John Erskine (educator)

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John Erskine (October 5, 1879 - June 2, 1951) was a U.S. educator and author, born in New York City. He graduated from Columbia University (A.M., 1901; Ph. D., 1903).

Professor Erskine was employed at Columbia and Amherst. He instituted Columbia College's General Honors Course, a two-year undergraduate seminar that would later help inspire "Masterworks of Western Literature," now known commonly as "Literature Humanities," the second component of Columbia College's Core Curriculum.

Erskine Place, a street in the New York City borough of The Bronx, was named after John Erskine.

Erskine was also the author of numerous publications, including:

• The Elizabethan Lyric (1903)
• Selections from the Faerie Queene (1905)
• Actœon and Other Poems (1907)
• Leading American novelists (1910)
• Written English, with Helen Erskine (1910; revised edition, 1913)
• Selections from the Idylls of the King (1912)
• The Kinds of Poetry (1913)
• Poems of Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats, with W. P. Trent (1914)
• The Moral Obligation of the Intelligent, and Other Poems (1915)
• The Shadowed Hour (1917)
• Democracy and Ideals (1920)
• The Little Disciple (1923)
• "Private Life of Helen of Troy" (1925)