My Genealogy Hound

GEORGE L. OSBORNE, an able and well known educator, is President of the Warrensburg State Normal. He has made the profession of teaching his life work and has been eminently successful in his various fields of labor. For the past twenty years he has officiated in the position which he now holds, and during this period the school has prospered amazingly. At the time of his coming here the enrollment of students was but little over four hundred, but during the past year there have been more than one thousand students in regular attendance. The faculty has also increased in number from nine to twenty-one of the most practical instructors who can be found. The graduates of this institution are scattered not only throughout all sections of the state, but in all parts of the West, and the influence of their Alma Mater is through them becoming a strong factor in the civilization of the country lying westward of the Mississippi.

The birth of G. L. Osborne occurred in Fayette County, Pa., in December, 1835. His parents, Abraham and Jane (Gregory) Osborne, were likewise native of the Keystone State. The former was of Scotch-Irish ancestry, but his father was born in Loudoun County, Va. He bore the Christian name of Jonathan, and became one of the honored pioneers in the western part of Pennsylvania. The great-grandfather of Mrs. Jane Osborne came from England to America with William Penn. Abraham Osborne was a farmer by occupation, as were his forefathers, and in his political faith he adhered to the Whig party.

George L. Osborne is the youngest of six sons, four of whom are still living. He received a common-school education in his native county and at the age of nineteen became a teacher in the public schools. At the close of his first term of school he entered Waynesburg College, where he studied for some time, defraying his expenses by short terms of teaching in the country schools of his native county. Before his course in college was fully completed the Civil War came on and turned his attention in other directions. At the close of the war, however, the institution conferred on him the degree of A. M., in recognition of his work as a student and success as a teacher. He is not proud of his military record, although he was a member of Company C, Fifty-eighth Pennsylvania, and participated in the lively chase after General Morgan during his raid through Ohio. Soon after this his regiment was mustered out, and he resumed the profession of teaching. During his career of fourteen years in Pennsylvania, he passed through various stages of advancement, from the ungraded country school to the position of Superintendent of City Schools. The latter position he held for several years in Uniontown, Bridgeport and Brownsville, successively, and before coming West he also held the position of Professor of Mathematics in what is now the State Normal School at California, Pa.

After coming West he served four years as Superintendent of the public schools of Macon City and three years as Superintendent at Louisiana, Mo. At the end of his third year in Louisiana, in June, 1875, he was called to the Presidency of the Warrensburg Normal, and has since given his entire attention to the upbuilding of this celebrated institution. Larger and better accommodations have been added to the original structure and ever}’ appliance convenient and useful for pupil and teacher is to be found there.

November 27, 1861, Professor Osborne married Sara V. Swisher, of Uniontown, Pa., a native of West Virginia. They have two children. Myrtle, born in Louisiana, Mo., graduated from the Warrensburg Normal in 1891, after which she entered Stanford University and completed the English course in that institution as a member of the pioneer class of ‘95.

Professor Osborne was reared in the Methodist Church, and united with it when about twenty-five years of age. On coming to Missouri he became identified with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, to the doctrines of which he yet adheres. He is not a politician, but was a member of the Board of Regents of the First District at Kirksville during a large portion of his residence at Louisiana, and is now (1895) a member of the Missouri School Textbook Commission.