Edward Parmelee Morris (17 September 1853 - 16 November 1938) was an American

classicist Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

Life

He was born on September 17, 1853, in Auburn, N.Y. He graduated from

Yale College Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...

in 1874, then moved to Cincinnati where his father was living. On January 2, 1879, he married Charlotte Webster Humphrey; her father was the Reverend Z.M. Humphrey and a professor at

Lane Seminary Lane Seminary, sometimes called Cincinnati Lane Seminary, and later renamed Lane Theological Seminary, was a Presbyterian theological college that operated from 1829 to 1932 in Walnut Hills, Cincinnati, Walnut Hills, Ohio, today a neighborhood ...

in Cincinnati. Humphrey and Morris had four children, Frances Humphrey (born 1880), Edward (born 1885), Margaret (born 1886), and Humphrey (born 1987). Edward died in infancy. Frances and Margaret both attended

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United St ...

. Morris died on November 16, 1938, in New York City.

Career

From 1879 to 1884, Morris taught Greek at

Drury College Drury University, formerly Drury College and originally Springfield College, is a private university in Springfield, Missouri. The university's mission statement describes itself as "church-related". It enrolls about 1,700 undergraduate and grad ...

Springfield, Missouri Springfield is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Greene County. The city's population was 169,176 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Springfield metropolitan area, which had an estimat ...

. In 1884, he became the Massachusetts Professor of Latin Language and Literature at

Williams College Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a col ...

and was first allowed a year's leave of absence, which he spent the universities of

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

and

Jena Jena () is a German city and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a popu ...

. He returned to Yale as a professor of the Latin language and literature in 1891. He became a significant influence on the work of

Arthur Leslie Wheeler Arthur is a common male given name of Brythonic origin. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. The etymology is disputed. It may derive from the Celtic ''Artos'' meaning “Bear”. Another theory, more wi ...

, who became Sather Professor at Princeton.

Honors

Morris received an L.H.D. from Williams in 1904 and a Litt.D. from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1909, on the inauguration of President

Abbott Lawrence Lowell Abbott Lawrence Lowell (December 13, 1856 – January 6, 1943) was an American educator and legal scholar. He was President of Harvard University from 1909 to 1933. With an "aristocratic sense of mission and self-certainty," Lowell cut a large f ...

Bibliography

Some of his notable books are: * ''The Captives and Trinummus of Plautus'' * '' The Mostellaria of Plautus; with explanatory notes'' * '' On principles and methods in Latin syntax'' * ''On the sentence-question in Plautus and Terence'' * ''The study of Latin in the preparatory course''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morris, Edward Parmelee American classical scholars 1853 births 1938 deaths Yale College alumni