George Palmer

Palmer, George Herbert, 1842-1933, American educator, philosopher, and author, b. Boston, grad. Harvard, 1864, Andover Theological Seminary, 1870, studied (1867-69) in Europe. He became tutor in Greek at Harvard (1870) and taught there the rest of his career, becoming professor emeritus and overseer (1913-19). He was the first Harvard professor to abandon the textbook and recitation method of teaching philosophy and to work out his own system of ideas in lectures. His books include The Life and Works of George Herbert (1905); translations of the Odyssey and Sophocles' Antigone; The Field of Ethics (1901); and Altruism: Its Nature and Varieties (1919). He also wrote a biography (1908) of his second wife, Alice Freeman Palmer, his autobiography (1930), and a number of essays on education and other topics.