JAMES BARR AMES (1846-1910) 



Fellow in Class III, Section 1, 1876. 



James Barr Ames was born in Boston, June 22, 184G. He was the 

 son of Samuel Tarbell Ames, and Mary Hartwell (Barr) Ames. His 

 grandfather, Jonathan Ames, was a farmer in Pepperell, Mass., whose 

 paternal progenitor, Robert Ames, came to America about the year 

 1650. James Barr Ames's maternal grandfather, for whom he was 

 named, James Barr, M.D. (Harvard 1817), was a physician of New 

 Ipswich, N. H., whose father emigrated from Scotland in 1774. 

 Samuel T. Ames, who was engaged in mercantile business in Boston, 

 moved his residence in 1847 from that city to Medford, and there 

 young Ames attended school until 1856, when the family returned 

 to Boston. There Ames attended the Brimmer School until 1858, 

 when he entered the Public Latin School, prepared for Harvard 

 College. He entered College with the Class of 1867, but on account 

 of ill health temporarily gave up his studies in his Sophomore year, 

 <3,nd, when he returned to Cambridge a year later, joined the Class of 

 1868, with which he graduated. In college he made his mark in 

 scholarship and was popular socially, but the distinction for which he 

 was perhaps best known, at that time was gained as Captain of the 

 Base Ball Nine. 



After graduation he taught for a year in Dixwell's Pri^'ate School 

 in Boston, and thereafter during the next year travelled and studied 

 in Europe. On his return in 1870 he entered the Harvard. Law 

 School. Professor Langdell had recently been made Dean of the 

 School, and had introduced important changes in administration and 

 in the methods of study, — particularly the Case Method of study 

 and teaching. Ames became a devoted adherent of the new methods, 

 and won distinction as a student, though during his course as a student 

 in the Law School, he was also giving a large part of his time to teaching 

 languages and history in Harvard College. The course of study in the 

 Law School at that time was two years, but Ames remained for a year 

 of graduate study, and immediately thereafter became Assistant 

 Professor in the School. This appointment was a departure from all 

 precedent. No one who had never practiced law had previously been 

 appointed a professor of law in Harvard, or, indeed, in any American 

 University. But the experiment proved successful, and has been 

 repeated frequently with success both at Harvard and elsewhere. 



