He frequently heard his parents express their purpose to send him to college, and as he grew older and better able to appreciate the value of education, the desire grew very strong within him to fit himself for a larger field of usefulness. In due time he entered Oberlin College, and after spending eighteen months in the preparatory department he entered the college proper, and graduated with the class of 1870. Immediately after his graduation, Prof. Storum came to the city of Washington to teach in Wayland Seminary, one of the schools fostered by the Baptist Home Mission Society. He taught at Wayland thirteen years. Here, as in every walk in life, he exerted a most wholesome influence over the young men and women attending the seminary, whose graduates are found in all parts of this country. They delight to speak of the inspiration and high incentive they received from Prof. Storum while under his instruction. After leaving Wayland, Prof. Storum taught in the public schools of Washington one year, whence he was called to the city of Petersburg, Virginia, to organize the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute, provided for by the Legislature of the "Old Dominion." He remained here three years and endeared himself to the pupils of the new school and to the citizens of Petersburg, irrespective of race, political bias or denominational creeds. He then returned to Washington and from that time until the present he has been teaching in the public high school. Prof. Storum has ever been interested in and connected with the various enterprises whose aim has been the improvement and elevation of the Colored people. For five years he was secretary of the Capital Savings Bank of Washington and a member of the Board of Directors of the Industrial Building and Savings Company. For three consecutive years Prof. Storum was president of the Bethel Literary and Historical Society, the most prominent association of its kind in the country. Through his influence and by his energy the library and reading room were established and are now the most interesting and prominent features of the society. In addition to his many and exacting duties, Prof. Storum has written and lectured on a great variety of subjects, religious, political, educational and financial. He was happily married in 1872 to Mrs. Carrie Garrett Browne, a teacher in the public schools of Washington. There are three surviving children. Their domestic life has had its sunshine and its shadow. The darkest cloud that has overhung their household was the death of their oldest son, who died eight years ago at the age of eighteen, and who had given promise of being an unusually brilliant and useful man.