Baptist educator. Professor, Colgate University, 1888-1896; Professor, Semitic Languages and Oriental History, Cornell University. Born in Hudiksvall, Sweden, his father was a fur trader and prodigious reader. After studying for two years at Stockholm University, he came to America and spent three years at Colgate University, from which he received the degree of A.M. in 1887. He married Ellen Alfven, sister of the composer Hugo Alfven the same year. He was offered a professorship at Colgate and remained permanently in America. For 8 years he taught Semitic languages and literatures. In 1896 he began 36 years of teaching Semitic languages and Oriental history at Cornell University. He served as president of the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis in 1914 and of the American Oriental Society in 1931. The Jewish Institute of Religion in 1931 awarded him the honorary degree of D.H.L. He retired from active teaching at Cornell in 1933 and died in Ithaca, New York. (Dictionary of American Biography XXII supplement 2, 1958)