ELIOT 



2010 



ELIOT 



time pursuing advanced studies in chemistry. 

 From 1858 to 1863 he was assistant professor of 

 mathematics and chemistry at Harvard, and 

 then studied in Europe for two years. Besides 

 teaching him more chemistry, these two ynus 

 gave him an insight into European educational 

 methods which was of untold value to him a 

 few years later. He returned to Boston to 

 accept the professorship of analytical chemis- 

 try at the now famous Massachusetts Institute 

 of Technology, which was then being organized. 



In 1869, he began his long career as president 

 of Harvard University, which was transformed 

 under his administration from a New England 

 college into a national institution. From the 

 first days of his administration he showed a 

 remarkable grasp of educational and adminis- 

 trative detail, but never lost sight of general 

 principles. His breadth of interest, personal 

 dignity of character and high ideals, all made 

 him a man who held the admiration and loyalty 

 of his staff. In matters of discipline, as of 

 study, he deliberately allowed great freedom. 

 President Eliot was a firm believer in athletics, 

 although he did not fully sympathize with the 

 later development of intercollegiate competi- 

 tion. In his college days he was an expert 

 oarsman, and for many years rowing was his 

 favorite form of exercise. In his later years 

 he rode a bicycle, and even after his seventieth 

 year he was a familiar figure in Cambridge 

 streets on his early morning "spin." In 1909 

 his advancing years-led him to lay down the 

 heavy administrative burden which he had 

 carried for four decades; his successor as presi- 

 dent was Abbott Lawrence Lowell. 



Eliot's sanity, mellowness and wide range 

 of interests gave his old age a unique quality. 

 He was, in many respects, the most distin- 

 guished private citizen of the United States. 

 His views on education, religion, economics, 

 politics and other topics were given respectful 

 hearing. He edited the "Harvard Classics," 

 popularly known as the "Five- Foot Shelf" of 

 books, a selection of the world's best literature, 

 whose careful reading, he said, would give any 

 man or woman a liberal education. In 1909 

 President Taft offered him the ambassadorship 

 to Great Britain, but Eliot declined on the 

 ground of age. He was from 1909 a member 

 of the General Education Board and a trustee 

 of the Rockefeller Foundation. 



He was a frequent speaker in public, and also 

 the writer of a number of books, among them 

 a Manual of Qualitative Chemical Analysis; 

 Five American Contributions to Civilization 



and Other Essays; Educational Reform; The 

 Happy Life; The Durable Satisfactions of Life ; 

 Four American Leaders; and The New Re- 

 ligion. W.F.Z. 



ELIOT, GEORGE (1819-1880), the pen name 

 of MARY ANN (or Marian) EVANS, the fore- 

 most woman writer of English fiction. To- 

 gether with her two great contemporaries of 

 the Victorian Age, Dickens and Thackeray, she 



GEORGE ELIOT 



"Of all the women writers who have helped and 

 are still helping to place our English novels at 

 the head of the world's fiction, she holds at pres- 

 ent unquestionably the highest rank." Long. 



has an assured place among those novelists who 

 have helped to give English fiction its com- 

 manding position in the world's literature. 



Marian Evans was born on November 22, 

 1819, at Arbury Farm, in Warwickshire, one of 

 the Midland counties, about twenty miles frpm 

 the town of Stratford, where Shakespeare was 

 born. Her father, a plain, honest farmer of 

 the type seen in the hero of Adam Bede, was 

 agent for Mr. Francis Newdigate, and on his 

 Arbury estate the novelist passed the first 

 twenty-one years of her life. Some of the most 

 interesting descriptions of scenery, character 

 and incident that brighten her novels are re- 

 flections of her life in the English Midlands. 

 She and her brother are pictured in The Mill 

 on the Floss, as Maggie and Tom Tulliver; 

 the saintly Dinah Morris in Adam Bede is 

 one of her aunts; and the sharp-tongued Mrs. 

 Poyser, in the same book, her mother. 



After studying for several years at two pri- 



