edited by ROGER
R. FESTA
School of Education. Box U-33 The University of Connecticut
Storrs. CT 08268
Charles W. Eliot: Chemist and Teacher Sidney Rosen
341 Astronomy 1011 W. Springfield Ave. Univemity of iiiinois Urbana. IL 61801
"You are an acid," wrote Charles Eliot in1854 to his cousin, ' h o d o r e Lyman, "because you make a cheerful effewescence when brought intocontact with mcntol material as hard and cold as marble; 1 am an alkali disringuish~.dby the property of giving many people thr blues. . ." ( I ) . Such chemical metanhors were in keer~inewith Fliot's decision to make chemis&y and teaching 6 s lgee'swork, a decision made durine his senior vear a t Harvard Colleee. He was to succeed only-in the latter field. He could not major in chemistrv. since there was no chemistrv deoartment within the co~~egk. The subject was taught only $ the Lawrence Scientific School and the medical school of the university, primarily by Assistant Professor Josiah P. Cooke, who had been made a member of the college faculty. Cooke, who was only six years older than Eliot, welcomed him into his tiny private lahoratorv in the basement of Universitv Hall. There, the young undergraduate puttered with chemicals, along with Francis Storer, Cooke's assistant. With the permission of his family, Eliot set up a small chemical lahoratory in the attic of the Eliot house at 31 Beacon Street in Boston. Eliot graduated second in his class and was offered the position of "Tutor in Mathematics," a faculty appointment within the colleee. I t was 1854. and he was 20 vears old. Whenever he had the time, he voluntarily worked in Cooke's labomcorv. In 1856. Conke auarr~ledwith the medical svhool faculty, A d Eliot was elected to teach his class. Two years later came a oromotion to Assistant Professor of Mathematics and ~hemis&y;Eliot taught mostly math classes for the next three vears. 1,it;le by little, Charles began to make his presence felt in the colle~ethrourh chanees he championed or enfineered. He inaugurated written e ~ ~ m i n a t i o and n s succeeded in getting the college to install gas lights in the dormitories, replacing whale-oil lamps and candles. In short, when anything at the college was supposed to have been done and had not, Eliot was called in by the president to take charge. By 1860, he was helping the president make up the agenda for each meeting of the Harvard Corporation ( 2 ) . I t was apparent by then to many people that Charles Eliot was a prospect for the next oresidencv of Haward Universitv. In 1857;~liotfell in love with ;childhood playmate, Ellen Peabody, whose father had been the minister of King's Chapel. They were married in 1858. It seems to have been a somewhat astonishing event for Charles, since he had believed that no woman would ever fall in love with him. He had been horn with a terrible birthmark, "a swollen, liver-colored welt that occupied most of the right side of his face down to his mouth" (1). All photographs of Eliot show him always in left profile. His mother had worked hard to make him realize that he could overcome his anatomical misfortune; she taught him "to look outward and not inward, forward and not hack" (I). The defensive shell he built around himself made people think he was cold and callous. In 1861, Eliot was asked to replace Eben Horsford, the holder of the prestigious Rumford Chair, when Horsford de-
cided to auit teachine chemistrv classes in the Lawrence School. A ;ear later, tlk appointkent was extended to make Eliot Actine Dean of the School. He made a number of recommendations fur change, particularly in the reqt~irements for admission and graduation. All that was needed then to ret into ~ a w r e n c was"a e good common English education." Eliot's ideas were opposed by the power faction in the science faculty, led by the famous zoologist, Louis Agassiz. In the following year, Eliot resigned from the Harvard faculty, after being refused the Rumford Chair from which Horsford had just retired. Although the president offered Eliot a full professorship with a salary of $1900 per annum, Charles took himself and his family to Europe, where he studied the various methods of hieher learnine in France and Germanv. In 1866, whyle still in E;rope, Eliot was offered the job of superintendent of the Merrimack Company textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts, at a salary more than double the offer from Harvard. But he reiected the offer: instead. he acceoted the position of profess& of chemistry at a new land-&ant college, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Here he taught with his old friend, Storer, until 1868. They collahorated on a chemistry textbook which had a wide popularity. But it was evident that Charles Eliot was not going to make his mark as an innovator in chemical research. Henry James wrote: (1): "There was nothing about Eliot's investigations to suggest that he had the instinct that guides men to scientific orobiems that are simificant and fundamental." It was the p u b l i c ~ i o nof Eliot's article, "The New Education: Its Organization,'' in the Atlantic Monthly, plus his growing reputation as an administrator, that led to his nomination for the presidency of Hanard and his election in 1869. By this time, Ellen Eliot had developed tuberculosis; in spite of rushing hack to Europe to find the best doctors, she died a few days before his nomination. In his inaugural address, Eliot said (I): "This Universitv recognizes no;eal antagonism between literature and science, and consents to no such narrow alternatives as mathematics or classics, science or metaphysics.'' This meant he was aligning himself with the new "rebel" university presidents like Andrew White a t Cornell and James Angel1 a t Michigan to expand and balance the curriculum offered to students. Durine the first seventeen vears of his 40-vear term (he died in 1926L Eliot strengthenedthe medical an"d law schools;still. he alwavs emnhasized reuchine over rrsearch. When Edwin H. ~ a l ac young physics instFuctor who had already been called "an American Faradav" bv James Clerk Maxwell. asked for promotion to assistant prbfessor, Eliot told him that original work in vhvsics was not enough - -iustification and wit%held promotibnfor seven years!. Eliot's most famous innovation was the initiation of new science electives for admission credit and the dropping of Greek as a requirement for admission, actions which horrified most of the college faculty. In 1886, Edwin Hall was chosen to prepare a list of experiments for a new admission credit altbrnative -laboratot$ physics. He made up a pamphlet containing 40 experiments to be performed and written up hy a high school senior; this accomplished, the srudtnt had to come to Harvard during the summer and take a laboratory examination in the colleee ohvsics lsburatories. The immediate impact of this new policy was the creating of a laboratory physics course in all the academies and secondary schools -
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which fed into Harvard. Subsequently, such a course spread into all the public high schools in the country. A similar pamphlet in chemistry was prepared by Josiah Cooke, who believed that chemistry should be taught primarily as a quantitative science. His list contained 83 experiments, some of them too difficult for many high school chemistry teachers to understand, let alone perform. Among the secondary schools, Cooke's list became known as "The Pamphlet," a title probably more whimsical than pejorative. By 1910, both the physics and chemistry pamphlets were being criticized as leading to science courses that were too abstract and too quantitative. In chemistry particularly, teachers organized to bring back descriptive chemistry in
1008
Journal of Chemical Education
onoosition to "The Pamoblet." Cooke was oictured as a -. dweller in an ivory towe; far removed from i h e reality of conditions in the American hieh school (3). Though in the end the hig'school laboratory course, unleavened by recitations or theory, was condemned to failure, the impact of Charles Eliot's reforms has never left us. The idea still persists that no matter what kind of science course is taught, there must be time and space for the individual pupil to perform some kind of laboratory work on his own. Literature Cited (I) James, Henry, "Charles W. Eliot: Val. I. Haughfon Mimin, Boston. 1930. (2) Hswkins,Hugh, "BetwoonHarvardand America," Orfard UniversifyPmss,NewYork, 1972. (3) Reporldthr28th M & ~ ~ ~ , N . E A . C . January, T.. 1907.
