JACKSON, HENRY (1839-1921), English classical scholar, was born at Sheffield on March 12, 1839. He was educated at Cheltenham college and Trinity college, Cambridge, where he was elected fellow in 1864. From 1875 to 1906 he was praelector in ancient philosophy, acting virtually as an unofficial university reader in that subject and taking charge of candidates for that section of the second part of the classical tripos. He published an edition of Aristotle's Ethics, Book V. (1879), many papers dealing with ancient philosophy, and a book About Edwin Drood (1911 ). Probably his greatest contribution to learning was his study of Plato's "later theory of ideas" published in a series of articles in the Journal of Philology, in which he expounded a view that Plato continually reviewed the comparatively crude ideas of his earlier dialogues, and even after the Republic saw reason to criticise his own theories and alter them substantially.
But the personal qualities of the man counted far more than anything he published. He was a modern incarnation of the
Platonic Socrates, with the same extraordinary gift of inducing his pupils to think out problems for themselves by questions apparently simple but leading to depths beyond the pupil's imagination. His sympathy, his untiring energy, and his readiness to help, invoked the love and admiration of generations of Cam bridge men. As an administrator of university affairs and an educational reformer he took a prominent place and was actively concerned in the commission which dealt with Trinity college, Dublin. He was appointed Regius professor of Greek at Cam bridge in 1906, and elected vice-master of Trinity college in His distinction was officially recognized in 1908 by the grant of the Order of Merit. He died at Bournemouth on Sept. 25, 1921.
See R. St. John Parry, Henry Jackson (1926).