Recently there has been a growing concern about the decline in academic achievement among students as modern schools have moved to more non-academic functions. William Torrey Harris was an early education reformer whose ideas are now proving relevant to the problems currently facing education. Harris entered the field of education in the 1850s when the curriculum for the early years of schooling was limited to the "three R's" with mathematics and classical languages added later. The belief was that the purpose of school was to foster the development of reason and that required imparting universal ideas and principles. Harris became a member of the influential Committee of Ten in 1893. The Committee was responsible for the inclusion of modern subjects in the high school curriculum. Harris believed the wisdom of Western civilization was divided into five branches: (1) arithmetic and mathematics, (2) geography, (3) history, (4) grammar, and (5) English literature. Harris felt that the purpose of schooling was to foster the development of reason and to impart universal ideas and principles instead of isolated, unrelated facts. He became president of the National Education Association in 1875, and was United States Commissioner of Education from 1889-1906. Harris was a founder of "The Journal of Speculative Philosophy," the most important U.S. philosophy publication of its time. (NL)