Professor Henry Coppée, LL.D., was born in 1820 and died March 21, 1895. At the time of his death he was acting president of Lehigh University, Bethleham, Pa. He graduated at Yale in 1839 and at West Point in 1845. He served in the Mexican War and was brevetted Captain for gallant service. He was professor of French at West Point for one year and of ethics for five years. He resigned from the army in 1855. Dr. Coppée was professor of English literature at the University of Pennsylvania from 1855 to 1866 and in the latter year became president of Lehigh University. He resigned in 1875, becoming professor of English literature. He was remarkably fertileas a writer. His first publication was “The Elements of Logic” (1857). This was followed by “The Elements of Rhetoric.” Other works published by him were “Grant and His Campaigns,” “Gallery of Famous Poets,” “Gallery of Distinguished Poetesses”; a compilation of “Songs of Praise in the Christian Centuries”; “English Literature Considered as an interpreter of English History.” He was the editor of the American edition of the Comte de Paris” “Guerre Civile en Amerique,” and author of “History of the Conquest of Spain by the Arab-Moors.” From 1874 he was a regent of the Smithsonian Institution.1
From the Philadelphia Inquirer. (Pa.)
By the death of Henry Coppée, acting president of Lehigh University, Pennsylvania loses a distinguished citizen, who has been active as a soldier and educator and an author. Professor Coppée”s latest literary work was his “Life of General George H. Thomas,” the great Virginia soldier whose sword was drawn to preserve the Union.2
