LELAND E TUPPER

A man of ripe scholarship and marked executive ability, whose life has been consecrated to the work of promoting intellectual and moral advancement, there is a particular propriety in here directing attention to the life history of Leland Ellis Tupper who is the president of Hiawatha Academy. His reputation is not of a restricted order and his power as a teacher and preacher is widely recognized, having been exerted in the spirit of the deepest human sympathy and tender solicitude.

Mr. Tupper was born in Bakersfield, Vermont, March 2, 1856, and is a son of Jackson and Caroline (Parkhurst) Tupper. On the paternal side the ancestry of the family can be traced back to i66o, when representatives of the name left their English homes and sailed for America. Mr. Tupper, of this review, is of the eighth generation from the original American ancestors. His great-grandfather was a sailor on the Atlantic and his grandfather, Thomas Tupper, a native of Massachusetts, resided for many years on Cape Cod. Jackson Tupper, the father, was born in Vermont, in 1819, and he there married Miss Parkhurst, who also was a native of the Green Mountain state, a daughter of Levi Parkhurst and Laken Leland Parkhurst.

Rev. Leland E. Tupper, whose name introduces this review, spent his youth in Vermont and supplemented his preliminary education by a course in the high school and by study in Barre Academy, where he prepared for college under the noted Dr. Jacob Shedd Spaulding. He then entered the University of Vermont, in which institution he was graduated in the class of 1880. His life work has been that of art educator and preacher, and on the completion of his college work he became the principal of the Craftsbury Academy, in Craftsbury, Vermont, where he remained for four years. He was afterward the president of Essex Classical Institute for two years, and on the expiration of that period accepted the pastorate of the Congregational church in Post Mill, Vermont, where he remained until February, 1887, when he accepted a position as teacher. Under the direction of the American Missionary Association he went to Williamsburg, Kentucky, where he remained for five years. During that time he also did considerable service in the pulpit. In 1882 he came to Hiawatha, Kansas, and has since been the principal of the Hiawatha Academy, one of the leading educational institutions in the eastern part of the state. Under his direction its standard has been greatly raised and the various work done in the school enables its graduates to enter any of the more advanced colleges in the United States.

In the year of his arrival in Hiawatha Rev. Tupper was united in marriage to Miss Alice Crane, of Northfield, Vermont, who was born and reared in that place, and is a daughter of George and Sarah (Denny) Crane. They now have one child, Lelia Evelyn, who is now seven years of age. Their beautiful home on Kickapoo street is of modern architectural design and is attractive both in external and internal appearance and is celebrated for the gracious hospitality uniformly exhibited there. Mr. Tupper has devoted his life to two of the most beneficent and humane callings to which men ever direct their energies, and his influence over the lives of others is most marked and beneficial. As a speaker he is forceful and eloquent and his every utterance rings with sincerity and conviction. A master of rhetoric, he is enabled to present his views in such a way as to entertain as well as instruct his hearers, and his earnest and impartial words reveal the deep fervor with which he is imbued in presenting the divine truth, which are thus made to appeal more strongly to those he addresses. His mind, carefully disciplined, intellectual and of broad ken, his deep perception and quick and lively sympathy, make him a power in his field of labor.