HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL American jurist, was born at Boston on March 8, 1841, the son of Oliver Wendell Holmes, poet and essayist. He graduated from Harvard in 1861. On the outbreak of the Civil War in that year he enlisted and served three years in the loth Mass. Volunteers, rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He was wounded three times—at Ball's Bluff, Antietam and Fredericksburg. He concluded his military career as aide-de-camp on the staff of the 6th Division, retiring in July 1864. In that year he began the study of law at Harvard, obtaining his LL.B. in 1866, and was admitted to the Suffolk (Mass.) bar on March 4, 1867. He practised law in Boston, and in 187o was appointed instructor in constitutional law at Harvard, at the same time becoming editor of The American Law Review, which latter position he held for three years. In 1871-72 he was university lecturer in jurisprudence. In 1873 he edited the 12th edition of Kent's Commentaries, since recognized as the standard edition. In the same year he became a member of the firm of Shattuck, Holmes and Munroe and engaged in an active practice.
In 1880 Holmes was appointed lecturer on common law at the Lowell Institute. His articles in The American Law Review con tained the germs of the lectures which he delivered before the institute and these in turn, in an amplified form, were published in 1881, under the title The Common Law. The object of the work was to present a general view of the common law, and this was done with a wealth of illustration, a charm of language and a clarity of reasoning which, apart from the erudition displayed, gave Holmes an international reputation. In 1882 he was ap pointed professor of law at the Harvard Law school, but resigned to accept an appointment on Dec. 8 of the same year as associate justice of the supreme court of Massachusetts. This position he occupied for 17 years, becoming chief justice on Aug. 2, 1899. On Dec. 4, 1902, he became an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. As a judge he has uniformly favoured a liberal interpretation of the constitution and his opinions have been conspicuous for their literary style and epigrammatic force. In 1924 he was awarded the Roosevelt Memorial Association medal for the development of public law. In addition to the works already mentioned he published in 1891 a small volume of Speeches, reissued with additions in 1913, and Collected Legal Papers (1920). He died March 6,