THOMPSON, Robert Ellis, educator, born in Lurgan, Ireland, in the spring of 1844. Coming to this country in his thirteenth year, he settled with his parents in Philadelphia, and, entering the University of Pennsylvania, was graduated in 1865, and in 1868 received the degree of A.M. In 1867 he was licensed to preach by the Reformed presbytery of Philadelphia, and in 1868 was chosen professor of Latin and mathematics in the University of Pennsylvania. He became professor of social science in 1871, and in 1881 professor of history and English literature, which chair he still holds. Since 1870 he has given instruction in political economy, and he is well known as an advocate of protection to home industry. In 1884-'5 he lectured at Harvard on protection and the tariff, and in 1886-'7 he delivered a similar course at Yale. In 1870 he became editor of the "Penn Monthly," then newly established, and continued such for ten years. In 1880 a weekly supplement of notes on current events was begun, which in October of that year was expanded into "The American," a weekly journal of literature, science, the arts, and public affairs, which is still published in Philadelphia under his editorship. In 1883-'5 he edited the first two volumes of the "Encyclopaedia Americana," a supplement to the ninth edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," but, his health failing, he was obliged to resign the remaining two volumes to other hands. In 1870 Hamilton college conferred on him the degree of Ph.D., and in 1887 he received that of S. T. D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Thompson is the author of "Social Science and National Economy" (Philadelphia, 1875 ; revised ed., 1876 ; partly rewritten, under the title of "Elements of Political Economy," 1882), and "Protection to Home Industry," his Harvard lectures (New York, 1886).