The Kneeling Professor: Thomas Trueblood and the Scandal of Proper Diction

Thomas Trueblood was born in 1856, a name so thoroughly Victorian it might have been plucked from the pages of a particularly dramatic ledger during the reign of Queen Victoria. He was not, as the era and nomenclature might suggest, an engineer tinkering with steam engines or a demolitions expert liberating water vapour from pressurized confines with a cheerful "Fly free, begone!" Instead, Trueblood resided firmly in the realm of the liberal arts, specifically the spoken word. He was no author scribbling in dim candlelight. Instead, he held the title of Professor of Oratory and Elocution—a designation with an inherent flourish, the kind of phrase that demanded to be spoken aloud with proper diction. His life's work centered on the delivery of short extracts from masterpieces of oratory, scenes from plays, and dramatic readings performed with a precision and gravitas that only a man deeply committed to the musicality of language could muster. Elocution, darling, was his domain.

Hailing from the unassuming town of Salem, Indiana, a place whose name carried biblical weight but whose reality was decidedly Midwestern, Trueblood cut his teeth in the world of public speaking while still a young man. By the time he was twenty-two, he had already co-founded the Fulton and Trueblood School of Oratory in Kansas City, Missouri, which would become "one of the largest and best known institutions of its kind in the United States." This was no mere finishing school for society debutantes, but a serious enterprise where the mechanics of speech were dissected with the precision of a surgeon. Imagine the scene: young men and women practicing vowel sounds until their jaws ached, learning how to project their voices across lecture halls without straining, mastering the delicate art of pausing for effect. Trueblood wasn't merely teaching people to speak; he was teaching them to weaponize language, to make words dance and sing and cut through the air with surgical precision. He arrived at the University of Michigan in 1884 as a six-week lecturer with no intention of staying, but the university quickly recognized his value and asked him to join the faculty permanently. And join he did, remaining for sixty-seven years, becoming the highest-paid professor on campus at the turn of the century, when speech and oratory still held a place of honor in American academic life.

One of Trueblood's most notable performances was a one-man, abridged production of *Hamlet*. This was far from a full five-act tragedy unfolding over hours; it was a streamlined experience, preserving the principal scenes while reducing the rest to simple narration. It was *Hamlet*, the highlights, a Shakespearean greatest hits album. The concept was practical, efficient, and perhaps slightly disrespectful to the Bard, yet undeniably accessible. Trueblood literally skipped the boring bits, a notion so modern it felt anachronistic even in 1908. One could summarize the entire enterprise with breezy confidence: "Everybody dies." "Hamlet." "Everybody dies." "Romeo and Juliet." His approach stripped away pretense, guided by the conviction that the power of words came from their delivery, their rhythm, their very breath, rather than from their length. After one such performance in 1908, an Iowa newspaper observed with admiration that "Prof. Trueblood's manner of speaking and his diction are acquirements of a very high character and he held the interest of his hearers from beginning to end." This was no small feat for a man who had to make the Danish prince compelling without the full apparatus of the theater, no elaborate sets, no supporting cast, just one man and his voice commanding attention through sheer vocal mastery.

The most peculiar moment in Trueblood's otherwise distinguished academic life, however, had little to do with theatre or the stage and everything to do with scandal, misinterpretation, and a student named Jam Handy. Henry Jamison Handy, known universally, understandably, and perhaps inevitably as Jam Handy, was a 17-year-old freshman at the University of Michigan, where Trueblood taught. The name itself sounded like a stage pseudonym, the kind of thing a vaudeville performer might adopt before stepping into the spotlight, conjuring images of a rogue figure sneaking through orchards with criminal efficiency regarding preserves. But Jam Handy was real, a student whose actions would briefly, and absurdly, upend the life of a respected professor.

The incident began innocuously enough within the walls of the university. Trueblood was teaching a class focused on the delivery of short extracts from masterpieces of oratory. One of these extracts involved a scene from a play where a man kneels before a woman, pleading for her hand in marriage. It was a standard dramatic moment, utterly devoid of scandal, the kind of thing performed in drawing rooms and lecture halls across the country without a second thought. Kneeling to propose was a theatrical convention as common as soliloquies about to be or not to be. In fact, Trueblood had previously written about this very technique in his 1893 textbook *Practical Elements of Elocution*, using the scene to illustrate what he called the "aspirate explosive" form of speech, a technical term for the vocal delivery required when one is overcome with emotion. But Jam Handy, perhaps with a mischievous glint in his eye or a genuine misunderstanding amplified by youthful exuberance, interpreted the scene through a different lens. As a campus correspondent for the *Chicago Tribune*, he wrote an article suggesting that students at Ann Arbor were taking lessons in lovemaking.

The article did the 1900s equivalent of going viral. It appeared on the front page of the *Chicago Tribune* on May 8, 1903, under the headline "Learn Sly Cupid's Tricks; Students at Ann Arbor Take Lessons in Love Making." The *Daily Northwestern* picked it up with the breathless declaration that "Professor Trueblood of Michigan University has inaugurated a course in love making, his motive being to stimulate interest in his classes. The oratorical students are compelled to kneel and make fervid declarations to lady students." The *Salt Lake Tribune* ran with an even more elaborate version: "Lessons in Lovemaking. The University of Michigan has added a new course to the curriculum, one that may best be styled a course in love making... Fifty times a day Prof. Trueblood is forced to kneel to some maiden and show his pupils the right way to declare their devotion to their sweethearts." By May 12, the *Chicago Tribune* had published a photograph of Trueblood with the caption: "Trueblood has nearly worn out his trousers at the knees, showing young men how to kneel, and has strained his voice and eyes in efforts to show his pupils how to throw fire and passion into their appeals." The story was so widespread that the *Chicago Record-Herald* published a three-panel cartoon of "Professor Foxy Truesport" dreaming up ways to "teach his class how to properly make love."

Trueblood found himself summoned to his superior's office. He sat surrounded by a growing pile of newspaper clippings, each one amplifying the accusation, each one twisting the simple acting exercise into something salacious, something "not fit for the stage." The phrase was both literal and darkly comedic, implying that the professor had spent so much time kneeling—less in dramatic performance than in desperate, futile protest of the accusation—that his clothing began to fray at the stress points. The implication was devastatingly clear: the man who taught others the precise art of kneeling had been brought low by a student's pen, forced into a posture of supplication he had only ever demonstrated as art. It was a reputational assault delivered entirely through suggestion and the public's insatiable appetite for scandal.

Handy's article implied something deeply improper, something that relied entirely on the unspoken. The idea of a "lesson in Victorian lovemaking" conjured images of dimly lit rooms, dramatic pauses, and a sequence of events culminating in a baby appearing shortly after the lights went out. Man kneels, lights go off, someone goes *ouch*, lights come back on, she's got a baby. It was a crude, reductive summary, yet one that captured the era's repressed sexuality, everything implied, nothing shown, the act itself shrouded in euphemism and silence. Trueblood, a man dedicated to the clarity, precision, and proper projection of speech, found himself trapped in a narrative that thrived on innuendo and the power of the unsaid. His expertise in elocution, the very thing that defined his professional life, was rendered useless against an accusation built on what was *not* articulated in the classroom.

The scandal did not destroy Trueblood's career, he remained a professor, continued his dramatic readings, and gave performances around the world, but it lingered, a persistent stain on an otherwise respected reputation. It became the kind of story passed down through university lore, the anecdote that transformed a dry academic figure into someone suddenly human, suddenly interesting, someone students could point to and whisper about. Jam Handy, for his part, went on to have a varied life beyond his undergraduate mischief. He remained athletic, though his main career path led him into public relations. He became known for producing industrial films, the kind of educational reels shown in schools and factories, promoting everything from automotive safety to workplace efficiency. His name lived on in the form of a vanity card, "A Jam Handy Picture", that appeared at the end of his productions, a signature ensuring he would not be forgotten, even as the specific details of the Trueblood incident faded into historical footnote.

The irony, of course, was that both men were performers in their own distinct ways. Trueblood stood on stage, wielding words with dramatic flair, moving audiences through the power of a well-placed pause and the precise modulation of his voice. Handy operated behind the camera, shaping narratives through carefully constructed images, persuading and informing through the medium of film. One used spoken language to convey meaning; the other used visual storytelling. One was accused of teaching the intimate art of courtship under the guise of elocution; the other built a career on crafting messages that sold ideas. For a brief, absurd moment, their lives intersected in a way that highlighted the fragility of reputation and the ease with which context could be stripped away. A student's article, a professor's desperate denials, a kneeling man, a misunderstood gesture, these were the ingredients of a scandal with no real substance but immense cultural resonance.

Language, in all its forms, was both the tool and the weapon in this episode. Trueblood wielded it with precision, teaching students the mechanics of articulation, projection, and emotional delivery. He instructed them on how to move an audience with the power of a well-timed silence or the correct inflection on a key phrase. Jam Handy, however, used language to suggest, to imply, to construct a narrative far more compelling than the mundane truth of an acting exercise. The newspaper article did not need factual accuracy; it only needed to plant a seed of doubt, to create the *if you know what I mean* that hung heavy in the air. And in that moment, suggestion was enough. The public did not require proof that students were learning the mechanics of seduction; the mere implication, the scandalous whisper, was sufficient to ignite outrage and demand explanation.

The *Chicago Tribune*'s observation about Trueblood's trousers worn thin at the knees was more than a throwaway joke. It was a potent metaphor. A man who had devoted his professional life to teaching the precise, theatrical gesture of kneeling—its weight, sincerity, and role in conveying vulnerability or supplication—now found himself forced into that very posture by accusation rather than artistic choice. His frayed clothing became physical evidence of a performance he had no wish to give. Instead of playing out before an audience, it unfolded in an administrator’s office beneath the harsh glare of scrutiny. The very act he had demonstrated as art, as technique, had become the symbol of his perceived transgression. He had taught the gesture; now he lived it, stripped of artistry and laden with humiliation.

The scandal unfolded entirely within the realm of perception and misinterpretation. There were no witnesses to impropriety, no secret society of students learning the forbidden arts of courtship. There was only a classroom exercise, a student's misreading, and the voracious machinery of the press ready to amplify the smallest hint of scandal. Trueblood's attempts to explain, "I didn't do this!", were drowned out by the narrative that had taken hold. The accusation transformed a routine academic demonstration into something illicit, leveraging the unspoken anxieties of the era about morality, education, and the boundaries of acceptable behavior. The power resided less in what had actually happened than in what was said to have happened, and in the public’s readiness to believe the worst.

What's fascinating is that Trueblood's professional life extended far beyond the scandal that briefly defined him in the public imagination. While the *Chicago Tribune* was mocking his "course in love making," he was simultaneously building one of the most impressive academic and athletic legacies of any university professor. He founded the University of Michigan's Department of Elocution and Oratory, the first such department in any major university in the country, and established the first credit course in speech at any American university. He organized and coached the competitive debate and oratory contests at Michigan, creating the Northern Oratorical League and later the Central Debating League, which included universities like Chicago, Northwestern, Oberlin, Iowa, and Minnesota. His debate teams were so successful that an Iowa newspaper noted in 1903: "It was due to his zeal in organization, his success in persuading students to enter the competitive contests, and his skill in drilling them, that has enabled Michigan to take so high a rank in oratory in these league contests, with seven first honors to her credit in ten years, and nine of the twelve victories in debate."

Remarkably, Trueblood was also the first coach of the University of Michigan golf team, a fact that seems almost comically incongruous when juxtaposed with the "lovemaking" scandal. At age forty, his doctor told him to give up tennis because it was too strenuous, so he took up golf instead. "I took it up in August and in October I won the Ann Arbor Golf Club championship," he later recalled. In 1901, he organized the first Michigan golf team, and on October 24–25, 1902, Michigan defeated the University of Chicago 16–12 in "the first intercollegiate golf match held in the West." When golf became a varsity sport in 1921, Trueblood became the school's first official coach. After retiring as a professor emeritus at age seventy, he turned his full attention to coaching, eventually leading his teams to two NCAA National Championships (1934–1935) and five Big Ten Conference championships (1932–1936). His coaching record at Michigan was an impressive 71–9–2. Teammates remembered traveling to tournaments in Trueblood's seven-passenger Buick, with the septuagenarian coach shouting "Up and out in two, boys!", his one piece of golf advice, at practice sessions. One humorous incident occurred when Trueblood, confused about room numbers, woke a stranger at 4:30 a.m. shouting the same phrase, causing the man to call the front desk about "some nut" making strange pronouncements about golf strategy.

Even more remarkable was Trueblood's commitment to racial equality in an era when university athletics were being re-segregated. While African-American athletes were excluded from Michigan's football team for decades after George Jewett played in 1890 and 1892, Trueblood welcomed Eugene Joseph Marshall into his debate competitions. In 1903, Marshall became the first African-American to win a university debate championship at any American university, a fact celebrated by the *Ann Arbor Argus*: "For the first time in the history of American universities, a colored man has won his highest honors in oratory in fair and free competition with all comers." Trueblood entertained Marshall at his home and presented him with the Chicago Alumni Medal, a gesture of respect that stood in stark contrast to the racial exclusion practiced in other university activities.

Jam Handy's later career in public relations and industrial film production stood in stark contrast to this youthful act of journalistic mischief. He became a master of shaping perception through controlled messaging, crafting narratives designed to inform, persuade, and sell. His name became synonymous with a certain kind of earnest, instructional filmmaking. Yet, the most memorable thing about him, at least within the context of university history and this particular anecdote, remained that single article, a moment of sharp observation or deliberate mischief, depending on one's perspective. He saw a man kneeling in a classroom exercise, heard talk of pleading, and wrote about lovemaking. Whether he genuinely believed it or recognized the story's sensational potential was irrelevant. The narrative took hold, proving that the most effective stories often live in the space between what is shown and what is imagined, rather than in truth alone. Trueblood, the professor of elocution, the man who dedicated his life to the precise articulation of meaning, found himself utterly powerless against a story built on the unsaid, the implied, the scandalous suggestion that lingered precisely because it could never be fully articulated or disproven. The accusation existed in the gap between the kneeling figure on stage and the kneeling figure imagined by readers of Jam Handy's article, a gap wide enough to swallow a reputation, narrow enough to be filled only with whispers.

Trueblood lived to the ripe old age of ninety-five, dying in Bradenton, Florida in 1951. At the time of his death, the Associated Press noted that "He pioneered the teaching of speech in the nation's colleges during his 42 years on the University of Michigan faculty." His legacy was multifaceted: he had founded an academic department, coached championship golf teams, championed racial inclusion in debate, and inadvertently created one of the most enduring campus legends through a scandal that was, in the grand scheme of things, entirely trivial. The Trueblood Theater was named in his honor at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater and Dance, though it closed in 2006 when the building was razed for new construction. His portrait, painted in 1920, now hangs at the University of Michigan Golf Course, a fitting location for a man who once explained, "Known as 'Chief' to his teaching associates and 'Trueby' to his students, Thomas C. Trueblood now resides among U-M's golf history."

And what of the scandal itself? The faculty voted unanimously to suspend Handy for a year for "publishing false and injurious statements affecting the character of the work of one of the Professors." In addition to the suspension, Handy was branded a "faker" in the press. In his memoirs, he recalled being summoned to Trueblood's office where "His desk was piled high with letters...and clippings...from around the country...and he also had a copy of the McCutcheon cartoon. (He) was taking all of this as ridicule, although I had publicized the story with sincere enthusiasm for a new advance in education of which I felt the University of Michigan should be proud." Shortly after the incident, Trueblood left for a trip giving dramatic readings on the West Coast, perhaps needing to escape the notoriety that had been thrust upon him. Handy, meanwhile, went on to become a successful public relations man, his youthful indiscretion transformed into professional expertise.

The story of Thomas Trueblood and Jam Handy remains a perfect case study in how context can be stripped away, how a single moment can be reinterpreted to serve a narrative that has little to do with reality. It’s a story about the power of suggestion, the fragility of reputation, and the curious ways in which history remembers us. Often, those memories cling to our most embarrassing moments rather than our greatest achievements. Trueblood could have been remembered as the founder of America's first department of elocution, as a championship golf coach, as a pioneer in debate education, as a quiet champion of racial equality in academia. Instead, for many, he remains the professor who taught a "course in love making," a man whose trousers were supposedly worn thin at the knees from demonstrating proper proposal technique. And perhaps that's the most eloquent statement of all, a reminder that in the theater of public perception, the most carefully articulated arguments can be undone by the simplest, most salacious suggestion.