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Like today’s Pace University students, Homer Pace was an ambitious
person who was eager to do something constructive. Thus, following his father’s
death, and the demise of the newspaper, Homer enrolled in Ferris Institute, Big Rapids,
Michigan, to study business.
After completing one term at the Institute Homer obtained a position as a
stenographer with a law firm. Within two years he was working as a stenographer for the War Department in St. Paul,
Minnesota.
In 1898 his stenographic skills landed him a position with Wm. Cameron
& Co. at its lumber mills in Angelina, Texas. After a few narrow escapes,
including a train wreck and exposure to malaria and gunfire, Homer headed north to work
for the law firm which had previously employed him and then, once again, the War
Department, this time at an annual salary of $1,000, which was enough to support a wife.
Married in the summer of 1899, Homer Pace and
Amble Evenly Vander hoof Pace rented "a fine little house" with six rooms. The cost was $12 per month.
In 1900 after rejecting a War Department offer to transfer to the
Philippines, Homer became private secretary to the president of the Chicago Great Western
Railroad, at a salary of $1,200 per year plus expenses.
In 1901, following the birth of his first child,
a daughter named Helen, Homer headed to New York to manage the Chicago Great Western Railroad’s
office at 31 Nassau Street. Before long he was Assistant Secretary of the Chicago Great
Western and Secretary of one of its affiliated lines. By 1903 his salary was $3,600 per
year.
With the new titles came additional responsibilities which required
knowledge of accounting. Studying on his own, Homer acquired the expertise he needed and,
at the same time, decided to take the New York State C.P.A. examination in 1904, the year
his first son, Robert Scott Pace, was born.
Upon passing the exam, Homer resigned as Corporate Secretary of the
railroad and using deferred compensation from his previous position, he established a
C.P.A. practice in 1906.
Having tutored other young men preparing for the C.P.A. exam, Homer
decided to augment his accounting practice by offering a formal, 66 week long course in
accounting and law. His brother, Charles Ashford Pace, an attorney, joined him. The
brothers prepared original educational materials which were used in their school which
opened in October 1906 in rented quarters in the New York Tribune newspaper
building on Nassau Street.
The Pace brothers also supplied faculty and texts for accounting classes
held at Y.M.C.A.’s in New York and New Jersey and at private schools which they
established in Boston, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
The growth of the lower Manhattan school necessitated moves to larger
quarters in the Hudson Terminal complex in 1908 and to even bigger facilities on Church
Street in 1910.
Although women had been admitted to the accounting
course since 1906, during World War I, Pace Institute, as the school
in lower Manhattan was then known, introduced a new course in Emergency Clerical Service for Women. In addition to
presiding over a far-flung educational operation, Homer Pace also
served as Acting Deputy Commissioner of Internal Revenue during the war.
By 1919, 4,000 students were taking Pace courses in the New York area. The
Pace Standardized Course in Accounting was also offered at Y.M.C.A.’s in Buffalo,
Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, Kansas City, St. Louis, Denver, San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle.
Concerned about quality control at distant locations, in 1921 the Pace
brothers ended their arrangements with the Y. In the mid-twenties, they divested
themselves of the private schools outside New York in order to devote their full attention
to the lower Manhattan operation.
Throughout the 1920s the philosophy of Pace Institute was communicated to
students through the Drury Creed, originated by Horatio Nelson Drury, a popular professor
of English and Public Speaking. To learn more about the creed, go to "I Believe."
Rolling admissions, a "time-saver"
May term, a new secretarial practice course for women, scholarships for New York and New
Jersey high school graduates, lavish freshmen/faculty dinners at Brooklyn’s Hotel St.
George, public appearances by Homer Pace, and two well-received magazines, The Pace Student
and
The American Accountant, all played a role in the astounding growth
of Pace Institute. To learn more about these periodicals go to
"Publications".
In 1928 Pace Institute moved to the
Transportation Building at 225 Broadway because of increased enrollment. At year later,
with a student body of 3,000, the Institute was compelled to lease 20 % more space in the
Transportation Building.
To retain students during the Great Depression, the Institute extended
tuition credits of $100,000 to students requiring loans. Homer Pace also forfeited his
salary and signed over his insurance in order to keep the school open.
In 1933, Pace Institute was reorganized into three distinct and more
visible divisions: the School of Marketing, Advertising and Selling, the School of Credit
Science and the School of Accountancy Practice. To further heighten the school’s
visibility, high school guidance counselors and principals were entertained at lavish
dinners at the Waldorf Astoria. A tour of the Institute’s facilities preceded the
dinner. Guests were then transported to the Waldorf on chartered busses. Following dinner,
Homer Pace addressed the guests. Homer Pace and Institute faculty members also visited
high schools to address students. In l933-34, 120 lectures were delivered at New York area
high schools. In addition to these presentations, which reached a combined audience of
nearly 70,000 students, the Institute’s outreach program included a series of
vocational guidance booklets. To learn more about this well-received initiative,
go to "Vocational Guidance Booklets."
In 1935 Pace Institute, founded as a proprietary, i.e. profit-making
school, was incorporated as a non-profit institution of higher education in New York
State. At the same time, the New York State Board of Regents granted the Institute a
provisional charter.
In 1940, Charles Ashford Pace, who had been retired since 1933, died.
In 1942 Pace Institute was granted an absolute charter by the New York
State Board of Regents. A week later, Homer Pace, age 63, died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
He was stricken while working in his office at the Institute. Newspapers throughout the
country reported his death. Homer was buried in New Lexington, Ohio. Marking the
gravesite is a stone bearing the inscription:
Following
his father's death, Robert Scott Pace became President of Pace Institute;
Robert's brother, C. Richard Pace, became Secretary of Pace Institute.In
In
In
"Historic
41 Park Row."
