James

While his son was a student at Amherst Col-
lege the elder James was elected a trustee of that
institution and served as such during some of
his busiest years. He was also on the governing
board of the American Museum of Natural His-
tory, He gave close attention to the problems of
every board in which he held membership. Since
1867 he had been a director of the Union Theo-
logical Seminary in New York, and when it
seemed necessary for the seminary to acquire a
new site he spent months in studying New York
real estate. Finding at last a suitable tract, he
bought it and offered it anonymously, without
conditions, to the seminary. The cost of the land,
with funds provided for buildings and $300,000
added by Mrs. James, totaled $1,900,000, the
largest individual gift to a theological school
then on record. In 1854 he had married Ellen
Stebbins Curtiss, of New York. She, with a son,
survived him.

[0. S. Phelps and A. T. Servin, The Phelps Family
of America (1899), vol. II; Fifty-fifth Ann. Report of
the Children's Aid Soc. for Year Ending Oct. i, 1907;
C. H. Parkhurst, Address Memorial of the Late D.
Willis James (1907); N. Y. Times, Sept. 14, 1907;
Outlook, Oct. 5, 1907; W. A. Brown, Statement of
... Facts .„. Connected with the Hist, of Union TheoL
Sem. (1909) ; Who's Who in Americaf 1906-07.]

W—m.B.S.

JAMES, EDMUND JANES (May 21, 1855-
June 17, 1925), economist and university presi-
dent, was born at Jacksonville, 111., the son of
Colin Dew James and his wife, Amanda Keziah
Casad. His father, a Virginian by birth, was a
presiding elder in the Illinois Methodist Confer-
ence. After graduating from the high school of
the Illinois State Normal University (1873), Ed-
mund James spent a scant year at Northwestern
University, and another (1874-75) at Harvard.
The following autumn he entered the University
of Halle, where he studied economics with Con-
rad and took his doctorate (1877) with a disser-
tation on the American tariff. In the Halle Uni-
versity circle James also met Anna Margarethe
Lange whom he married on Aug. 22, 1879.
Three of their six children survived him.

Returning to Illinois, full of enthusiasm for
German scholarship, he taught first in the Evans-
ton High School and later as principal of his old
school at Normal (1879-82). He was an inspir-
ing teacher and several of his pupils had success-
ful academic careers. He also published educa-
tional essays and in 1881 founded, with Charles
De Garnio, the Illinois School Journal. Mean-
time, his contributions to J. J. Lalor's Cyclopae-
dia of Political Science (1881-83) on such topics
as "Factory Law's" and "Finance," brought him
:i*eeogniticm as a promising young economist, and
m 1883 he became professor of Public Finance

James

and Administration in the new Wharton School
of Finance and Economy at the University of
Pennsylvania. He impressed his early Pennsyl-
vania students by his "clear, vigorous and realis-
tic" teaching, stimulating interest in higher stud-
ies and productive scholarship. The recognized
leader of the Wharton School faculty, he was also
active in promoting commercial education else-
where. Visiting Europe under the auspices of
the American Bankers Association, he published
his Education of Business Men in Europe
(1893), which attracted much attention. He was
one of the younger economists who were active
in organizing the American Economic Associa-
tion, and one of its first two vice-presidents
(1885). The dissatisfaction of these younger
scholars with "classical" economics is reflected in
his preface to J. K. Ingram's A History of Politi-
cal Economy (1888). His center of interest was
shifting, however, from economics to politics
with a special interest in municipal problems, and
he was the first president of the Municipal
League of Philadelphia (1891). More signifi-
cant was his founding of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science (1889-90); he
was also its first president (1890-1901) and the
first editor of its Annals (1890-96).

In these varied activities, some friction devel-
oped and in 1896 James went to the University
of Chicago as professor of public administration
and director of university extension—he had been
president of the American Association for the
Extension of University Teaching. His career at
Chicago was short (1896-1901) but he estab-
lished contacts which proved useful as he turned
from intensive scholarship to educational admin-
istration. After two years as president of North-
western University (1902-04) he was elected to
the presidency of the University of Illinois,
where he spent fifteen years in active service
(1904-19). He was exceptionally equipped for
his new post. A native of the state, he knew1 its
public school system at first-hand as pupil and
teacher, while his knowledge of educational de-
velopments at home and abroad gave him an un-
usual perspective. Above all, he believed in the
ability and willingness of a democracy, properly
led, to build up a real university. His first appeal
to the legislature brought the biennial appropria-
tion to nearly a million and a half, and during the
next decade this amount was increased to about
five millions. Meantime, though admission re-
quirements were advanced, student attendance
increased more than eighty per cent.; the faculty
was rapidly expanded; and several major build-
ings were added. More significant was the en-
largement of research equipment and the setting

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