[1] A member of the prominent Eliot family of Boston, he transformed Harvard from a respected provincial college into America's preeminent research university.

He taught competently, wrote some technical pieces on chemical impurities in industrial metals, and busied himself with schemes for the reform of Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School.

This was a particularly bitter blow because of a change in his family's economic circumstances—the financial failure of his father, Samuel Atkins Eliot, in the Panic of 1857.

But instead, he used his grandfather's large legacy and a small borrowed sum to spend the next two years studying the educational systems of the Old World in Europe.

When Eliot visited schools, 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: 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.

He wrote to his cousin: Every one of the famous universities of Europe was founded by Princes or privileged classes—every Polytechnic School, which I have visited in France or Germany, has been supported in the main by Government.

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.

In the meantime, freedom and the American spirit of enterprise will do much for us, as in the past ....[5]While Eliot was in Europe, he was again presented with the opportunity to enter the world of active business.

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.

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.

On his return to the United States in 1865, Eliot accepted an appointment as Professor of Analytical Chemistry at the newly founded Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

An opinion had long been gaining ground that it would be better for the community and the interests of learning, as well as for the university, if the power to elect the overseers were transferred from the legislature to the graduates of the college.

The effect of this change was to greatly strengthen the interest of the alumni in the management of the university, and thus to prepare the way for extensive and thorough reforms.

A college education could enable a student to make intelligent choices, but should not attempt to provide specialized vocational or technical training.

Like the Union victory in the Civil War, triumph over the moral and physical wilderness and the establishment of mastery required a joining of industrial and cultural forces.

"When the revelation of his own peculiar taste and capacity comes to a young man, let him reverently give it welcome, thank God, and take courage," Eliot declared in his inaugural address.

[9]On the subject of educational reform, he declared: As a people, we do not apply to mental activities the principle of division of labor; and we have but a halting faith in special training for high professional employments.

A monumental expansion of Harvard's graduate and professional school and departments facilitated specialization, while at the same time making the university a center for advanced scientific and technological research.

Accompanying this was a shift in pedagogy from recitations and lectures towards classes that put students' achievements to the test and, through a revised grading system, rigorously assessed individual performance.

Influenced by his observations of German universities, Eliot saw that conditions favored academic institutions dedicated to the secular achievements of the intellect, places that would nurture contemporary thinking on socially significant subjects and enable ambitious, talented men to demonstrate their abilities.

The former objective required a faculty composed less of faithful teachers than of productive scholars for whom the campus would provide the conditions for creative work.

In 1905, The New York Times reported that he called it "a fight whose strategy and ethics are those of war", that violation of rules cannot be prevented, that "the weaker man is considered the legitimate prey of the stronger" and that "no sport is wholesome in which ungenerous or mean acts which easily escape detection contribute to victory.

[15]During his lengthy tenure as Harvard's leader, Eliot initiated repeated attempts to acquire his former employer, the fledgling Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and these efforts continued even after he stepped down from the presidency.

"[20] However, in 1917, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rendered a decision that effectively cancelled plans for a merger,[17] and MIT eventually attained independent financial stability.

[22] They had four sons, one of whom, Charles Eliot (November 1, 1859 – March 25, 1897) became an important landscape architect, responsible for Boston's public park system.

Grace was a close relative of Frances Stone Hopkinson, wife of Samuel Atkins Eliot II, Charles's son.

Under Eliot, Harvard became a worldwide university, accepting its students around America using standardized entrance examinations and hiring well-known scholars from home and abroad.

Eliot attracted the support of major donors from among the nation's growing plutocracy, making it the wealthiest private university in the world.

[40] Eliot Mountain was named in honor of the lifelong academic who summered on Mount Desert Island, Maine, and was a key figure in the creation of Acadia National Park.