Editing Charles William Eliot (section)

==Studies of European education==
Eliot's approach to investigating European education was unusual. He did not confine his attention to educational institutions, but explored the role of education in every aspect of national life. When Eliot visited [[school]]s, he took an interest in every aspect of institutional operation, from [[curriculum]] and methods of instruction through physical arrangements and custodial services. But his particular concern was with the relation between education and economic growth:

{{blockquote|I have given special attention to the schools here provided for the education of young men for those arts and trades which require some knowledge of scientific principles and their applications, the schools which turn out master workmen, superintendents, and designers for the numerous French industries which demand taste, skill, and special technical instruction. Such schools we need at home. I can't but think that a thorough knowledge of what France has found useful for the development of her resources, may someday enable me to be of use to my country. At this moment, it is humiliating to read the figures which exhibit the increasing importations of all sorts of manufactured goods into America. Especially will it be the interest of Massachusetts to foster by every mean in her power the manufactures which are her main strength.<ref>{{cite book |title= Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard University, 1869-1909, Volume 1|last1=James |first1= Henry|year= 1930|publisher= AMS Press|page= 130}}</ref>}}
                                                           
Eliot understood the interdependence of education and enterprise. In a letter to his cousin Arthur T. Lyman, he discussed the value to the German chemical industry of discoveries made in university laboratories. He also recognized that, while European universities depended on government for support, American institutions would have to draw on the resources of the wealthy. He wrote to his cousin:

{{blockquote|Every one of the famous universities of Europe was founded by Princes or privileged classes—every [[Institute of technology|Polytechnic]] School, which I have visited in France or Germany, has been supported in the main by Government. Now this is not our way of managing these matters of education, and we have not yet found any equivalent, but republican, method of producing the like results. In our generation I hardly expect to see the institutions founded which have produced such results in Europe, and after they are established they do not begin to tell upon the national industries for ten or twenty years. The Puritans thought they must have trained ministers for the Church and they supported Harvard College—when the American people are convinced that they require more competent chemists, engineers, artists, architects, than they now have, they will somehow establish the institutions to train them.  In the meantime, freedom and the American spirit of enterprise will do much for us, as in the past ....<ref>{{cite book |title= Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard University, 1869-1909, Volume 1|last1=James |first1= Henry|year= 1930|publisher= AMS Press|page= 147}}</ref>}}

While Eliot was in Europe, he was again presented with the opportunity to enter the world of active business. The [[Merrimack Manufacturing Company|Merrimack Mills]], one of the largest textile mills in the United States, tendered him an invitation to become its superintendent. In spite of the urgings of his friends and the attractiveness of what for the time was the enormous salary of $5000 (plus a good house, rent free), Eliot, after giving considerable thought to the offer, turned it down. One of his biographers speculated that he surely realized by this time that he had a strong taste for organizing and administration. This post would have given it scope. He must have felt, even if dimly, that if science interested him, it was not because he was first and last a lover of her laws and generalizations, not only because the clarity and precision of science was congenial, but because science answered the questions of practical men and conferred knowledge and power upon those who would perform the labors of their generation.

During nearly two years in Europe he had found himself as much fascinated by what he could learn concerning the methods by which science could be made to help industry as by what he discovered about the organization  of institutions of learning. He was thinking much about what his own young country needed, and his hopes for the United States took account of industry and commerce as well as the field of academic endeavor. To be the chief executive officer of a particular business offered only a limited range of influence; but to stand at the intersection of the realm of production and the realm of knowledge offered considerably more.