[1] In 1900, he received a PhD from Yale University for a dissertation on The Birds in Old English Literature.

In the same year, he completed a translation of Cynewulf's The Christ, a companion to Yale professor Albert Stanburrough Cook's critical edition of the poem.

He was invited to Rutgers University in 1906, and accepted the chair of its English department in 1911, a position he maintained until his death.

His tenure saw many reforms, most importantly the creation of a graduate program, the doubling in size of the faculty, and a transition from declamation to composition and analysis.

[1] He died from a coronary thrombosis on December 27, 1937, at his home in Highland Park, New Jersey.