Part 10

HARRIS, THOMAS LAKE (1823-1906), American spiritualistic "prophet," was born at Fenny Stratford in Buckinghamshire, England, on the 15th of May 1823. His parents were Calvinistic Baptists, and very poor. They settled at Utica, New York, when Harris was five years old. When he was about twenty Harris became a Universalist preacher, and then a Swedenborgian. He became associated about 1847 with a spiritualist of indifferent character named Davis. After Davis had been publicly exposed, Harris established a congregation in New York. About 1850 he professed to receive inspirations, and published some long poems. He had the gift of improvisation in a very high degree. About 1859 he preached in London, and is described as a man "with low, black eyebrows, black beard, and sallow countenance." He was an effective speaker, and his poetry was admired by many; Alfred Austin in his book _The Poetry of the Period_ even devoted a chapter to Harris. He founded in 1861 a community at Wassaic, New York, and opened a bank and a mill, which he superintended. There he was joined by about sixty converts, including five orthodox clergymen, some Japanese people, some American ladies of position, and especially by Laurence Oliphant (q.v.) with his wife and mother. The community--the Brotherhood of the New Life--decided to settle at the village of Brocton on the shore of Lake Erie. Harris established there a wine-making industry. In reply to the objections of teetotallers he said that the wine prepared by himself was filled with the divine breath so that all noxious influences were neutralized. Harris also built a tavern and strongly advocated the use of tobacco. He exacted complete surrender from his disciples--even the surrender of moral judgment. He taught that God was bi-sexual, and apparently, though not in reality, that the rule of society should be one of married celibacy. He professed to teach his community a change in the mode of respiration which was to be the visible sign of possession by Christ and the seal of immortality. The Oliphants broke away from the restraint about 1881, charging him with robbery and succeeding in getting back from him many thousands of pounds by legal proceedings. But while losing faith in Harris himself, they did not abandon his main teaching. In Laurence Oliphant's novel _Masollam_ his view of Harris will be found. Briefly, he held that Harris was originally honest, greatly gifted, and possessed of certain psychical powers. But in the end he came to practise unbridled licence under the loftiest pretensions, made the profession of extreme disinterestedness a cloak to conceal his avarice, and demanded from his followers a blind and supple obedience. Harris in 1876 discontinued for a time public

## activities, but issued to a secret circle books of verse dwelling mainly

on sexual questions. On these his mind ran from the first. In 1891 he announced that his body had been renewed, and that he had discovered the secret of the resuscitation of humanity. He published a book, _Lyra triumphalis_, dedicated to A. C. Swinburne. He also made a third marriage, and visited England intending to remain there. He was called back by a fire which destroyed large stocks of his wine, and remained in New York till 1903, when he visited Glasgow. His followers believed that he had attained the secret of immortal life on earth, and after his death on the 23rd of March 1906 declared that he was only sleeping. It was three months before it was acknowledged publicly that he was really dead. There can be little or no doubt as to the real character of Harris. His teaching was esoteric in form, but is a thinly veiled attempt to alter the ordering of sexual relations.

The authoritative biography from the side of his disciples is the _Life_ by A. A. Cuthbert, published in Glasgow in 1908. It is full of the jargon of Harris's sect, but contains some biographical facts as well as many quotations. Mrs Oliphant's _Life of Laurence Oliphant_ (1891) has not been shaken in any important particular, and Oliphant's own portrait of Harris in _Masollam_ is apparently unexaggerated. But Harris had much personal magnetism, unbounded self-confidence, along with endless fluency, and to the last was believed in by some disciples of character and influence. (W. R. Ni.)

HARRIS, SIR WILLIAM SNOW (1791-1867), English electrician, was descended from an old family of solicitors at Plymouth, where he was born on the 1st of April 1791. He received his early education at the Plymouth grammar-school, and completed a course of medical studies at the university of Edinburgh, after which he established himself as a general medical practitioner in Plymouth. On his marriage in 1824 he resolved to abandon his profession on account of its duties interfering too much with his favourite study of electricity. As early as 1820 he had invented a new method of arranging the lightning conductors of ships, the peculiarity of which was that the metal was permanently fixed in the masts and extended throughout the hull; but it was only with great difficulty, and not till nearly thirty years afterwards, that his invention was adopted by the government for the royal navy. In 1826 he read a paper before the Royal Society "On the Relative Powers of various Metallic Substances as Conductors of Electricity," which led to his being elected a fellow of the society in 1831. Subsequently, in 1834, 1836 and 1839, he read before the society several valuable papers on the elementary laws of electricity, and he also communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh various interesting accounts of his experiments and discoveries in the same field of inquiry. In 1835 he received the Copley gold medal from the Royal Society for his papers on the laws of electricity of high tension, and in 1839 he was chosen to deliver the Bakerian lecture. Meanwhile, although a government commission had recommended the general adoption of his conductors in the royal navy, and the government had granted him an annuity of L300 "in consideration of services in the cultivation of science," the naval authorities continued to offer various objections to his invention; to aid in removing these he in 1843 published his work on _Thunderstorms_, and also about the same time contributed a number of papers to the _Nautical Magazine_ illustrative of damage by lightning. His system was actually adopted in the Russian navy before he succeeded in removing the prejudices against it in England, and in 1845 the emperor of Russia, in acknowledgment of his services, presented him with a valuable ring and vase. At length, the efficiency of his system being acknowledged, he received in 1847 the honour of knighthood, and subsequently a grant of L5000. After succeeding in introducing his invention into general use Harris resumed his labours in the field of original research, but as he failed to realize the advances that had been made by the new school of science his application resulted in no discoveries of much value. 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.

HARRIS, WILLIAM TORREY (1835-1909), American educationist, was born in North Killingly, Connecticut, on the 10th of September 1835. He studied at Phillips Andover Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, and entered Yale, but left in his junior year (1857) to accept a position as a teacher of shorthand in the St Louis, Missouri, public schools. Advancing through the grades of principal and assistant superintendent, he was city superintendent of schools from 1867 until 1880. In 1858, under the stimulus of Henry C. Brockmeyer, Harris became interested in modern German philosophy in general, and in particular in Hegel, whose works a small group, gathering about Harris and Brockmeyer, began to study in 1859. From 1867 to 1893 Harris edited _The Journal of Speculative Philosophy_ (22 vols.), which was the quarterly organ of the Philosophical Society founded in 1866. The Philosophical Society died out before 1874, when Harris founded in St Louis a Kant Club, which lived for fifteen years. In 1873, with Miss Susan E. Blow, he established in St Louis the first permanent public-school kindergarten in America. He represented the United States Bureau of Education at the International Congress of Educators at Brussels in 1880. In 1889 he represented the United States Bureau of Education at the Paris Exposition, and from 1889 to 1906 was United States commissioner of education. In 1899 the university of Jena gave him the honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy for his work on Hegel. In 1906 the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching conferred upon him "as the first man to whom such recognition for meritorious service is given, the highest retiring allowance which our rules will allow, an annual income of $3000." Besides being a contributor to the magazines and encyclopedias on educational and philosophical subjects, he wrote _An Introduction to the Study of Philosophy_ (1889); _The Spiritual Sense of Dante's Divina Commedia_ (1889); _Hegel's Logic_ (1890); and _Psychologic Foundations of Education_ (1898); and edited Appleton's _International Education Series_ and Webster's _International Dictionary_. He died on the 5th of November 1909.

See Henry R. Evans, "A List of the Writings of William Torrey Harris" in the _Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1907_, vol. i. (Washington, 1908).

HARRISBURG, the capital of Pennsylvania, U.S.A., and the county-seat of Dauphin county, on the E. bank of the Susquehanna river, about 105 m. W. by N. of Philadelphia. Pop. (1890), 39,385; (1900), 50,167, of whom 2493 were foreign-born and 4107 were negroes; (1910 census) 64,186. It is served by the Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia & Reading, the Northern Central and the Cumberland Valley railways; and the Pennsylvania canal gives it water communication with the ocean. The river here is a mile wide, and is ordinarily very shallow and dotted with islets, but rises from 4 to 6 ft. after a moderate rain; it is spanned by several bridges.

The city lies for the most part on the E. slope of a hill extending from the river bank, several feet in height, across the Pennsylvania canal to Paxton Creek. Front Street, along the river, is part of a parkway connecting the park system with which the city is encircled. Overlooking it are the finest residences, among them the governor's mansion. State Street, 120 ft. in width, runs at right angles with Front Street through the business centre of the city, being interrupted by the Capitol Park (about 16 acres). The Capitol,[1] dedicated in 1906, was erected to replace one burned in 1897; it is a fine building, with a dome modelled after St Peter's at Rome. At the main entrance are bronze doors, decorated in relief with scenes from the state's history; the floor of the rotunda is of tiles made at Doylestown, in the style of the pottery made by early Moravian settlers, and illustrating the state's resources; the Senate Chamber and the House Chamber have stained-glass windows by W. B. van Ingen and mural paintings by Edwin A. Abbey, who painted a series, "The Development of the Law," for the Supreme Court room in the eastern wing and decorated the rotunda. The mural decorations of the south corridor, by W. B. van Ingen, portray the state's religious sects; those in the north corridor, by John W. Alexander, represent the changes in the physical and material character of the state; and there is a frieze by Miss Violet Oakley, "The Founding of the State of Liberty Spiritual," in the governor's reception room. Two heroic groups of statuary for the building were designed by George Grey Barnard. The state library in the Capitol contains about 150,000 volumes. In the same park is also a monument 105 ft. high erected in 1868 to the memory of the soldiers who fell in the Mexican War; it has a column of Maryland marble 76 ft. high, which is surmounted by an Italian marble statue of Victory, executed in Rome. At the base of the monument are muskets used by United States soldiers in that war and guns captured at Cerro Gordo. In State Street is the Dauphin County Soldiers' monument, a shaft 10 ft. sq. at the base and 110 ft. high, with a pyramidal top.

For several years prior to 1902 Harrisburg suffered much from impure water, a bad sewerage system, and poorly paved and dirty streets. In that year, however, a League for Municipal Improvements was formed; in February 1902 a loan of $1,000,000 for municipal improvements was voted, landscape gardeners and sewage engineers were consulted, and a non-partisan mayor was elected, under whom great advances were made in street cleaning and street paving, a new filtration plant was completed, the river front was beautified and protected from flood, sewage was diverted from Paxton Creek, and the development of an extensive park system was undertaken.

Harrisburg's charitable institutions include a city hospital, a home for the friendless, a children's industrial home, and a state lunatic hospital (1845). The city is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishopric. Both coal and iron ore abound in the vicinity, and the city has numerous manufacturing establishments. The value of its factory products in 1905 was $17,146,338 (14.3% more than in 1900), the more important being those of steel works and rolling mills ($4,528,907), blast furnaces, steam railway repair shops, cigar and cigarette factories ($1,258,498), foundries and machine shops ($953,617), boot and shoe factories ($922,568), flouring and grist mills, slaughtering and meat-packing establishments and silk mills.

Harrisburg was named in honour of John Harris, who, upon coming into this region to trade early in the 18th century, was attracted to the site as an easy place at which to ford the Susquehanna, and about 1726 settled here. He was buried in what is now Harris Park, where he erected the first building, a small hut, within the present limits of Harrisburg. In 1753 his son established a ferry over the river, and the place was called Harris's Ferry until 1785, when the younger Harris laid out the town and named it Harrisburg. In the same year it was made the county-seat of the newly constituted county of Dauphin, and its name was changed to Louisburg; but when, in 1791, it was incorporated as a borough, the present name was again adopted. In 1812, after an effort begun twenty-five years before, it was made the capital of the state; and in 1860 it was chartered as a city. In the summer of 1827, through the persistent efforts of persons most interested in the woollen manufactures of Massachusetts and other New England states to secure legislative aid for that industry, a convention of about 100 delegates--manufacturers, newspaper men and politicians--was held in Harrisburg, and the programme adopted by the convention did much to bring about the passage of the famous high tariff act of 1828.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] For this building the legislature in 1901 appropriated $4,000,000, stipulating that it should be completed before the 1st of January 1907. It was completed by that time, the net expenditure of the building commission being about $3,970,000. Although the legislature had made no provision for furniture and decoration, the state Board of Public Grounds and Buildings (governor, auditor-general and treasurer) undertook to complete the furnishing and decoration of the building within the stipulated time, and paid out for that purpose more than $8,600,000. In May 1906 a new treasurer entered office, who discovered that many items for furniture and decoration were charged twice, once at a normal and again at a remarkably high figure. In 1907 the legislature appointed a committee to investigate the charge of fraud. The committee's decision was that the Board of Grounds and Buildings was not authorized to let the decorating and furnishing of the state house; that it had illegally authorized certain expenditures; and that architect and contractors had made fraudulent invoices and certificates. Various indictments were found: in the first trial for conspiracy in the making and delivering of furniture the contractor and the former auditor-general, state treasurer and superintendent of public grounds and buildings were convicted and in December 1908 were sentenced to two years' imprisonment and fined $500 each; in 1910 a suit was brought for the recovery of about $5,000,000 from those responsible.

HARRISMITH, a town in the Orange Free State, 60 m. N.W. by rail of Ladysmith, Natal, and 240 m. N.E. of Bloemfontein via Bethlehem. Pop. (1904) 8300 (including troops 1921). It is built on the banks of the Wilge, 5250 ft. above the sea and some 20 m. W. of the Drakensberg. Three miles N. is the Platberg, a table-shaped mountain rising 2000 ft. above the town, whence an excellent supply of water is derived. The town is well laid out and several of the streets are lined with trees. Most of the houses are built of white stone quarried in the neighbourhood. The Kaffirs, who numbered in 1904 3483, live in a separate location. Harrismith has a dry, bracing climate and enjoys a high reputation in South Africa as a health resort. It serves one of the best-watered and most fertile agricultural and pastoral districts of the province, of which it is the chief eastern trading centre. Wool and hides are the principal exports.

Harrismith was founded in 1849, the site first chosen being on the Elands river, where the small town of Aberfeldig now is; but the advantages of the present site soon became apparent and the settlement was removed. The founders were Sir Harry Smith (after whom the town is named), then governor of Cape Colony, and Major Henry D. Warden, at that time British resident at Bloemfontein, whose name is perpetuated in that of the principal street. In a cave about 2 m. from the town are well-preserved Bushman paintings.

HARRISON, BENJAMIN (1833-1901), the twenty-third president of the United States, was born at North Bend, near Cincinnati, Ohio, on the 20th of August 1833. His great-grandfather, Benjamin Harrison of Virginia (c. 1740-1791), was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. His grandfather, William Henry Harrison (1773-1841), was ninth president of the United States. His father, John Scott Harrison (1804-1878), represented his district in the national House of Representatives in 1853-1857. Benjamin's youth was passed upon the ancestral farm, and as opportunity afforded he attended school in the log school-house near his home. He was prepared for college by a private tutor, studied for two years at the Farmers' College, near Cincinnati, and in 1852 graduated from Miami University, at that time the leading educational institution in the State of Ohio. From his youth he was diligent in his studies and a great reader, and during his college life showed a marked talent for extemporaneous speaking. He pursued the study of law, partly in the office of Bellamy Storer (1798-1875), a leading lawyer and judge of Cincinnati, and in 1853 he was admitted to the bar. At the age of twenty-one he removed to Indianapolis. He had but one acquaintance in the place, the clerk of the federal court, who permitted him to occupy a desk in his office and place at the door his sign as a lawyer. Waiting for professional business, he was content to act as court crier for two dollars and a half a day; but he soon gave indications of his talent, and his studious habits and attention to his cases rapidly brought him clients. Within a few years he took rank among the leading members of the profession at a bar which included some of the ablest lawyers of the country. His legal career was early interrupted by the Civil War. His whole heart was enlisted in the anti-slavery cause, and during the second year of the war he accepted a commission from the governor of the state as second-lieutenant and speedily raised a regiment. He became its colonel, and as such continued in the Union Army until the close of the war, and on the 23rd of January 1865 was breveted a brigadier-general of volunteers for "ability and manifest energy and gallantry in command of brigade." He participated with his regiment in various engagements during General Don Carlos Buell's campaigns in Kentucky and Tennessee in 1862 and 1863; took part in General W. T. Sherman's march on Atlanta in 1864 and in the Nashville campaign of the same year; and was transferred early in 1865 to Sherman's army in its march through the Carolinas. As the commander of a brigade he served with particular distinction in the battles of Kenesaw Mountain (June 29-July 3, 1864), Peach Tree Creek (20th of July 1864) and Nashville (15th-16th of December 1864).

Allowing for this interval of military service, he applied himself exclusively for twenty-four years to his legal work. The only office he held was that of reporter of the supreme court of Indiana for two terms (1860-1862 and 1864-1868), and this was strictly in the line of his profession. He was a devoted member of the Republican party, but not a politician in the strict sense. Once he became a candidate for governor, in 1876, but his candidature was a forlorn hope, undertaken from a sense of duty after the regular nominee had withdrawn. He took a deep interest in the campaign which resulted in the election of James A. Garfield as president, and was offered by him a place in his cabinet; but this he declined, having been elected a member of the United States Senate, in which he took his seat on the 4th of March 1881. He was chairman of the committee on territories, and took an active part in urging the admission as states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Idaho and Montana, which finally came into the Union during his presidency. He served also on the committee of military and Indian affairs, the committee on foreign relations and others, was prominent in the discussion of matters brought before the Senate from these committees, advocated the enlargement of the navy and the reform of the civil service, and opposed the pension veto messages of President Cleveland. Having failed to secure a re-election to the Senate in 1887, Harrison was nominated by the Republican party for the presidency in 1888, and defeated Grover Cleveland, the candidate of the Democratic party, receiving 233 electoral votes to Cleveland's 168. Among the measures and events distinguishing his term as president were the following: The meeting of the Pan-American Congress at Washington; the passage of the McKinley Tariff Bill and of the Sherman Silver Bill of 1890; the suppressing of the Louisiana Lottery; the enlargement of the navy; further advance in civil service reform; the convocation by the United States of an international monetary conference; the establishment of commercial reciprocity with many countries of America and Europe; the peaceful settlement of a controversy with Chile; the negotiation of a Hawaiian Annexation Treaty, which, however, before its ratification, his successor withdrew from the Senate; the settlement of difficulties with Germany concerning the Samoan Islands, and the adjustment by arbitration with Great Britain of the Bering Sea fur-seal question. His administration was marked by a revival of American industries and a reduction of the public debt, and at its conclusion the country was left in a condition of prosperity and on friendly terms with foreign nations. He was nominated by his party in 1892 for re-election, but was defeated by Cleveland, this result being due, at least in part, to the labour strikes which occurred during the presidential campaign and arrayed the labour unions against the tariff party.