John Clark Ridpath was an American educator, historian, and editor. His mother was a descendant of Samuel Matthews, a colonial governor of Virginia. He was born near the village of Fillmore, Indiana, in Putnam County, Indiana. His parents were from West Virginia, and began life under circumstances of great discouragement and hardship. The son had no early educational advantages besides those that he obtained at frontier schools, but his appetite for books was insatiable, and at seventeen he was a teacher. At nineteen he entered Indiana Asbury College , where he graduated with the highest... honors of his class. He was a member of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, as well. Before graduation he had been elected to an instructorship in the Thorntown, Indiana academy, and in 1864, he was made its principal. This office he held until 1867, when he was chosen to fill the chair of languages at Baker University, Baldwin City, Kansas. During the same period he served as superintendent of the Lawrenceburg, Indiana public schools.
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