Academic Testing

At the time I was in high school, Gowrie participated in an Every-Pupil Testing program which was developed and run by a department at the University of Iowa. Actually the idea and program were the work of an individual, Everett Lindquist, who was born and grew up in Gowrie. The first part of the program was carried out in individual schools, and students having a certain level of achievement at this level were invited to come to Iowa City for more advanced tests.

As a freshman I was selected to go to Iowa City in General Science. I can remember being driven down to Iowa City by Mr. Millard along with another member of the General Science class, Richard Swanson. I don’t recall any other students along. I was also chosen for the trip in each of the three subsequent years of high school. I went in both American and European history, in Latin I and II and in Physics and perhaps one other subject that I can’t identify at the moment.

I never received a first or second recognition at SUI, although I was third or fourth in a couple of cases. A couple of the years I went, my acquaintance Howard Nelson (a year ahead of me in school) also went and he had a couple of “firsts” as I recall. At the conclusion of the tests at Iowa City there was a banquet at the Memorial Union at which the winning students were recognized.

These trips to Iowa City gave me a little touch of the campus there so when I went there after my two years at Fort Dodge Junior College it wasn’t a completely strange scene. We stayed at the Quadrangle dormitory, where I roomed part of the time I was a student at SUI, had meals there and on one occasion, saw a performance of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” at McBride Hall. I was entranced by the performance which was far and beyond any theatrical event I had witnessed up to that time.

By the time I went to Iowa City as a student the Fine Arts Building had been constructed across the river from the Memorial Union and that was where the university plays were staged — a much more elegant place than McBride Auditorium. I recall seeing some plays there but I don’t remember them the way I do of that Wilde play. Probably because of the novelty of it then.

I have the vague recollection that my older sister Clarice may have been along on one of the times I went to Iowa City. One year Vivian went in four subjects, perhaps when I was a senior and she was a sophomore. She recalls going but Vincent does not.

At some time the event at Iowa City was abandoned although I believe the rest of the program continued. One reason for this was that some schools had turned the tests into sort of a competition, with special coaching which tended to negate the factor of individual progress. Not long ago (1996–97) there was an article in “The Spectator,” the SUI publication about university news and matters describing the program, its initiator and its current state.