John Milton Gregory

John Milton Gregory (July 6, 1822 – October 19, 1898) was an American educator and the first president (regent was his official title) of the University of Illinois, then known as Illinois Industrial University.

Early life John Milton Gregory was born on July 16, 1822, in Sand Lake, New York. He graduated from Union College in 1846. He then spent two years studying law, but ultimately entered the ministry and became a Baptist clergyman.

To keep this commitment to the education of women he hired Louisa C. Allen in 1874 to develop a program in domestic science. Although the experiment in domestic science would only last six years (1874–1880), it was the first domestic science degree program in higher education.

From 1882 to 1885, Gregory served as a member of the U.S. Civil Service Commission. which asserted that a teacher should:

Know thoroughly and familiarly the lesson you wish to teach; or, in other words, teach from a full mind and a clear understanding. Gain and keep the attention and interest of the pupils upon the lesson. Refuse to teach without attention. Use words understood by both teacher and pupil in the same sense—language clear and vivid alike to both. Begin with what is already well known to the pupil in the lesson or upon the subject, and proceed to the unknown by single, easy, and natural steps, letting the known explain the unknown. Use the pupil's own mind, exciting his self-activities. Keep his thoughts as much as possible ahead of your expression, making him a discoverer of truth. Require the pupil to reproduce in thought the lesson he is learning—thinking it out in its parts, proofs, connections, and applications til he can express it in his own language. Review, review, REVIEW, reproducing correctly the old, deepening its impression with new thought, correcting false views, and completing the true.

Personal life Gregory married twice. He had five children: three daughters and two sons.

Death and legacy

Gregory died on October 19, 1898, in Washington, D.C.

Gregory is buried just to the south of Altgeld Hall near the Main Quadrangle on the UIUC campus.

John Milton Gregory Math and Science Academy of the Chicago Public Schools was originally established in 1923 as John Milton Gregory Elementary School and is located in the historic North Lawndale, Chicago community.

Other publications School Funds and School Laws of Michigan: With Notes and Forms to which are Added Elements of School Architecture etc. with Lists of Text Books and School Books (1859) Relations of the Normal School to the school Systems of the States: An Address, Delivered at the Re-Dedication of the State Normal School Building, at Ypsilanti, April 18, 1860 (1860) The Right and Duty of Christianity to Educate: Inaugural address of John M. Gregory ... Delivered at the Jubilee Meeting at Kalamazoo, Tuesday evening, September 20, 1864 (1865) The Hand-book of History and Chronology: Embracing Modern History, Both European and America for the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries for Students of History and Adapted to Accompany the Map of Time (1867) Normal class manual for Bible Teachers (1873) Syllabus of Lectures on the History of Civilization. To Senior Classes of the Illinois Industrial University. Winter term, 1877 (1877) A New Political Economy (1882) The Seven Laws of Teaching (1886)

French L'Illinois: sa position géographique, son etendue, son histoire, ses écoles, ses ressources, son Agriculture, with O. R. Keith (1878)

Spanish Las Siete Leyes de la Enseñanza (1919)