Putnam patriot., 1909-11-19
From Boston Evening Transcript, November 9, 1909.
 William T. Harris

Dr. William T. Harris had the most penetrating and comprehensive philo- sopic mind of the last generation. h. deed, II may he doubted whether since Jonathan Edwards, If ever, we have had in this country a distinctly meta physical mind of greater force or great CT influence. It Is not upon this side that Dr. Harris is best known to most men. Ills work as an educator brought him Into touch with larger circle and
 more under the public eye. That work
 was Indeed of preeminent significance.
 As uperintendent of the public schools of St. Louis for almost twenty years, and United States Commissioner of
 Education for almost another.twenty,
 he rendered service 10 the cause of
 public school education in America
 which was in both positions unique, and which placed him at the very lore
 front In our educational life and histo-
 ". There have been mo other reports
 upon public school organization, meth- ods and possibilities published by
 American school supertntendents in
 this recent time which rank with Df.
 Harris's Sl. Louis reports from lso7 To
 1880. IL is right to say that not since the famous reports of Horace Mann, as secretary of the Massachusetts State
 Board Of Education had anything been
 given our people iu this field so pfeg- nant, so prov ocative or so constructive.
 Still more epoeh-making was Dr. liar
 ris's administration of the National
 Bureau of Education, from 1889 to lsoo
 He recreated .he office, making It an
 institution ot the highest importance and potency for our educational world.
 Here, too, his reports are what will be longer remembered and what probably at the lime did most good, The note worthy series of great volumes given To the teachers of America by br, Harris in those years constitute veritaole H. brary of education, not only giving the , most complete existing survey ot the condition and progress of education tn that period, ln every field, the world over, but 50 eoordinating the various special reports and so introducing them and setting them tn the mortar of true culture and sound pedagogy as to make ali an tneNhaustihle and tn- valuable armory fer the servants of en- | lightenment and the makers of good educational public opinion. His great
 Educational Library published by Appleton, extending to scores lot vol. umes, edited with such rare knowl-
 edge and discrimination, performed a similar service; and hts pamphlets and articles upon every question which has
 agitatcd our educational Icircles for the last forty years are innumerable.
 Never did great worker illustrate
 more conspienously than pr. Harris in the field !oi education the truth that the nen who ,io great work usually do much work. In all this period of pro-
 life writing he was a constant speaker. For generation he mas eScn oHe oi taS
 most prominent figures al the educa-
 iional conventions. Al the conven ,ions of the National Educational Assoeia-
 ton particularly he has been far often er than any other man the central tig.
 ure, and no other influence on the
 whole has been so salutary. If he has
 mol always been in the line of real adj
 vance. because his know ledge Of his
 tory has given him a deeper sense than
 others had of The values of past disci-
 plines and perennial sources ei true culture, his courageous eonsery atlsm has again and sgsin kent conventions Of half baked theorists from making