The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Hadley, James

HADLEY, James, American philologist: b. Fairfield, N. Y., 30 March 1821; d. New Haven, Conn., 14 Nov. 1872. When a boy he suffered an injury to his knee, which developed seriously and crippled him for life. He was graduated from Yale in 1842, took graduate studies in mathematics and also a theological course. In 1844 he was tutor at Middlebury College, Vermont, and in 1845 became a tutor at Yale. In 1848 he became assistant professor of Greek there, and in 1851 professor of Greek. He was familiar not only with Greek, Latin and the chief modern languages, but also with Hebrew, Arabic, Armenian, Gaelic, Irish, Sanskrit, Gothic and Old English, and won a high breadth of view; he also was successful and influential as a teacher. He published a ‘Greek Grammar’ (1861), based on Curtius, and wrote the “Brief History of the English Language” in the 1864 edition of Webster's ‘Dictionary’; after his death, his ‘Introduction to Roman Law’ (1873) and ‘Philological and Critical Essays’ (1873) were published.