Charles William Eliot (March 20, 1834 – August 22, 1926) was an American
academic
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
who was president of
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
from 1869 to 1909the longest term of any Harvard president.
A member of the prominent
Eliot family of Boston, he transformed Harvard from a respected provincial college into America's preeminent
research university
A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are the most important sites at which knowledge production occurs, along with "intergenerational kno ...
.
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
called him "the only man in the world I envy."
Early life
Charles Eliot was a scion of the wealthy
Eliot family of
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
. He was the son of politician
Samuel Atkins Eliot[ and his wife Mary (née Lyman) and was the grandchild of banker Samuel Eliot. He was one of five siblings and the only boy. Eliot graduated from ]Boston Latin School
The Boston Latin School is a public exam school in Boston, Massachusetts. It was established on April 23, 1635, making it both the oldest public school in the British America and the oldest existing school in the United States. Its curriculum f ...
in 1849 and from Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
in 1853. He was later made an honorary member of the Hasty Pudding
Hasty pudding is a pudding or porridge of grains cooked in milk or water. In the United States, it often refers specifically to a version made primarily with ground ("Indian") corn, and it is mentioned in the lyrics of "Yankee Doodle", a tradit ...
.
Although he had high expectations and obvious scientific talents, the first fifteen years of Eliot's career were less than auspicious. He was appointed Tutor in Mathematics at Harvard in the fall of 1854, and studied chemistry with Josiah P. Cooke.[ Most of this article, which starts out with a discussion of his father, is about Charles W. Eliot.] In 1858, he was promoted to Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Chemistry. He taught competently, wrote some technical pieces on chemical impurities in industrial metal
A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...
s, and busied himself with schemes for the reform of Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School
The Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) is the engineering school within Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, offering degrees in engineering and applied sciences to graduate students admitted ...
.
But his real goal, appointment to the Rumford Professorship of Chemistry, eluded him. This was a particularly bitter blow because of a change in his family's economic circumstances—the financial failure of his father, Samuel Atkins Eliot, in the Panic of 1857
The Panic of 1857 was a financial panic in the United States caused by the declining international economy and over-expansion of the domestic economy. Because of the invention of the telegraph by Samuel F. Morse in 1844, the Panic of 1857 was ...
. Eliot had to face the fact that "he had nothing to look to but his teacher's salary and a legacy left to him by his grandfather Lyman." After a bitter struggle over the Rumford chair, Eliot left Harvard in 1863. His friends assumed that he would "be obliged to cut chemistry and go into business in order to earn a livelihood for his family." But instead, he used his grandfather's large legacy
In law, a legacy is something held and transferred to someone as their inheritance, as by will and testament. Personal effects, family property, marriage property or collective property gained by will of real property.
Legacy or legacies may refer ...
and a small borrowed sum to spend the next two years studying the educational systems of the Old World in Europe.
Studies of European education
Eliot's approach to investigating European education was unusual. He did not confine his attention to educational institutions, but explored the role of education in every aspect of national life. When Eliot visited school
A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...
s, he took an interest in every aspect of institutional operation, from curriculum
In education, a curriculum (; : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view ...
and methods of instruction through physical arrangements and custodial services. But his particular concern was with the relation between education and economic growth:
Eliot understood the interdependence of education and enterprise. In a letter to his cousin Arthur T. Lyman, he discussed the value to the German chemical industry of discoveries made in university laboratories. He also recognized that, while European universities depended on government for support, American institutions would have to draw on the resources of the wealthy. He wrote to his cousin:
While Eliot was in Europe, he was again presented with the opportunity to enter the world of active business. The Merrimack Company Merrimack may refer to:
* Merrimack, New Hampshire, a town
* Merrimack County, New Hampshire
* Merrimack River, in Massachusetts and New Hampshire
* Merrimack Valley, the region surrounding the river
* Merrimac, California, also spelled Merrimack
...
, one of the largest textile mills in the United States, tendered him an invitation to become its superintendent. In spite of the urgings of his friends and the attractiveness of what for the time was the enormous salary of $5000 (plus a good house, rent free), Eliot, after giving considerable thought to the offer, turned it down. One of his biographers speculated that he surely realized by this time that he had a strong taste for organizing and administration. This post would have given it scope. He must have felt, even if dimly, that if science interested him, it was not because he was first and last a lover of her laws and generalizations, not only because the clarity and precision of science was congenial, but because science answered the questions of practical men and conferred knowledge and power upon those who would perform the labors of their generation.
During nearly two years in Europe he had found himself as much fascinated by what he could learn concerning the methods by which science could be made to help industry as by what he discovered about the organization of institutions of learning. He was thinking much about what his own young country needed, and his hopes for the United States took account of industry and commerce as well as the field of academic endeavor. To be the chief executive officer of a particular business offered only a limited range of influence; but to stand at the intersection of the realm of production and the realm of knowledge offered considerably more.
Crisis in American colleges
In the 1800s, American colleges, controlled by clergymen
Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
, continued to embrace classical curricula that had little relevance to an industrializing nation. Few offered courses in the sciences, modern languages, history, or political economy — and only a handful had graduate or professional schools.
As businessmen became increasingly reluctant to send their sons to schools whose curricula offered nothing useful — or to donate money for their support, some educational leaders began exploring ways of making higher education more attractive. Some backed the establishment of specialized schools of science and technology, like Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School
The Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) is the engineering school within Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, offering degrees in engineering and applied sciences to graduate students admitted ...
, Yale's Sheffield Scientific School
Sheffield Scientific School was founded in 1847 as a school of Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut, for instruction in science and engineering. Originally named the Yale Scientific School, it was renamed in 1861 in honor of Joseph E. Sheffield, ...
, and the newly chartered Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
, about to offer its first classes in 1865. Others proposed abandoning the classical curriculum, in favor of more vocational
A vocation () is an occupation to which a person is especially drawn or for which they are suited, trained or qualified. People can be given information about a new occupation through student orientation. Though now often used in non-religious co ...
offerings.
Harvard was in the middle of this crisis. After three undistinguished short-term clerical Harvard presidencies in a ten-year period, Boston's business leaders, many of them Harvard alumni, were pressing for change — though with no clear idea of the kinds of changes they wanted.
On his return to the United States in 1865, Eliot accepted an appointment as Professor of Analytical Chemistry at the newly founded Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In that year, an important revolution occurred in the government of Harvard University. The board of overseers had hitherto consisted of the governor, lieutenant-governor, president of the state senate, speaker of the house, secretary of the board of education, and president and treasurer of the university, together with thirty other persons, and these other persons were elected by joint ballot of the two houses of the state legislature.
An opinion had long been gaining ground that it would be better for the community and the interests of learning, as well as for the university, if the power to elect the overseers were transferred from the legislature to the graduates of the college. This change was made in 1865, and at the same time the governor and other state officers ceased to form part of the board. The effect of this change was to greatly strengthen the interest of the alumni in the management of the university, and thus to prepare the way for extensive and thorough reforms. Shortly afterward Dr. Thomas Hill resigned the presidency, and after a considerable interregnum
An interregnum (plural interregna or interregnums) is a period of discontinuity or "gap" in a government, organization, or social order. Archetypally, it was the period of time between the reign of one monarch and the next (coming from Latin '' ...
Eliot succeeded to that office in 1869.
Harvard presidency
Early in 1869, Eliot had presented his ideas about reforming American higher education in a compelling two-part article, "The New Education," in ''The Atlantic Monthly
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'', the nation's leading journal of opinion. "We are fighting a wilderness, physical and moral," Eliot declared in setting forth his vision of the American university, "for this fight we must be trained and armed." The articles resonated powerfully with the businessmen who controlled the Harvard Corporation. Shortly after their appearance, merely 35 years old, he was elected as the youngest president in the history of the nation's oldest university.
Eliot's educational vision incorporated important elements of Unitarian and Emersonian
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionism, abolitionist, and poet who led the Transcendentalism, transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th ...
ideas about character development, framed by a pragmatic understanding of the role of higher education in economic and political leadership. His concern in "The New Education" was not merely curriculum, but the ultimate utility of education. A college education could enable a student to make intelligent choices, but should not attempt to provide specialized vocational or technical training.
Although his methods were pragmatic, Eliot's ultimate goal, like those of the secularized Puritanism of the Boston elite, was a spiritual one. The spiritual desideratum was not otherworldly. It was embedded in the material world and consisted of measurable progress of the human spirit towards mastery of human intelligence over nature — the "moral and spiritual wilderness." While this mastery depended on each individual fully realizing his capacities, it was ultimately a collective achievement and the product of institutions which established the conditions both for individual and collective achievement. Like the Union victory in the Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
, triumph over the moral and physical wilderness and the establishment of mastery required a joining of industrial and cultural forces.
While he proposed the reform of professional schools, the development of research faculties, and, in general, a huge broadening of the curriculum, his blueprint for undergraduate education in crucial ways preserved — and even enhanced — its traditional spiritual and character education functions. Echoing Emerson, he believed that every individual mind had "its own peculiar constitution." The problem, both in terms of fully developing an individual's capacities and in maximizing his social utility, was to present him with a course of study sufficiently representative so as "to reveal to him, or at least to his teachers and parents, his capacities and tastes." An informed choice once made, the individual might pursue whatever specialized branch of knowledge he found congenial.
But Eliot's goal went well beyond Emersonian self-actualization for its own sake. Framed by the higher purposes of a research university in the service of the nation, specialized expertise could be harnessed to public purposes. "When the revelation of his own peculiar taste and capacity comes to a young man, let him reverently give it welcome, thank God, and take courage," Eliot declared in his inaugural address. He further stated:
On the subject of educational reform, he declared:
Under Eliot's leadership, Harvard adopted an "elective system" which vastly expanded the range of courses offered and permitted undergraduates unrestricted choice in selecting their courses of study — with a view to enabling them to discover their "natural bents" and pursue them into specialized studies. A monumental expansion of Harvard's graduate and professional school and departments facilitated specialization, while at the same time making the university a center for advanced scientific and technological research. Accompanying this was a shift in pedagogy from recitations and lectures towards classes that put students' achievements to the test and, through a revised grading system, rigorously assessed individual performance.
Eliot's reforms did not go without major criticism. His own kinsman Samuel Eliot Morison
Samuel Eliot Morison (July 9, 1887 – May 15, 1976) was an American historian noted for his works of maritime history and American history that were both authoritative and popular. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1912, and ta ...
in his tercentenary history of Harvard made this devastating assessment:
Opposition to football and other sports
During his tenure, Eliot opposed football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
and tried unsuccessfully to abolish the game at Harvard. In 1905, ''The New York Times'' reported that he called it "a fight whose strategy and ethics are those of war", that violation of rules cannot be prevented, that "the weaker man is considered the legitimate prey of the stronger" and that "no sport is wholesome in which ungenerous or mean acts which easily escape detection contribute to victory."
He also made public objections to baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...
, basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
, and hockey
Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers o ...
. He was quoted as saying that rowing
Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically atta ...
and tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...
were the only clean sports.
Eliot once said:
Attempted acquisition of MIT
During his lengthy tenure as Harvard's leader, Eliot initiated repeated attempts to acquire his former employer, the fledgling Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
, and these efforts continued even after he stepped down from the presidency. The much younger college had considerable financial problems during its first five decades, and had been repeatedly rescued from insolvency by various benefactors, including George Eastman
George Eastman (July 12, 1854March 14, 1932) was an American entrepreneur who founded the Kodak, Eastman Kodak Company and helped to bring the photographic use of roll film into the mainstream. He was a major philanthropist, establishing the ...
, the founder of Eastman Kodak Company
The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...
. The faculty, students, and alumni of MIT often vehemently opposed merger of their school under the Harvard umbrella. In 1916, MIT succeeded in moving across the Charles River
The Charles River ( Massachusett: ''Quinobequin)'' (sometimes called the River Charles or simply the Charles) is an river in eastern Massachusetts. It flows northeast from Hopkinton to Boston along a highly meandering route, that doubles b ...
from crowded Back Bay, Boston
Back Bay is an officially recognized neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, built on reclaimed land in the Charles River basin. Construction began in 1859, as the demand for luxury housing exceeded the availability in the city at the time, and t ...
to larger facilities on the southern riverfront of Cambridge, but still faced the prospect of merger with Harvard,
which was to begin "when the Institute will occupy its splendid new buildings in Cambridge." However, in 1917, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) is the court of last resort, highest court in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Although the claim is disputed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the SJC claims the di ...
rendered a decision that effectively cancelled plans for a merger, and MIT eventually attained independent financial stability. During his life, Eliot had been involved in at least five unsuccessful attempts to absorb MIT into Harvard.
Personal life
On October 27, 1858, Eliot married Ellen Derby Peabody of Salem Massachusetts (1836–1869) in Boston at Kings Chapel. Ellen was the daughter of Ephraim Peabody (1807-1856) and Mary Jane Derby (1807-1892), great-great-granddaughter of Elias Hasket Derby
Elias Hasket Derby (August 16, 1739 — September 8, 1799) was a Colonial American merchant based in Salem, Massachusetts who owned or held shares in numerous privateers. The crews of these ships took more than 150 prizes during the American ...
(1739-1799), and the sister of architect Robert Swain Peabody
Robert Swain Peabody (February 20, 1845 – September 23, 1917) was a prominent Boston architect who was the cofounder of the firm Peabody & Stearns.
Early life
Peabody was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts on February 20, 1845. He was a ...
.[''Fred Savage, The Cottage Builder'']
– Jaylene B. Roths, p.40 They had four sons, one of whom, Charles Eliot (November 1, 1859 – March 25, 1897) became an important landscape architect
A landscape architect is a person who is educated in the field of landscape architecture. The practice of landscape architecture includes: site analysis, site inventory, site planning, land planning, planting design, grading, storm water manageme ...
, responsible for Boston's public park system. Another son, Samuel Atkins Eliot II (August 24, 1862 – October 15, 1950) became a Unitarian minister who was the longest-serving president of the American Unitarian Association
The American Unitarian Association (AUA) was a religious denomination in the United States and Canada, formed by associated Unitarian congregations in 1825. In 1961, it consolidated with the Universalist Church of America to form the Unitarian Uni ...
(1900–1927) and was the first president granted executive authority of that organization.
The Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
-winning poet T.S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National B ...
was a cousin and attended Harvard from 1906 through 1909, completing his elective undergraduate courses in three instead of the normal four years, which were the last three years of Charles' presidency.
After Ellen Derby Peabody died at the age of 33 of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
, Eliot married a second wife in 1877, Grace Mellen Hopkinson (1846–1924). This second marriage did not produce any children. Grace was a close relative of Frances Stone Hopkinson, wife of Samuel Atkins Eliot II, Charles's son.
Eliot retired in 1909, having served 40 years as president, the longest term in the university's history, and was honored as Harvard's first president emeritus. He lived another 17 years, dying in Northeast Harbor, Maine
Northeast Harbor is a village on Mount Desert Island, located in the town of Mount Desert in Hancock County, Maine, United States.
The original settlers, the Someses and Richardsons, arrived around 1761.
The village has a significant summe ...
, in 1926, and was interred in Mount Auburn Cemetery
Mount Auburn Cemetery is the first rural cemetery, rural, or garden, cemetery in the United States, located on the line between Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts, Watertown in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Middl ...
in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...
.
Legacy
Under Eliot, Harvard became a worldwide university, accepting its students around America using standardized entrance examinations and hiring well-known scholars from home and abroad. Eliot was an administrative reformer, reorganizing the university
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
's faculty into schools and departments and replacing recitations with lectures
A lecture (from Latin ''lēctūra'' “reading” ) is an oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a particular subject, for example by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to convey critical inform ...
and seminars. During his forty-year presidency, the university vastly expanded its facilities, with laboratories, libraries, classrooms, and athletic facilities replacing simple colonial structures. Eliot attracted the support of major donors from among the nation's growing plutocracy
A plutocracy () or plutarchy is a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth or income. The first known use of the term in English dates from 1631. Unlike most political systems, plutocracy is not rooted in any established ...
, making it the wealthiest private university in the world.
Eliot's leadership made Harvard not only the pace-setter for other American schools, but a major figure in the reform of secondary school
A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...
education. Both the elite boarding schools
A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...
, most of them founded during his presidency, and the public high schools
A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...
shaped their curricula
In education, a curriculum (; : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view ...
to meet Harvard's demanding standards. Eliot was a key figure in the creation of standardized admissions examinations, as a founding member of the College Entrance Examination Board
The College Board is an American nonprofit organization that was formed in December 1899 as the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) to expand access to higher education. While the College Board is not an association of colleges, it runs a ...
.
As leader of the nation's wealthiest and best-known university, Eliot was necessarily a celebrated figure whose opinions were sought on a wide variety of matters, from tax
A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...
policy (he offered the first coherent rationale for the charitable tax exemption
Tax exemption is the reduction or removal of a liability to make a compulsory payment that would otherwise be imposed by a ruling power upon persons, property, income, or transactions. Tax-exempt status may provide complete relief from taxes, redu ...
) to the intellectual welfare of the general public.
President Eliot edited the ''Harvard Classics
''The Harvard Classics'', originally marketed as Dr. Eliot's Five-Foot Shelf of Books, is a 50-volume series of classic works of world literature, important speeches, and historical documents compiled and edited by Harvard University President Ch ...
'', which together are colloquially known as his Five Foot Shelf and which were intended at the time to suggest a foundation for informed discourse, "A good substitute for a liberal education in youth to anyone who would read them with devotion, even if he could spare but fifteen minutes a day for reading."
Eliot was an articulate opponent of American imperialism
American imperialism refers to the expansion of American political, economic, cultural, and media influence beyond the boundaries of the United States. Depending on the commentator, it may include imperialism through outright military conques ...
, and he was opposed to the education of women. Many talented African Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
were educated at Harvard during Eliot's tenure, including such notables as W. E. B. Du Bois (Class of 1890). Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American c ...
was awarded an honorary degree by Harvard in 1896. Unlike his successor, A. Lawrence Lowell
Abbott Lawrence Lowell (December 13, 1856 – January 6, 1943) was an American educator and legal scholar. He was President of Harvard University from 1909 to 1933.
With an "aristocratic sense of mission and self-certainty," Lowell cut a large f ...
, Eliot opposed efforts to limit the admission of Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
and Roman Catholics
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
. At the same time, Eliot was radically opposed to labor unions, fostering a campus climate where many Harvard students served as strikebreakers; he was called by some "the greatest labor union hater in the country."
Charles Eliot was a fearless crusader not only for educational reform
Education reform is the name given to the goal of changing public education. The meaning and education methods have changed through debates over what content or experiences result in an educated individual or an educated society. Historically, th ...
, but for many of the goals of the progressive movement
Progressivism holds that it is possible to improve human societies through political action. As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, techno ...
—whose most prominent figurehead was Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
(Class of 1880) and most eloquent spokesman was Herbert Croly
Herbert David Croly (January 23, 1869 – May 17, 1930) was an intellectual leader of the progressive movement as an editor, political philosopher and a co-founder of the magazine ''The New Republic'' in early twentieth-century America. His pol ...
(Class of 1889).
Eliot was also involved in philanthropy. In 1908 he joined the General Education Board The General Education Board was a private organization which was used primarily to support higher education and medical schools in the United States, and to help rural white and black schools in the South, as well as modernize farming practices i ...
, in 1913 served on the International Health Board
The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Car ...
, and served as a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...
from 1914 to 1917. Helped found the Institute for Government Research (Brookings Institution
The Brookings Institution, often stylized as simply Brookings, is an American research group founded in 1916. Located on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C., the organization conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in ec ...
) and serving as trustee. Acted as a founding trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) is a nonpartisan international affairs think tank headquartered in Washington D.C. with operations in Europe, South and East Asia, and the Middle East as well as the United States. Founded in ...
from its beginning in 1910 until 1919. Was an incorporator of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts
The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...
in 1870, and a trustee. Between 1908 and 1925 he served as the chairman of the Museum's Special Advisory Committee on Education. Served as vice president for the National Committee for Mental Hygiene from 1913 till his death. Accepted election to be the first president of the American Social Hygiene Association
The American Sexual Health Association (ASHA), formally known as the American Social Hygiene Association and the American Social Health Association, is an American nonprofit organization established in 1914, that cites a mission to improve the heal ...
. In 1902 became vice president of the National Civil Service Reform League The National Civil Service Reform League was a non-profit organization in the United States founded in 1881 for the purpose of investigating the efficiency of the civil service. Among its founders were George William Curtis, chairman of the first ...
, and in 1908 president of the league.
In celebration of President Eliot's 90 birthday, congratulations came in across the world and notably from two American Presidents. Woodrow Wilson said of him, “No man has ever made a deeper impression of the educational system of a country than President Eliot has upon the educational system of America,” while Theodore Roosevelt exclaimed, “He is the only man in the world I envy.”
Upon his death in 1926, ''The New York Times'' published a full-page interview that Eliot had given as he neared the end of his life, including excerpts from his writings on education, religion, democracy, labor, woman, and Americanism.
Inscriptions composed by Charles W. Eliot
Over one hundred inscriptions were composed by President Eliot, placed on buildings ranging from schools, churches, public buildings, memorial tablets, numerous monuments, and to the Library of Congress.
ON THESE HEIGHTS
DURING THE NIGHT OF MARCH 4 1776,
THE AMERICAN TROOPS BESIEGING BOSTON
BUILT TWO REDOUBTS,
WHICH MADE THE HARBOR AND TOWN
UNTENABLE BY THE BRITISH FLEET AND GARRISON.
ON MARCH 17 THE BRITISH FLEET
CARRYING 11000 EFFECTIVE MEN
AND 1000 REFUGES,
DROPPED DOWN TO NANTASKET ROADS
AND THENCEFORTH
BOSTON WAS FREE,
A STRONG BRITISH FORCE
HAD BEEN EXPELLED
FROM ONE OF THE UNITED AMERICAN COLONIES
(Evacuation Monument - Dorchester Heights
Dorchester Heights is the central area of South Boston. It is the highest area in the neighborhood and commands a view of both Boston Harbor and downtown.
History
Dorchester is remembered in American history for an action in the American Rev ...
Monument, Boston, Massachusetts, 1902)
TO THE MEN OF BOSTON
WHO DIED FOR THEIR COUNTRY
ON LAND AND SEA IN THE WAR
WHICH KEPT THE UNION WHOLE,
DESTROYED SLAVERY AND MAINTAINED THE CONSTITUTION.
THE GRATEFUL CITY
HAS BUILT THIS MONUMENT,
THAT THEIR EXAMPLE MAY SPEAK
TO COMING GENERATIONS
( Soldiers and Sailors Monument (Boston), Boston Common, Massachusetts, 1877)
Monuments and memorials
Eliot House
Eliot House is one of twelve undergraduate residential Houses at Harvard University. It is one of the seven original houses at the college. Opened in 1931, the house was named after Charles William Eliot, who served as president of the universi ...
, one of the seven original residential houses for undergraduates at the college, was named in honor of Eliot and opened in 1931. Charles W. Eliot Middle School
The Pasadena Unified School District is a unified school district that is responsible for the schools of Pasadena, California. , it has four high schools, five middle schools, three K–8 schools and 15 K–5 elementary schools. The number of ...
in Altadena, California
Altadena () ("Alta", Spanish for "Upper", and "dena" from Pasadena) is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in the Verdugo Mountains region of Los Angeles County, California, approximately 14 miles (23 km) from the downtown ...
, Eliot Elementary School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Charles William Eliot Junior High School (now Eliot-Hine Middle School) in Washington, DC were named in his honor. In 1940 the United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U ...
issued a stamp in Eliot's honor as part of their Famous Americans Issue. Asteroid (5202) Charleseliot is named in his honor.
Eliot Mountain was named in honor of the lifelong academic who summered on Mount Desert Island, Maine, and was a key figure in the creation of Acadia National Park
Acadia National Park is an American national park located along the mid-section of the Maine coast, southwest of Bar Harbor. The park preserves about half of Mount Desert Island, part of the Isle au Haut, the tip of the Schoodic Peninsula, and ...
.
Honors and degrees
*1857 Fellow American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
*1869 LL.D. Williams College; LL.D. Princeton University
*1870 LL.D. Yale University
*1871 Member American Philosophical Society
*1873 Member Massachusetts Historical Society
*1879 Honorary Member American Library Association
The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members a ...
*1902 LL.D. Johns Hopkins University
*1903 Officer Legion of Honor
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...
( France)
*1904 Corresponding Member Academy Moral and Political Science, Institute of France
*1908 Grand Officer Order of the Crown of Italy
The Order of the Crown of Italy ( it, Ordine della Corona d'Italia, italic=no or OCI) was founded as a national order in 1868 by King Vittorio Emanuele II, to commemorate the unification of Italy in 1861. It was awarded in five degrees for civi ...
*1909 Imperial Order of the Rising Sun
The is a Japanese order, established in 1875 by Emperor Meiji. The Order was the first national decoration awarded by the Japanese government, created on 10 April 1875 by decree of the Council of State. The badge features rays of sunlight ...
, 1st class; Royal Order of Merit of the Prussian Crown
The Order of Merit of the Prussian Crown (''Verdienstorden der Preußischen Krone'') was an award of civil and military merit established 18 January 1901 by King Wilhelm II on the occasion of the bicentennial of the establishment of the Kingdom of ...
, 1st class; Fellow Royal Society of Literature
The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...
(England); LL.D. Tulane University; LL.D. University of Missouri; LL.D. Dartmouth College; LL.D. Harvard University; MD. (hon.) Harvard University
*1911 Ph.D. (hon.) University of Breslau
*1914 Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy
Fellowship of the British Academy (FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are:
# Fellows – scholars resident in the United Kingdom
# C ...
; LL.D. Brown University
*1915 Gold Medal / American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...
*1919 Order of the Crown of Belgium
The Order of the Crown (french: Ordre de la Couronne, nl, Kroonorde) is a national order of the Kingdom of Belgium. The Order is one of Belgium's highest honors.
History
The Order was established on October 15, 1897 by King Leopold II in his ...
*1923 Grand Cordon of the Order of St. Sava
The Royal Order of St. Sava is an Order of merit, first awarded by the Kingdom of Serbia in 1883 and later by the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It was awarded to nationals and foreigners for meritorious ach ...
, Serbia; LL.D. Boston University; Civic Forum Medal of Honor, New York
*1924 Roosevelt Medal for Distinguished Service; Commander of the Legion of Honor
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon, ...
(France); LL.D. University of the State of New York
Books
''Educational Reform: Essays and Addresses'' (1901)
''The Conflict between Individualism and Collectivism in a Democracy'' (1910)
See also
*History of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The history of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology can be traced back to the 1861 incorporation of the "Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston Society of Natural History" led primarily by William Barton Rogers.
Vision and mission ...
*Lawrence Scientific School
The Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) is the engineering school within Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, offering degrees in engineering and applied sciences to graduate students admitted ...
Notes
References
* Hugh Hawkins. (1972). Between Harvard and America: The Educational Leadership of Charles W. Eliot. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
* Henry James. (1930). Charles W. Eliot — President of Harvard, 1869–1909. Cambridge, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
* Samuel Eliot Morison. (1936). Three Centuries of Harvard. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
* Samuel Eliot Morison (ed.). (1930). The Development of Harvard University, 1869–1929. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
* "Football is a fight, says President Eliot. Harvard's Head Vigorously Attacks the Game. Strong Prey on the Weak. Conditions Governing the Sport Dr. Eliot Describes as Hateful & Mean; Wants $2,500,000 Endowment." ''The New York Times'', February 2, 1905, p. 6. Quoted material is verbatim from the ''Times'', but reported by the ''Times'' as ''indirect'' quotations from Eliot.
External links
Brief biography, Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, 2001.
*
*
*
along with interpretive texts
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eliot, Charles William
Presidents of Harvard University
Harvard College alumni
Rockefeller Foundation people
People from Boston
Boston Latin School alumni
1834 births
1926 deaths
Eliot family (America)
Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery
Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Massachusetts Institute of Technology people