Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Everest, Mount

(Encyclopedia)Everest, Mount ĕvˈərĭst, ĕvˈrəst [key], peak, 29,032 ft (8,849 m) high (as officially recognized by China and Nepal; rock height only, 29,016 ft/8,844 m), on the border of Tibet and Nepal, in t...

folk high school

(Encyclopedia)folk high school, type of adult education that in its most widely known form originated in Denmark in the middle of the 19th cent. The idea as originally conceived by Bishop Nikolai Grundtvig was to s...

Yorktown

(Encyclopedia)Yorktown, historic town (1990 pop. 270), seat of York co., SE Va., on the York River 10 mi (16 km) from its mouth on Chesapeake Bay; settled 1631, laid out 1691. It is included in the Colonial Nationa...

Césaire, Aimé

(Encyclopedia)Césaire, Aimé (Aimé Fernand Césaire) ĕmāˈ fĕrnäNˈ sāzârˈ [key], 1913–2008, West Indian poet and essayist who wrote in French. After studying in Paris he became concerned with the plight...

Bly, Robert Elwood

(Encyclopedia)Bly, Robert Elwood, 1926–2021, American writer, translator, editor, and publisher, b. Lac qui Parle County, Mn., Harvard (B.A., 1950), Univ. of Iowa (...

Rupert, Prince

(Encyclopedia)Rupert, Prince, 1619–82, count palatine of the Rhine. Born in Prague, he was the son of Frederick the Winter King, elector palatine and king of Bohemia, and Elizabeth, daughter of James I of England...

utilitarianism

(Encyclopedia)utilitarianism yo͞oˌtĭlĭtrˈēənĭzəm, yo͞otĭˌ– [key], in ethics, the theory that the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined by its usefulness in bringing about the most happines...

James V, king of Scotland

(Encyclopedia)James V, 1512–42, king of Scotland (1513–42), son and successor of James IV. His mother, Margaret Tudor, held the regency until her marriage in 1514 to Archibald Douglas, 6th earl of Angus, when s...

empiricism

(Encyclopedia)empiricism ĕmpĭrˈĭsĭzəm [key] [Gr.,=experience], philosophical doctrine that all knowledge is derived from experience. For most empiricists, experience includes inner experience—reflection upo...

kindergarten

(Encyclopedia)kindergarten [Ger.,=garden of children], system of preschool education. Friedrich Froebel designed (1837) the kindergarten to provide an educational situation less formal than that of the elementary s...