It is a matter of peculiar interest to follow the early education of a man who is at the present time one of the leading authorities on education, and is at the head of the Bureau of Education of the United States Government. But as he closes the record of his school and college days, he says, "it seems to me that my real education began later in life."
In 1857 he removed to St. Louis, where he was first a teacher, then principal, and then assistant superintendent of public schools until 1868, when he became superintendent; and he continued to hold this office until 1880. His published reports on education during the time of his incumbency as city superintendent of the public schools of St. Louis, formed a part of the educational exhibit at the Paris exposition of 1878, and the honorary title of Officier de l'Académie was bestowed upon him in recognition of the value to education of these records. The reports were placed in the library of the minister of public instruction in Paris. In 1880 he represented the United States Bureau of Education at the International Congress of Educators at Brussels, Belgium. On his return to America, he settled at Concord, Massachusetts, and became an active member of the "Concord School of Philosophy," and one of its most scholarly lecturers.
In 1889 he visited France again, representing the United States Bureau of Education at the Paris exposition, and the title of Officier de l’Instruction Publique was conferred upon him by the French Government. This same year he was appointed United States Commissioner of Education; and he removed to Washington, District of Columbia, which since that time has been his home.
Commissioner Harris's knowledge of all educational matters in the United States is thorough and comprehensive. His especial personal study has been devoted to philosophy, and his acquaintance with the writings of the German philosophers is evidenced in his own original work. Fichte, Hegel, and Dante are among his favorite authors. He searches for and believes that he finds the psychological bases on which a right system of education should be founded. Few of our American scholars have been more enthusiastically devoted to the study of philosophy than has Commissioner Harris; and few are better fitted by temperament and training for abstract speculation. But Doctor Harris is not content to rest in speculation and theory. He wishes to convert the reasoning of the mind into beneficent methods of action, and to use the insight of the logical theorist
