ties as a trustee of the
School of Mechanical Arts established by the will of James Lick. As
president of the board, he guided its course, and was responsible for
the large plan for co-operation and co-ordination by which, with the
Wilmerding School and the Lux School (of which he was also a leading
trustee), a really great endowed industrial school under one
administrative management has been built up in San Francisco. A large
part of his energy was devoted to this end, and it became the strongest
desire of his life to see it firmly established. He also served for many
years as a trustee for Stanford University, and for a time was president
of the board. To the day of his death (in July, 1916) he was active in
the affairs of Stanford, and was also deeply interested in the
University of California. The degree of LL.D. was conferred by the
University of the Pacific, by Harvard, and by the University of
California.

From his earliest residence in San Francisco he was a loyal and devoted
supporter of the First Unitarian Church and of its Sunday-school. For
over sixty years he had charge of the Bible-class, and his influence for
spiritual and practical Christianity has been very great. He gave
himself unsparingly for the cause of religious education, and never
failed to prepare himself for his weekly ministration. For eight years
he served on the board of trustees of the church and for seven years was
moderator of the board.

Under the will of Captain Hinckley he was made a trustee of the William
and Alice Hinckley Fund, and for thirty-seven years took an active
interest in its administration. At the time of his death he was its
president. He was deeply interested in the Pacific Unitarian School for
the Ministry, and contributed munificently to its foundation and
maintenance.

Mr. Davis preserved his youth by the breadth of his sympathies. He
seemed to have something in common with everyone he met; was young with
the young. In his talks to college classes he was always happy, with a
simplicity and directness that attracted close attention, and a sense of
humor that lighted up his address.

His domestic life was very happy. His first wife, the daughter of
Captain Macondray, for many years an invalid, died in 1872. In 1875 he
married Edith King, the only daughter of Thomas Starr King, a woman of
rare personal gifts, who devoted her life to his welfare and happiness.
She died suddenly in 1909. Mr. Davis, left alone, went