Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 06.djvu/921

* ELIMINATION. 799 ELIOT. DiviJin-; llii'^c equation* minib«?r for minilier and equating the coellicients of like powers of x, five equations are found, whose eliniinant is" the same as lluit given above. Consult: -Miiir, Theory of Dvtenninunts (London. IS'.tO) : Burn- side and Panton, Theory of Equations (Dublin, IHOI 1. ELIO, ale'iV Kr.xcisco J.wier (17C7-1822). A ^^pani^ll general. He was born at Pamplona, and was edueated at the Military .cademy of Puerto iSanta Maria. He fought with distinction in the wars in Northern Afriea, and in the cam- paign with France ( lT'.).'i-17;i.J), and on Septem- ber D, ISO", recaptured Montevideo from the English, and became governor of the city. Ke- called to Spain in 1812, he became connnander of the Army of ilurcia. and was afterwards ap- pointed Governor and Captain-General of that province and of Valencia. In consequence of his cruelty and tyranny, he was captured after the reestablisliment of the Constitution of 1812 and imprisoned by the insurgents in tlie citadel. where, tipon an attempt of the soldiery to effect his release, he was brouglit before a popular tribunal, sentenced to death, and executed. ELIOT, CII.VRLES ViLLl.M (1834—). An American educator of note. He was born in Boston. Mass., graduated at Harvard in 1853, was tutor in mathematics there from 18.54 to 1858. and was assistant professor of mathematics and chemistrv in the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard fiom 1858 to 1863. The years 1863- 05 he passed in Europe in the study of chem- istry and in the investigation of educational methods, and from 1865 to 1869 he held the chair of analytical chcmistrj- in the ilassachusetts Institute of Technology, then newly founded. In 18G9 he Ix-came the twenty-second president of Harvard. His accession marked an epoch in the history of the institution. He forthwith began a remodeling of the curriculum on a lib- eral basis, broadly patterned after that of Euro- pean universities. The elective system as known to American education was devised by him. His aim was to make this system, as conducted at Harvard, not less strict in its requirements, but niore inclusive in its privileges, than that traditionally associated with the .Vmericati col- lege. He became an acknowledged authority on higher education, and his annual reports have been generally regarded as important documents in the study of problems connected with the sub- ject. He also became widely known as an occasional sjjeaker and a writer on ediication- al and other topics. He received the honor of election to numerous learned organizations, including the .meriean .Vcademy of .rts and Sciences of Boston, the American Philosophical Society, and the Massachusetts Historical So- ciety. His publications include The Compen- dioiix Mn»u<il of Qiinlitatirr Chemical Analysis (with V. H. Storer. 186!); 16th ed.. as revised by Nichols and re-revised by Lindsay, 1892) : The M'orkinfi of the American Democracy, an address (1888) : American Contributions to Civilization, and Other ICssays (1897) ; and fjrlucational Re- form: Assays and Addresses (1898). ELIOT, Gkoroe (1819-80). The pseudonym of Mary .Ann Evans, generally recognized as the foremost of English women novelists. The Evans family, originally Welsh, was of sturdy, middle- class stock. 'Her grandfather. George Evans, was a carpenter and builder in Derbyshire. Her father, Kobert, bred to the same business, seems to have been a man of uncommon vigor, both physical and mental, with an inborn knowledge of valuations that won him high repute as a land agent. In this capacity he was engaged by ilr. Francis Xewdigate to take cliarge of his Arbury estate in Warwickshire, and here, at South Farm, George Fallot, the third child by his sec- ond wile, was born, in the heart of tluit stolid farming life of the FJnglish midlands which she was later to mirror back so faithfully. The de- tails of the author's early years, her companion- ships, her physical surroundings and mental growth, might easily be tilled in from her writ- ings, since few novelists have drawn so freely from their own personal and intimate experi- ences. The chief landmarks of the iieigliborliood can readily be identified in her earlier volumes. Arbury Court is the 'Cheverel .Manor' of Mr. tmiil's Love Story ; the town of Xuneaton is the 'Milby' of Janet's Repentance ; and its suburb, Chilvers Colon, figures as 'Shepperton' in Amos Barton. Her family are admittedly the pro- totypes of the Dodsons in The Mill on the Floss; there is much of her brother Isaac in the Tom Tulliver of the same novel: and critics have traced a resemblance between her father and Caleb Garth in Middlemareh, and have identified her mother with the inimitable -Mrs. I'oyser in Adam Bede. These analogies must not be pushed too far, but that George Eliot's own personality is set forth in the character of ilaggie Tulliver there can be no doubt. As a piece of unsparing self-revelation, a searching analysis of a cliild's moods and emotions, it can hardly be dujilicaled. In Maggie, she has drawn herself as an imjietu- ous. proud, and highlv sensitive child, with an instinct for passionate devotion to some one per- son — an instinct which throughout her life was a vital necessity to her. Like ilaggie, too, she was not a precocious child, preferring play to study, and learning to read with difficulty. It must be admitted that at this time her stock of books was not inspiring, chief among them being .TCsop's Fables, doe Miller's .Jest-Book, and De- foe's History of the Devil. The local schools of Xuneaton supplied her early needs, but the im- portant formative years from twelve to fifteen were passed at a school in Coventry, the tone of which was strongly evangelical. Her mother's death in 1835, devolving upon her nuich of the care of the farm, interrupted her studies tem- porarily. Yet she soon found means to giatify her awakened thirst for knowledge, though so assidu- ously and unsystematically that at the age of nineteen she could describe her mind a.s "an as- semblage of disjointed specimens, of history, ancient and modern, scraps of poetry pic'ked up from Shakes|)eare. Cowper, Vordsworth. and Jlilton. morsels of Addison and Bacon, Latin verbs, geometry, entomology, and diemistry." Vhen George Eliot was twenty-one, her fath- er's retirement from bvisiness and his removal to Coventry brought a momentous change into her life. Hitherto she had stilled in the intellectual isolation of dull, monotonous farm life. Hence- forth her mental horizon was destined to grow steadily broader. .t Coventry she met George Bray, the author of an Enijuiry Conccrninfi the Oriyin of Christianity, whieli profoundly allecteil her religious views. In the first enthusiasm of her new convictions she ceased to attend church — an