Dixon College Explained

Dixon College or Dixon Business College was a private college in Dixon, Illinois, USA. It operated together with Northern Illinois Normal School, a teacher training institution, from 1881 until some time after 1914.

Northern Illinois Normal School was chartered by the state on April 18, 1872, and for a while operated as the teacher training department of Rock River University.^[1] The combined Dixon College and Northern Illinois Normal School was incorporated in 1880^[2] and opened on September 2, 1881,^[3] moving the following year to purpose-built buildings on Hancock Street on the west side of Dixon. The first president was John C. Flint and the first principal Jesse B. Dille.^[4] The principal was F. E. Rice in 1906,^[5] F. B. Virden in 1911^[6] and 1914–15,^[7] I. Frank Edwards in 1913.^[8] In 1891 enrollment was almost 1,200.^[4] On June 3, 1901, it received a charter as Dixon College.^[1] Edwards, the former county superintendent of schools, had acquired the college by 1914; at some point after that date, it closed.^[1]

In 1903 the college advertised that it taught "practically everything".^[9] In 1907 in addition to Dixon Business College it was using the names Northern Illinois College of Music, Northern Illinois College of Shorthand, Northern Illinois College of Telegraphy, Northern Illinois College of Art, Northern Illinois College of Law, Dixon School of Oratory, and Dixon Military College,^[1] and was one of two examples in an article in the Annual Report of the American Bar Association of institutions "prostitut[ing]" academic degrees by requiring too little time for a law degree.^[10]

Notable alumni

• Davy Jones, Major League baseballer^[11]
• Noah M. Mason, US Congressman^[12]

• Olaf M. Norlie, pastor and academic^[13]

Notes and References

1. Katharine L. Sharp, "Historical Sketches: Dixon College (31 Dec. 1904)", in The University Studies (University of Illinois), Volume 2, number 6, December 1907: Illinois Libraries Part III, p. 384.
2. Educational Press Bulletin, Department of Public Instruction, State of Illinois, 6, September 1907, p. 4.
3. Bob Gibler, Dixon, Illinois, Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia, 1998,, n.p..
4. Karen Swegle Holt, "Early Institutes of High Learning: Dixon, Lee County IL", Genealogy Trails, 2009, retrieved September 27, 2016, citing L. W. Miller, Chapter XIV: "Education History of Lee County Schools" in Frank Everett Stevens, History of Lee County, Illinois, 2 vols, Chicago: S. J. Clarke, 1914,, Volume 1, pp. 201–02.
5. Homer L. Patterson, Patterson's College and School Directory [5], Chicago: American Educational Company, 1906, p. 57.
6. Harry J. Myers, American College and Private School Directory 5, Chicago: Educational Aid Society, 1911, p. 38.
7. Harry J. Myers, American College and Private School Directory 8, Chicago: Educational Aid Society, 1915, p. 40.
8. Homer L. Patterson, Patterson's American Educational Directory 9, Chicago / New York: American Educational Company, 1913, p. 68.
9. The Christian-Evangelist, Volume 40, August 6, 1903, p. 192.
10. "Report of Committee on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar", Report of the Thirtieth Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association (Annual Report of the American Bar Association 31), Baltimore: Lord Baltimore, 1907, pp. 518–98, pp. 554–55.
11. https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.cgi?id=jones-005dav "Davy Jones"
12. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=M000224 "MASON, Noah Morgan, (1882 - 1965)"
13. O. A. Tingelstad, "Faculty", in Luther College through sixty years, 1861–1921, ed. O. M. Norlie, O. A. Tingelstad, and Karl T. Jacobsen, Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1922,, p. 113.