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Homer Lane

American educator

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ343438
Source-derived summary

Homer Lane (1875–1925) was an American-born educator who believed that the behavior and character of children improved when they were given more control over their lives. Bertrand Russell called him "one of the best men of his generation".

Background

Lane was born in Connecticut. He left school early and took a job delivering groceries, where he met a doctor who helped him take a course at Boston's Sloyd Training College. He began to teach in a high school that his sponsor later opened.

Lane had two children by his first wife, Cora Barney, and three by his second wife. They also adopted a daughter. He died from typhus in Paris after having been deported from England for failing to maintain his alien registration. His family remained in England.

Career

Lane started his teaching career at Peters High School in Southborough, Massachusetts.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Homer Lane” as american educator. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Homer, Lane and American.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1875, 1925—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1875-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Homer, Lane and American providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Homer Lane”, the useful work is to connect “american educator” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q343438. VIAF identifies the subject as 42640144. The Library of Congress control number is nr90000151. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1875 and 1925.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Search vocabulary
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Homer Lane”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Homer Lane primary sources, Homer Lane archive and Homer research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Homer Lane” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.