Charles W. Eliot Quotes (Images)
Books are the quietest and most constant of friends;they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors,and the most patient of teachers.
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| Birth: | 20th March, 1834 |
| Death: | 22nd August, 1926 |
| Nationality: | American |
| Profession: | Professor |
The scion of a wealthy Boston family, Eliot graduated from Harvard University in 1853. He was appointed Tutor in Mathematics at Harvard in the fall of 1854 and studied chemistry with Josiah P. Cooke. In 1858, he was promoted to Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Chemistry. He taught competently, wrote some technical pieces on chemical impurities in industrial metals, and busied himself with schemes for the reform of Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School. Eliot left Harvard in 1863.
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 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.
Though he retired from Harvard's presidency in 1909, Eliot lived until 1926. He is interred in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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