William Hughes Mearns [SEP] date of death
William Hughes Mearns
William Hughes Mearns (1875–1965), better known as Hughes Mearns, was an American educator and poet. A graduate of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania, Mearns was a Professor at the Philadelphia School of Pedagogy from 1905 to 1920. Mearns is remembered now as the author of the poem "Antigonish" (or "The Little Man Who Wasn't There"), but his ideas, about encouraging the natural creativity of children, particularly those age 3 through 8, were novel at the time
Antigonish (poem)
"Antigonish" is an 1899 poem by American educator and poet William Hughes Mearns. It is also known as "The Little Man Who Wasn't There" and was adapted as a hit song under the latter title.
Poem.
Inspired by reports of a ghost of a man roaming the stairs of a haunted house, in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada, the poem was originally part of a play called "The Psyco-ed", which Mearns had written for an English class