Charles William Eliot (March 20, 1834 – August 22, 1926) was an American academic who was selected as Harvard's president in 1869. He transformed the provincial college into the preeminent American research university. Eliot served the longest term as president in the university's history.
The scion of a wealthy Boston family, Eliot graduated from Harvard in 1853. In spite of his high ambitions and his obvious scientific talents, the first fiftee...
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Charles William Eliot (March 20, 1834 – August 22, 1926) was an American academic who was selected as Harvard's president in 1869. He transformed the provincial college into the preeminent American research university. Eliot served the longest term as president in the university's history.
The scion of a wealthy Boston family, Eliot graduated from Harvard in 1853. In spite of his high ambitions and his 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 promoted to Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Chemistry in 1858. 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. 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...
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