PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: education
pope
Sylvester II, French head of the Roman Catholic church (999–1003), renowned for his scholarly achievements, his advances in education, and his shrewd political judgment. He was the first Frenchman to become...
German-American architect
Walter Gropius, German American architect and educator who, particularly as director of the Bauhaus (1919–28), exerted a major influence on the development of modern architecture. His works, many executed...
Czech educator
John Amos Comenius, Czech educational reformer and religious leader, remembered mainly for his innovations in methods of teaching, especially languages. He favoured the learning of Latin to facilitate...
English philosopher and scientist
Roger Bacon, English Franciscan philosopher and educational reformer who was a major medieval proponent of experimental science. Bacon studied mathematics, astronomy, optics, alchemy, and languages. He...
Greek orator and rhetorician
Isocrates, ancient Athenian orator, rhetorician, and teacher whose writings are an important historical source on the intellectual and political life of the Athens of his day. The school he founded differed...
French philosopher and humanist
Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet, French philosopher of the Enlightenment and advocate of educational reform and women’s rights. He was one of the major Revolutionary formulators...
Russian author and scientist
Mikhail Lomonosov, Russian poet, scientist, and grammarian who is often considered the first great Russian linguistics reformer. He also made substantial contributions to the natural sciences, reorganized...
Chinese philosopher
Confucius, China’s most famous teacher, philosopher, and political theorist, whose ideas have profoundly influenced the civilizations of China and other East Asian countries. Confucius was born near the...
Swiss educator
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Swiss educational reformer, who advocated education of the poor and emphasized teaching methods designed to strengthen the student’s own abilities. Pestalozzi’s method became...
French mathematician and public official
Gaspard Monge, count de Péluse, French mathematician who invented descriptive geometry, the study of the mathematical principles of representing three-dimensional objects in a two-dimensional plane; no...
American educator
Horace Mann, American educator, the first great American advocate of public education who believed that, in a democratic society, education should be free and universal, nonsectarian, democratic in method,...
Muslim scholar
Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Muslim educator, jurist, and author, founder of the Anglo-Mohammedan Oriental College at Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India, and the principal motivating force behind the revival of Indian...
Russian statesman
Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev, Russian civil servant and conservative political philosopher, who served as tutor and adviser to the emperors Alexander III and Nicholas II. Nicknamed the “Grand Inquisitor,”...
Indian religious leader
Ram Mohan Roy, Indian religious, social, and educational reformer who challenged traditional Hindu culture and indicated lines of progress for Indian society under British rule. He is sometimes called...
American author and educator
Margaret Fuller, American critic, teacher, and woman of letters whose efforts to civilize the taste and enrich the lives of her contemporaries make her significant in the history of American culture. She...
American educator
Frances Willard, American educator, reformer, and founder of the World Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (1883). An excellent speaker, a successful lobbyist, and an expert in pressure politics, she was...
United States jurist
Clarence Thomas, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1991, the second African American to serve on the court. Appointed to replace Thurgood Marshall, the court’s first African...
American sculptor and educator
Augusta Savage, American sculptor and educator who battled racism to secure a place for African American women in the art world. Augusta Fells began modeling figures from the red-clay soil of her native...
American educator
Booker T. Washington, educator and reformer, first president and principal developer of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University), and the most influential spokesman for Black...
American political scientist and educator
Robert A. Dahl, American political scientist and educator. A leading theorist of political pluralism, Dahl stressed the role in politics played by associations, groups, and organizations. Dahl was a graduate...
German educator
Johann Friedrich Herbart, German philosopher and educator, who led the renewed 19th-century interest in Realism and is considered among the founders of modern scientific pedagogy. After studying under...
American author and educator
Helen Keller, American author and educator who was blind and deaf. Her education and training represent an extraordinary accomplishment in the education of persons with these disabilities. Keller was afflicted...
American educator and student free-speech activist
Mario Savio, U.S. educator and student free-speech activist who reached prominence as spokesman for the 1960s Free Speech Movement (FSM) at the University of California, Berkeley. At the time dismissed...
American composer and music educator
Louis Ballard, American composer and music educator best known for compositions that synthesize elements of Native American and Western classical music. Ballard experienced—and indeed oscillated between—Native...
Italian educator
Maria Montessori, Italian educator and originator of the educational system that bears her name. The Montessori system is based on belief in the creative potential of children, their drive to learn, and...
Russian ballerina
Agrippina Vaganova, Russian ballerina and teacher who developed a technique and system of instruction based on the classical style of the Imperial Russian Ballet but which also incorporated aspects of...
Native American educator, author and lecturer
Sarah Winnemucca, Native American educator, lecturer, tribal leader, and writer best known for her book Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883). Her writings, valuable for their description...
American scientist
Bruce Alberts, American biochemist best known for having served as president of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) from 1993 to 2005. Alberts developed an early interest in science, reading about chemistry...
American educator and writer
Anna Julia Cooper, American educator and writer whose book A Voice From the South by a Black Woman of the South (1892) became a classic African American feminist text. Cooper was the daughter of a slave...
British educator
Joseph Lancaster, British-born educator who developed the system of mass education known as the Lancasterian method, a monitorial, or “mutual,” approach in which brighter or more proficient children were...
Japanese author, educator, and publisher
Fukuzawa Yukichi, Japanese author, educator, and publisher who was probably the most-influential man outside government service in the Japan of the Meiji Restoration (1868), following the overthrow of...
French composer
Olivier Messiaen, influential French composer, organist, and teacher noted for his use of mystical and religious themes. As a composer he developed a highly personal style noted for its rhythmic complexity,...
American social reformer
Dorothea Dix, American educator, social reformer, and humanitarian whose devotion to the welfare of the mentally ill led to widespread reforms in the United States and abroad. Dix left her unhappy home...
American chemist and educator
Anna Jane Harrison, American chemist and educator who in 1978 became the first woman president of the American Chemical Society. She was known for her advocacy for increased public awareness of science....
Chinese artist
Pan Tianshou, Chinese painter, art educator, and art theorist who was one of the most important traditional Chinese painters of the 20th century. Pan learned literature, painting, and calligraphy as a...
American pacifist and author
Fannie Fern Phillips Andrews, Canadian-born American pacifist and writer, a tireless advocate, nationally and internationally, for education and peace. Fannie Phillips grew up in Nova Scotia and, from...
German language scholar
Wilhelm von Humboldt, German language scholar, philosopher, diplomat, and educational reformer whose contribution to the development of the scientific study of language became highly valued in the 20th...
American educator and government official
Harriet Wiseman Elliott, American educator and public official, a highly effective teacher and organizer who held a number of governmental advisory roles during the administrations of U.S. President Franklin...
Swedish-Russian dancer
Christian Johansson, Swedish-born ballet dancer and principal teacher at the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg, who made a fundamental contribution to the development of the Russian style of classical...
American educator and civil rights advocate
Septima Poinsette Clark, American educator and civil rights activist. Her own experience of racial discrimination fueled her pursuit of racial equality and her commitment to strengthen the African American...
American educator
Mary Lyon, American pioneer in the field of higher education for women and founder and first principal of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, the forerunner of Mount Holyoke College. Lyon began teaching in...
French architect
Étienne-Louis Boullée, French visionary architect, theorist, and teacher. Boullée wanted originally to be a painter, but, following the wishes of his father, he turned to architecture. He studied with...
American educator
Celestia Susannah Parrish, American educator who worked in the South to open higher education to women and to promote progressive education for children. Parrish was orphaned during the Civil War and thereafter...
French archbishop and writer
François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénelon, French archbishop, theologian, and man of letters whose liberal views on politics and education and whose involvement in a controversy over the nature of mystical...
Turkish American surgeon, educator, and author
Mehmet Oz, Turkish American surgeon, educator, author, and television personality who cowrote the popular YOU series of health books and hosted The Dr. Oz Show (2009–22). In 2022 Oz ran as a Republican...
American social worker
Edith Abbott, American social worker, educator, and author who was instrumental in promoting the professional practice and academic discipline of social work in the United States. Edith Abbott was the...
American educator
Abbie Park Ferguson, American educator, a founder and preserver of Huguenot College as the only women’s college in South Africa in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Ferguson was the daughter of a...
Chinese educator
Cai Yuanpei, educator and revolutionary who served as head of Peking University in Beijing from 1916 to 1926 during the critical period when that institution played a major role in the development of a...
American photographer
Aaron Siskind, influential American teacher, editor, and photographer who is best known for his innovations in abstract photography. Siskind began to photograph in 1932, while he was an English teacher...
Anglo-Saxon scholar
Alcuin, Anglo-Latin poet, educator, and cleric who, as head of the Palatine school established by Charlemagne at Aachen, introduced the traditions of Anglo-Saxon humanism into western Europe. He was the...