Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Davidson, Thomas

DAVIDSON, Thomas, philosopher, b. in the parish of Deer, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, 25 Oct., 1840. He was graduated at the University of Aberdeen in 1860, being a first graduate and Greek prizeman. From 1860 till 1863 he was rector of the grammar- (Latin-) school of Old Aberdeen, and from 1863 till 1866 master in several English schools, spending his vacations on the continent. In 1866 he removed to Canada, to occupy a place in the London collegiate institute. In the following year he came to the United States, and, after spending some months in Boston, removed to St. Louis, where, in addition to work on the New York "Round Table" and the "Western Educational Monthly," he was classical master in the St. Louis high-school, and subsequently principal of one of the branch high-schools. In 1875 he removed to Cambridge, Mass. He has travelled extensively in Europe, especially in Greece and Italy. In the former country he devoted himself mainly to archæology and modern Greek, in the latter to the study of the Catholic church, of scholastic philosophy, of Dante, and of Rosmini. For studying the Catholic church unusual opportunities were thrown open to him, chiefly through the Princess Carolyne of Sayn-Wittgenstein and Cardinal Hohenlohe, who offered him an apartment in his episcopal palace at Albano, and also in the villa D'Este at Tivoli. His interest in Thomas Aquinas having come to the ears of the pope through Bishop (now Cardinal) Schiatlino, he was invited to the Vatican, where the holy father suggested that he should settle in Rome and aid his professors in editing the new edition of St. Thomas. For more than a year he lived at Domodossola, in Piedmont, where the Institute of charity, founded by Rosmini, has its novitiate. Here he produced the work that first brought Rosmini to the notice of English-speaking students: “The Philosophical System of Antonio Rosmini-Serbati, translated, with a Sketch of the Author's Life, Bibliography, Introduction, and Notes” (London, 1882). At the same time he wrote essays on classical subjects, mainly archæological, published under the title “The Parthenon Frieze and Other Essays” (London, 1882). He also translated “Rosmini's Psychology” (3 vols., London, 1884). In 1883 he occupied a villa in Capri, and there translated Rosmini's “Anthropology.” Mr. Davidson has been a frequent contributor to periodicals, and delivered courses of lectures, before the Lowell institute in Boston and elsewhere, on modern Greece, on Greek sculpture, etc. He was mainly instrumental in founding “The Fellowship of the New Life,” which has branches in London and New York. He speaks French, German, Italian, and modern Greek. Besides the works named, Mr. Davidson has published “The Fragments of Parmenides,” in English hexameters, with introduction and notes (St. Louis, 1869); “On the Origin of Language,” from the German of W. H. J. Bleek (New York, 1869); “A Short Account of the Niobe Group” (New York, 1874); “The Place of Art in Education” (Boston, 1886); “Giordano Bruno, and the Relation of his Philosophy to Free Thought” (Boston. 1886); and a “Hand-Book to Dante, from the Italian of Scartazzini, with Notes and Additions” (Boston, 1887).