajah and Eliza Churchman.

Education

When Churchman was fifteen years old his eyesight began to fail, according to family tradition from overtaxing in reading and the study of languages and mathematics; in manhood he was totally blind.

When eighteen he entered as an advanced student the new school for the blind in Philadelphia, where he came under the influence of Friedlander, and where he was graduated after three years as a pupil in whom “the institution has reason to be proud. ”

Career

Churchman taught music and mathematics in the school for the blind at Columbus, Ohio; and when he was only twenty-six he was given full charge of the school at Nashville, Tennessee, thus early illustrating in his own person what he later said of some blind men, that they succeeded “by dint of irrepressible energy of character. ”

Thereafter he successively headed similar institutions at Indianapolis, Janesville, Wisconsin, and Cilley again at Indianapolis. Having everywhere shown himself a first-rate planner, organizer, and administrator, he was chosen in his forty- eighth year as the one best fitted by experience to shape the plans and policies of the projected New York State Institution for the Blind. Accepting the call as a duty, he as superintendent- elect submitted his matured views in an elaborate discussion of the whole question involved. Circumstances, however, kept him as superintendent of the Indiana institution until 1879 when he, in company with other heads of the state institutions, lost his position through political change. Here as elsewhere his trustees recorded their satisfaction with him as superintendent.

The Indiana Institution for the Education of the Blind was his particular child. Having searched out pupils on tour, he showed the need of a school, addressed the legislature, and more than anybody else brought the institution into being. He was the planner of its buildings, a member of its building committee, the organizer of its routine, and he made it “the model for other and older states”. He claimed for Indiana the credit of first recognizing an institution of this character as officially a department of public instruction, and for himself the plan of having his school industrial department run by a contractor on the business principle of self-interest.

Achievements

• William Churchman lost his sight while still young but his blindness did not prevent him to achieve high distinction in the field of education. His major contribution to the development of education for blind people was the foundation of the Indiana Institute for the Education of the Blind.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Churchman's common-sense grammar (Dutch Edition)

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

Membership

Churchman was at one time president of the American Association for Instructors of the Blind.

Personality

Churchman was described by one who knew him well as having a keen sense of humor; as cheerful, hopeful, dignified in bearing, imaginative, resourceful, wise and generous, but firm in judgment, and as having a good physique and a winning personality.

Connections

Churchman married Mary Marshall on September 2, 1841 who became a real helpmeet to him.

Father:

Micajah Churchman

Mother:

Eliza Churchman

Spouse:

Mary Marshall