teacher, educator, politician, b. Janesville. After serving in the Civil War, he enrolled in Milton College, graduating in 1870, and from 1870 to 1875 was principal of the Menomonie public schools. He was a conductor of teachers' institutes and teacher of mathematics at River Falls Normal School (1875--1886). A Republican, Thayer held local political offices in River Falls, was state assemblyman (1885-1886), and in 1886 was elected state superintendent of public instruction. He was re-elected in 1888, serving from Jan., 1887, to Jan., 1891. As state superintendent, Thayer's attempts to enforce the compulsory school law (passed in 1879) led to the passage of the Bennett Law of 1889, which, through defining a state school as one in which instruction was given in the English language, became a political issue with parochial and foreign groups and contributed to the defeat of the Republican state administration in 1890. After leaving the office of state superintendent in 1891, Thayer moved to California, where he lived in retirement until his death at the veterans home in Yountville. Wis. Blue Book (1889); J. W. Stearns, ed., Columbian Hist. of Ethic. in Wis. ([Milwaukee] 1893); Milwaukee Sentinel, Oct. 22, 1910.Learn More
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[Source: Blue book]
