an American clergyman and author. He was born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, and graduated at Jefferson College in 1818 and at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1822. He taught at an academy at Princeton, New Jersey for five years while tutoring at the College of New Jersey and preaching occasionally. (In 1824, he helped to create the Chi Phi Society, a semi-religious, semi-literary organization, which ceased activity the following year when it merged with the Philadelphian Society.) In 1827 Baird became a New Jersey agent for the American Bible Society, distributing Bibles among the poor and laboring among destitute Presbyterian churches. His survey of educational deficiencies eventually led to the introduction of a system of public education in New Jersey.
