182 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS change. It web formerly, as was, indeed, the role throughout the country, a part of the machinery of one denomination alone. The Harvard Theological Seminary prepared min- isters for the Unitarian Church. By the close of President Eliot's administration the way had been prepared for the change by which the seminary became a graduate school for the study of religion and of church work in generaL All denominational ties have been severed and the way is now open for the training of ministers on as broad and scientific a basis as prevails in law, medicine, or teaching. In the graduate school of Harvard equaUy significant changes took place. President Eliot early conceived the idea of a great university where formerly there had only been a college. Such a university involved higher ideals of scholar- ship, it involved the development of new departments and of more advanced work in all departments ; it involved gathering into the faculty a large number of highly-trained men who, personally engaged in research work, could initiate their stu- dents into the spirit and the methods of creative scholarship. All these plans President Eliot worked out, and under his guidance Harvard became the most important center of schol- arship in the United States. The Medical School, Lawrence Scientific School, Baddiff College for women, all shared in the general advance of the university of which they were a part. Thus in forty years there developed the greatest institution of learning which this country had yet seen. President Eliot made Harvard the first great American university. But it is of the quality of the highest leadership that it should be open to suggestions from others, and that it should inspire followers. No one has been readier than President Eliot to adopt the results of successful experiments made else- where and to give recognition to all hopeful movements. And no one has had greater influence than he in shaping the policy of other institutions than his own. So the Harvard of Pres- ident Eliot was not a single isolated achievement, but rather the first of many great American universities. Several of these universities have in some departments and in various
