Charles Eliot, the longest-serving president of Harvard University, envisioned a world where anyone could access a liberal education through a collection of books, known as the Harvard Classics. This idea was born out of the changing nature of work and the emergence of leisure time in the 20th century. Eliot's vision was to make education accessible to the masses, and his idea was realized through the creation of the Harvard Classics, a 50-volume collection of works by prominent authors. The series was a huge success, selling over 350,000 full sets in the first two decades of its publication.
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