One hundred years ago today was been the man whose destiny it was to sound Harvard a college, to leave it university" Charles William Eliot, President of Harvard from 1800 to 1809.

In forty years that marked a compete transformation of American life, President Eliot's guiding genius developed Harvard in accordance with the most advanced theories of education. The College grow from a school of some six hundred undergraduates with a limited field of study, to an institution of some three thousand men with a wide choice of elective studies. The Graduate School was provided with excellent facilities for instruction and research, and the professional schools were developed to train men in the theory as well as in the practice of their professions. The Harvard Law School, with the lengthening of the term to three years, and the introduction of Professor Langdell's case system and Professor Amca' lectures in legal theory, was transformed from a "disgrace to Massachuselia" into the country's outstanding legal institution. The Medical School undertook to teach medicine as a science rather than as the mere art of healing.

President Eliot foreshadowed the whole character of his administration in his inaugural address, when he declared his purpose "to secure eminent teachers and scholars, to influence public opinion toward the advancement of learning, and to have the University accommodate itself promptly to significant changes in the character of the people for whom it exists." His great practical accomplishments were all molded in the light of his desire to teach young men: to teach them the love of learning, the joy of work, and the art of unselfish service. It is fitting that the present generation of Harvard students, who knew not President Eliot, pay tribute on the centennial anniversary of his birth to one who influenced so profoundly the development of the Harvard of today.