Biography
Atherton was born in 1837 in Massachusetts, and at the age of 12, his father died. He worked on a farm and in a cotton mill to support his mother and fought on the Union side in the Civil War, reaching the rank of captain before being released for health problems. He graduated from Yale in 1863, and then began his teaching career at The Albany Academy in Albany, New York. He became a faculty member at the University of Illinois, and later worked as a political science professor at Rutgers. While at Rutgers, he was initiated as an honorary member of Delta Upsilon Fraternity by the Rutgers Chapter. His 24 year tenure at Penn State began in 1882. During the early 1900s, Atherton's health began to deteriorate, and he died on July 26, 1906. He was acclaimed as a visionary by Benjamin Gill, the dean of the School of Language and Literature, for seeing "from the first not the college that was, but the college that was to be". While Penn State's reputation was still not outstanding, Atherton had succeeded in rescuing the school from negligence by the state government and converted it into an institution of technical education. He is buried next to Schwab Auditorium, near Old Main, on the main campus of Penn State in University Park, Pennsylvania.
Read more about this topic: George W. Atherton
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