Hall of Honor Recipient
Dr. Carl Matthey
Class of 1917
Inducted in 1990
Because Dr. Matthey, the health of students in the Davenport Community School District has improved. Before him, little more than passive attention was paid to his aspect of children’s development.
In 1937, while continuing his regular medical practice, he organized the first full-scale health program in Davenport’s schools. This included city-wide vaccination and inoculation procedures. He received funding from the board of education to hire three nurses, a school psychologist and an assistant. He accepted only modest funds for himself. Dr. Matthey’s program became a model for school districts through the United States. He said that his health program and theories toward education were based on the philosophy that “the child does not fail; the system does.”
Dr. Matthey was influential in establishing ethical guidelines for physicians, surgeons and local hospitals. He recognized the need to “look at the whole man” and was admired for his concern and patience.
An advocate of “a fit life is a healthy life,” he was jogging many decades before it became a component of fitness. He set up the primitive camping program for the Boy Scouts of America, a plan that became a national mode. For this he received Scouting’s coveted Silver Beaver Award. He continued to ski at the age of 80 and to play tennis at 85. He was one of the ski enthusiasts who believed that skiers should not have to travel afar to ski. Thus, he helped to establish the Duck Creek Park ski tow.
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Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
