The Biographical Dictionary of America/Ballard, Harlan Hoge

BALLARD, Harlan Hoge, educator, was born at Athens, Ohio, May 25, 1853. He was educated at the Detroit, Mich., high school, and at Williams college, Mass., from which institution he was graduated as A. B. in 1874, and later received the degree of A. M. In 1875 he became principal of the Lenox (Mass.) high school, holding the position five years, and resigning to accept that of principal of the Lenox academy, where he remained from 1880 to 1886, when he was made librarian of the Berkshire athenæum. In 1875 he founded and became president of the Agassiz association, an organization which spread from a school in Lenox to every part of the world. Professor Ballard was elected secretary of the Berkshire historical society and a fellow of the American association for the advancement of science. He edited the Swiss Cross and the Observer, and is author of "Three Kingdoms"; a "Handbook of the Agassiz Association"; "Open Sesame"; "Handbook of Blunders designed to Prevent 1,000 Common Blunders in Writing and Speaking" (1885); "The World of Matter. A Guide to the Study of Chemistry and Mineralogy" (1892); and with S. Proctor Thayer, "The American Plant Book," (1879).