John W. Cook
Served as President 1890-1899
Portrait Details
Artist
Ralph Clarkson
Canvas Size
29 1/2" x 35 1/2"
Creation Date
circa 1890
John Cook Portrait
Cook’s portrait is the first to have an understated frame and the first since Hovey’s to show him sitting. In a similar fashion to Edwards painting, the artist, Ralph Clarkson, signed the top right of the portrait.
John Cook Portrait Details
Looking closer at the piece, Clarkson used a mix of highlights and lowlights to emphasize the age of Cooks' hands.
John Cook Baccalaureate Sermon
Cook was known to be an excellent public speaker. He was also a follower of the educational philosophy known as Herbartianism, of which the American version was founded at ISNU. Known for its infusion of moral education and repetition into the curriculum, Cook highlights Herbartianism and mentions moral conduct in this baccalaureate sermon
John Cook
Cook, always sporting a handsome mustache, graduated from ISNU in 1865 and taught at the university until he became president in 1890.
John Cook
This photograph was likely taken when Cook served on the ISNU faculty as a professor of history, geography, reading, and mathematics.
John Cook
This undated photograph shows an older Cook when he served as president of ISNU.
Biography
One of our Own
John Williston Cook (1844-1922) was the fourth president of Illinois State Normal University. Born in Oneida County, New York, Cook moved to McLean County, Illinois in 1853 where he met and later married first president Charles Hovey’s sister, Lydia Spofford in 1867. Cook attended ISNU as a student and graduated from the institution in 1865. After graduation, he stayed on as an educator teaching history, geography, reading, and mathematics. He would later become the head of the mathematics department and lead it for fourteen years. After Hewett’s retirement, Cook became the university’s fourth president in 1890.
American Herbartian
Cook taught at the university during the rise of the American Herbartianism movement. Fellow alumni and faculty member, Charles DeGarmo, had trained in Jenna, Germany and brought back to the university an educational pedagogy that relied on repetition and morality. Led by DeGarmo and four other ISNU affiliated educators, the American form of Herbartianism became the most popular pedagogy in the education field at that time. Cook adopted the pedagogy in his own classroom and supported the teaching both as an educator and later as the university’s president.
President Cook
After years of financial hurdles, Cook was able to procure funding for two buildings on campus. The first, North Hall, was the second academic structure on campus designed to help train the university’s student teachers. The second, the gymnasium, was a compromise from Edwards’s original plan which called for a dormitory with an attached gym. The new building would be a dedicated gymnasium and would resemble a castle, the only design aesthetic then governor John Altgeld would approve. Cook continued as president for nine years until 1899 when he left ISNU to become the first president at Northern Illinois State Normal School (now Northern Illinois University). Cook served as the NISNS president until 1919 when he retired from academics. Cook passed away in 1922 and was buried in Evergreen Memorial Cemetery in Bloomington, Illinois.
Continued Research
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John W. Cook Presidential Papers Finding Aid
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A History of the Illinois State Normal University by John Williston Cook and James V. McHugh