Cumnock, Robert McLean, 1844-1928

Robert McLean Cumnock was born in Scotland in 1840 to a large Presbyterian family. He began teaching elocution at Northwestern University in 1868. Cumnock founded Northwestern University's School of Oratory in 1878. He died in 1928.

As a small boy in 1842, Cumnock moved with his family to America, eventually settling in Mason, New Hampshire, by 1852. Cumnock paid his own way through Wilbraham Academy, a private secondary school, because his family could not afford it. While he attended, he was older than the other students. In 1860, when he was almost twenty-one and still attending Wilbraham, he joined the army to fight in the Civil War. He fought for three months, and then signed up again, staying for another full year, before returning to Wilbraham. He graduated in 1864, intending to go on to Yale, but instead he went to Wesleyan in Middletown, Connecticut, partly because of its religious affiliation.

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