Minton Warren

Background

Minton Warren was born at Providence, R. I, the son of Samuel Sprague and Ann Elizabeth (Caswel) Warren, a descendant of Richard Warren, a Mayflower Pilgrim.

Education

He was graduated from the Providence high school in 1866 and from Tufts College in 1870. After a year of teaching at Westport, Massachussets, he spent the year 1871-72 in graduate study at Yale, under the guidance of William Dwight Whitney, James Hadley, and Thomas R. Lounsbury. He taught then successively at Medford and Waltham (as principal of the high school), and in the autumn of 1876 he went to Germany for further study: first at Leipzig, then at Bonn (under Bücheler), and finally at Strasbourg (under Studemund), where he received the degree of Ph. D. in 1879.

Career

His dissertation on the enclitic ne in early Latin (presented in part in the American Journal of Philology, May 1881) revealed mature scholarship and originality of interpretation; its results have become a part of accepted grammatical doctrine. His acquaintance at Leipzig with two of Ritschl's younger pupils, Georg Götz and Gustav Löwe, bore fruit some years later in the first publication of the St. Gall Glossary. On his return to the United States he was invited to the Johns Hopkins University as associate in Latin. There he inaugurated the Latin Seminary, and in a library well equipped for intensive study in a few chosen fields, in close and personal touch with his students, he worked more in the manner of the director of a laboratory than as an academic teacher of the usual American type. In the conduct of this work he sacrificed, and sacrificed ungrudgingly, his own productivity to his calling as a teacher, not only in time and strength, but also in placing his own ideas and projects at the disposal of his students. During the years 1886-99 twenty-two dissertations are recorded as having been prepared and published under his direction. His own published work is not large in bulk nor does it embrace wide-reaching and novel points of view. But within its range it reveals the orderly erudition and precision which were his characteristics as a scholar, and it won abundant recognition, perhaps more in Europe than at home. His special field of study was early Latin, and he was an acknowledged master in the idiom of Latin comedy. He remained at the Johns Hopkins University as associate professor and professor until 1899, when he accepted a call to Harvard. In 1905 he succeeded George Martin Lane as Pope Professor of Latin. He was active in the founding of the American School of Classical Studies in Rome (later a division of the American Academy in Rome), and was its second director (1896 - 97); he was president of the American Philological Association for the year 1897. He died in Cambridge.

Achievements

• Of his publications the more important are: "On Latin Glossaries", with complete and first publication of the important glossary in Codex Sangallensis 912; "Epigraphica"; "Unpublished Scholia from the Vaticanus (C) of Terence"; "On Five New Manuscripts of the Commentary of Donatus on Terence"; "On the Distinctio Versuum in the Manuscripts of Terence" (American Journal of Archaeology, January 1900); "A New Fragment of Apollodorus of Carystus" (Classical Philology, January 1906); and "The Stele Inscription in the Roman Forum" (American Journal of Philology, July, October 1907). Apart from these longer studies almost every number of the American Journal of Philology from the beginning in 1880 to 1899 contains some shorter article, note, or book review from his hand.

Works

More photos

• book

  • On the Enclitic Ne in Early Latin...

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • On Latin Glossaries, with Special Reference to the Codex Sangallensis 912; Edited with Notes

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • On Latin glossaries, with special reference to the Codex Sangallensis 912; edited with notes, 1884, pp. 124-228

    (Leopold Classic Library is delighted to publish this clas...)

  • The American Journal of Philology , Vol. 2, No. 5; On the Enclitic ne in Early Latin. A Dissertation for the Acquisition of the Degree of Doctor of ... at the Kaiser-Wilhelms-Universität Strassburg

    (Leopold is delighted to publish this classic book as part...)

  • On The Enclitic Ne In Early Latin ...

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • On Latin glossaries, with special reference to the Codex Sangallensis 912; edited with notes

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • On Latin Glossaries, With Special Reference To The Codex Sangallensis 912; Edited With Notes

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

Personality

Warren was a man of vigorous build, and his personality suggested strength. He was a hard-driving, forceful, and incisive teacher, impatient of slowness or ineffectiveness, often sharp in merited criticism, but able to inject enthusiasm and emulation into the tasks he imposed. His nature was open and kindly, and for him his pupils, friends, and colleagues entertained a singular warmth of devotion. He was quick to recognize good work, generous in praise of it, and he seemed to take a peculiar pleasure in contributing from his own store to the work of others. Primarily a teacher of teachers, through his own work and that of his many pupils (who for a generation came to be known as "Warren's men") he earned a conspicuous place among American classical scholars and teachers.

Connections

He was married on December 29, 1885, to Salomé Machado of Salem, who with a son and a daughter survived him.

Father:

Samuel Sprague

Mother:

Ann Elizabeth (Caswel) Warren

Spouse:

Salomé Machado