The ancestry of Charles H. Doerflinger
(Condensed into brief extracts. Possibly refer to the whole paper.)
The ancestry of Charles
H. Doerflinger is not without significance in tracing his career and in
considering the development of his character. On his father’s side he claims
descent from sturdy woodsmen and farmers in the lack Forest, near the Rhine.
His father, man of university training, was imprisoned in 1848 for participation
in the revolutionary movement. He was liberated though the agency of his
wife, and his deliverance under cover of night and escaped across the Rhine
had in if all the elements of romance. From these particular forbears,
Mr. Doerflinger derives a large and sturdy physique, his indomitable energy,
his practical views of life, and his plutonic love of independence. Though
his mother, he is descended form the families of Le La Chandelle of Aldeck-
Lorraine, and of Guillbert of Normandie, and to this infusion of French
blood is traceable his lofty idealism and his devotion to the cause of
human freedom and human progress.
The family settled in
Milwaukee in 1848. Mr. Doerflinger was 2 [riunets] in his early education.
Attending “Engelmann’s School,” then the “Carman English Academy,” he came
in contact with a great educator, Peter Engelmann. The latter was more
than a great teacher, who brought his skills under the inspiring influence
of his personality; he was one of the earliest among the educators in this
country to adopt modern and rational methods of education, and the school
founded by him was in fact the pioneer institution of rational education
in Wisconsin and in the Northwest. He has also a scientist of Norman order,
and from his inspiration Mr. Doerflinger drew his interest in natural history
and the sciences.
From 1857 to 1860, Mr.
Doerflinger was an architect’s apprentice: when seventeen years of age
he made a tour on foot form St. Joseph to Denver and the gold diggings.
In 1860 and the following year he was engaged in farming n Wisconsin and
Missouri.
The outbreak of the Civil
War found the young man in no doubt as to the duty of the hour. For a time
he acted as Orderly Sergeant of a Home Guard Company, in a locality but
forty miles removed form a column of rebels northward bound. Retuning to
Milwaukee, he enlisted in the 26th Regiment, Wis. Volunteers infantry,
as did many of his schoolfellows. It was with this regiment that Mr. Doerflinger,
then twenty years of age, and of the rank of first lieutenant, took part
in the battle of Chancellorsville on May 2, 1863. With four other regiments,
a total of 2500 to 3000 men, forming part of a division under Gen. Carl
Schurz, the 26th Wisconsin assisted in holding in check some 15,000 to
16, 000 of the troops under the command of Stonewall Jackson, preventing
the rout of the federal army. Mr. Doerflinger was in command of the center
of the skirmish ling near Hawkins farm, covering Gen. Krzyzanowski’s brigade
in the first, and receiving the first attack of the enemy. Reporting to
the regiment in line of the battle, and finding that his captain had been
shot and taken to the rear, he immediately took command of the company.
The conduct of the whole brigade, in holding the rebels at bay for nearly
half and hour, under heavy fire, was heroic, and its losses were simply
appalling. Mr. Doerflinger was severely wounded, and was removed to Washington,
where it was found necessary to amputate his left leg. His bravery received
appropriate recognition. Col. Wm. H. Jacobs, in a dispatch to the “Milwaukee
Herald” stated that “the palm of the day belongs to the young hero Doerflinger.”
Though he was maimed
for life, and much of the time was enduring great suffering as a result
of his wound, Mr. Doerflinger’s life has been a most active one in business,
journalistic and educational fields. From 1864 to 1866 he served as a teacher
in the German and English Academy, and as a private and substitute teacher
for many years before and after that time. In 1847 he became the publisher
of the “Krzichungs Blastter,” and later of the “New Education,” into which
Miss Elizabeth Peebody merged her “Kindergarten Messenger,” as the considered
it the best representative of her cause. He further published “Onkel Karl,”
a juvenile monthly, and, in co-operation with Dr. W. M. Hailmann, a large
number of books, pamphlets and tracts, devoted to the same progressive
educational ideals.
From [1883 to 1886?]
he was custodian of the Public Museum. Thereafter he was engaged in the
business of manufacturing artificial limbs, developing a number of valuable
inventions, which his won suffering had suggested. From 1898 to 1990 he
served as Chief Examiner and Secretary to the Civil Service Commission
of Milwaukee. In 1994 and the following year he traveled extensively in
Mexico, for the purpose of studying the cultivation of coffee, coca, rubber,
vanilla and other products. These travels involved great physical hardships.
It was no easy task for a man of Mr. Doerflinger’s age, with a wooden leg,
to cross the Sierras on mule-back at a height of 10,000 feet, and to no
one but a man of great energy would it have been possible. Mr. Doerflinger
made a thorough study of the situation and of the opportunities offered
for investments of his character. He returned with copious information,
and with offers of large tracts, and of haciendas under actual cultivation.
He opened offices in Milwaukee and Chicago and sought to interest financiers
and investors in the matter. As throughout his business career he made
no exaggerated representations, and sough but a fair profit. Others, less
scrupulous, took advantage of this, and parties, with whom he had opened
negotiations, robbed him of the fruits of his labor, and reaped gigantic
profits there from.
Throughout life Mr. Doerflinger
has retained an active interest in the natural sciences. Among his contributions
in this field may be mentioned the following: In 1869 he discovered the
Wisconsin sicerite meteorite. In 1870, in a series of publications, he
began the agitation for forest protection and for scientific culture, which
is now receiving practical recognition at the kinds of the f federal government,
though in these early days resistance and ridiculed by the lumbermen. In
1869 to 1897, while traveling in Switzerland and elsewhere, he took up
the study of prehistoric archeology, with especial reference to the cave
dwellers and pile dwellers of Switzerland and France. As early as 1872
her proposed the establishment of a public Museum in the city of Milwaukee,
a suggestion which bore fruit with the transfer of the [Engelmann ?] collection
to the city in [1852?], as a nucleus for such a Public Museum. Mr. Doerflinger
was the first custodian of the same; it has grown to be the finest museum
of natural history in the United States, supported exclusively by public
taxation, and is now housed in the magnificent Museum and Library Building.
Mr. Doerflinger has been a member of the Wis. Natural History Society for
some forty years, and was for a long time its secretary.
A like interest has been
shown by Mr. Doerflinger in the realm of economic, political and social
science. While residing abroad for the purpose of recovering his health
which had broken down as a result of overwork, he devoted much time to
study of the large and successful profit sharing establishment in Guise,
Paris and Angoulne. On his return he embodied the results of his research
in a series of articles and lectures, in the English and the German Language,
under the title of “ Industrial Peace versus Industrial War,” as his contribution
to the solution of this burning question confronting the nation. Mr. Doerflinger’s
suggestions on these lines, though admitted by men of learning and intelligence
as sound in principle, were considered premature. It was but another instance
in the life of this pioneer, that he found, that all he was permitted to
do, was to blaze a trail for others to follow.
While Chief Examiner
and Secretary to the Civil Service Commission Mr. Doerflinger earned the
highest commendation of his fellow citizens by his impartial and intelligent
administration of that office. The annual reports of the Commission embody
his views of the benefits of the merit system, and of the defects of existing
laws and civil service rules.
Mr. Doerflinger has been
identified with all progressive movements for the betterment of our municipal,
state and federal government. Years ago he pointed out, that the country
government of Milwaukee County was one of the hotbeds of political corruption,
and urged the consolidation of the densely populated parts of the county
into a “Greater Milwaukee.”
On national questions
Mr. Doerflinger has always stood with the advocates of a strong, efficient
government, and of sound fiscal policies and honest money. The writer hereof
recalls being present at a great meeting held in this city in October 1896,
in the midst of the free silver campaign. The Speaker of the evening was
none other than Carl Schurz, now deceased, and a great audience had assembled,
to hear this orator and thinker, who had the independence of mind to advocate
what he deemed right and true, apart form all party consideration. As Mr.
Schurz stepped upon the platform, the tall, rugged form of Carl Doerflinger
was seen to arise from the audience, and addressing his comrades of the
26th Regiment who were part [peated?] about him, proposed “Three Cheers
for our Old Commander.” Mr. Schurz was overcome with emotion, and when
at length he spoke, voicing his thanks in the simple lucid words of which
he was the master, the great gathering was moved as is seen on but rate
occasions.
Mr. Doerflinger’s favorite
sphere of activity, and the one to which he himself assigns the greatest
importance, is the realm of education. From the time of his early manhood
he has recognizes that it is the educator who has in charge the molding
of the citizen of the future, and thus of the future of the nation.
He began his observations
as a practical teacher. At varying times several thousand public have served
under his tutelage. They would no doubt all testify to this consociations
gratification to oly, his interest in their welfare, his just, impartial
and kind, though strict, discipline. A man of deep seriousness, he regarded
the children as sacred objects. So writes one of his former students: “
Nature encountered him with artness to teach. Earnestness and perseverance
were strong elements in his life and character, and his influence for good
was felt by every student coming in contact with him. He is a man of progress.
Professor Engelmann, principal of the German and English academy, entrusted
educational work of Mr. Doerflinger that could only be done by one who
considered pupils and school as sacred objects of trust. I can safely say,
that Mr. Doerflinger devoted the greater part of his life to educational
causes for which he received little or no compensation, this on though
being to the furtherance of education.”
Recognizing at once the
possibilities of the kindergarten system, he was, in the early seventies,
prominent in the agitation leading to the establishment of the first four
private kindergartens in Milwaukee, and later did much to secure the adoption
of the kindergarten in the public schools of the city, the first in this
country to incorporate this system in ALL of its district schools. Again,
he succeeded in the introduction of kindergartening the State Normal Schools
after a long struggle, in which he was faithfully supported by one of America’s
great educators, James McAllister. An interesting monograph on the history
f the kindergarten movement in Milwaukee from the pen of Mr. Doerflinger
was recently published in the Kindergarten Magazine.”
He was equally impressed
with the importance of physical training as an integral part of a system
of education. In 1860 and in the succeeding years unsuccessful attempts
had been mad under the auspices of the “North American Gymnastic Federation”
to maintain a gymnastic normal school for the training of teachers in this
branch. Finally, in 1874, the Milwaukee Turner Societies took charge of
the institution. Mr. Doerflinger was the first secretary of this board
of trustees, and for five years was the president of the board. Since its
establishment it has supplied schools and gymnastic societies in all parts
of the United States with instructors, and it is today continuing its work
in the magnificent gymnasium of the “North School (Lehrar Seminar) on the
“National German American Teachers Union” in the city.
In the establishment
of the latter institution as well, Mr. Doerflinger played an important
part. The German and English Academy had for a long time made efforts to
secure the necessary funds for such a seminary. Finally the teacher’s union
mentioned, which was organized in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1870, took up
the matter. The subject of this sketch became on of the most active promoters
of the enterprise. Through his impetuous imitative, supported by the celebrated
Kindergarten Apostle Dr. W. N. Hailmann, the convention of this association
which met in Milwaukee in 1877 resolved to pen the [sealmery?], although
but a small part of the required funds had been subscribed. The institution
has been a prosperous and successful on in every sense of the word.
As another element of
the “New Education” the introduction of manual training has had in Mr.
Doerflinger a consistent advocate. After some years of strenuous effort
he and his associates of the “Milwaukee Manual Training Association” succeeded
in creating a public sentiment that resulted in the introduction, throughout
the graded school of the city, of various phases of manual training, and
in the appointment of a special Assistant Superintendent to supervise the
work of the teacher in reference to the same.
Wheresoever, Mr. Doerflinger
went on his extensive travels, and educational system of the country was
of profound interest to him. Thus he called attention to the excellent
work of Professor Enrique Robsemen, in Mexico, who, with the [cold?] reaction
of President and Mrs. Diaz has established seven model normal schools on
modern educational principles.
Indeed it is largely
to the normal schools, properly reorganized, and in connection with his
“Advance Common Schools” that Mr. Doerflinger looks to the solution of
the whole problem of education. Here again he is no mere theorist, but
his views are based upon personal experiences. He was a regent of the State
Normal Schools from 1877 to 1881. While in this portion he carried through,
among other important measures, the introduction of kindergartening referred
to, and the establishment of an officially organized department of education
in the State University, as supplementary to the work of the Normal School.
This is believed to be the first so established in such a state institution.
Against the opposition of a coterie of the regents of the university he
carried through resolution calling for a joint conference of both boards,
which resulted in great harmony of action between these institutions.
Mr. Doerflinger is at
present engaged in perfecting an ambitious educational project, of the
most far reaching consequences, which he has been maturing for many years.
As an initial step in contemplates the establishment of a “People’s Advanced
Common School,” which is to serve as a model in re-organizing the entire
public school system. Such school is designated to incorporate the kindergarten,
the elementary school and the high school, into a single, unitary institution.
Its aim will be to place the pupil in vital touch with the achievements
of the race, in its varied scientific, cultural, economic and ethical development.
Founded upon modern educational principles, and training all faculties
of the student, physical, mental, esthetic and moral, it is further to
reach out in its activity and influenced to the parent and to the adult
citizen, thus removing the school from its isolation form home and state,
and making the same, the very center of the social, intellectual and civic
life of the community. In this phase the project is in full harmony with
the tendency of the times, as evidenced by the university extension movement,
college settlements, mothers’ clubs, parents’ associations, popular lecture
courses, and other isolated and unsystemized movements in the same direction.
To this great aim Mr. Doerflinger hopes to devote his best efforts. His
plans have been communicated to some of the foremost educational authorities
in America, and have their sanction.
If a life of plain living
and high thinking be a life well spent; if a life of “labor and struggle,
of effort and strife” for the right, be preferable to on of “ignoble case,”
if unremunerated labor in the public interest, to the neglect of private
gain, be commendable; if patriotism consist in devotion to the common weal
of the field, in the council chamber and in the equally crucial test of
daily life, the subject of this sketch deserves high rank in the noble
order of American Citizenship.
C. H. K.
August, 1906.
Author/Creator: Wisconsin History Commission.
Title: Papers, 1861-1865, 1884-1918.
Quantity: 1.6 c.f. (5 archives boxes)
