ROYCE, Josiah. 1855-1916, American philosopher, b. Grass Valley, Calif. Pupil of William James and Charles S. Pierce. Taught philosophy, Harvard (1882-1916; professor from 1892). Wrote on mathematical logic, psychology, metaphysics, religion and social ethics; developed philosophy of Idealism emphasizing individuality and will rather than intellect.

-Merriam Webster's Biographical

Dictionary, 1995



When the Grass Valley City Council meets tonight, its members will announce the renaming of the Grass Valley Library to the Grass Valley Library - Royce Branch, in honor of Josiah Royce. His birthplace in Grass Valley is where the library stands today.

A special ceremony honoring the renaming will take place Nov. 20 at noon at Elizabeth Daniels Park. That date was chosen because it is the 150th anniversary of Royce's birth.

Who was Josiah Royce?

On Nov. 20, 1855, Josiah Royce, only son of Sarah and Josiah Royce, was born in a small frame house that once occupied the site of the present Grass Valley Library at 207 Mill St.

It was no great occurrence, just another child born into the bustling Gold Rush mining camp society. By the time Josiah was 32 years old, however, his name was quite familiar to academics and the general public, as well.

Royce was an inquisitive, precocious and fast-learning child. His mother, Sarah, operated a small private school in the family home where she also taught the boy and his four older sisters. Not only did she acquaint them with the 3Rs, but also with music, art and literature.

In 1871, at the age of 16, Josiah entered the University of California at Berkeley, where he studied under Joseph LeConte, professor of philosophy and geology. LeConte had been a student of the great Harvard naturalist Louis Agassiz. Royce credited his studies with LeConte as one of the greatest philosophical influences of his early life and no doubt provided him with a desire to associate with Harvard University.

After earning his bachelor's degree in 1875, he left for a year's study in Germany at Leipzig and Gottingen. Upon his return, he learned that University of California President Daniel Coit Gilman had been called to Baltimore to launch Johns Hopkins University.

Gilman summoned Royce, who became one of the first 20 Fellows when the new university opened for the fall semester in 1876. Two years later, he received his doctorate and returned to Berkeley to teach English and logic. Here, in 1881, he issued his first publication, "Primer of Logical Analysis for the Use of Composition Students."

His tenure as instructor lasted four years, during which time he met and married Katharine Head.

An opportunity to fill a temporary vacancy at Harvard occurred in 1882 when philosopher William James took a short leave of absence. Royce's great ability was recognized, and in 1885, he was appointed assistant professor. Thus began his 34-year association with Harvard and with James and educator George Herbert Palmer.

In 1886, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. of Boston published Royce's "California, from the Conquest in 1846 to the Second Vigilance Committee in San Francisco: A Study of American Character," a history of a young California during a formative and turbulent 10-year period.

It was by a twist of fate that Royce got the assignment to write the book. According to Royce biographer Professor Robert V. Hine of UC Riverside, "A year after Royce's arrival at Harvard ... William W. Crane, died. Crane had signed with (the publisher) to write a history of California, and with no historical training and little knowledge of the subject beyond his own California background undertook the book, which he foresaw as the first history of California written by a native son."

Even today, Royce's "California" is considered by many historians and lay persons alike as one of the sharpest interpretations of the subject period ever written. Shortly after "California" was published in the summer of 1886, Royce commenced work on his only novel, "The Feud of Oakfield Creek: A Novel of California Life." The book, published in 1887, was a comment on and description of the 1850 squatters' riots in Sacramento.

During his lifetime, he would write another dozen books and scores of articles for national magazines and scholarly journals, including the Overland Monthly, the Atlantic, Century and others.

Josiah Royce died of heart failure at his home in Cambridge on Sept. 16, 1916, two months shy of his 61st birthday.

He was one of the world's foremost creative thinkers and a pioneer in the field of metaphysics. Royce was admired by his colleagues as a philosopher without peer.

The impressionable years in Grass Valley left their mark on Royce's life and thinking to the end. In his last book, "The Hope of the Great Community," published a few months after his death, he wrote:

"My native town (Grass Valley) was a mining town in the Sierra Nevada - a place five or six years older than myself. My earliest recollections include a very frequent wonder as to what my elders meant when they said this was a new community. I frequently looked at the vestiges left by the former miners, saw that many pine logs were rotten, and that a miner's grave was to be found in a lonely place not far from my own house. Plainly, men had lived and died thereabouts. I dimly reflected that this sort of life had apparently been going on ever since men dwelt in that land. The logs and the graves looked old. The sunsets were beautiful. The wide prospects when one looked across the Sacramento Valley were impressive, and had long interested the people of whose love for my country I heard much. What was there then in this place that ought to be called new, or for that matter, crude? I wondered, and gradually came to feel that part of my life's business was to find out what all this wonder meant ... When I reviewed this whole process, I strongly feel that my deepest motives and problems have centered about the Idea of 'community,' although this idea has only come gradually into my consciousness. This was what I was intensely feeling in the days when my sisters and I looked across the Sacramento Valley, and wondered about the world beyond our mountains."

In 1931, a Himalyan Fir was planted at his birth site, now at the Grass Valley Library. A commemorative plaque was also placed there by the Quartz Parlor, No. 58, Native Sons of the Golden West and Manzanita Parlor No. 28, Native Daughters of the Golden West honoring Josiah Royce. The plaque remains but the fir did not survive.

In 1933, the Harvard Club of San Francisco placed an additional plaque at the library honoring the birthplace of "the renowned Harvard teacher and eminent American philosopher." In 1956, University of California alumni and members of the Harvard Club of San Francisco, aided by the Nevada County Historical Society, planted a small grove of red maples on library grounds. During World War II, the United States Maritime Commission honored Royce by naming a Liberty ship the SS Josiah Royce. On July 24, 2003, a program titled "Josiah Royce, An Absolute Idealist," was presented at the Empire Mine State Historic Park by the Nevada County Library. The day the program was presented was proclaimed "Josiah Royce Day" by the cities of Grass Valley and Nevada City and the County of Nevada.

Royce taught generations of students, and some who rose to prominence were Franklin D. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Helen Keller, W.E.B. DuBois and T.S. Eliot.



I am indebted to Mike Raines, curatorial assistant of the Harvard University Archives, Cambridge, Mass.; Ed Tyson, Searls History Library, Nevada City; the late Elmer Stevens, a founding father of the Nevada County Historical Society; the late Alvin Trivelpiece, Nevada County newspaperman who many years ago made me aware of Royce and his great academic accomplishments and to the Public Relations Office, UCLA. -Bob Wyckoff