ABSTRACT

The philosopher Morris Raphael Cohen was born in Minsk, Russia, in 1880, the son of Abraham Cohen and Bessie Cohen. He went through elementary and high school in three years, winning a gold medal for excellence in mathematics on graduation. He entered the College of the City of New York, from which he was to receive his B.S. degree in 1900 and with which he was to be associated for the greater part of his remaining life. His posthumous and unfinished autobiography, A Dreamer's Journey, was described by Felix Frankfurter as "an effort, and a triumphal one, as was Morris Cohen's whole life, after things that are of perennial value." Many people, who do not know it or know no more of it than its name or the name of its author, are capable, it seems to the author, both of enjoying and learning from A Dreamer's Journey.