Eliot, Charles William (1834–1926)

US educator credited with establishing the standards of modern American higher education. He was appointed professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 1865 and was named president of Harvard University 1869. Under Eliot's administration, the college and its graduate and professional schools were reorganized and the curriculum and admission requirements standardized. He retired 1909.

Eliot was born in Boston and educated at Harvard. He specialized in mathematics and chemistry and later took up the cause of educational reform.