WHISTLER
WHITE
been of assistance in the compilation of
this work. He states that he was " con
verted from Christianity by reading New
man, Mill, Darwin, Spencer, etc." During
some twenty years he was a frequent and
solid contributor to the current Freethought
periodicals the National Reformer, Secu
larist, Seciilar Chronicle, Liberal, Progress,
and Freethinker. He was sub-editor of
the Freethinker from 1882 onward, and he
wrote Frauds and Follies of the Fathers
(1888), Footsteps of the Past, and, in con
junction with G. W. Foote, Crimes of
Christianity. Sometimes he wrote over
the pseudonyms " Laon " and " Lucianus."
For some years ho was a Vice-President of
the National Secular Society. He was an
Atheist. D. May 5, 1898.
WHISTLER, James M Neill, painter. B. 1833 (America). Ed. West Point Military Academy. Whistler was the son of a major of the American army. After a short period of chart-making in a Govern ment office he turned to art, and went to Paris to study under Gleyre in 1857. He soon attained great distinction as an etcher, and in later years his paintings were generally held to give him a very high position. His art was warmly disputed, and in 1878 he succeeded in a libel action against Euskin for his contemptuous criticisms, but was awarded only one farthing damages. It is, however, enough now to state that Whistler was an Officer of the Legion of Honour, a member of the Societe Nationale des Artistes Fra^ais, honorary member of the Roman Royal Academy of St. Luke, Commander of the Order of the Crown of Italy, Chevalier of the Order of St. Michael, and honorary member of the Royal Academies of Bavaria and Dresden. He wrote The Gentle Art of Making Enemies (1890) and a few other light-hearted works. Whistler discarded Christianity in his student days at Paris. Armstrong describes him in his Reminis cences as conspicuous for singing irreligious songs and turning the Bible into ridicule. D. July 17, 1903.
WHITE, Professor Andrew Dickson,
M.A., LL.D., Ph.D., L.H.D., D.C.L., American diplomatist and writer. B. Nov. 7, 1832. Ed. Yale University, the Sor- bonne and College do France, and Berlin and Jena Universities. White had a brilliant scholastic career. At Yale, where he graduated in arts, he won the literature and De Forest gold medals and the first Clark Prize. He then had a post-graduate course at Paris and in Germany, graduating in philosophy at Jena. Five universities later conferred on him the degree of LL.D., and his D.C.L. is from Oxford University. He entered the diplomatic world in 1854 as attache at St. Petersburg, but in 1857 he was appointed professor of history and English literature at Michigan University. In 1863 he was elected State- Senator, and for several years he did most important work for the educational system of America. In 1866 he was chosen first President of Cornell University, and he at the same time occupied the chair of modern history there. He gave $300,000 to Cornell University, and later presented it with a library of 40,000 volumes. In 1871 he was appointed United States Commis sioner to Santo Domingo. He was Chair man of the Jury of Public Instruction at the Philadelphia Exposition in 1876, and Honorary Commissioner for the United States at the Paris Exhibition 1878. From 1879 to 1881 he was the American minister to Germany ; from 1892 to 1894 minister to St. Petersburg ; in 1895-96 member of the Venezuelan Commission ; from 1897 to 1903 again minister at Berlin, and President of the American delegation at the Hague Conference. He was a Trustee of Cornell University and the Carnegie Institution, Regent of the Smithsonian Institution, Officer of the Legion of Honour, Gold Medallist of the Prussian Arts and Sciences, honorary member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Berlin, President of the American Historical Society and the American Social Science Association, and honorary member of the Berlin Royal Academy of Sciences. Coming from one 886
