Educator, diplomat, and chemist James Bryant Conant (1893-1978) was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts. As president of Harvard University for twenty years (1933-1953), he was an advocate for common core education.

According to Time magazine, under his leadership Harvard grew "increasingly national in its influence, interest, emphasis, and student body."

"A liberal education....frees a man from the prison-house of his class, race, time, background, family, and even his nation," he observed.

His books celebrated education and called for schools to be an instrument of national purpose. With standardized testing, he said, students are ranked by ability.

"Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based upon excellence of performance," said the man described to have a "stooped scholarly stance."

A pioneer in organic chemistry theory, he was also chairman (1941-1946) of the National Defense Research Committee and helped in the development of the atomic bomb.

"Some of mankind's most terrible misdeeds have been committed under the spell of certain magic words or phrases," he said.

Stick your neck out.