The New Student's Reference Work/Harris, William Torrey

Harris, William Torrey, an American educator He was born at Killingly, Conn., Sept. 10, 1835, and was educated at Phillips Andover Academy, Yale College and Germany. He was superintendent of the St. Louis public schools from 1868 to 1880; was founder of the Philosophical Society of St. Louis and of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, the first periodical of its kind in America. He was made president of the National Educational Association in 1875, represented the United States government at the Brussels International Congress of Educators in 1880, and in 1889 prepared the official Statement of the System of Education of the United States for the Paris and Vienna Expositions, and was appointed United States commissioner of education by President Harrison. This important office he held from 1889 to 1906, when he resigned.