John M. (John Mason) Tyler

Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, on May 18, 1851, John Mason Tyler was the son of Professor William Seymour Tyler. He graduated from Amherst College in 1873, earned an M.A. there in 1876, later received a Ph.D. from Colgate in 1888, and also studied in Germany at the Universities of Göttingen and Leipzig.

After teaching at Phillips Academy, Andover, and at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, he returned to Amherst College. There he served first as an instructor and then as Stone Professor of Biology, holding the chair from 1882 until 1917. His surviving papers show a long academic life shaped by lectures, manuscripts, speeches, and correspondence.

Tyler wrote widely for readers interested in both science and human meaning. Among his books are The Whence and the Whither of Man, Man in the Light of Evolution, Growth and Education, The Place of the Church in Evolution, The New Stone Age in Northern Europe, and The Coming of Man. He died in 1929.