Alexander Jacob Schem (16 March 1826, in Wiedenbrück,

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...

– 21 May 1881, in

West Hoboken, New Jersey West Hoboken was a municipality that existed in Hudson County, New Jersey, from 1861 to 1925. It merged with Union Hill to form Union City on June 1, 1925. The town is notable for being the first city in which Mallomars were sold.Barron, Jam ...

) was a

German-American German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the Unite ...

writer, editor and educator.

Early life

He attended the

Paderborn Paderborn (; Westphalian: ''Patterbuorn'', also ''Paterboärn'') is a city in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, capital of the Paderborn district. The name of the city derives from the river Pader and ''Born'', an old German term for t ...

gymnasium from 1839 to 1843, and then studied theology and

philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

at the Universities of

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...

and

Tübingen Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in three ...

. He was ordained a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

priest in 1849 and served two years in

Bielefeld Bielefeld () is a city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 341,755, it is also the most populous city in the administrative region (''Regierungsbezirk'') of Detmold and the ...

. He became disillusioned with its dogma, and he separated from the Church. In 1851 emigrated to the United States.

Immigrant

In the United States, he was a tutor for a time in the home of a publisher whose oldest daughter he married in 1853. That year, he began teaching in the Collegiate Institute at

Mount Holly, New Jersey Mount Holly is a township that is the county seat of Burlington County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is an eastern suburb of Philadelphia, the nation's sixth largest city as of 2020, As of the 2020 U.S. census, the township's population w ...

. In 1854, he became professor of ancient and modern languages in Dickinson College, but he resigned in 1860 to devote himself to literature and journalism. He was a writer for the '' New York Tribune''/until 1869, when he undertook the editorship of the ''Deutsch-amerikanisches Conversations-Lexicon'' (11 vols., New York, 1869–1874). From 1874 to his death, he held the office of assistant superintendent of the public schools in New York City.

Works

Besides the ''Deutsch-amerikanisches Conversations-Lexicon'', he was a contributor to other cyclopædias of statistical, geographical, and religious articles. He was one of the editors of the ''Methodist'' and of the ''Methodist Quarterly Review''. He prepared, with

George Richard Crooks George Richard Crooks (February 3, 1822 Philadelphia – February 20, 1897) was an American Methodist minister, writer, and educator. Early career George Crooks was born in Philadelphia, the son of George R. Crooks, Sr. and Mary M. Crooks. He gr ...

, a ''Latin-English Dictionary'' (Philadelphia, 1857), and published several editions of ''Schem's Statistics of the World''; the ''American Ecclesiastical Year-Book'' (New York, 1860); the ''Ecclesiastical Almanac'' (1868 and 1869); and, with

Henry Kiddle Henry Kiddle (January 15, 1824 – September 25, 1891) was a United States educator and had an interest in spiritualism. Biography Henry Kiddle was born in Bath, Somerset, England on January 15, 1824. He came as a boy to New York City where he ...

, a ''Cyclopædia of Education'' (1877), which was followed by two annual supplements called the ''Year-Book of Education'' (1878 and 1879). He also wrote a book on the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), ''The War in the East'' (1878).

References

Sources

Biography
at chronicles.dickinson.edu {{DEFAULTSORT:Schem, Alexander Jacob 1826 births 1881 deaths American educators American editors German emigrants to the United States University of Bonn alumni University of Tübingen alumni American male writers