He was born at
Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on September 10, 1867. He graduated from
Phillips Academy in 1886 and from
Princeton in 1889, and studied at
Princeton Theological Seminary in 1890–1891. He became active as an itinerant recruiter for the
Student Volunteer Movement (SVM) from 1889 to 1890. In 1891, he was appointed secretary of the
American Presbyterian Mission. He visited missions in
Persia,
India,
China,
Korea, and
Japan in 1896–1897, and in South America in 1909 and later made similar tours. In Princeton he was greatly influenced by
Arthur Tappan Pierson. Under his leadership, the foreign missions of the Presbyterian church became remarkably successful. Speer was specifically noted as being "obsessed" with Persia. He retired in 1937. He married Emma Doll Bailey in 1893 and, together, they had five children, one of whom, Elliot Speer (1898–1934), became headmaster of
Northfield Mount Hermon School, where he was murdered in his home on campus, on September 14, 1934. Their daughter
Margaret Bailey Speer (1900–1997) was dean of
Yenching Women's College in China in the 1930s, and headmistress of the
Shipley School from 1944 to 1965. He died on November 3, 1947, in
Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania. ==Theology==