William Emerson Ritter

William Emerson Ritter
William E. Ritter (Photo from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Photographs Collection, Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.
Born	(1856-11-21)November 21, 1856 Hampden Township, Columbia County, Wisconsin
Died	January 10, 1944(1944-01-10) (aged 87)
Citizenship	American
Institutions	Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of California, San Diego
Alma mater	Harvard University

William Emerson Ritter (November 21, 1856 – January 10, 1944) was an American biologist.

Ritter initiated and shaped the Marine Biological Association of San Diego (now Scripps Institution of Oceanography of UC San Diego) and the American Society for the Dissemination of Science (now the Society for Science and the Public and Science News). Innovative and entrepreneurial, with a deep desire for human service, he worked tirelessly to educate people in science thinking. He was the first biologist to propose a theory of systems, and seems to be the originator of the term organicism for biological purposes.

William Emerson Ritter was born on a farm on November 21, 1856 in Hampden Township, Columbia County, Wisconsin. His parents, Horatio and Leonora Ritter, moved from New York a few years earlier. The Ritter household included William, his brother Frank, his sisters Mary, Ella, and Flora, and his maternal grandparents, Nathan and Ruby Eason. For the first few years of his life his paternal grandparents, Ezra and Mary Ritter, were also living in the area. The family worked hard on the farm, cultivating corn, wheat, potatoes, apples, and other crops.

Early correspondence shows that he always liked school, and was always seeking meaning—seeking to do something with his life. In 1876, he had the chance to attend high school in Columbus, Wisconsin, which had opened that year. Like many youth, he struggled with what to do with his life. After attending a year of high school, he began to teach at a Hampden school, while continuing his studies. In 1879, he attended college at the Oshkosh Normal School (now the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh). He left there after only one year due to financial reasons, and took a job teaching in Columbus, Wisconsin. He hoped to earn enough money to go back to college.

In 1881, he took a job as a teacher in Oconto, Wisconsin. There, he continued to read voraciously, and had a particular attraction for science. It was here that he started to develop a passion for helping people understand science. He believed that science was the key to the future of society, and that if people could be taught to think with the reasoned, thoughtful, unbiased critical perspective of science, that much suffering in the world could be alleviated.