Benjamin Ide Wheeler was a Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 and comparative philology

Historical linguistics

Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...

 professor at Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

 as well as President of the University of California

University of California

The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...

 from 1899 to 1919.

Biography

Wheeler graduated from Brown University

Brown University

Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...

 in 1875. During the 1906 San Francisco earthquake

1906 San Francisco earthquake

The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.9; however, other...

 and fire he was a member of Mayor Eugene Schmitz

Eugene Schmitz

Eugene Edward Schmitz was an American politician and the 26th mayor of San Francisco, who became notorious for his conviction by a jury on charges of corruption.-Life and career:...

's Committee of Fifty

Committee of Fifty (1906)

This Committee of Fifty, sometimes referred to as Committee of Safety, Citizens' Committee of Fifty or Relief and Restoration Committee of Law and Order, was called into existence by Mayor Eugene Schmitz during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake...

.

Under Wheeler the University of California underwent one of its periods of greatest growth. He also expanded the powers of the president, gaining the power to appoint all faculty.

The University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

 named Wheeler Hall

Wheeler Hall

Wheeler Hall is a building on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley in Berkeley, California. Home to the English department, it was named for the philologist and university president Benjamin Ide Wheeler.The building was opened in 1917...

 in his honor. A Liberty ship

Liberty ship

Liberty ships were cargo ships built in the United States during World War II. Though British in conception, they were adapted by the U.S. as they were cheap and quick to build, and came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output. Based on vessels ordered by Britain to replace ships torpedoed by...

 was also named in his honor, the SS Benjamin Ide Wheeler.

Publications

• Der griechische Nominalaccent (1885)
• Analogy, and the Scope of its Application in Language (1887)
• Principles of Language Growth (1891)
• Introduction to the Study of the History of Language (1891)
• The Organization of Higher Education in the United States (1897)
• Dionysos and Immortality (the Ingersoll Lecture for 1898)
• Alexander the Great: The Merging of East and West in Universal History (1900)
• The Whence and Whither of the Modern Science of Language (1905)

External links

• Guide to the Benjamin Ide Wheeler Papers at The Bancroft Library