Henry Smith Pritchett

Henry Smith Pritchett ( born April 26, 1857 in Fayette (Missouri ); † August 28, 1939 in Santa Barbara ( California)) was an American educator, organizer of science and astronomer.

He was the son of astronomers and educators Carr Waller Pritchett (1823-1910), first president of Pritchett College, Glasgow ( Missouri) and director of the Morrison Observatory. Pritchett Pritchett studied at the College with a bachelor's degree in 1875 and at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, DC at Asaph Hall, where he was Assistant Astronomer. In 1880 he returned to Glasgow to the Morrison Observatory. In 1882 he was involved in the observation of the transit of Venus in New Zealand. In 1883 he became professor of mathematics and astronomy and director of the observatory at Washington University in St. Louis. He went back to study in Germany, where he received his doctorate in 1894 at the University of Munich. 1897 to 1900 he was superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.

1900-1906 he was the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Then he was up to his retirement (due to revision) 1930 President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching ( CFAT ), where he founded in 1918 a pension fund for teachers. He was also associated with other projects of the Carnegie Foundation as their Peace Prize and the Carnegie Institution in Washington DC, whose trustees he belonged.

Pritchard was much honorary doctorates.

He was married twice. In his first marriage since 1881 with Ida Williams, with whom he had three sons and a daughter in her second marriage in 1900 with Eva McAllister.