The New International Encyclopædia/Davidson, Thomas (philosopher)

DAVIDSON, Thomas (1840-1900). A Scotch-American philosopher, born near Tetterangus, Scotland. He graduated in 1860 at the University of Aberdeen, removed in 1866 to Canada, and in 1867 to the United States, and in 1875 settled at Cambridge, Mass., where he was active as scholar, author, and lecturer. A close student of Thomas Aquinas, he was invited by the Pope to assist the corps of Italian professors in the preparation of a new edition of the works of that philosopher. His Philosophical System of Antonio Rosmini-Serbati (1882) was the first introduction of the latter to English readers. For many years he conducted at Keene, in the Adirondacks, a ‘summer school for culture sciences,’ and from 1898 a class of Russian Jews in New York City. His personality was large and commanding. His published works include further: a translation of the fragments of Parmenides (1869) and one of Bleek's Origin of Language (1869); A Short Account of the Niobe Group (1874); The Parthenon Frieze and Other Essays (1882); The Place of Art in Education (1886); Aristotle and Educational Ideals and A History of Education (1900).