Born in Indiana to a prosperous Quaker family, Beard edited a local newspaper before attending DePauw University, where he was exposed to progressive thinkers and social reformers. He continued his education at Oxford University. In England, with the financial aid of a Kansas socialist, he helped to found a college, Ruskin Hall, for English workingmen. He married Mary Ritter in 1900 and returned to the United States to study at Columbia University in 1902. He joined Columbia's faculty in 1904 and became prominent in movements seeking better government and public policy. In 1917 he resigned from Columbia University to protest the dismissal of several faculty members on grounds of disloyalty during World War I. He never held an academic post after resigning from Columbia, but he co-founded the New School for Social Research in 1919 and remained active in public movements.