Daniel Coit Oilman 47 



into a larger devotion to many subjects more or less 

 closely related such as geography, especially physical 

 and political geography, the title of the chair which he 

 held for many years, till 1872, in the Sheffield Scientific 

 School ; political science, in which he dealt with the rela- 

 tion of the State to education, morality, and philan- 

 thropy ; social science, in which he concerned himself with 

 a wide group of subjects relating to social organization 

 and the ethical functions of citizenship, not only preacb- 

 ing the duty of understanding and answering the great 

 questions of the day, but himself putting these doctrines 

 into practice by accepting membership in societies and on 

 commissions such as the American Social Science Asso- 

 ciation and the National Civil Service Reform League 

 of many of which he became president or vice-president ; 

 and lastly, oriental languages and archaeology, serving for 

 thirteen years as the president of the Oriental Society 

 and for a number of years as vice-president of the Archae- 

 ological Institute of America. 



In his activity as speaker and lecturer within the Uni- 

 versity, I suppose that Dr. Oilman stood more closely in 

 touch with history and political science than with any 

 other single phase of the University's academic life. I do 

 not mean that he gave it thereby preference, but I do 

 mean that his own interest, outside of the field of educa- 

 tion, lay, as we have already seen, with the subjects that 

 that department represented. Outside the University he 

 was a member of the American Historical Association 

 and of the Massachusetts Historical Society; he was a 

 member of the United States Commission on the Venezuela 

 boundary, which had a problem to solve that was essen- 

 tially historical and geographical ; he was one of the seven 

 members appointed to draft the new charter for the city 

 of Baltimore, and the table at which the charter was 

 drawn stands to-day outside the door of the historical 

 seminary in this hall. Within the University he was fre- 

 quent in his offer of service to the department. He became 



