Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Donaldson, James
DONALDSON, Sir JAMES (1831-1915), educationist, classical and patristic scholar, was born at Aberdeen 26 April 1831. Of humble parentage, he owed his education at the grammar school and university of Aberdeen to the discernment of friends who noted his early promise, and his subsequent career was due entirely to his own determination and to his genuine love of learning. After the completion of his university course he studied for some time at New College, London, with a view to entering the Congregationalist ministry; but he soon abandoned that intention and proceeded to Berlin, where he continued his classical and theological studies, devoting his attention at the same time to the psychology of education as represented by Herbart and Beneke. The impression produced upon him by German ideals of scholarship and by the systematic organization of school and university instruction in Prussia remained strong with him to the end of his life, and is reflected in his Lectures on the History of Education in Prussia and England (1874).
On his return from Germany Donaldson became assistant for two years to John Stuart Blackie, professor of Greek in the university of Edinburgh, and in 1854 was appointed rector of Stirling High School. In 1856 he returned to Edinburgh as one of the classical masters in the High School, and, after serving ten years in that capacity, was appointed rector, a position which he held till 1881. It was during his twenty-five years at the High School that most of his literary work was done. His most important book, A Critical History of Christian Literature and Doctrine from the Death of the Apostles to the Nicene Council appeared in three volumes (1864–1866). Marked by sound scholarship and impartial insight, this comprehensive survey was immediately recognized as a most valuable contribution to our knowledge of Christian thought during the period in question. There was, indeed, at that time nothing in English to compare with it, and a second edition of the first volume, The Apostolical Fathers, was called for in 1874. Another piece of work in the same field was the translation of the Ante-Nicene fathers in twenty-four volumes—‘The Ante-Nicene Christian Library’ (1867–1872)—which Donaldson edited along with Professor Alexander Roberts [q.v.].
During these years also Donaldson became widely known throughout Scotland as an educationist of enlightened views. He took an active part in the movement which resulted in the Education Act of 1872, establishing primary education in Scotland on a national and compulsory basis, and he contended warmly, both then and later, for an improvement in the status of the teachers as the foundation of a sound educational policy. In 1881 he became professor of humanity in the university of Aberdeen, and five years later (1886) he was appointed principal of the United College of St. Salvator and St. Leonard in the university of St. Andrews. On the passing of the Scottish Universities Act of 1889, he became principal and vice-chancellor of the reconstituted university. He was knighted in 1907. It was his custom at St. Andrews on the opening of each session to address the students on some topic of academic or general interest, and in 1911, after a quarter of a century in office, these addresses were gathered into a volume, Addresses delivered in the University of St. Andrews from 1886 to 1910. In the same year, at the age of eighty, he presided with a simple dignity over the ceremonies and festivities with which the university celebrated the quincentenary of its foundation, and he continued to discharge all the duties of the principalship till within a few days of his death on 9 March 1915, Other works from his pen were Expiatory and Substitutionary Sacrifices of the Greeks (1875), The Westminster Confession of Faith and the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England (1905), and Woman: Her Position and Influence in Ancient Greece and Rome, and among the Early Christians (1906).
Donaldson was twice married and twice left a widower. His son, the only child of his first marriage, also predeceased him. He had no children by his second wife.
[The Scotsman, 10 March 1915; personal knowledge.]