Charles Forster Smith

Charles Forster Smith
Charles Forster Smith
Born	June 30, 1852; Abbeville County, South Carolina, U.S.
Died	August 3, 1931; Racine, Wisconsin, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Classical philologist

Charles Forster Smith (born June 30, 1852 in Abbeville County, South Carolina, died August 3, 1931 in Racine, Wisconsin) was an American classical philologist, who particularly emerged as a Thucydides researcher.

Life

Charles Forster Smith, the son of Pastor James F. Smith and his wife Julia Forster Smith, studied at Wofford College (A.B. 1872), Harvard University and then from 1874 to 1875 at the universities in Leipzig and Berlin. He then taught as a professor of Classical and German Philology at Wofford College (1875-1879) and again deepened his studies in Leipzig, where in 1881 he wrote a doctoral thesis in English for a Dr. Phil. which he was awarded.

After completing his doctorate, Smith worked at various universities in the United States: from 1881 as Professor of Latin and Greek at Williams College, from 1882 as Professor of Modern Foreign Languages at Vanderbilt University and from 1884 as Professor of Greek (from 1894 of all classical philology) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He was a longstanding board member of the American Philological Association (president in 1902/03) and in 1905/06 he was co-editor of The Classical Journal. He retired in 1917, but remained scientifically and journalistically active. In 1919, his colleagues published a commemorative publication in his honor at the University of Wisconsin.

In his research, Smith dealt with both ancient languages and modern language phenomena (for example, the dialect of the Southern States). Throughout his life, he endeavored to improve higher education in the United States, which had only enabled higher degrees in a few places during his own time as a student. Smith's research focus was the Greek historian Thucydides, about whom Smith published scientific essays, selected editions, and finally a bilingual (Greek-English) edition in the Loeb Classical Library (1919-1923), which remained in use for a long time.

Publications (selection)

   A Study of Plutarch's Life of Artaxerxes, with Especial Reference to the Sources. Leipzig, 1881 (dissertation)
   Thucydides Book VII. Boston, 1886
   Thucydides Book III. Boston, 1894
   with Campbell Bonner: Xenophon's Anabasis. The First Four Books. New York, 1905
   Greek literature. New York, 1912
   Charles Kendall Adams: a life sketch. Madison, 1924

Translations

   Gustav Hertzberg: Ancient Greece. Philadelphia/New York, 1902
   Thucydides. 4 volumes, London/New York, 1919-1923 (Loeb Classical Library)

Literature

   Classical Studies in Honor of Charles Forster Smith. Madison, 1919
   Ward W. Briggs: Smith, Charles Forster. In: Ward W. Briggs (ed.); Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists. Westport, CT/London: Greenwood Press, 1994 ISBN 978-0-313-24560-2, pp. 593f.

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External links

   Entry for Charles Forster Smith in the Database of Classical Scholars, written by Ward W. Briggs
   Charles Forster Smith in the Find a Grave database

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