University of Illinois - Illio Yearbook (Urbana Champaign, IL)

Page 14 text:

THE PRESIDENT $re£tbent Cbmunb 3 arte James, Wfyt Jtlan HERE is no spirit of independence like that of a boy sure of his dinner, as was remarked by the Sage of Concord. It is the spirit that investigates traditional holies and finds the shams they have accumulated. When this spirit can be carried on and united with the experience and judgment of maturity, men of notable and individual action must result. Until recently the University world has not developed many men of this type; trimming the wick of the Lamp of Learning being a particularly sure way to bring on an explosion. However, there are those who must act, explosion or no explosion. And President Edmund J. James of the University of Illinois is among those who have ventured. He has compelled knowledge to meet the needs of daily living in ways that often seemed foreign to it. He is an Illinois product — the feeling of its prairies is his own life-feeling. With an un- usual perception of truth, he realized this early and followed the prompting of his spirit rather than the advice of his friends in making Illi- nois the scene of his best work, refusing flatter- ing offers from such institutions as Halle and Harvard to do it. He was educated in Illinois except for a year at Harvard and two years of study in prepa- ration for his doctor's degree in the German University of Halle. He took his doctor's degree in 1877 at the age of twenty-two years thereby throwing the German Government into confusion, as he was ready for the examination a full year before schedule time and a special dispensation was necessary before it could be given. The University of Halle did what proved to be the ordinary thing in his career — offered him a position within its halls — but he declined in order to return to his native state. His first position was as principal of the high school in Evanston. From there he went to Normal as prin- cipal of the High School Department of the Illinois Normal University. In 1883 he took his only excur- sion as a teacher out of the state when he went to the University of Pennsylvania to accept the directorship of the Wharton School of Finance, a position that gave his peculiar talents wide scope. He returned to Illinois in 1896 as professor of public administration and direc- tor of University Extension work of the University of Chicago. He was there until 1902 when he left to become the president of Northwestern University which position, after holding two and one-half years, he re- linquished to become the president of the University At the Age of i8 of Illinois. It is an unique record for a native ol the Birth Place at Jacksonville, III.

Page 13 text:

®0 JJresrtbent €bmunb 3ant Jame£ a man tofjo compels! our respect, abmtratton anb fjonor, toe bebtcate tfttsi book

Page 15 text:

THE PRESIDENT In Naples i£ state to serve three of its own universities in such im- portant capacities. It was during the Wharton School period that much was begun in him. In no uncertain way his action showed the unmistakable bias of his life. It had al- ready been hinted at. During the time he was prin- cipal of the high school department at Normal, he with Professor De Garto, now head of the Department of Education at Cornell University, founded and for some time conducted the Illinois School Journal. Its pur- pose was to awaken and inspire the teacher; to let the outsider, even to the humble parent, into the mysteries that had become wrapped around the acquisition of knowledge ; in short, to shed light where darkness was often more comfortable. The paper, under another name, is still one of the important school publications of Illinois. While at the head of the Wharton School he pro- posed the then revolutionary scheme of training men in the fundamental principles of business. At that time about all that was offered to appease the knowledge- hunger was the old time classical curriculum which was supposed, mysteriously, to fit a man for anything; to give him a pair of intellectual seven league boots, in fact, so that he could outdistance the other fellow in whatever he chose to under- take. Doctor James voiced the unique idea of actually training for business the young man who intended to go into business. So true was his vision that in 1891 the American Bankers Association sent him to Europe to see what he could find there that would help him in the development of his courses. It was while he was in the Wharton School that he voiced the possibility of a School of Railway Admin- istration— and in 1906 what had once seemed like the figment of an active brain became a fact upon the campus of the University of Illinois. Doctor James published much during the time he was in this Wharton School. A monograph upon the government in its relation to the forests resulted in the establishment of the Pennsylvania State Forest Association, the first association of the kind in the United States. Nor was his City Administration in Germany less dynamic, resulting as it did in two important monographs dealing with city control of railway and canal organizations and rates. Nor was Doctor James a closet-citizen during this busy time. He breathed the air of the street and he understood its speech. He was the first President of the Philadelphia Municipal League out of which grew that most powerful force, the National Municipal League. It was during this period, too, that he and several colleagues organized the American Academy of Political and Social Science which has always included in its ranks active and prominent members of all schools and beliefs. His two years at the head of Northwestern were notable for the work he did in organization. He had by this time a sure sense of values and whatever did not respond to it had to tell him why. The task of organization, of creating and making permanent a machine that could run so large an in- stitution as the University of Illinois was gigantic and complex. The work of gaining the one-mill tax was President James in 1892 especially putting, as it did, the University squarely