Background
Harris was born in Plymouth on 1 April 1791. His family was well established as solicitors in the town.
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book
Rudimentary Electricity: Being a Concise Exposition of the General Principles of Electrical Science, and the Purposes to Which It Has Been Applied (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Rudimentary Electricity: Being a Concise Exp...)
Excerpt from Rudimentary Electricity: Being a Concise Exposition of the General Principles of Electrical Science, and the Purposes to Which It Has Been Applied Although the, scientific reader must expect to find in the following pages much with which he is already familiar, yet the author is encouraged to hope that this little work will be found to contain many new facts and illustrations not altogether unworthy of attention. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0282589341/?tag=2022091-20
Rudimentary Magnetism: Being a Concise Exposition of the General Principles of Magnetical Science and the Purposes to Which It Has Been Appli
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1287540163/?tag=2022091-20
Shipwreck by Lightning: Papers Relative to Harris Lightning Conductors
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009NB54JO/?tag=2022091-20
Rudimentary Magnetism; Being a Concise Exposition of the General Principles of Magnetical Science and the Purposes to Which It Has Been Applied
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009AUWGB2/?tag=2022091-20
A Treatise on Frictional Electricity: In Theory and Practice (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from A Treatise on Frictional Electricity: In The...)
Excerpt from A Treatise on Frictional Electricity: In Theory and Practice The author of the volume now before the reader completed the allotted term of man's life. He made some important discoveries in electrical science, laboured long and successfully to introduce into the Royal Navy his system of lightning conductors, was an excellent sailor, an accomplished musician, a lively intellectual companion, a steady friend, and he died honoured and beloved. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1334275157/?tag=2022091-20
Rudimentary Magnetism: Being a Concise Exposition of the General Principles of Magnetical Science and the Purposes to Which It Has Been Applied (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Rudimentary Magnetism: Being a Concise Expos...)
Excerpt from Rudimentary Magnetism: Being a Concise Exposition of the General Principles of Magnetical Science and the Purposes to Which It Has Been Applied The three parts alluded to by the author in his Prefaces to the first edition are in the present volume amalgamated. The first Preface refers to the five first chapters (therein spoken of as the two Parts of the present Treatise The subsequent portion of the work, with the exception Of Chapter VIII. Mentioned below, is the Supplementary Treatise alluded to in the author's second Preface. NO attempt has been made to alter in any degree the general character or style of the work; written as it is throughout with that admirable perspicuity which characterizes all the writings Of its distinguished author. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1331949637/?tag=2022091-20
Protection of Ships from Lightning: According to Principles Established
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009N9Z3V0/?tag=2022091-20
William Harris
Edit Profileelectrical researcher physician
Education
He went to the University of Edinburgh to study medicine and qualified as a physician, then returned to Plymouth and set up a medical practice. His interest in the emerging science of electricity led him to invent his improved lightning conductor for ships in 1820. In 1824 he married, and decided to abandon his profession of medicine to concentrate on his studies of electricity.
Career
Beginning his career in 1857 as an elementary school teacher in the St. Louis public school system, Harris progressed through the ranks, becoming superintendent in 1868.
He worked to universalize public education across class, gender, and racial lines, seeing the school as fundamentally a child-saving agency, and served under four different United States presidents during his seventeen-year tenure as United States Commissioner of Education.
A dutiful follower of Hegel, Harris's philosophy of education elevated the importance of freedom and reason–and self-direction as it was guided by the institutions of civilization.
The school was supposed to bring students face-to-face with the accumulated wisdom of humanity and to teach them to find their place in the spiritual nature of all existence.
This was a prejudice reflected in Harris's influence over the Committee of Ten and the Committee of Fifteen reports, which both helped to crystallize the subject curriculum in the school.
Harris reflected these ideas in his various circles of influence.
Harris maneuvered against the American Herbartians, who sought to unify the course work in the elementary school around German philosopher Johann Herbart's idea of curriculum concentrations, where one subject, usually literature, is made the central core of the learning experience, and other subjects are organized around on the basis of their interrelations to the core's main features.
Harris did not accept this idea of concentration, believing that the five windows of the soul would be weakened when made subordinate to one core area.
He was especially critical of ideas that failed to capture what he believed to be the intellectual and civilizing qualities of the subject curriculum.
For him they were essentially anti-intellectual endeavors largely wasted on youth.
In this sense, Harris became the subject-centered foil to the prevailing child-centered views favored by Progressives at the turn of the nineteenth century. See also: Academic Disciplines; Common School Movement; Mann, Horace; Philosophy of Education.
Achievements
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He founded the Journal of Speculative Philosophy in 1867, and became an important part of a small group of scholars and educators who studied the German philosopher Georg William Friedrich Hegel, a community that would become known as the St. Louis Philosophical movement. Like Horace Mann, Harris was an advocate of the free common public school.
Yet, Harris was undoubtedly among the most effective critics of educational progressivism in his day.
At length, the efficiency of his system being acknowledged, he received in 1847 the honour of knighthood, and subsequently a grant of £5000.
His manuals of Electricity, Galvanism and Magnetism, published between 1848 and 1856, were, however, written with great clearness, and passed through several editions.
He died at Plymouth on the 22nd of January 1867, while having in preparation a Treatise on Frictional Electricity, which was published posthumously in the same year, with a memoir of the author by Charles Tomlinson.
Works
book
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Rudimentary Electricity: Being a Concise Exposition of the General Principles of Electrical Science, and the Purposes to Which It Has Been Applied (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Rudimentary Electricity: Being a Concise Exp...)
-
Rudimentary Magnetism: Being a Concise Exposition of the General Principles of Magnetical Science and the Purposes to Which It Has Been Applied (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Rudimentary Magnetism: Being a Concise Expos...)
-
A Treatise on Frictional Electricity: In Theory and Practice (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from A Treatise on Frictional Electricity: In The...)
-
Shipwreck by Lightning: Papers Relative to Harris Lightning Conductors
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
-
Rudimentary Magnetism; Being a Concise Exposition of the General Principles of Magnetical Science and the Purposes to Which It Has Been Applied
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
-
Protection of Ships from Lightning: According to Principles Established
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
-
Rudimentary Magnetism: Being a Concise Exposition of the General Principles of Magnetical Science and the Purposes to Which It Has Been Appli
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
-
Rudimentary Electricity: Being a Concise Exposition of the General Principles of Electrical Science, and the Purposes to Which It Has Been Applied (Classic Reprint)
Views
He believed in the separation of church and state in public schooling and reinvented the nature of school discipline by criticizing corporal punishment and favoring self-discipline that was based on internalized moral values.
He made the library a normal feature of the school's infrastructure, expanded foreign language education in the curriculum, defended the importance of coeducation, was open minded about new pedagogical ideas (including Pestalozzi's object teaching), and emphasized the importance of perpetual self-education.
Schooling was one of the processes that allowed youth to rise above their inborn savagery and to participate in a civilizing life.
The core philosophical tenets in Harris's life not only played a significant role in his handling of school matters, but also kept him quite busy with philosophical disquisitions, writing essays such as "Goethe's Theory of Colors, " "The Phenomenology of Spirit, " and "Aristotle's Teleology. "Harris held in low regard the Progressive ideas embodied in the American child study movement, American Herbartianism, and the expansion of the curriculum into manual or vocational arts instruction.
The Committee of Fifteen report bears the unmistakable stamp of Harris's five windows of the soul and is an early example of the kind of subject-centeredness that would mark Harris's ideas on the curriculum.
Harris's dedication to the common cultural canon eventually earned him the tag of conservative among some historians, a label that some modern-day scholars have found to be unnuanced and not nearly appreciative enough of the many progressive ideas that Harris also supported.
Membership
His paper "On the Relative Powers of various Metallic Substances as Conductors of Electricity", read before the Royal Society in 1826, led to him being elected a fellow of the society in 1831.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
"Whether they might be farther improved, as to position and other details, is for their ingenious inventor to consider and determine.
He has already devoted so many years of valuable time and attention to the very important subject of defending ships against the stroke of electricity; and has succeeded so well for the benefit of others—at great inconvenience and expense to himself—that it is earnestly to be hoped that the Government, on behalf of this great maritime country, will, at the least, indemnify him for time employed and private funds expended in a public service of so useful and necessary a character. "
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Born
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Died
January 22, 1867 (aged 75) -
Nationality
American -
Ethnicity