Charles William Eliot was born in Boston March 20, 1834. After a period spent in the public schools he was prepared for college at the Boston Latin school, and entering Harvard he graduated in 1852. After graduation he took a position as tutor of mathematics in Harvard and went through an advanced course in chemistry with Professor Josiah P. Cook. In 1858 he undertook a trip to Europe to investigate its educational methods and make a further study of chemistry. From 1865 to 1869 he was professor of analytical chemistry in the Massachusetts institute of technology. In 1867 he was elected a fellow of the American academy of arts and sciences, and also became a member of the American philosophical society. He has delivered many noteworthy addresses on educational and scientific subjects and has written a number of text books, essays and educational contributions to periodicals. His principal works are text-books on chemistry, which were written in conjunction with Professor Francis H. Storer. In 1869 he was elected president of Harvard university. He is a member of many scientific societies and is regarded as an authority on abstruse questions and problems of chemistry and allied sciences.
William Herbert Perry Faunce.
The Rev. W. H. P. Faunce, D.D., the new president of Brown university, Providence, Rhode Island, is not an example of success under difficulties. He has never experienced reverses, and he has always improved his opportunities. His father, Thomas Faunce, was a prominent clergyman at Worcester, Massachusetts, and had preached in Plymouth, in that state, which is the home of many generations of the family. I called upon Dr. Faunce, and was invited into his study. He is only forty years of age, a courteous, broad-minded gentleman. “I was born in Worcester,” he said, “but received a public school education at Concord and at Lynn, and in 1876 entered Brown university. After I was graduated, I taught for a year in mathematics, during the absence of a professor in Europe. I always intended to become a minister, and I entered Newton Theological Seminary. Eight months before graduation, I preached one Sunday in the State Street Baptist church, of Springfield, Massachusetts. It was a large church, having a membership of seven hundred and fifty. I did not know that the pulpit was vacant, and, peculiarly enough, chose for my text the sentence, ‘I that speak unto you am He.’ At the close of the services, I was asked to be their pastor, and, after I was graduated from the seminary, I was ordained. It was in 1889 that I was asked to preach as a candidate in the Fifth Avenue Baptist church, of New York, which I regret to leave. I refused to be a candidate; but members continually came to Springfield to hear me, and finally I was called. All along I have been more or less identified with college work, and my congregation tell me they have been expecting I would leave and devote myself to educational lines. For a number of years, I have been one of a board of preachers at Harvard, preaching there three weeks in the autumn, and three in the winter, and for six weeks each summer (the summer quarter), at the University of Chicago, where I also taught in theology. Again, I have preached quite regularly at Cornell, Amherst, Wellesley and Brown.” “Have other colleges asked you to become president?” “Yes; that is, two official boards of two colleges have sounded and invited me, but I considered that my work here was too important. Brown, however, is my alma mater.” “You must spend much time in study,” I remarked. “I have always kept my studies up,” replied Dr. Faunce. “I have been abroad three times to study German, French and philosophy. I am a great believer in constant work.” “Success? you ask. Why, success involves the complete expression of all of one’s powers, and every one leaves a lasting impression on the life of the world. The man who is sincere in the expressing of himself, in whatever line it may be, becomes a factor in the world. Genuine success is the kind that is helpful to others, as well as to the one who is striving. Every other kind falls short of the mark and becomes stale. How to achieve success? you ask. Show strong, absolute whole-heartedness in whatever you undertake; throw yourself, body, mind and soul, into whatever you do. Patiently master details. Most of the men that I know who have failed have ignored details,—have considered them petty and insignificant. They have not realized the importance of small things.” “Do you think the average man appreciates this?” I asked. “No.” Here Dr. Faunce was called away for a moment, and I picked up a book of Browning’s poems. These lines in “Christmas Eve” were marked:
Whom do you count the Worse man upon earth?
Be sure he knows, in his conscience, more
Of what Right is, than arrives at birth.
When he returned I asked: “Do you think that the worse individual, a useless member of society, can elevate himself and be of consequence?” “Most decidedly, and through work, congenial work. The happiest hours of a man’s life should be when he is working. A man will not succeed who is continually looking for the end of the day. Vacations are necessary, but they are for the sake of work and success.”
Arthur Twining Hadley.
The father of Arthur Twining Hadley, now president of Yale, was Professor James Hadley, a Yale graduate of 1842. He was a tutor at Yale three years, and, in 1857, he took President Woolsey’s place as professor of Greek. This place he held until his death, in 1872. His mother was Ann Twining, an intellectual woman, who completed the full Yale course in mathematics before the days of the “new woman.” Thus, young Hadley was, as Oliver Wendell Holmes might say, “fortunate in the choice of his parents.” He first saw the light at New Haven, April 23, 1856. Becoming a Yale graduate, in 1876, he was the valedictorian of his class. He spent some years in Berlin, and became a tutor in 1879, a lecturer at Yale (and Harvard) on political science in 1883, and a professor in 1886. He had also done journalistic work on several newspapers. His work on “Railway legislation” has been translated into French and German, and twice into Russian. He made two reports as commissioner of labor statistics for Connecticut, in 1885 and 1886. He wrote, at the Harpers’ solicitation, the article on “Yale” in their well-known volume, “Four Universities.” In 1891 he married Helen Harrison, daughter of Governor Luzon B. Morris, of Connecticut. President Hadley is the ideal educator, learned, sympathetic, progressive and possessing an intimate acquaintance with the details and duties of his onerous position.
William Torrey Harris.
William Torrey Harris was born North Killingly, Connecticut, September 10, 1835. He was educated in local common schools and academies, and for two and a half years was a member of the Yale college class of 1858, but left before graduating. In 1857 he went to St. Louis, where, for some time, he acted as teacher, principal, assistant superintendent and superintendent of public schools. At the Paris exposition of 1878 thirteen volumes of reports prepared by Mr. Harris, and contributed to the educational exhibit of the United States, attracted such attention that he was given the honorary title of officier de l’Academie. The reports were placed in the pedagogical library of the Paris ministry of public instructions. When Mr. Harris resigned, in 1880, on account of failing health, the city of St. Louis presented him with a gold medal and a purse of $1000. He next visited Europe, representing the United States bureau of education at the international congress of educators held at Brussels in 1880. In 1889 he again represented the United States bureau of education at the Paris exposition, and on December 12 of the same year he was appointed United States commissioner of education and removed to Washington, D. C. Mr. Harris has contributed many educational articles to the magazines and was the founder of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy.