Harry Pratt Judson

The present rather noticeable trend away from the idea that a successful college president must necessarily be a successful individual solicitor of endowments is a confession that the two types of administrative genius are not always compatible, and that if the choice has to be made between them, capacity in the field of education must stand first. Harry Pratt Judson served the University of Chicago best as educator. His sixteen-year presidency of that institution was distinguished less by the enhancement of its financial fortunes than by the co-ordinating and extending of its facilities for instruction. Himself a notable classical and historical scholar, he broadened the scope of the University’s teaching. But he did more by bringing into its curriculum a conservatism which preserved for it the older educational standards, at a time when there seemed to be danger of losing them in the rush after innovating ideas and methods.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1928 Century Association Yearbook