Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Schem, Alexander Jacob

SCHEM, Alexander Jacob, author, b. in Wiedenbrück, Prussia, 16 March, 1826; d. in West Hoboken, N. J., 21 May, 1881. He studied theology and philology in Bonn and Tübingen, and came to the United States in 1851. In 1854 he became professor of ancient and modern languages in Dickinson college, but he resigned in 1860 to devote himself to literature. He was a writer for the New York “Tribune” till 1869, when he undertook the editorship of the “Deutsch-amerikanisches Conversations-Lexicon” (11 vols., New York, 1869-'74). From 1874 till his death he held the office of assistant superintendent of the public schools in New York city. He was a contributor to other cyclopædias of statistical, geographical, and religious articles. He was one of the editors of the “Methodist” and of the “Methodist Quarterly Review.” He prepared, with Rev. George B. Crooks, a “Latin-English Dictionary” (Philadelphia, 1857), and published several editions of “Schem's Statistics of the World”; the “American Ecclesiastical Year-Book” (New York, 1860); the “Ecclesiastical Almanac” (1868 and 1869); and, with Henry Kiddle, a “Cyclopædia of Education” (1877), which was followed by two annual supplements called the “Year-Book of Education” (1878 and 1879).