Prof. Norbert SCHNEIDER, who is now connected with the public schools of Trenton, was born at Maehrisch Trueban, Austria, on the 23d of March, 1837. After studying in the low gymnasia of his native city he finished his education in the higher gymnasia, at Brunn, the capital city of Moravia. He left school at about the age of twenty. He was married at Brunn on the 6th of July, 1859, to Marie ZELNICEK. He secured a situation at Vienna as railroad agent, and remained there two years, and then emigrated to America, landing at New York city on the 6th of June, 1862. He went from thence to Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, where for six months he was farming with an uncle. In December, 1862, he went to St. Louis, and obtained a situation as teacher in the Deutsches Institute. In the fall of 1863 he became principal of a private German and English school at Frenchtown, in the southern part of the city of St. Louis. He had charge of this institution four years. During the last year, the owner of the school having died, Prof. Schneider assumed the business management. After teaching at Columbia, Illinois, in 1868, the following year he went to Tell City, Indiana, where he taught very successfully for three years as principal of the public schools. At this place occurred the death of his only child, Leo Schneider, at the age of ten years. In 1872 he became principal of the German department of the public schools of Lebanon, St. Clair county, where he taught the German language to one hundred and twenty pupils daily. He occupied this position five years, and would have retained it longer except for the abolition of the study of German in the schools of that place. In 1879 he came to Trenton, where he has since taught German and English in the public schools. In his politics he is a progressive and liberal republican. He has a well-earned reputation as an efficient and successful teacher. He is one of the representative German teachers of the state, and one of the founders of the German-American Teachers’ Association of America, which held its first meeting at Louisville, Kentucky, on the 1st of Aug., 1870.

Source: History of Marion and Clinton Counties, Illinois, 1881, Brink, McDonough & Co., Philadelphia

Submitted by: Pamela Safriet

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