Leaders in Education Pay Tribute

President Eliot possessed, in the highest degree, the personal qualities and the administrative ability essential to successful leadership in education. He was sincere, ardent with due restraint, an untiring and careful student of details whether of policies or practices, fertile in constructive suggestions, clear and cogent in exposition and debate, patient in the face of opposition whether reasonable or unreasonable courageous, absolutely fair in all his dealings. During his administration and under his leadership the Faculty of Arts and Sciences discussed freely and frankly the measures brought before it whether by the President or by a member of the Faculty; and the Faculty meetings became a clearing house of educational opinions. Most of the progress made by the University during his administration was due to his initiative, and all of it profited by his guidance.

But President Eliot's services to education were not limited to Harvard University nor to higher education in general, important as those services were. His influence was also great in the field of secondary education, and in elementary education as well. The reforms which he advocated, many of which have permanently enriched education from the grammar school to the university, are a monument to his penetrating insight and his practical wisdom.

He was not content to be a mere spectator of educational endeavor. He was a persistent student of education, and he participated actively in many educational organizations--local, regional, and national. He accordingly obtained a comprehensive and detailed knowledge of educational needs and of contemporary aims and practices; and on that knowledge were based his just criticisms and constructive suggestions. At a time when the study of education as an important subject of university study was regarded with suspicion by the majority of academic faculties in leading American universities, he had the vision and the courage to establish the study of education at Harvard.

President Eliot's leadership was not due to his impressive personality nor to his office, although these were advantages of which he made good use. His insight and his judgment so often compelled respect that men came naturally to depend on him for guidance. And he had the rare quality of greatness that caused him to change his mind when he felt that his opponents were right, as they sometimes were.

He was a severe critic, but he was just. He was the outstanding exponent of freedom as contrasted with hampering restrictions in all educational endeavor. His wholehearted devotion to the service of education--a service which he deliberately chose early in life was conspicuously evident throughout his career; and for nearly fifty years he was the most influential educational leader in America.