Lester Frank Ward (1841-1913) was an American paleobotanist, sociologist, and educator. He was the leading American opponent of social Darwinism and of impotent government.

Lester Ward was born in Joliet, III., on June 18, 1841. He received a bachelor of arts degree from George Washington University in 1869 and a master's in 1873. From 1865 to 1872 he was with the U.S. Treasury Department and from 1881 through 1888 was assistant and then chief paleontologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. He did considerable research in geology and paleobotany but became intensely interested in sociology as an emerging discipline. His published works in sociology were so well received that, without an academic position, he was elected president of the American Sociological Society in 1906 and 1907. In 1906 Ward was made professor of sociology at Brown University. He died in Washington on April 18, 1913.

Ward approached human society from two perspectives. First, as a successful botanist, he analyzed developments...