BIOGRAPHY: Franklin Stewart Harris; Provo, Utah co., Utah

Transcribed by W. David Samuelsen for The USGenWeb Archives Project
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History of Utah
The Storied Domain
A Documentary History of Utah's Eventual Career
by J. Cecil Alter
Vol. 2, published 1932 (expired copyright)
The American Historical Society, Inc.


FRANKLIN STEWART HARRIS, president of the Brigham Young University at Provo,
is a native son of Utah, and his people on both sides were pioneers of the
state.

Doctor Harris was born at Benjamin, Utah, August 29, 1884, and his parents,
Dennison Emer and Eunice (Stewart) Harris, were also natives of the state. His
father was actively identified with the colonization work of the Mormon Church
in Mexico, and much of the early life of Doctor Harris was spent at Colonia
Juarez, where he graduated from the Juarez Stake Academy in 1903. In 1907 he
was graduated Bachelor of Science from Brigham Young University and
subsequently attended the Utah State Agricultural College and Cornell
University. Cornell awarded him the Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1911.

Doctor Harris is an authority on scientific agriculture in the West and his
active life has been divided between teaching and work as a scientist in
agriculture. He was instructor in science at the Juarez Academy in 1904-05,
instructor in agricultural chemistry at Brigham `Young University in 1906-07,
assistant in chemistry at the Utah Agricultural College, 1907-08, assistant in
soil technology at Cornell University, 1909-10, and instructor in Cornell
University in 1910-11. In 1911 he returned to Utah to become professor of
agronomy at the Utah Agricultural College. In 1916 he was made director of the
Utah Experiment Station and from 1912 to 1916 had been director of the School
of Mechanical Arts and Agricultural Engineering at the Utah Agricultural
College. From his position as director of the Utah Experiment Station he was
called in 1921 to the presidency of Brigham Young University.

Doctor Harris married, June 18, 1908, Miss Estella Spilsbury, of Toquerville,
Utah. His children are Arlene, Franklin Stewart, Chauncy Dennison, Helen, Leah
Dorothy and Mildred.

The outstanding feature of Doctor Harris' professional service has been
scientific research and the dissemination of scientific truth, carried on
through the medium of hundreds of popular articles in farm journals and
magazines as well as innumerable lectures of a popular nature. He has
contributed technical articles through bulletins, the Journal of Agricultural
Research, Journal of American Society of Agronomy, Science and other
publications. He is author of the following books: The Principles of Agronomy,
1915, revised 1930; The Young Man and His Vocation, 1916; The Sugar Beet in
America, 1918; Soil Alkali, 1920; Scientific Research and Human Welfare, 1924;
The Fruits of Mormonism, 1925, and has also been joint author in several
works, associated with such well known western men as Widtsoe, Samuels and
others. Doctor Harris spent the year 1926-27 traveling around the world,
studying educational institutions, on which trip he participated in the
Pan-Pacific Scientific Congress. He spent the summer of 1929 as chairman, of a
committee for studying Siberia as a possibility for Jewish colonization under
the auspices of the Jewish Society of Icor.

Doctor Harris is a member of the following scientific and civic organizations:
American Association for the Advancement of Science; Utah Academy of Science,
of which he is a past president; American Society of Agronomy, of which he was
president in 1920-21; American Farm Economic Association; American Genetic
Association; American Association for Agricultural Legislation; American
Association of Sugar Beet Agriculturists; National Education Association; Utah
Dry Farmers Association, of which he is a past secretary; Utah Irrigation and
Drainage Congress, of which he was president in 1923; Inter Farm Congress;
American National Geographic Society; Timpanogos District Council of Boy
Scouts of America, of which he is a past president.