James M. Farr

James Marion Farr (February 4, 1874 – March 4, 1958) was an American university professor and academic administrator. Farr was a native of South Carolina, and earned bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees before beginning his career as a professor of English language and literature. He was the interim president of the University of Florida from 1927 until 1928, and also served as the university's first vice president from 1905 to 1934.

Early life and education

Farr was born in Union, South Carolina in 1874. He was the son of a Confederate infantry captain who had returned home from fighting in the Civil War to become a planter and banker. His mother died when he was two years old, and he was raised by his father and maternal grandmother. He received an "honorable discharge" from the academy in 1890, and, thereafter, continued his studies at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina. Farr earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Davidson in 1894 and was the salutatorian of his class. He subsequently earned his Master of Arts degree from Davidson in 1895. and graduated with his doctor of philosophy degree in English language in 1901.

Farr married the former Anita Nicholson Harris in 1901, and the couple had two daughters, Jane and Anita, Farr was only moderately successful as a football coach, posting a 1–2–1 record in two seasons. After the Florida Legislature, in 1905, mandated the merger of Florida Agricultural College with three other state-supported institutions to create the new University of the State of Florida located in Gainesville, Florida, Farr became a professor of English language and literature and the chairman of the new university's Department of English. (In 1909, the new university's name was shortened to the "University of Florida.")

As part of one of his first English classes at the new university, Farr implemented an honor system in 1905. Other faculty members thought the honor system was a good idea, and began to implement it in their own classes on an ad hoc basis. He wrote the letters, together with ten other professors from the universities of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, as well as Louisiana State University and Virginia Military Institute, under the rubric of the "University Commission on Race Questions," in an attempt to influence the opinions of the younger generation of Southern college students as future opinion leaders. and it fell upon him to lead the university through the world-wide influenza epidemic of 1918 when president Murphree was incapacitated with the illness. Hundreds of the university's students and faculty fell ill with the deadly "Spanish flu," and although one professor and several students died, the university was fortunate to suffer few fatalities.

Legacy

Farr died in 1958. He was one of the University of Florida's last living links to the generation that was responsible for the university's creation in 1905. Farr's unpublished manuscript, The Making of a University, provides a first-hand account of the politics surrounding the creation of the university, and serves as one of the primary sources regarding the university's early history from its inception in 1905 through his retirement in 1934.

Farr was survived by his wife and daughters.