James Hampton Kirkland

James Hampton Kirkland
Portrait by Ella Sophonisba Hergesheimer (1938)
Born	September 9, 1859 Spartanburg, South Carolina
Died	August 5, 1939(1939-08-05) (aged 79) Ontario, Canada
Education	Wofford College University of Leipzig
Occupation	Latinist, university administrator
Spouse(s)	Mary Henderson
Children	Elizabeth Kirkland
Parent(s)	William Clark Kirkland Virginia Lawson Galluchat Kirkland

James Hampton Kirkland (September 9, 1859 – August 5, 1939) was an American Latinist and university administrator. He served as the second chancellor of Vanderbilt University from 1893 to 1937.

James Hampton Kirkland was born and raised in Spartanburg, South Carolina. His father, William Clark, was a Methodist pastor. His mother, Virginia Lawson Galluchat Kirkland, lived in Abilene, Texas, by the early 1880s.

Kirkland was educated at Wofford College in Spartanburg. Two of his teachers were William Malone Baskervill and Charles Forster Smith. It was Smith who suggested to Kirkland that he should study in Germany. As a result, he left the United States in 1883.

Kirkland enrolled at the University of Leipzig, where he studied "Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, and Anglo-Saxon". He received a PhD from the University of Leipzig in 1885. His PhD thesis was published in 1886 as a pamphlet entitled A Study of the Anglo-Saxon Poem, the Harrowing of Hell (Grein's Hollenfahrt Christi). It was an attempt to ascertain whether Cynewulf was the author of a poem entitled The Harrowing of Hell. Meanwhile, Kirkland spent a semester at Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, followed by a few months in Geneva, Switzerland, where he started learning French. He also visited Italy, Paris, and London.

Kirkland was appointed Professor of Latin at Vanderbilt University in 1886. Two of his colleagues were Baskervill and Smith, his former professors at Wofford. Another colleague was Milton W. Humphreys, a Confederate veteran who also received a PhD from the University of Leipzig. Two more colleagues had also studied at the University of Leipzig: Waller Deering and Alexander R. Hohlfeld. He edited the works of Horace, a Roman lyric poet in a collection entitled Horace: Satires and Epistles, which he published in 1893.

Meanwhile, Kirkland was appointed as chancellor in 1893. He was only thirty-three years old. According to Professor Edwin Mims, who served as the Chair of the English Department from 1912 to 1942, he was chosen for "his temperament, his training, and his personality."