Gessner Harrison | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | June 27, 1807 |
| Died | April 7, 1862 (aged 54) |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Professor of Ancient Languages |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Virginia (M.D., 1827; LL D., 1828) |
| Academic advisors | George Long |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | University of Virginia |
Gessner Harrison (June 27, 1807 – April 7, 1862) was an American educator, author, and college administrator during the antebellum era. He was appointed by James Madison as an associate professor of ancient languages at the University of Virginia (1828–1859). Harrison was recognized for teaching the fundamentals of the classics as well as linguistics, and for advancing these in his publications. He often served as chairman of the faculty and was required to address years of riotous student behavior.
Harrison entered the university as an undergraduate in its initial year of operation (1825). He had been raised as a staunch Christian, and while his devotion invited the reproval of many classmates, it once occasioned a compliment from the university's founder, Thomas Jefferson. He excelled academically and graduated with doctorates in Medicine and Ancient Languages; his classmates included Edgar Allan Poe. In 1828 he became the first alumnus to join the faculty there, at age twenty-one.
Harrison's work in comparative grammar, articulated in his text Exposition of Latin Grammar, was on a par with the leading scholars at German and English schools. He served as chairman of the university faculty for over a third of his thirty-year tenure. As such he responded to multiple violent encounters with disorderly students by whom he and others were assaulted, and by whom one professor was murdered. In collaboration with the university's board, he instituted a code of conduct and played a key role in the reclamation of campus civility.
In 1859 Harrison retired from the university and started a prep school, the Locust Grove Academy, in nearby Nelson County. He was a slaveholder and supported the Confederacy in the American Civil War. By 1862, with the school suffering from a war-diminished student body, he found himself nursing a son returned home from the conflict. He contracted the young man's illness, was forced to close the school, and died soon thereafter. Harrison's death was considered a notable loss for education in the South. He was a descendant of the Harrison family of Virginia.