Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Harris, Townsend, 1804–78, American merchant and diplomat, b. Sandy Hill, N.Y. A merchant in New York City for many years, he became (1846) a member of the board of education, served as its presiden...

(Encyclopedia) Blow, Susan Elizabeth, 1843–1916, American educator, b. St. Louis. After study in New York City under a disciple of Froebel, she opened in Carondelet (now in St. Louis) the first successful public k...

(Encyclopedia) Owen, Robert, 1771–1858, British social reformer and socialist, pioneer in the cooperative movement. The son of a saddler, he had little formal education but was a zealous reader. At the age of 10 h...

(Encyclopedia) Qian Zhongshu or Ch'ien Chung-shu, 1910–98, Chinese writer and scholar, grad. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (1933). After attending Oxford and the Sorbonne, he returned (1939) to China and taught at sever...

(Encyclopedia) solicitor, in English law, person duly admitted to practice before the supreme court of judicature. He is the agent of the person whose suit he handles, and is distinguished from a barrister, who argu...

(Encyclopedia) drug addiction and drug abuse, chronic or habitual use of any chemical substance to alter states of body or mind for other than medically warranted purposes. Traditional definitions of addiction, with...

(Encyclopedia) Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, 1930, passed by the U.S. Congress; it brought the U.S. tariff to the highest protective level yet in the history of the United States. President Hoover desired a limited upwar...

(Encyclopedia) Kosterlitz, John Michael, 1943–, British physicist, b. Scotland, Ph.D. Oxford, 1969. He was on the faculty at the Univ. of Birmingham, England, from 1974 to 1982, when he became a professor at Brown...

(Encyclopedia)  Bennett, Naftali, 1972-, Israeli politician and prime minister (2021-), b. Haifa. The son of American immigrant parents, Naftali served in the Israeli ...

(Encyclopedia) illiteracy, inability to meet a certain minimum criterion of reading and writing skill. Throughout most of history most people have been illiterate. In feudal society, for example, the ability to re...