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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index H > William T Harris Quotes

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William T Harris
(10 Sep 1835 - 5 Nov 1909)

American educator and government official who began his career as a teacher, became a superintendent of schools, then served four Presidents as the U.S. Commissioner of Education. He strengthened the philosophy of education, expanded school curriculum and influenced establishing libraries into schools.

Science Quotes by William T Harris (12 quotes)

Photo of WT Harris, seated, upper body, facing left
William Torrey Harris (c. 1902) (source)
All sciences deal in unity. They unite phenomena in a principle.
— William T Harris
In Psychologic Foundations of Education: An Attempt to Show the Genesis of the Higher Faculties of the Mind (1907), 379.
Science quotes on:  |  Deal (192)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Principle (530)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Unite (43)  |  Unity (81)

Education enlarges the child’s survey of the world in which he lives. Education stimulates and develops a child’s individuality. Education should harmonize the individual will and the institutional will.
— William T Harris
As quoted, without citation, in 'What Is Education?', The Journal of Education (28 Sep 1905), 62, No. 13, 354.
Science quotes on:  |  Child (333)  |  Develop (278)  |  Education (423)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Harmonize (4)  |  Individual (420)  |  Individuality (25)  |  Institution (73)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Stimulate (21)  |  Survey (36)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Education should form right ideas and right habits.
— William T Harris
As quoted, without citation, in 'What Is Education?', The Journal of Education (28 Sep 1905), 62, No. 13, 354.
Science quotes on:  |  Education (423)  |  Form (976)  |  Habit (174)  |  Idea (881)  |  Right (473)

Is it not evident, that if the child is at any epoch of his long period of helplessness inured into any habit or fixed form of activity belonging to a lower stage of development, the tendency will be to arrest growth at that standpoint and make it difficult or next to impossible to continue the growth of the child?
— William T Harris
In 'The Old Psychology vs. the New', Journal of Pedagogy (1894), 8, 76.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Arrest (9)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Child (333)  |  Continue (179)  |  Development (441)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Education (423)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Evident (92)  |  Fixed (17)  |  Form (976)  |  Growth (200)  |  Habit (174)  |  Helpless (14)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Long (778)  |  Next (238)  |  Period (200)  |  Stage (152)  |  Standpoint (28)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Will (2350)

Mathematics in its pure form, as arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and the applications of the analytic method, as well as mathematics applied to matter and force, or statics and dynamics, furnishes the peculiar study that gives to us, whether as children or as men, the command of nature in this its quantitative aspect; mathematics furnishes the instrument, the tool of thought, which we wield in this realm.
— William T Harris
In Psychologic Foundations of Education (1898), 325.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Analytic (11)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Command (60)  |  Dynamics (11)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Give (208)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Method (531)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Pure (299)  |  Quantitative (31)  |  Realm (87)  |  Static (9)  |  Statics (6)  |  Study (701)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tool (129)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Wield (10)

Ninety-nine [students] out of a hundred are automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom. This is not an accident but the result of substantial education, which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual.
— William T Harris
As quoted in various 21st century books, each time cited only as from the The Philosophy of Education (1906), with no page number. For example, in John Taylor Gatto, A Different Kind of Teacher: Solving the Crisis of American Schooling (2000), 61. Note: Webmaster is suspicious of the attribution of this quote. The Library of Congress lists no such title by Harris in 1906. The LOC does catalog this title by Harris for 1893, which is a 9-page pamphlet printing the text of a series of five lectures. These lectures do not contain this quote. William Torrey Harris was editor of the International Education Series of books, of which Vol. 1 was the translation by Anna Callender Bracket of The Philosophy of Education by Johann Karl Friedrich Rosenkranz (2nd ed. rev. 1886). The translation was previously published in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy (1872, -73, -74), Vols vi-viii. Webmaster does not find the quote in that book, either. Webmaster has so far been unable to verify this quote, in these words, or even find the quote in any 19th or 20th century publication (which causes more suspicion). If you have access to the primary source for this quote, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Automaton (12)  |  Custom (44)  |  Definition (238)  |  Education (423)  |  Follow (389)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Individual (420)  |  Path (159)  |  Prescribed (3)  |  Result (700)  |  Student (317)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Subsumption (3)  |  Walk (138)

Philosophy is not a science of things in general, but a science that investigates the presuppositions of experience and discovers the nature of the first principle.
— William T Harris
Epigram to 'Philosophy in Outline', The Journal of Speculative Philosophy (Jul 1883), 17, No. 3, 296.
Science quotes on:  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Experience (494)  |  First (1302)  |  General (521)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Presupposition (3)  |  Principle (530)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Thing (1914)

The great purpose of school can be realized better in dark, airless, ugly places … It is to master the physical self, to transcend the beauty of nature. School should develop the power to withdraw from the external world.
— William T Harris
As quoted in various 21st century books, each time cited only as from the The Philosophy of Education (1906), with no page number. For example, in John Taylor Gatto, A Different Kind of Teacher: Solving the Crisis of American Schooling (2000), 61. Note: Webmaster is suspicious of the attribution of this quote. The Library of Congress lists no such title by Harris in 1906. The LOC does catalog this title by Harris for 1893, which is a 9-page pamphlet printing the text of a series of five lectures. These lectures do not contain this quote. William Torrey Harris was editor of the International Education Series of books, of which Vol. 1 was the translation by Anna Callender Bracket of The Philosophy of Education by Johann Karl Friedrich Rosenkranz (2nd ed. rev. 1886). The translation was previously published in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy (1872, -73, -74), Vols vi-viii. Webmaster does not find the quote in that book, either. Webmaster has so far been unable to verify this quote, in these words, or even find the quote in any 19th or 20th century publication (which causes more suspicion). If you have access to the primary source for this quote, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Airless (3)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Better (493)  |  Dark (145)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  External (62)  |  Great (1610)  |  Master (182)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Physical (518)  |  Power (771)  |  Purpose (336)  |  School (227)  |  Self (268)  |  Transcend (27)  |  Ugly (14)  |  Withdrawal (4)  |  World (1850)

The process of self-estrangement and its removal underlies all education. The mind must fix its attention upon what is alien to it and penetrate its disguise, making it become familiar. … Wonder is only the first stage of this estrangement. It must be followed by recognition.
— William T Harris
In Psychologic Foundations of Education: An Attempt to Show the Genesis of the Higher Faculties of the Mind (1907), 289.
Science quotes on:  |  Alien (35)  |  Attention (196)  |  Become (821)  |  Disguise (12)  |  Education (423)  |  Familiar (47)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Making (300)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Process (439)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Removal (12)  |  Self (268)  |  Stage (152)  |  Underlie (19)  |  Wonder (251)

The unscientific person takes things as they are, and cares not for their origin. To study things from a scientific standpoint means to take an inventory of them—to find the process in which they are being produced; to connect them with other things; to see things in their causal process.
— William T Harris
From a series of lectures at Johns Hopkins University. Lecture 5 (4 Feb 1893), 'Herbert Spencer and What Knowledge is of Most Worth', The Philosophy of Education (1893), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Care (203)  |  Causal (7)  |  Connect (126)  |  Connection (171)  |  Find (1014)  |  Inventory (7)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Person (366)  |  Process (439)  |  Produced (187)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Standpoint (28)  |  Study (701)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unscientific (13)

There are three stages in the development of science: First, there is the observation of things and facts—the scientists map out and inventory the objects in each department of Nature; secondly, the interrelations are investigated, and this leads to a knowledge of forces and influences which produce or modify those objects…. This is the dynamic stage, the discovery of forces and laws connecting each fact with all other facts, and each province of Nature with all other provinces of Nature. The goal of this second stage of science is to make each fact in Nature throw light on all the other facts, and thus to illuminate each by all. … Science in its third and final stage learns to know everything in Nature as a part of a process which it studies in the history of its development. When it comes to see each thing in the perspective of its evolution, it knows it and comprehends it.
— William T Harris
In Psychologic Foundations of Education: An Attempt to Show the Genesis of the Higher Faculties of the Mind (1907), 378.
Science quotes on:  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Connection (171)  |  Department (93)  |  Development (441)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Dynamic (16)  |  Everything (489)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Final (121)  |  First (1302)  |  Force (497)  |  Goal (155)  |  History (716)  |  Illuminate (26)  |  Influence (231)  |  Interrelation (8)  |  Inventory (7)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Learn (672)  |  Light (635)  |  Map (50)  |  Modify (15)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perspective (28)  |  Process (439)  |  Province (37)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Stage (152)  |  Study (701)  |  Thing (1914)

When the child outgrows the narrow circle of family life … then comes the period of the school, whose object is to initiate him into the technicalities of intercommunication with his fellow-men, and to familiarize him with the ideas that underlie his civilization, and which he must use as tools of thought if he would observe and understand the phases of human life around him; for these … are invisible to the human being who has not the aid of elementary ideas with which to see them.
— William T Harris
In Psychologic Foundations of Education: An Attempt to Show the Genesis of the Higher Faculties of the Mind (1907), 265.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Being (1276)  |  Child (333)  |  Circle (117)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Education (423)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Familiarize (5)  |  Family (101)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Idea (881)  |  Initiate (13)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Life (1870)  |  Must (1525)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Object (438)  |  Observe (179)  |  Outgrow (4)  |  Period (200)  |  Phase (37)  |  School (227)  |  See (1094)  |  Technicality (5)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tool (129)  |  Underlie (19)  |  Understand (648)  |  Use (771)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
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