Garrett Droppers, born April 12, 1860, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was a distinguished academic who became president of South Dakota State University in Vermillion in 1898. A graduate of Harvard College, class of 1886, with a focus on economics, Droppers furthered his studies in Germany and later taught at the University of Tokyo, Japan. His contributions to economics and cultural understanding, including reports on Japan for the U.S. government, earned him wide recognition. After returning to the U.S., he took leadership of the university, advancing its academic standing. Droppers married twice and had three children with his second wife, Jean Tewkesbury Rand.
Garrett Droppers, B.A., president of the South Dakota State University at Vermillion, is a native of the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he was born on the 12th of April, 1860, being a son of John Dirk and Gertrude (Boyink) Droppers. He was graduated from the high school of his native city and was thereafter assistant instructor in Latin and history in the same school for a period of five years, at the expiration of which he entered Harvard College, where he was graduated as a member of the class of 1886, receiving his Bachelor’s degree the following year. While at Harvard he devoted his attention principally to the subject of economics, also taking courses in German and philosophy. Of his work at this time President Droppers spoke as follows to the representative of this publication: “I have always taken as much interest in the men who taught certain subjects as I have in the subjects themselves, and I remember with especial pleasure at Harvard Professor Dunbar, now deceased, who was for that time the most learned of American economists; Professor William James, who is unquestionably the most original of American psychologists; and Professor Royce, one of the most lucid philosophical writers in the country.”
After his graduation, Professor Droppers was engaged in teaching for one year in the public schools of Orange, New Jersey, and Westchester, New York. Then was presented an opportunity for him to go to Germany, where he passed a year in the University of Berlin, under the well-known economists, Wagner and Schooller. He was urged by Harvard professors to thus prosecute his study of economics in Germany, because it was thought expedient and the part of wisdom for him to secure a different economic point of view from the one existing in America. Of the admonition thus followed out he has spoken as follows: “I think this advice was sound. I am indebted to the German economists for what I consider to be many original economic conceptions, especially their doctrine that there are utilities belonging to society as a whole as well as to the individual. This point of view as taken by the German economists is reinforced in German universities with wonderful vigor and penetration.”
Just at the close of his first year in Germany, Professor Droppers received through Harvard University the offer of the chair of political economy and finance in the University of Tokyo, Japan. He accepted this offer and prepared at once to enter upon his new work, leaving Germany in September, 1889, and returning to the United States. At Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 11th of September of that year, he was united in marriage to Miss Cora Augusta Rand of Cambridge, and immediately afterward departed, in company with his bride, for Tokyo, reaching his destination the last of October, 1889, and that he profited by the experience in the Orient is manifest from the following statements made by him apropos of his sojourn and work in that section of the world: “I am very glad that I had an opportunity of living in Japan and thus gaining a comprehension of a life essentially different from our own. It taught me to sympathize with the sensibilities of a weaker nation. If Americans were not so bound up in their own interests they would, I think, prove a much greater power for good in the world than they are.” During the last five years of his stay in Japan, Professor Droppers was secretary of the Asiatic Society of Japan, a well-known organization dating its inception back more than a quarter of a century. While there he was also an irregular correspondent for the New York Nation; contributed several valuable articles to the Transactions of the Asiatic Society, and also wrote articles on the economic phases of Japan for various periodicals. In 1896 he wrote a report on the currency of Japan for the United States government, this contribution being published in the consular reports for that year. The subject is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; of the American Academy of Science in Philadelphia; and of the American Economic Association. Fraternally, he is affiliated with the Masonic order, of which noble and time-honored organization he is most appreciative, having attained the chivalric degree in Vermillion Commandery, No. 16, Knights Templar, in Vermillion, and being also a member of El Riad Temple of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, in Sioux Falls.
In December, 1898, Professor Droppers received an offer from the regents of South Dakota to accept the presidency of the State University and he forthwith left Japan and came to Vermillion to canvass the situation, accepting the position a few days after his arrival, and of his work as chief executive of the institution, its advancement and high standing offers the best testimony.
Mr. Droppers lost his first wife in Japan August 17, 1896. He married again, a sister of his former wife, Jean Tewkesbury Rand, in Cambridge, September 3, 1897, returning to Japan for an additional year immediately after his marriage. There were no children by the first marriage. Since his second marriage there have been three children born, Seton Rand, August 12, 1898; Cora Rand, August 3, 1900; and Elizabeth Rand, January 22, 1904. Prof. Droppers tries to be independent in politics but holds most emphatically to the program that the cure for many of our present economic evils is the government ownership of public utilities. He affiliates with the Unitarian church.
Source: Robinson, Doane, History of South Dakota: together with mention of Citizens of South Dakota, [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen, 1904.