Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Kiddle, Henry

KIDDLE, Henry, educator, b. in Bath, England, 15 Jan., 1824. He came as a boy to New York city, where he studied under private tutors and at the normal school. In 1843 he was made principal of a ward school, but two years later resigned to take charge of one connected with the Leake and Watts home. In 1846-'56 he was principal of a grammar-school, and he was then appointed deputy superintendent of common schools in New York city. He was made superintendent in 1870, but resigned in 1879, owing to an adverse public sentiment created by his avowal of a belief in spiritualism. Mr. Kiddle received the degree of A. M. from Union college in 1848, and that of “officier d'académie” from the University of France in 1878. He has published in pamphlet-form various addresses on education, modern spiritualism, and religious topics. He edited several revisions of Goold Brown's “English Grammar” (last ed., New York, 1882) and other school text-books, including a “Text-Book of Physics” (1883), and has written “A Manual of Astronomy and the Use of the Globes” (1882); “New Elementary Astronomy” (1868); “Cyclopædia of Education” (1877), with Alexander J. Schem; “Year Books of Education, 1878-'9,” and “Spiritual Communications” (1879).