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GEORGE W. AUSTIN
Vol. 3, p. 1004-1005
Book has photo

Throughout the country, and in no section more than in Oklahoma,
have laymen as well as progressive educationalists come to demand a
wider and deeper school service. In answer to this demand the
Oklahoma College for Women, located at Chickasha, in Grady County,
came into being, and in its development came also a demand for a man
of superior judgment and executive ability as well as high
educational attainments, to assume its management and carry out its
important purposes. Its present head, George W. AUSTIN, who assumed
these responsibilities in August, 1914, undoubtedly is the right man
in the right place, a finished scholar, an experienced educator in
sympathy with modern ideas and a practical worker also along material
lines.

George W. Austin was born in Mississippi, in 1873, and is a son of
Rev. David Jones and Julia (COUCH) Austin. Perhaps the ancestry might
reach to Wales, but the father was born in the State of Missouri. For
over twenty years he was one of the leading ministers in the Baptist
Church in Mississippi, and since 1894 has been a resident of Fort
Worth, Texas. The mother was born seventy-nine years ago in
Tennessee, and she also survives and they have a wide acquaintance at
Fort Worth, the family being variously prominent in the state. The
eldest daughter, Mrs. Nannie W. CURTIS, is president of the Woman's
Christian Temperance Union of Texas.

George W. Austin was given excellent educational advantages, after a
public school course entering the Mississippi State Normal School
and, following the removal of the family to Texas in 1894, the Texas
State Normal School. Later he pursued certain studies in the
University of Texas and then entered the educational field for which
such thorough preparation had been made. After three years as
president of Grayson College, Whitewright, Texas, he became
superintendent of the public schools at that place, continuing as
such there for five years and for the succeeding two years was in the
same office in relation to the schools of Wagoner, Oklahoma, from
which place he was called, in August, 1914, to Chickasha, the
position of president of the Oklahoma College for Women being
tendered him without any solicitation on his part. Since taking
charge of this institution his efforts have been to place it on a
high plane and that he has been successful, a short review of the
college and what he has already accomplished may prove interesting.

The Oklahoma College for Women is the only strictly female school
established by the state in Oklahoma, and the last state school to be
established, all the other state schools being coeducational. This
school was established to meet the desires of the very considerable
element who prefer to educate their daughters in schools strictly
feminine in the student body. This institution is prepared to
complete the work begun in the public schools, offering through
training ample opportunity for higher education in literature,
science and language. The high school course of four years includes
also domestic science, domestic art and physical culture, special
training being given the young women in preparation for home-makers.
If desired a four-year college course may be enjoyed and the degree
of A. B. and B. S. secured. The special departments-music,
expression, art and voice-are considered exceptional in the
advantages they provide. To particularize: the whole course of study
is designed to develop young women and train them technically and
practically for the duties of life. The classes are open to girls and
women between the ages of twelve and thirty-five years and Doctor
Austin reports an enrollment of 400 students in February, 1916.

The college is favorably located as to transportation and health.
The campus, comprising twenty acres, is situated on the highest
eminence overlooking the City of Chickasha from the southwest. It was
secured and the college established by an act of the first State
Legislature, in 1908. Its government was then vested in a board of
regents, but, by legislative enactment, it passed under the state
board of education in 1910. The administration building was ready for
occupancy in September, 1911, and cost $100,000. The dormitory, which
cost $50,000, was not yet completed when President Austin took charge
and practically nothing had been done toward advertising of this
school with its expensive modern equipments and unusual advantages.
Doctor Austin's energy and administrative ability soon became
manifest. The school owns a farm of 140 acres of excellent land and
Doctor Austin is making plans to stock and cultivate it, with a view
to producing a part of the supplies for the dormitory, and for a
second dormitory for which he is hoping. The college attendance has
grown so rapidly under his management that he, with others who have
the best interests of the state at heart, hope much for the future.
He feels that a field is here and a real demand for an institution of
this kind, one that, with other advantages, will give the practical
training to young women for a peculiarly feminine sphere. He feels,
with other Christian men, that the home is the basis of civilization;
that it must have an economic foundation and that happiness and
permanency rest on the capacity of the woman of the house knowing how
to properly make use of what the man of the house earns in the
outside world. It is the ardent wish and aspiration of Doctor Austin
that this school should become a fountain of inspiration and to its
upbuilding he is devoting every energy and effort that forethought
suggests or opportunity offers.

Doctor Austin was married in 1900 to Miss Mattie Pearl HERNDON, who
is a daughter of Zachariah Herndon, of Tupelo, Mississippi, and they
have two children, a son and a daughter, Marsden and Miriam. Doctor
Austin and family reside at the college, No. 1907 South Eighteenth
Avenue, Chickasha, Oklahoma. They take part in the pleasant social
life of the city and their home is a center for gatherings where
hospitality is offered with genuine old-time southern welcome. Reared
in the Baptist faith, Doctor Austin has been a member of the Baptist
body since his youth and since coming to Chickasha has been a deacon
in the First Baptist Church. Aside from membership in numerous
educational organizations, he is a Mason of the highest degree in the
state, his record being as follows: member of Chickasha Lodge No. 94,
Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; Chickasha Council No. 4, Royal
Select Masters; Chickasha Chapter No. 17, Royal Arch Masons; De Molay
Commandery No. 7, Knights Templar; Oklahoma Consistory, Valley of
Guthrie, thirty-second degree. Through the great work he has
accomplished at Chickasha Doctor Austin has become widely known over
the state and if all his ambitions are successfully brought to
fruition, the Oklahoma College for Women will prove an open door to a
vast number who, so far, have found few invitations awaiting them to
be trained in the homely but noble arts of homemaking, for which
Nature has implanted a secret longing, no matter what station in life
they may adorn.

Typed for OKGenWeb by: Dorothy Marie Tenaza, December 13, 1998.