The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Emerson, Oliver Farrar

EMERSON, Oliver Farrar, American educator: b. Traer, Iowa, 24 May 1860. He studied at Iowa College, taking a post-graduate course at Cornell University, where he received the degree of D.Ph. in 1891. After serving as superintendent of schools in Grinnell and Muscatine, Iowa, he was principal of the Academy of Iowa College (1885-88); instructor in English (1889-91) Cornell University and assistant professor of rhetoric and English philology in the same institution (1892-96), when he took the same chair in Western Reserve University. He is member of the Modern Language Association, American Dialect Society, Simplified Spelling Board, and is a regular contributor to philological papers. He has published ‘History of the English Language’ (1894); ‘A Brief History of the English Language’ (1896); an edition of ‘Dr. Jonson's Rasselas’ (1895); and ‘Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Edward Gibbon’ (1898); ‘A Middle English Reader’ (1905); ‘Poems of Chaucer’ (1911); ‘Outline History of the English Language’ (1906); and contributions to various philological journals and magazines.