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====== 302. Thomas Day Seymour ====== | ====== 302. Thomas Day Seymour ====== | ||
- | //This page is a placeholder added on 28 Sep 2014. It will be filled in later when the relevant page(s) are scanned. --jds// | + | 302. THOMAS DAY< |
+ | (//[[237.nathan_perkins|Nathan Perkins]]//< | ||
+ | // | ||
+ | // | ||
+ | // | ||
+ | born at Hudson, Ohio, 1 Apr. 1848, died at New Haven, Conn., 31 Dec. 1907; | ||
+ | married at Michigan City, Ind., 2 July 1874, SARAH MELISSA< | ||
+ | HITCHCOCK, born at Columbus, Ohio, 27 Sept. 1846, died 20 Mar. 1916, daughter of | ||
+ | Rev. Dr. Henry Lawrence< | ||
+ | John< | ||
- | **If you have an interest in this person, //please// [[:contact me]] and I will make an effort | + | Hudson, Ohio, at the time of Seymour' |
+ | life, dominated by Western Reserve College, the "Yale of the West," where his | ||
+ | father was professor of Greek and Latin. The character of the boy developed | ||
+ | under the influence of the finest of the Puritan characteristics: | ||
+ | sacrifice, thrift, the dignity of unremitting labor, intense but reserved | ||
+ | religious devotion. He was also subject to the intellectual and aesthetic | ||
+ | atmosphere of the College. Brought up in the midst of books, for his father' | ||
+ | library was at one time " | ||
+ | "great worker, with a passion for accuracy," | ||
+ | knowledge of the best literature. Studious and reserved in manner, he always | ||
+ | longed for travel and new experience. At the age of sixteen he came to Hartford, | ||
+ | Connecticut, | ||
+ | Christian Commission, was attached to Grant' | ||
+ | Richmond immediately after Lee's surrender. He returned to Hudson, entered | ||
+ | Western Reserve in 1866, graduating four years later as valedictorian of his | ||
+ | class. In college his social instincts expanded; he was a prominent member of | ||
+ | the Glee Club and of Alpha Delta Phi. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The young Seymour hesitated between the ministry and a life of scholarship. His | ||
+ | love of the classics decided the problem and led him to seek the best | ||
+ | instruction then available in the world, in the German universities. After | ||
+ | receiving an honorary B.A. from Yale, a rare distinction, | ||
+ | September, 1870, on to Berlin for the second semester, and back to Leipzig again | ||
+ | in the autumn of 1871. He not merely studied under the greatest classical | ||
+ | scholars of the day, but travelled afoot in the Black Forest and Switzerland, | ||
+ | stayed in Paris, visited Italy, and in the spring of 1872 made his first trip | ||
+ | through Greece. The adventures he and his friend D'Ooge experienced in the Greek | ||
+ | interior, then infested with bandits, were such that the American minister | ||
+ | regarded their safe return as an event of sufficient importance to be made the | ||
+ | subject of a special despatch to his government. | ||
+ | |||
+ | In the autumn of 1872 Seymour returned to Hudson to be Professor of Greek, a | ||
+ | position to which he had been elected two years previously and which he was to | ||
+ | hold until 1880. He threw himself into the routine drudgery of the Western | ||
+ | Reserve faculty with enthusiasm and at once captured the affection of his | ||
+ | students. But he was by no means content to meet routine obligations in a narrow | ||
+ | academic circle; he sought always the companionship of scholars throughout the | ||
+ | nation. He became a member of the American Philological Association, | ||
+ | its annual meetings with regularity. He thus formed close friendships with the | ||
+ | leading classicists of America and began to exert marked influence upon | ||
+ | philological studies. In 1880, at the age of 32, he was called to Yale as | ||
+ | Professor of the Greek Language and Literature. | ||
+ | |||
+ | For the following twenty-seven years Seymour' | ||
+ | Yale College. With the untimely death of Packard, in 1884, he became head of the | ||
+ | Greek Department, and took an active part in faculty debates on the curriculum | ||
+ | and on college management. He offered courses to seniors, juniors, and graduate | ||
+ | students over a wide range of study: Homer, Pindar, Greek tragedy, Thucydides, | ||
+ | Plato and Aristotle, Demosthenes and Isocrates, Theocritus, the Septuagint, the | ||
+ | New Testament, Bacchylides, | ||
+ | companion. He carried some part of the text with him when he travelled, whether | ||
+ | on the train or on the steamer, and reread it constantly. The // | ||
+ | made a practice of reading every summer as he did the entire //Iliad// and | ||
+ | // | ||
+ | almost by heart. "He was," wrote the classical authority, John Williams White, | ||
+ | "the best Homeric scholar that America has produced." | ||
+ | study and inter-pretations of Homer were numerous. In the last year of his life | ||
+ | he published //Life in the Homeric Age,// his largest single contribution to | ||
+ | knowledge and that upon which his fame as scholar chiefly rests. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Seymour taught continuously until his death in 1907 without taking an entire | ||
+ | year's leave of absence; only twice did he allow himself to discontinue his | ||
+ | teaching to go abroad in March. He carried a schedule which today would be | ||
+ | regarded as impossible. One year he taught twenty-four hours a week, setting the | ||
+ | hours for one of his graduate courses from ten in the evening until midnight. "I | ||
+ | have always been impressed," | ||
+ | industry, a capacity and passion for work, but this consecration to hard work | ||
+ | was not at all slavish or mechanical. Into it he put discrimination and | ||
+ | intelligent enthusiasm and buoyancy of spirit. This joyous industry was natural | ||
+ | to him." To his teaching duties he added a vast amount of administrative work, | ||
+ | for in those days the Yale College faculty decided and administered its | ||
+ | educational policy. It was said that he had never refused service upon a | ||
+ | committee. For years he was chairman of the Committee on Admissions, and served | ||
+ | as Yale representative on the larger New England Committee. He organized the | ||
+ | Classical Club at Yale and was largely responsible for the growth of its | ||
+ | library. His interests transcended his special field. Because of his love of | ||
+ | music he worked with Dr. Stoeckel for the development of the college choir, was | ||
+ | largely responsible for the organization of the School of Music and the choice | ||
+ | of Horatio Parker as its first Dean. He assisted in the editing of the College | ||
+ | Hymnal and served for a long time as chairman of the committee to choose college | ||
+ | preachers. | ||
+ | |||
+ | His activities in the general world of classical scholarship were constant. He | ||
+ | was one of the editors of the //Classical Review,// joined with Packard and | ||
+ | White in editing the college series of Greek authors, and was influential in the | ||
+ | founding of the American School at Athens. He was chairman of the managing | ||
+ | committee of the School from 1887 to 1902, a period of rapid and successful | ||
+ | development. In 1903 he became president of the Archaeological Institute of | ||
+ | America, a position he held until his death. It is certain that his range of | ||
+ | personal friendship with classical students, young and old, was wider than that | ||
+ | of any other American. He gave summer courses in Chautauqua, Chicago, and | ||
+ | California. Four summers and two half-years he spent in Europe, primarily as | ||
+ | student rather than tourist, for he never took a vacation. He never lost his | ||
+ | eagerness to learn. He loved to visit the foreign universities, | ||
+ | professors, listen to their lectures. In Greece he visited the excavations and | ||
+ | was never deterred by any hardships incidental to travel. In 1894 his alma | ||
+ | mater, Western Reserve, gave him the degree of LL.D. The same degree was given | ||
+ | him in 1901 by Glasgow University and in 1906 by Harvard. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Professor Seymour was delicate as a boy because of a severe attack of rheumatic | ||
+ | fever. This he overcame so that in manhood he enjoyed a fine constitution, | ||
+ | made possible his prodigious industry. He was woefully near-sighted and thus | ||
+ | prevented from playing ball or tennis or golf. Walking he enjoyed and always | ||
+ | looked back to his early trips in the White Mountains and Switzerland as the | ||
+ | recreation he enjoyed most. He stood six feet in his stockings, although at the | ||
+ | end of his life he acquired the scholar' | ||
+ | reason of his beard, which he wore long, and early greyness, he looked much | ||
+ | older than his years, and took whimsical delight in posing as a patriarch. His | ||
+ | health was such that he never missed a class exercise by reason of illness until | ||
+ | his last. He was struck by grippe on Thanksgiving Day, 1907, just as his //Life | ||
+ | in the Homeric Age// was published. He was unable to throw off the attack, which | ||
+ | after four weeks developed into pneumonia. He died on December 31, 1907. His | ||
+ | mind wandered during his last days and he imagined himself to be back in Athens | ||
+ | in company with his friends of the Archaeological Institute, and almost his last | ||
+ | words referred to the beauty of the Acropolis in the early morning light. | ||
+ | |||
+ | He was married July 2, 1874, to Sarah Melissa Hitchcock, daughter of President | ||
+ | Hitchcock of Western Reserve. There existed between them an understanding so | ||
+ | perfect that it was instinctive for the children to assume that no matter what | ||
+ | the problem their parents looked at it in the same light. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Apart from the range and depth of his scholarship Professor Seymour' | ||
+ | striking trait was his love of human companionship and the vivid interest | ||
+ | took in the problems of those he met. He was not a ready " | ||
+ | casual club life, and when out of his habitual surroundings gave the appearance | ||
+ | of reserve or shyness. But with his intimates and with those who he felt shared | ||
+ | his own tastes he expanded into a beaming geniality illuminated by a keen sense | ||
+ | of humor. He loved group games, group singing, general conversation. Human | ||
+ | institutions were for him of vital importance, and of all the family was the | ||
+ | most important. He came home regularly for three meals a day and every member of | ||
+ | the family was expected to be prompt. Cheerfulness and interest in what the | ||
+ | others were doing he took as a matter of course from each of his children. | ||
+ | Sunday afternoons he read aloud regularly; as the children grew older the Greek | ||
+ | New Testament, especially Acts and the Epistles, were read by the family, the | ||
+ | children translating and he himself interpreting. Every Sunday evening he held | ||
+ | regular family prayers where a psalm would be repeated in unison and three hymns | ||
+ | sung in parts. Family festivals, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, were | ||
+ | carefully observed. He delighted in large family gatherings. Any cousins in | ||
+ | Yale, no matter how distant, he invited to the house, some of them never failing | ||
+ | to appear for Sunday dinner. Relatives and even friends of relatives were | ||
+ | accepted at the house for long visits. Frequently his children would murmur | ||
+ | among themselves, not caring for some of the visitors; but they were never | ||
+ | allowed to express anything but pleasure when a visitor appeared. Foreign | ||
+ | scholars frequently stayed at the house, on their visits to this country, and | ||
+ | the guest book showed an extraordinary range of acquaintanceships. Students who | ||
+ | could not go home for vacation, especially the poorer graduate students, would | ||
+ | be brought in to family meals. Professor Seymour was able to live thus sociably | ||
+ | and yet carry on his work through rare powers of concentration. His | ||
+ | correspondence was large and he wrote his letters by hand. Regu-larly after a | ||
+ | meal he would sit down in the library, entering into family conversation freely | ||
+ | while at the same time he wrote his letters with lightning speed and clear | ||
+ | chirography. | ||
+ | |||
+ | With strong likes and dislikes, Professor Seymour had absolute control of his | ||
+ | temper and never permitted himself or anyone about him to impute unworthy | ||
+ | motives to anyone else. His son, to the day of his father' | ||
+ | criticism of a man or woman, although the elder Seymour would at times criticize | ||
+ | qualities in the abstract with vehemence. But generally he expressed himself by | ||
+ | praise. His favorite character in Theophrastus was "The Magnanimous Man," and | ||
+ | his love of largeness of spirit was a salient trait. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The following reminiscences are provided by his daughter, Mrs. Angel: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | He was devoted to the //family,// to his forbears and to all his own generation. | ||
+ | The word " | ||
+ | welcomed cousins to his home with the greatest happiness; indeed the strongest | ||
+ | reason for his rejoicing in the large house on Hillhouse Avenue was that he | ||
+ | could ask relatives there freely. His children never heard adverse criticism of | ||
+ | relatives, never the smallest hint even. This was characteristic of him in | ||
+ | general, too, that he seldom expressed before his family any disapproval of | ||
+ | others, whoever they were. We were told that he was known as "the peacemaker" | ||
+ | the Yale Faculty. He loved geniality, and it irked him to feel a lack of this in | ||
+ | others. He kept himself to a routine of hard work, home for three meals a day, | ||
+ | at work three sessions in college, in class or in his " | ||
+ | first in North College, one of the old Brick Row, then in Phelps Hall. He would | ||
+ | normally work there until ten o' | ||
+ | Club" had a meeting, or there was a concert to go to, or an occasional dinner | ||
+ | party. He used to say that one had to run always in order not to drop behind. He | ||
+ | took no regular exercise. He had enjoyed rowing, and used to take his children | ||
+ | when they were small out on Lake Whitney. About 1898 or 1899 he bought a second | ||
+ | hand bicycle, heavy with solid tires, and would take small rides on it before | ||
+ | breakfast. He said it had to be at that hour because it shied at traffic. As a | ||
+ | young man, he had been a good walker, and used to take his vacations from home | ||
+ | in that way, walking with other Philologists in the White Mountains. He always | ||
+ | walked to and from home to college, which amounted to about three miles a day in | ||
+ | the last years of his life. | ||
+ | |||
+ | He had almost no relaxations—except concerts or evenings with friends | ||
+ | occasionally. On his trips to Europe, particularly to Greece, he was always | ||
+ | reading Greek on shipboard and in trains. Homer he read through every summer, | ||
+ | one of his greatest pleasures. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Music was dear to him. In his early years at Yale, he sang with his wife in a | ||
+ | choral society but by the time Horatio Parker was conducting his Oratorio | ||
+ | Society, he said his voice was gone, and he was too busy. It is my impression | ||
+ | that it was he chiefly who was responsible for bringing Chamber Concerts to New | ||
+ | Haven (The Kneisel and the Beethoven Quartettes) in the North Sheffield Hall, | ||
+ | and also that it was he who helped to start the Music department at Yale and to | ||
+ | bring Horatio Parker there. | ||
+ | |||
+ | He loved to read aloud, translating Plato and Homer to his family. There was | ||
+ | astonishment in our family once when the wife of a visiting Greek professor | ||
+ | confessed that she did not know what Greek authors her husband loved most; this | ||
+ | would have been impossible in our family. | ||
+ | |||
+ | He was always courteous even to bores. He was genuinely glad to see returning | ||
+ | students and even let himself be imposed upon, as when a stranger, after | ||
+ | breaking into a busy morning with an hour of purposeless talk, rose and said, "I | ||
+ | really didn't know what to do with my time until I had to go to my train, but it | ||
+ | has been very pleasant." | ||
+ | |||
+ | He always liked old people, thoroughly enjoyed—and was amused, as his family | ||
+ | were not—at being called " | ||
+ | be 60, yet many think of him as having been a patriarch. At Commencement time he | ||
+ | would often fall in line with the early graduates in the procession, and felt | ||
+ | that they took him into their group as a contemporary. | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | We include herein a picture of Professor Seymour as a Senior at Western Reserve, | ||
+ | also one from a painting owned by his son, showing him in his later years, as | ||
+ | well as one taken in his study at Phelps Hall. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ^ Children: ^^^ | ||
+ | | i. | ELIZABETH DAY< | ||
+ | | | I. | John Lawrence< | ||
+ | | | II. | Henry Seymour, b. in London, Eng., 20 Jan. 1919; educated at The Choate School, Wallingford: | ||
+ | | ii. | CLARA HITCHCOCK, b. 28 Mar. 1880; m. at New Haven, 23 June 1906, GEORGE CLAIR ST. JOHN, b. at Simsbury, Conn., 29 Sept. 1877, son of Edward Francis and Charlotte Elizabeth (Cush-man) St. John. Children, first three b. at New Haven, fourth at Wallingford, | ||
+ | | | I. | Elizabeth Seymour< | ||
+ | | | II. | George Clair, b. 3 Dec. 1910; m. at Islip, L.I., 19 Dec. 1936, Nancy Hoyt, dau. of Edwin Chase and Maria (Moran). He studied at Le Rosey, Rolle, Switzerland, | ||
+ | | | III. | Seymour, b. 28 Feb. 1912; m. in Abington Church, Virginia, 20 June 1936, Margaret Gordon Spencer, dau. of Dr. John Blair and Susan (Gordon). He studied at Le Rosey, Rolle, Switzerland, | ||
+ | | | IV. | Francis Cushman, b. 31 July 1916. He studied at LeRosey, Rolle, Switzerland, | ||
+ | | iii. | CHARLES, b. 1 Jan. 1885; m. 4 May 1911, GLADYS MARION WATKINS, b. at Pittston, Pa., 22 Sept. 1887, dau. of Thomas Hamer and Elizabeth Atwater (Law). | ||
+ | | | I. | Charles< | ||
+ | | | II. | Elizabeth Atwater, b. 10 Feb. 1914. Studied at Rosemary Hall; Cours Maintenon, Cannes, France; and in Paris. Secretary and assistant sales manager of Studio House and in 1938 assistant director of Federal Art Project of Washington, D.C. | | ||
+ | | | III. | Sarah, b. 4 July 1920. Studied at Cours Maintenon, Cannes, France, and at the Westover School. Student in Vassar College in the class of 1942. | | ||
+ | |||
+ | **ELIZABETH DAY< | ||
+ | displayed an interest in and rare capacity for the study of the Greek language | ||
+ | and literature, obviously inherited from her father. She entered Bryn Mawr with | ||
+ | the class of 1897 and graduated with high honors. Her interest in Greek was such | ||
+ | that she completed the work for the M.A. during her senior year and took the | ||
+ | degree at the same time with the B.A. She had her father' | ||
+ | but lacked the physical stamina sufficient | ||
+ | 1905 she went out to Lake Erie College to teach classics. Her love for teaching | ||
+ | was ineradicable. Her younger brother early discovered that he could bribe her | ||
+ | to do anything he wanted merely by promising that he would let her help him in | ||
+ | the preparation of his Greek lesson. Her health proved unequal to more than two | ||
+ | years of this work. She continued her classical studies, travelled abroad, and | ||
+ | in Greece met the English sculptor, John Angel, whom she married in 1914. They | ||
+ | lived in England until after the War, when they moved to New York, where he was | ||
+ | commissioned by Ralph Adams Cram to undertake sculptures on the Cathedral of St. | ||
+ | John the Divine. When other commissions followed he became an American citizen | ||
+ | and they made their permanent home in New York. In all respects she resembled | ||
+ | her father more closely than the other children, not merely in her scholarly | ||
+ | instincts but in her pleasure in group gatherings. Nothing is more remarkable | ||
+ | than her capacity, having started from a strongly Puritan point of view, to mix | ||
+ | with the variegated artistic circles into which her married life threw her. She | ||
+ | writes of herself: "She always loved Greek language and literature, and got | ||
+ | constant pleasure from it. The only reason this could come in as a | ||
+ | characteristic point is that so far it represents the only classical inheritance | ||
+ | from N. P. Seymour and T. D. Seymour, and that it took the place with her of an | ||
+ | intense love of music in other members of the family." | ||
+ | |||
+ | John Angel is a sculptor of distinction. An Englishman by birth, he was educated | ||
+ | in Exeter, and in Lambeth and Royal Academy | ||
+ | |||
+ | Schools of Art, London. He won prizes and scholarships in the Royal Academy, and | ||
+ | finally, in 1912, the Gold Medal travelling scholarship, | ||
+ | study in Greece, Italy, and France. Excepting the year 1912, he was assistant to | ||
+ | Sir George Frampton from 1908 to 1914. | ||
+ | |||
+ | //Work in England:// Exeter War Memorial; Bridgewater War Memorial; Rotherham, | ||
+ | Yorkshire, Memorial; Madonna for Pusey House College, Oxford; Madonna for St. | ||
+ | Mary' | ||
+ | Exeter Art Museum, and in private collections. Fellow of Royal Society of | ||
+ | British Sculptors, member of Art Workers' | ||
+ | etc. | ||
+ | |||
+ | He came to the United States, Nov. 1925, and March 1936 became an American | ||
+ | citizen. //Work in America:// In Cathedral of St. John the Divine, eight | ||
+ | statuettes in Baptistry; in North Tower portal, nine martyr saints, eight feet | ||
+ | high, each with pedestal on which is relief with scenes from the saint' | ||
+ | eight Sibyls, thirty angels; three tympana in high relief, representing the | ||
+ | Crucifixion, | ||
+ | portal, the large granite figure of Archangel Michael; in South Tower portal, | ||
+ | St. Paul for trumeau, an angel, three tympana representing the Nativity, the | ||
+ | Annunciation, | ||
+ | tympanum of Majestas, west portal, and tympanum of Annunciation, | ||
+ | In Pittsburgh, East Liberty Presbyterian church, Last Supper, in marble, and | ||
+ | four saints. In St. Louis, Mo., Desloges Hospital chapel, panel of Crucifixion. | ||
+ | In St. Paul's School, Concord, N. H., panel of Christ among the doctors, and | ||
+ | figure of St. Paul. Rice Institute, Texas, figure of William Marsh Rice. | ||
+ | Vincennes, Ind., George Rogers Clark Memorial, granite figure of Francis Vigo. | ||
+ | Chicago, Ill., twelve-foot figure of Alexander Hamilton. | ||
+ | of Stephen F. Austin. | ||
+ | |||
+ | He received the honorary degree of Litt.D. from Columbia University, June 1936. | ||
+ | Member of the Century Club, the Architectural League, the Sculptors' | ||
+ | Mediaeval Academy of America. Home, 468 Riverside Drive, New York City. | ||
+ | |||
+ | **CLARA (SEYMOUR)< | ||
+ | through school and college with the highest honors. She graduated from Bryn Mawr | ||
+ | in 1900. She did not have the intense love of the classics of her sister but | ||
+ | handled them, as she handled any intellectual subject, with rare ability. Her | ||
+ | mind was sharp and clear, she had uncanny rapidity of apprehension, | ||
+ | expressed herself in beautifully written English. Her Bryn Mawr professors said | ||
+ | that she could have become a first-rate scholar in any subject she chose. | ||
+ | Probably the most brilliant of any of the line of Charles Seymour of Hartford, | ||
+ | not excepting her father, T. D. Seymour, she would have made a first-rate | ||
+ | business executive or corporation lawyer. Instead she married George C. St. John | ||
+ | in 1906, and with him set out to build up The Choate School in Wallingford. Its | ||
+ | influence in the larger Eastern universities has become notable. In this process | ||
+ | Mrs. St. John has naturally remained in the background; but her influence with | ||
+ | the boys, with the faculty, and with the visiting parents is a matter of general | ||
+ | knowledge. | ||
+ | |||
+ | George Clair St. John was a native of Simsbury, Connecticut, | ||
+ | Francis St. John, a farmer, and Charlotte Elizabeth Cushman, and was born in the | ||
+ | house where his father and grandfather had also been born. He is a descendant of | ||
+ | Robert Cushman, who was business manager of the Mayflower Expedition, and of his | ||
+ | son, the Ruling Elder, Thomas Cushman, who lived in the home of Governor | ||
+ | Bradford, and his wife Mary Allerton, who lived to be the last survivor of the | ||
+ | Mayflower. He was graduated from the Hartford High School in 1898, and from | ||
+ | Harvard College in 1902. He taught English at the Hill School 1902-1903, the | ||
+ | Adirondack-Florida School in 1903-1907, the Hackley School in 1907-1908; and | ||
+ | since 1908 has been Headmaster of The Choate School, Wallingford, | ||
+ | He was ordained Deacon in the Episcopal Church in 1926, and Priest in 1928; | ||
+ | received the honorary degree of M.A. from Williams College in 1933, and of LL.D. | ||
+ | from Pittsburgh University in 1933. He is a member of the National Institute of | ||
+ | Social Sciences, of the Harvard Club of Boston, the Graduate Club of New Haven, | ||
+ | and the Century Club of New York. | ||
+ | |||
+ | **CHARLES< | ||
+ | the Greek scholar and head of the Yale Classical Department, Thomas Day Seymour, | ||
+ | grandnephew of a president of Yale, and descendant of an earlier president, | ||
+ | Thomas Clap, was reared in an atmosphere of learning. He prepared for college at | ||
+ | Hillhouse High School, New Haven, and went from there to Kings College, Cam | ||
+ | |||
+ | bridge, England, from which he received the degree of B.A. in 1904 at the early | ||
+ | age of nineteen. He then entered Yale (B.A., 1908), where he rowed on his class | ||
+ | crew, was manager of the varsity crew, president of the City Government Club, | ||
+ | and a member, like his father and grandfather, | ||
+ | member of Phi Beta Kappa and in senior year won the De Forest medal for oratory. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Following graduation Seymour travelled in Europe, studied history at the | ||
+ | Sorbonne in Paris and in 1909 received his M.A. degree from Cambridge | ||
+ | University. He returned to the Yale Graduate School to complete his historical | ||
+ | studies and in 1911 was given his Ph.D. Appointed instructor in history at Yale | ||
+ | in 1911, he was promoted to assistant professor in 1915 and professor in 1918. | ||
+ | Later he received the honorary degree of Litt.D. from Western Reserve and from | ||
+ | Columbia, and of LL.D. from Trinity, from Princeton, and from Harvard. In 1915 | ||
+ | he published his first book, //Electoral Reform in England and Wales// and the | ||
+ | following year //The Diplomatic Background of the War.// He was married May 4, | ||
+ | 1911 to Gladys Marion Watkins, daughter of Thomas H. Watkins of Scranton, | ||
+ | Pennsylvania, | ||
+ | Commission. | ||
+ | |||
+ | After American intervention in the world war Seymour was appointed to the House | ||
+ | // | ||
+ | special assistant in the Department of State. After the Armistice he accompanied | ||
+ | President Wilson to the conference as chief of the Austro-Hungarian Division of | ||
+ | the American Commission to Negotiate Peace. Later he served as United States | ||
+ | delegate on the Rumanian and Jugoslav and the Czechoslovak Territorial | ||
+ | Commissions. In those capacities he came in close contact with European | ||
+ | diplomatists and political leaders. He returned at the end of the conference to | ||
+ | his professorship at Yale. | ||
+ | |||
+ | When in 1922 Colonel House presented his papers to Yale, Seymour was appointed | ||
+ | Curator of the collection and thereafter for fifteen years devoted himself to | ||
+ | the study of the foreign relations of the United States during the period of the | ||
+ | world war, although his undergraduate lectures and his graduate seminars dealt | ||
+ | with European diplomacy from 1871. In 1921 he published //Woodrow Wilson and the | ||
+ | World War// and edited //What Really Happened at Paris,// the latter in | ||
+ | collaboration with Colonel House. There followed //The Intimate Papers of | ||
+ | Colonel House,// 4 vols. (1926-28) ; //American Diplomacy during the World War// | ||
+ | (1933); and //American Neutrality, 1914-1917// (1935). He published also papers | ||
+ | and occasional articles on historical topics. An honorary fellow of King' | ||
+ | College, Cambridge, fellow of the Royal Historical Society, fellow of the | ||
+ | American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he became a member of the board of | ||
+ | editors of the //American Historical Review// and an advisory editor of | ||
+ | //Foreign Affairs//. He is a member of the Century Club and an honorary member | ||
+ | of the Society of the Cincinnati. He is also a director of the Second National | ||
+ | Bank of New Haven. | ||
+ | |||
+ | In 1927 Seymour was appointed Provost of Yale University, in which position he | ||
+ | was especially interested in the development of the undergraduate colleges | ||
+ | established by the gift of Edward S. Harkness. Five years later he was appointed | ||
+ | first master of Berkeley CoUege. On the retirement of President Angell he | ||
+ | succeeded him, as fifteenth president of Yale, inaugurated October 8, 1937. | ||
+ | |||
+ | His son, //Charles Seymour// (1912-- ), born in New Haven and schooled at | ||
+ | Choate, was a student at King's College, Cambridge, for a year before entering | ||
+ | Yale in 1931. He became a member of Zeta Psi, chairman of the board of editors | ||
+ | of the //Literary Magazine//, president of Phi Beta Kappa, and was graduated, | ||
+ | like his great-grand-father Nathan, who was also on the Lit. board, second in | ||
+ | scholarship in his class. At Commencement he was awarded the Snow prize for | ||
+ | outstanding distinction in scholarship, | ||
+ | a graduate travelling fellowship by Yale he spent the two following years in | ||
+ | study in Paris under the mediaevalists Focillon and Aubert. He published in the | ||
+ | //Gazette des Beaux Arts// and was commissioned by the French government to | ||
+ | write the official history of the cathedral of Noyon. In 1937 he became an | ||
+ | instructor in the history of art in the Yale School of Fine Arts. At the Yale | ||
+ | Commencement of 1938, he received the Ph.D. degree, conferred by his father. | ||
\\ [[301.william_henry|(< | \\ [[301.william_henry|(< | ||
book/302.thomas_day.1442169317.txt.gz · Last modified: 2015/09/13 13:35 by 127.0.0.1