FINLEY, John Huston, American author and educator: b. Grand Ridge, jll., 19 Oct. 1863. He was educated in the public schools o Illinois, at Knox 1887, A.M. 1890, and at Johns Hopkins University. He served, 1889-92, as secretary of the State Charities Aid Association of New York, founding and editing the State Charities Record 1889 and The Charities Review 4891, and es tablishing for the first time on an adequate basis professional American literature of scien tific philanthropy. He was called to the presi dency of Knox College, 1892-99, returned to New York, 1899, to enter upon editorial work with Harper and Brothers and the S. S. Mc Clure Company, but was the next year called • to a newly established chair of politics in Princeton ' University, 1900-03. From this positidn he was elected president of the_College of the City of New York 1903-13. Under his able administration the City College not only was reorganized and moved into its magnificent new buildings on Washington Heights but be came ,a prototype of a new kind of educational institution, the municipal university supported by the city, free to the youth of the city and its function in the development of an alert, intelligent, municipal spirit. He was in 1913 the unanimous choice of the Board of Regents for President of the University of the State of New York and Commissioner of Edu cation. As the head of the entire educational system of the State he has been able to re vitalize the ancient and honored conception of its founders: the idea of areal "federation of to include all the educational and cultural institutions of the State. Mr. Finley
was Harvard University exchange lecturer at the Sorbonne, Paris, on the Hyde Foundation 1910-11. He rendered great service to the cause of industrial peace as a member of the Arbitration Board in the Eastern Railway Con troversy 1913, and to his State as chairman of the State Commission for the Blind,. 1913, and as a member of the New York Constitutional Convention Commission, 1914. In 1914 King Victor Emmanuel awarded the title of Cheva lier of the Crown of Italy to Dr. Finley in recognition of his efforts to create interest in Italian art and literature. He was also awarded the gold medal of the Conrad Malte-Brun Prize by the Geographical Society of Paris in recog nition of his book, 'The French in the Heart of America.' In the European War, he served as chairman of the committee of the Red Cross and allied subjects of the National Edu cation Association, and as colonel in charge of a Red Cross unit visited Palestine in 1918, traveling from Egypt to Jerusalem by airplane. He is a frequent contributor to educational and literary magazines, and is the author of 'Taxa tion in American States and Cities' with R. T. Ely (1888) ; 'The American Executive and Executive Methods,' with Mr. J. F. Sanderson (1908) ; 'The French in the Heart of America> (1915), and is editor-in-chief of 'Nelson's Encyclopedia.>