Abbott Lawrence Lowell was in his tenth year as president of the university. He was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1856, the scion of a famous family. He graduated from Harvard College "cum laude" in 1877 and from Harvard Law School in 1880. After practicing law, he taught at Harvard and in 1909 began his 24-year tenure as President of Harvard University. An educational reformer, he implemented a new set of academic requirements for Harvard undergraduates that required them to concentrate in a particular discipline beginning in 1914. He established a distinctive profile as a defender of academic freedom in the years during and after World War I. His tenure was marked by controversies about his proposed establishment of a quota to limit the admission of Jewish students and his attempt to exclude African American students from residing in the freshman halls. He implemented Harvard College's residential house system in 1930 and retired in 1933. He died in 1943.