OBITUARY

Professor Charles Franklin Dunbar died at his home on Highland street late Monday night at the age of sixty-eight years. His death was quiet and painless. For some years he has been in feeble health, but no solicitude was felt regarding his condition until within the past fortnight. He had a son in the class of '78 and two in the class of '82.

Professor Dunbar graduated from Harvard in 1851, and, as his health did not permit of his practicing law, he bought a farm at Lexington, where he lived several years. He afterwards studied law and practiced in Boston, where his office was on Court street. He purchased an interest in the Boston Daily Advertiser and in 1862 became editor-in-chief of that paper when Charles Hale '50, the former editor, went to Egypt as United States consul. During the war the Advertiser was conservative and loyal to the Union cause, though it frequently criticised the administration. In 1870 Professor Dunbar sold his interest in the Advertiser and resigned his position as head of the paper.

After traveling abroad for a year, he accepted a professorship in economics at Harvard. He was Dean of Harvard College from 1876 to 1882 and Dean of the reorganized Faculty of Arts and Sciences from 1890 to 1895. He had great influence as Dean and was a valuable adviser to the President. He was eminently successful in administrative work and contributed so much of his energy to it that he did not reach his highest possibilities in economic science. He devoted most of his attention to finance and taxation, and especially to the financial history of the United States. He was editor-in-chief of the Quarterly Journal of Economics from its beginning until 1896, and has been an associate editor since that time. He again acted as editor-in-chief of the Advertiser during the Presidential campaign of 1884 and used his influence against Blaine.

Professor Dunbar is the author of a work on the "Theory and History of Banking," and the compiler of the "Laws of the United States on Currency and Banking." He frequently contributed articles to the Quarterly Journal of Economics, as well as to other magazines, and he was, for a time, president of the Economic Association of America. He was a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a holder of the degree of LL.D. from Harvard.