John Daniel Runkle (photo courtesy the MIT Museum)

John Daniel Runkle (1822 - 1902) was a U.S. educator and mathematician. He served as acting president of MIT from 1868-70 and president between 1870 and 1878.

Professor Runkle was born at Root, New York State. He graduated in 1851 at the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University and was professor of mathematics in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1865 until his retirement in 1902. Manual training was introduced into the institute curriculum largely at his instance. He founded the Mathematical Monthly in 1859 and continued its publication until 1861.

His publications include:

• New Tables for Determining the Values of Coefficients in the Perturbative Function of Planetary Motion (1856)
• The Manual Element in Education (1882), reprinted from the Reports of the Massachusetts Board of Education
• Report on Industrial Education (1883)
• Elements of Plane and Solid Analytic Geometry (1888)

In the town of Brookline, Massachusetts, Runkle was a chairman of the School Committee and an early advocate of mathematics and technical education. An elementary school located at 50 Druce Street was established in his name in 1897.

• This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.