William Albert Wirt

Wirt, William (1772–1834), Virginia lawyer and U.S. attorney general under Monroe and Adams (1817–29), was the presidential candidate of the Anti‐Masonic party (1832). His first book, the popular Letters of the British Spy (1803), was followed by other essays sketching Southern customs and manners, The Rainbow (1804) and The Old Bachelor (1812), the latter written with friends. All were published anonymously. Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry (1817) re‐created many of his speeches from notes and tradition. J.P. Kennedy wrote his Memoirs (2 vols., 1849).

William Albert Wirt 1874-1938, American educator, b. Markle, Ind., grad. DePauw Univ. (Ph.B., 1898; Ph.D., 1916). In 1907 he became superintendent of schools in Gary, Ind., where he developed a plan of school operation (see progressive education ) known variously as the Gary plan, the platoon system, and Wirt's "Work-Study-Play" plan. This system increased the utilization of the school plant by alternating classes between regular and special teachers.

Smith, Albert (1816–60), interesting but forgotten figure of literary London, who dramatized several of Dickens's novels for the stage and also produced some ephemeral plays and novels of his own. His chief enterprise was a series of one-man entertainments, of which the first was The Overland Mail (1850). This was an amusing account of a recent trip to India, interspersed with topical songs and stories and illustrated by scenery specially painted for the occasion by William Beverley. It proved such a success that Smith followed it with The Ascent of Mont Blanc, given at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, again with scenery by Beverley, and then by a similar programme on China. He married in 1859 Mary, the actress-daughter of Robert Keeley, and died at the height of his popularity. His simple entertainment, whose charm lay as much in the spontaneity and wit of its presentation as in the actual material, was frequently patronized by Queen Victoria and the royal children.