ELIOT, CHARLES WILLIAM American educator and publicist, the son of Samuel Atkins Eliot (1798 1862), who was mayor of Boston, representative in Congress and in 1842-53 treasurer of Harvard college, was born in Boston on March 2o, 1834. He graduated in 1853 at Harvard, where he was successively tutor in mathematics and assistant pro fessor of mathematics and chemistry (1858-63) . He studied chemistry and foreign educational methods in Europe (1863-65) ; was professor of analytical chemistry in the newly established Mas sachusetts Institute of Technology (1865-69), although absent 14 months in Europe in 1867-68; and in 1869 was elected president of Harvard university, a choice remarkable at once because of his youth and because of his being a layman and scientist. This posi tion he held until 1909, from which year until his death, 17 years later, at the age of 92, he was president emeritus. With Johns Hop kins university, Harvard, in the early years of Eliot's presidency, led in organization and increased efficiency of graduate work. The elective system, which has spread far, although not originated by President Eliot was thoroughly established by him, and is only one of many innovations which he successfully championed. The raising of entrance requirements, which led to a corre sponding raising of the standards of secondary schools, and the introduction of an element of choice in these entrance require ments, which allowed a limited election of studies to secondary pupils, became national tendencies primarily through President Eliot's potent influence. As chairman of a national committee of ten (189o) on secondary school studies, he urged the abandon ment of brief disconnected "information" courses, the correlation of subjects taught, the equal rank in college requirements of sub jects in which equal time, consecutiveness and concentration were demanded, and a more thorough study of English composition; and to a large degree he secured national sanction for these re forms and their working out by experts into a practicable and applicable system. He laboured to unify the entire educational system, minimize prescription, do away with monotony and intro duce freedom and enthusiasm ; and he emphasized the need of special training for special work. He contended that secondary schools maintained by public funds should largely shape their courses for the benefit of students whose education goes no further than high schools, and should not be mere training schools for the universities.
President Eliot was long a leader in the movement for the introduction of business methods in government work, and in Dec. 5908 was elected president of the National Civil Service Reform League. He was offered the post of ambassador to Eng land by President Taft in 19o9, but preferred to serve his coun try in a private capacity at home. The same position was tendered him in 1913 by President Wilson and again declined. By writing and speaking he continued to take an active part in all the im portant public questions of the day. His theories as to needed changes toward the concrete and practical in education had great influence upon American schools. He aided vocational education by his continued insistence upon the training of the senses of sight, hearing and touch, as being the sources of the best part of knowledge. In 5 914 he was elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In his educational writings he maintained that the traditional systems had dealt too exclusively with language and literature. In 1916, however, he was awarded a gold medal by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for his services to literature in his educational work. In the field of religion he was an authoritative spokesman for the Unitarian faith. In his books The Religion of the Future (19o9) and Twentieth Century Christianity (1914) he emphasized free dom in place of authority ; he held that the teaching of Jesus had been "the undying root of all the best in human history since He lived," and that He would be the supreme teacher in the re ligion of the future, the outcome of which would be the brother hood of man. President Eliot gave much attention to labour problems and declared that "profit-sharing, combined with co operative management, in which the employees take active and reasonable part, with co-operative care of health, education and happiness of employees, and with full knowledge by employees of the employers' account, is the only road to industrial peace." He condemned the closed shop, limited output by labour and uniform hours and wages. The settling of industrial strife he considered the next important thing after the establishment of a league of nations. He was a strong supporter of President Wil son's administration; he favoured prohibition as a war measure, and later as an amendment to the Constitution. He wrote in favour of military training after the Swiss method, but main tained that, after a league of nations was formed, no country should be allowed to have an army "whose officers have entered for life the profession of soldier." In 192o he was an active worker for the Democratic party because he regarded the imme diate adoption of the Covenant of the League of Nations as a moral obligation. He died at Northeast Harbor, Me., on Aug. 22, 1926.
The "unique place in American public life" occupied by Presi dent Eliot has been well described by William Allan Neilson, president of Smith college : "For 4o years the head of a great uni versity, he exercised on all classes of his countrymen an influ ence far beyond that of the usual academic dignitary. During the latter part of his presidency, and still more after he became emeritus, he was looked up to by hundreds of thousands of his fellow-citizens as a guide not merely in educational matters, but in all the great questions that have agitated the public mind, political, industrial, social and moral. Other leaders of opinion have come and gone, and some for a time have been more con spicuous; but it is impossible to name a figure who so continu ously dominated our intellectual horizon for so long a period." President Eliot's writings include A Compendious Manual of Qualita tive Chemical Analysis with F. H. Storer (1869), many times reissued and revised; The Happy Life (1896) ; American Contributions to Civ ilization, and Other Essays and Addresses (1897) ; Educational Reform, Essays and Addresses 1869-1897 (1898) ; Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect (1902), a biography of one of his sons ; More Money for the Public Schools (1903) ; Four American Leaders (1906), chapters on Franklin, Washington, Channing and Emerson ; University Administra tion (1908) ; The Durable Satisfactions of Life (1910) ; The Conflict Between' Individualism and Collectivism in a Democracy (191o) ; The Road Toward Peace (1915) ; and A Late Harvest (1924). His annual reports as president of Harvard were notable contributions to the literature of education, and he delivered numerous public addresses, many of which have been reprinted.
See "President Eliot's Administration," by various writers, a sum mary of his work at Harvard in 1869-94, in the Harvard Graduates' Magazine, vol. pp. 449-504 (1894) ; E. H. Cotton, The Life of Charles W. Eliot (1926) ; and Charles W. Eliot, the Man and His Beliefs, edited, with a biographical study, by W. A. Neilson (1926).