Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1885 — What a Little Advertisement Bid. [ARTICLE]

What a Little Advertisement Bid.

Logansport Journal: One of the most far reaching results of a little advertisement that has ever come to the writer’s notice was related to him the other day by a gentleman of this city. In 1872 a man named Ira 0. Hoops, of New Paris, Ind., was visiting in Sandusky, Ohio. While there he picked up a copy of the Sandusky Register, which had been used in tying up a package which had been delivered to his room, containing advertisement of the Northwestern p ormal School at Republic, Ohio. Hoops was interested in the advertisement and wrote to the school for a catalogue. The catalogue was sent him, accompanied by a personal reply to his letter by the Principal, who was none other tha Prof. J. Fraize Richards, now of this city. The correspondence resulted in Mr. Hoops entering the school where he became a warm personal friend of i rof. Brown, who was a teacher in the institutic n. Brown was ambitious and was desirous of establishing a school of his own. Thro’ Hoops he learned of a vacant building in Valparaiso, Ind., and in the spring of 1873 Mr. Brown visited Valparaiso, examined the building and canvassed the ‘situation. A few months later he returned to the Hoosier village, accompanied by Miss M. E. Baldwin and Mr. M. E. Bogarte, who were also teachers in Prof. Richards’ school, and who are yet with Mr. Brown, at Valparaiso. The Northern Indiana Normal School was established by Mr. Brown, with the assistance of Mr. Bagarte and Miss Baldwin, in the fall of 1873, and is now the largest school, of any kind, on the American Continent —larger than Harvard, Yale and Ann Arbor combined. In 1873 its students numbered less than fifty. In 1884, accord-

ing to the report of State Superinintendent Holcomb, it had 3,435. Mr. Brown went to Valparaiso with three hundred dollars in his pocket; he is now worth half a million, and can trace hfs good fortune back to the little advertisement inserted in the Sandusky Register that met the eye of his friend Hoops. ,