PEERS, Benjamin Orrs, clergyman, born in Loudoun county, Virginia, in 1800; died in Louisville, Kentucky, 20 August, 1842. His father, Major Valentine Peers, served in the Revolutionary army, and removed to Kentucky in 1803. The son was educated at Transylvania university, studied in Princeton theological seminary in 1822-'3, and afterward united himself with the Protestant Episcopal church, and was ordained. He settled in Lexington, Kentucky, where he established the Eclectic institute, of which he was principal. In 1827-'9 he was president of Transylvania university (now University of Kentucky). He labored much in the cause of common-school education, and was instrumental in arousing public attention to the importance of this subject, and was the author of the present system of common-school education in Kentucky. At the time of his death he was editor of the Sun-day-school publications of his church, and also of the "Episcopal Sunday-School Magazine," in New York. He published "American Education ; or, Strictures on the Nature, Necessity, and Practicability of a System of National Education Suited to the United States," with an Introductory Letter by Francis L. Hawks (New York, 1838).