William Torrey Harris

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William Torrey Harris (10 September 1835 - 5 November 1909) was an American educator, philosopher, and lexicographer.

[edit] Early life and career

Born in North Killingly, Connecticut, he attended Phillips Andover Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. He completed two years at Yale, then moved west and taught school in St. Louis, Missouri, from 1857 to 1880, There he was superintendent of schools from 1868 to 1880, and established, with Susan E. Blow, America's first permanent public kindergarten in 1873. It was in St. Louis where William Torrey Harris instituted many influential ideas to solidify both the structural institution of the public school system and the basic philosophical principles of education. His changes lead to the expansion of the public school curriculum to make the high school an essential institution to the individual and to include art, music, scientific and manual studies, and was also largely responsible for encouraging all public schools to acquire a library.

He founded and edited the first philosophical periodical in America, the Journal of Speculative Philosophy (1867), editing it until 1893. He was a key member of a philosophical society that, during the beginning of the American Civil War, met in St. Louis; it promoted the view that the entire unfolding was part of a universal plan, a working out of an eternal historical dialectic, as theorized by Hegel.

Harris was associated with Bronson Alcott's Concord School of Philosophy from 1880 to 1889, when he became U.S. Commissioner of Education, serving until 1906. He did his best to organize all phases of education on the principles of philosophical pedagogy as espoused by Hegel, Kant, Fichte, Froebel, Pestalozzi and many others of idealist philosophies. He received the degree of LL.D. from various American and foreign universities.


Throughout time, his influence has been only momentarily recognized, disregarded and misunderstood by historians. Harris’ extreme emphasis on discipline has become the most glaring misrepresentation of his philosophy.

In his book The Philosophy of Education (1889) he writes:

"Ninety-nine [students] out of a hundred are automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom. This is not an accident but the result of substantial education, which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual."

And in that same book:

"The great purpose of school can be realized better in dark, airless, ugly places.... It is to master the physical self, to transcend the beauty of nature. School should develop the power to withdraw from the external world."

On the surface it seems that Harris is a proponent of self-alienation in order to better serve the great industrial nation of America. In fact, it can be found that quite the opposite is true of Harris when you are able to go beyond the surface of his educational philosophy. Harris, a devout Christian, is quite concerned with the development of morality and discipline within the individual. Harris believed those values could systematically be instilled into the pupils, promoting common goals and social cooperation, with a strong sense of respect for and responsibility towards one’s society.

He was also assistant editor of Johnson’s New Universal Cyclopaedia and editor of Appleton’s International Education Series. He expanded the Bureau of Education and started graphic exhibits of the United States in international expositions.

He was responsible for introducing reindeer into Alaska so that the native whalers and trappers would have another livelihood, before they brought other species to extinction.

As editor-in-chief of Webster's New International Dictionary (1909), he originated the divided page.

[edit] Works

Besides voluminous reports on educational matters, many papers contributed to the Proceedings of the American Social Science Association, and various compilations edited by him, his publications include:

  • Introduction to the Study of Philosophy (1889)
  • The Spiritual Sense of Dante's Divina Commedia (1889)
  • Hegel's Logic: A Critical Exposition (1890)
  • A. Bronson Alcott:, His Life and Philosophy (with F. B. Sanborn) (1893)
  • Psychologic Foundations of Education (1898)
  • Elementary Education (1900; second edition, 1904)
  • The School City (1906)