Schurman, Jacob

Schurman, Jacob (Gould) (1854–1942) educator, philosopher, diplomat; born in Freetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. He studied in Great Britain and Germany before he came to teach philosophy at Cornell University (1886), where he promoted an idealistic approach that applied philosophy to all of human experience. In 1892 he began the Philosophical Review, the first scholarly journal of philosophy in the U.S.A. As president of Cornell (1892–1920), he turned Cornell from a small private college into a major university with public as well as private segments. He served as chairman of a U.S. commission that studied conditions in the newly acquired Philippines (1899) and he personally advocated independence. Later he served as ambassador to Greece and Montenegro (1912–13), China (1921–25), and Germany (1925–30).