Founder’s Week – Catharine Merrill
Founder’s Week – Catharine Merrill
Yesterday we told you about the Ovid Butler‘s daughter Demia, for whom the Demia Butler Chair of English Literature is named. Today we’d like to tell you about the first holder of that chair, Catharine Merrill (1824-1900). Merrill came from a prominent Indiana family, served as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War, was friends with conservationist John Muir, and was an innovator in the classroom, being the first to use the lecture method for courses other than science. Remembered as providing a model in scholarship and character, she retired from Butler in 1883, but continued teaching privately until shortly before her death. This obituary, published in the June 9, 1900 edition of the national publication The School Journal, shows how influential she was on the community:
Catharine Merrill’s portrait, by Indiana artist T.C. Steele, hangs in Robertson Hall.
Catharine Merrill (1824-1900)
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