1925 Biography - T. H. Harris

Hon. T. H. Harris, who for the past sixteen years has served his native state of Louisiana as her state superintendent of public education, stands today in the front rank of distinguished American educators. His career has been and is an encouraging example to the young men of the South of how one may rise from a boyhood spent amidst discouraging conditions to a manhood of distinction and honor simply by persistently following the plain path of unselfish duty and dedicating one's service to his fellow men. The father of "Tom" Harris was the Rev. A. Harris, a Baptist minister and teacher and a member of the Georgia family of that name that has furnished a number of divines to the Christian pulpits of the South and Southwest. His mother was a Milner, a Georgia family numbered among the larger slaveholding class. Her culture and refinement distinguished her for that day and generation. Her sterling qualities were manifested in the help and encouragement she gave to her husband, bearing with him the hardships to which the pioneers from the older to the newer states were subjected, the conquering of which tempers the fiber of character to a strength and nobility which generally pass on to descendants for several generations. She bore her husband ten children, nine of whom grew to manhood and womanhood, all of whom bear testimony that she was "the best mother in the world." Among these children were the Hon. Dayton W. Harris, an orator of commanding presence and a platform lecturer of distinction, and the subject of our sketch, Thomas H., who has made so deep a mark in our public life. In the decade before the beginning of the war between the states the Rev. A. Harris and wife pioneered across the country from Georgia to the northermost section of Louisiana. The state away from its waterways was sparsely settled in those days, and all the conditions of a wilderness were here in evidence. Other Georgians and a number from Alabama were among those who carved their homes out of these primitive surroundings. Shortly after his arrival the Rev. Mr. Harris associated himself with J. W. Nicholson, and the two opened an academy for the instruction of youth at a place which received the name of Arizona, in what is now Claiborne Parish, Louisiana. The fame of this old Arizona Academy for sound methods of instruction endures to this day. Rev. Mr. Harris' associate in time came to be known as Col. J. W. Nicholson, one of the most distinguished mathematicians this country has ever produced, the author of a number of school and college texts and an incumbent of the chair of mathematics in the Louisiana State University for many years. Thomas H. Harris was born at Arizona, in Claiborne Parish, March 26, 1869. His early years were devoted to the exhausting toil of farming. This has given him a sympathy with rural life that has made him a real authority upon the needs and adjustments of the rural school to the community. He received his early education in the Lisbon (Louisiana) Academy, another of those pioneer schools that did so much for the state before the coming of the public school system. The principal of the academy was his brother, Dayton W. Harris. At the age of twenty-one "Tom" decided to make teaching his life work. He entered the State Normal School of Natchitoches, completed the course for a certificate and embarked upon the profession. This early educational training was in time supplemented by work done in the Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, bringing him the degrees of A. B. and M. A. His thesis for the latter distinction was "The Story of Public Education in Louisiana," in which the subject is treated exhaustively. Its publication in book form has laid every student of Louisiana history and the history of American education under deep and lasting obligation. Professor Harris married, in 1896, Miss Minnie Earle, of Winnsboro. His only child by this marriage is Sadie Harris Jackson, of Baton Rouge. In 1900 he married Mrs. Mary B. Evans, of Opelousas, who is the mother of three sons: U. B. Evans, in the electric supply business at Alexandria; Dr. G. W. Evans, who was president of the State Colony and Training School until his death in August, 1924, and W. M. Evans, an automobile dealer at Baton Rouge. Professor Harris' first school was a modest affair at Langston, in his native parish of Claiborne. That school today has grown and developed into an accredited secondary school of the state's system and now bears the name of the "Thomas H. Harris High School." Principal of the Opelousas High School, principal of the Winnsboro High School, instructor in the preparatory department of the State University, superintendent of public schools, City of Baton Rouge, are all steps that mark his progress upward. When the Hon. James H. Aswell, now congressman from Louisiana, resigned, the state superintendence of education, the Governor of Louisiana called upon Professor Harris to fill the vacancy. This was in 1908. He has been elected and re-elected by popular vote ever since and is still the incumbent at the time this is written (l924). In his administration of public school affairs Mr. Harris has shown himself a leader of wisdom and vision. Such is the hold that he has upon the esteem and affection of his fellow citizens in every part of the state that never any opposition arises when he comes up for re-election. Indeed, such is his popularity that he has often been importuned to permit the use of his name in connection with the governorship; but no matter how assured he might be of his attaining that high position he has firmly opposed any movement to land him in the gubernatorial chair, declaring that he, feels it his highest duty to serve the children of the state and that there is more satisfaction to him in his continued identification with the best in Louisiana education than in any exalted personal honor that may be bestowed upon him. His singleness of purpose, his unswerving allegiance to the cause of education, the skill and intelligence with which he has raised the standard of public education in Louisiana to a point commanding time admiration of the country at large, the freedom from friction that has characterized his long administration of school affairs, all conspire to mark him one of the most valuable, useful and distinguished citizens of our state, whose name is being indelibly interwoven with the fabric of the commonwealth's history.

Contributed 2021 Nov 04 by Mike Miller, from A History of Louisiana, by Henry E. Chambers, published in 1925, volume 2, pages 3-4.