Dr. Martin Hegland
HEGLAND, DIESON
Posted By: Gordon Felland (email)
Date: 5/5/2006 at 03:52:07
In the educational field the name of Dr. Martin Hegland, president of Waldorf College at Forest City, is well known. He is yet a comparatively young man but has already made for himself an enviable position in the field of Christian education and his work- is reaching out through its influence and inspiration over a wide territory. He took charge of Waldorf College and its work on the 1st of January, 1915, being then thirty-five years of age. His birth occurred on the 20th of January, 1880, in Merton, Steele county, Minnesota, to which place his parents had removed on leaving Nedre Telemarken, Norway, their native country. They settled upon a farm upon which Dr. Hegland spent his boyhood and youth, acquiring his early education in the country schools, after which he entered upon the work of the eighth grade in the schools of Owatonna, Minnesota, where he later completed high school work, being graduated after taking the Latin-scientific course. He was president of his class in his senior year. After finishing his high school course he matriculated in St. Olaf College at Northfield, Minnesota, where he pursued the study of the classics and during that period was an active member of the different college societies. He also served for two years on the editorial staff of the college paper and was editor-in-chief of the "Viking '04." As a representative of the senior class he won the Ware oratorical contest and as representative of the college won the state contest in competition with the different colleges of the state. Following his graduation from St. Olaf College he was elected superintendent of schools and teacher in the high school at Fertile, Minnesota, where he remained for three years, and while engaged in secular schoolwork. he continued an active worker in the church as superintendent of the Sunday school, as president of the Luther League and as teacher of the Bible class in the United Church congregation. His interest in church work led him to take up the study of theology at the United Church Seminary, from which he was graduated with the -class of 1910, and while there he also studied at the University of Minnesota, specializing along the lines of English philology, education and history of philosophy. He won the M. A. degree in 1908 and during the summer vacation of that year he substituted for Rev. C. K. Solberg, of the Zion church in Chicago. During the following summer he was advance agent for the St. Olaf Band on their twelve weeks' trip to the Pacific coast, which included a visit to the Seattle Exposition, and in the summer of 1910 he filled the pulpit during the absence of the Rev. J. C. Roseland in the Covenant church of Chicago.
Dr. Hegland afterward became a student at Columbia University in New York city, where he specialized on education, pursuing the studies of history of education, educational philosophy and psychology, and educational administration and comparative education, the last two receiving particular attention. He was awarded the Foreign Fellowship by the university and went abroad to make a special study of the school systems of the European countries. He also visited most of the colleges and universities in the eastern part of the United States.
Following his return from Europe, Dr. Hegland was called to the pastorate of the United Lutheran congregation at Grand Forks, North Dakota, and in 1913 was ordained to the ministry. The same year he submitted his thesis on the subject "The Danish People's High School," and the degree of Ph. D. was conferred upon him by Columbia University in 1914. At the annual meeting of the United Church in that year he was elected one of the associate editors of the "United Lutheran."
In the fall of 1914 he was called to the pastorate of the United Lutheran' congregation of Forest City and to the presidency of Waldorf College and on the 1st of January, 1915, entered upon his duties. He is often called upon to speak on educational and religious matters and is a contributor to church publications.
Dr. Hegland was married in 1911 to Miss Georgina E. Dieson, of Dell Rapids, South Dakota, who was graduated from the high school there and later from St. Olaf College in 1904. She served as teacher and preceptress at Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota, from 1904 until 1907, and occupied the same position at St. Olaf College from 1909 until 1911. She also did some post-graduate work at the Columbia University and she is of great assistance to her husband in the performance of his duties in both the pastoral and educational fields. Dr. and Mrs. Hegland now have a little daughter, Anna Tonette, born June 13, 1915.
Dr. Hegland is concentrating every effort upon the upbuilding of the church and school. It would be tautological in this connection to enter into any series of statements showing him to be a man of broad scholarly attainments, for this has been shadowed forth between the lines of this review. He ever keeps in close touch with the trend of modern thought concerning all those questions which have to do with the welfare of mankind and are of vital significance to the country. While possessing a studious nature, he combines with it the intensely practical and is thoroughly alive to all those, questions and interests which are engaging public thought and calling forth activity. He lives not in the past nor the future but in the present with its multiform duties and problems, and yet he looks beyond the exigencies of the moment to the opportunities and possibilities for good in later years.
Source: History of Winnebago and Hancock Counties, Iowa, 1917,Vol II, page 30
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