MAINE, Sir HENRY • TAMES SUMNER (1822 88). An English scholar and jurist. He was burn August 15, 1822, and in 1840 he went to Pembroke College, Cambridge. After a brilliant career as student, he was made tutor in Trinity College in 1S45, and in 1847 he was appointed regins professor of civil law in the university. hIe resigned in 1854 to become reader on juris prudence in the Middle Temple. In 1862. after repeated invitations, he went to India as law member of the supreme Government. This office he filled with high distinction, his extensive knowledge of primitive peoples enabling him to introdllVe many important legislative reforms. Ile remained in India until 1809. On his return to England he elected professor of jurispru dence at Oxford, and the next year he was made a member of the Council of the Seen•tary of State for India, receiving the dignity of knighthood. In 1877 be was elected master of Trinity Ilall. Cambridge, and in 1878 he resigned his Oxford professorship. In 1887 he became professor of international law at Cambridge. His academic duties did not prevent him from residing in Lan don, where he figured as a successful journalist and as a vahied member of the Council for India.
Ile published a number of works embodying his research on the origin and development of insti tutions, the condition of primitive society, and the growth of law and legal conceptions. On these subjects he is one of the highest authori ties. The value of his contributions to science u.ls recognized by various foreign societies which elected him to membership. llis chief works are: Boman Late and Legal Education, published in t he mbridge Essays ( 1856); et neicni Law ( London. 1861) Village Communities in the East and West (London, 1871); Lectures on the Early History of Institutions (1875); Modern Theories of Succession to Property 11878): Dis se•tations on Early Lou' and Customs; and Popu lar Gocernment (1865). These works are char acterized by keenness of judgment and wide learning. He died in 1888. Consult: Duff, Sir Henry Maine: A Brief Memoir of llis Life (Lon don, 1892) ; Pollock, Oxford Lectures (Oxford, 1890).