Charles Mills Gayley

Biography

Charles Mills Gayley, born in 1858, devoted his life to the pursuit and teaching of literature at the University of California, bringing a scholar's rigor and a poet's feeling to the campus that would become Berkeley. As an educator he shaped the English department, edited textbooks, and instructed students in an era when the written word was the link between the new university and the broader culture.

He took particular delight in helping new generations find their voices, whether through oratory, English verse, or the campus pageants that combined scholarship with civic pride; his warm mentorship endured beyond the lecture hall and into the hearts of those he taught, a legacy now at rest in Mountain View Cemetery.