Hilprecht

tamar" as if it were found in the "Temple Li-
brary" at Nippur, whereas the label on the tab-
let, which was exhibited in the museum, showed
that it had been bought with a collection and
probably did not come from Nippur at all. When
confronted with the fact, instead of acknowledg-
ing a careless mistake, Hilprecht accounted for
the discrepancy by a story that seemed improb-
able and for some years he sought to maintain
his position. Finally in 1911 he resigned his
posts at the University of Pennsylvania, spent a
year in travel, then settled for several years in
Hesse-Nassau in Germany. After the war he re-
turned to Philadelphia and became a naturalized
American citizen.

Hilprecht's influence on Assyriological re-
search in the United States was, in spite of the
cloud which obscured his last years, great and
beneficial, for he was a thorough and an excel-
lent teacher. He inaugurated a careful and beau-
tiful type for copying cuneiform texts and not
only practised it himself, but successfully taught
it to his pupils. Professors Albert Tobias Clay
[q.v.~\, Daniel David Luckenbill, William John
Hinke, and Arno Poebel—to mention but a few-
learned their science at his feet and learned to
emulate his accuracy and skill. During the early
years of his career in America he set a high
standard in the publication of texts, and this had
a beneficial effect. Had he maintained the same
high standard in all his later work and had he
been generous in according recognition to his
associates, no cloud need have darkened his ca-
reer. In the book which contained the unfor-
tunate reference to "Lushtamar" he was often
at pains to discredit the work of John Henry
Haynes, who was field director at Nippur dur-
ing the expeditions of the nineties and who had
worked heroically, almost alone at times, in a
deadly climate. Hilprecht's treatment was—to
say the least—ungenerous, and the impression
sometimes given that the discovery of the "Li-
brary" should be credited to himself, unfair.
Haynes came home a broken man—broken not
only in health, but in spirit—partly because of
this treatment. Another manifestation of this
foible, in what was otherwise a noble nature, ap-
pears in the statement from Hilprecht's own
hand in several editions of Who's Who in Amer-
ica that the university museum contained "over
fifty thousand Babylonian antiquities, for the
greater part presented by him." In reality these
antiquities were the University's share of the
finds exhumed at Nippur, due it because it had
furnished all the money with which the excava-
tion had been carried on. The Turkish govern-
ment chose to employ the fiction that it present-

Himes

ed them to Hilprecht in recognition of his serv-
ices to the Imperial Ottoman Museum. Moral-
ly he was bound to pass them on to the organi-
zation which had furnished the funds. Except
by a fiction they were never his. In 1886 Hil-
precht was married to Miss S. C. Haufe. She
died in 1902 and on Apr. 24, 1903, he was mar-
ried to Sallie (Crozer) Robinson, the daughter
of Samuel Aldrich Crozer of Philadelphia.

[Who's Who in America, 1916-17; Am. Jour, of
Scientific Languages, Apr. 1908; the Nation, May 2,
Nov. 21, 1907, Feb. 13, May 7, 1908; Jour, of Biblical
Ltterature,vol. XLV,pts. 3 and 4 (1926); Public Ledg-
er (Phila.), Evening Star (Washington), N. Y. Times,
Mar. 20, 1925.] G.A.B—n.

HIMES, CHARLES FRANCIS (June 2,
i838-Dec. 6, 1918), educator and scientist, was
born in Lancaster County, Pa. His paternal an-
cestor, William Heim, came to America from
the German Palatinate, arriving in Philadel-
phia, Aug. 29, 1730. His maternal ancestor,
Jacob Lanius, also from the Palatinate, came to
Philadelphia, Sept. n, 1731. His father was
William D. Himes, born in New Oxford, Adams
County, Pa., in 1812; and his mother, Magdalen,
a daughter of Christian and Ann Lanius of York
County, Pa. When Charles Francis was still
a small boy his parents moved to New Oxford.
Here he attended an academy conducted by Dr.
M. D. G. Pfeiffer. He entered Dickinson Col-
lege as a sophomore in the spring of 1853 and
was graduated in June 1855 at the age of seven-
teen. After graduation he was instructor for a
year in mathematics and natural sciences at the
Wyoming Conference Academy, Wayne County,
Pa., and the following year he taught in the pub-
lic schools of Missouri. Following a short pe-
riod of teaching at the Baltimore Female Col-
lege, in 1860, when only twenty-two years old,
he was appointed professor of mathematics at
Troy University, Troy, N. Y. Here he re-
mained until 1863 when he went to Germany,
where he attended the University of Giessen.
Returning to America in 1865, ^e was elected
to the chair of natural science at Dickinson Col-
lege, and remained with the college for thirty-
one years. In 1885 the natural-science depart-
ment was divided and he was made professor of
physics. After the resignation of President
James A. Macauley in 1888 he served as acting
president for one year. He was a teacher of ex-
ceptional force and originality: his lectures were
clear and logical; and he kept well abreast of the
science of his day. In 1865 he started elective
laboratory courses at Dickinson, which was one
of the first colleges to offer such courses. He
made a special study of photography and became
a leading authority on certain branches of that

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