Tracy Peck was an American classicist and teacher.
Background
Tracy Peck was born on May 24, 1838 in Bristol, Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. He was the son of Tracy and Sally (Adams) Peck. Through his father he was descended from Paul Peck who came to Hartford with Thomas Hooker in 1636. His mother was descended from Henry Adams who emigrated in 1636 from Devonshire, England, to Massachusetts. By virtue of his own culture and wide experiences abroad in later life, he became thoroughly cosmopolitan in his point of view, but he reflected always in his native integrity, intellectual clarity, and personal simplicity, the force of his colonial New England ancestry.
Education
Having prepared for college at Williston Academy, Easthampton, Massachussets, Tracy Peck entered Yale College, from which he graduated as valedictorian in 1861. During the two years following he studied at Berlin, Jena, and Bonn, traveling also in Italy. Returning to Yale, Peck received the degree of M. A. in 1864.
Career
Tracy Peck was a tutor in Latin from 1864 to 1867. From 1867 to 1869 he studied in Rome and Berlin, returning again to a tutorship for the following year. During the year 1870 - 1871 Peck taught Latin and mathematics at the Chickering Classical Institute in Cincinnati. From there he was called to be professor of the Latin language and literature in Cornell University, where he served until he was called to Yale in the same capacity in 1880. He was professor in Yale College for twenty-eight years, retiring in 1908. During the year 1885 - 1886 he was president of the American Philological Association and in 1898 - 1899 director of the American School for Classical Studies in Rome. After retiring from active service he spent most of his time in Rome, where he died and was buried in the English and American Cemetery. He represented the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences at the Darwin Centennial in Cambridge and London in June 1909.
With Prof. Clement L. Smith of Harvard Tracy Peck edited a series of Latin authors, preparing personally with Prof. James B. Greenough one of the volumes of Livy, published in 1893. He also published essays in the Nation, the New Englander, the Cornell Review, the American Journal of Archeology, and the Transactions of the American Philological Association. He was councilor of the British and American Arch'ological Society in Rome. A polished and brilliant speaker, he delivered various addresses, the more memorable of which include one at the centennial celebration of the incorporation of Bristol, Connecticut, in 1885, one at the semi-centennial of Williston Seminary in 1891 (Baccalaureate Sermon, Oration, and Addresses Delivered at the Semi-Centennial Celebration of Williston Seminary 1891), and a Latin address before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Yale in March 1907. His Latin style in both verse and prose was, in the finest sense of the word, elegant; and this Phi Beta Kappa speech was particularly noteworthy for its suggestion of the nomination and election of William Howard Taft as president of the United States.
It is more true of Tracy Peck than of most men that the outline of his life work gives very slight intimation of the real worth of the man. He had an extraordinarily ripe scholarship in the field of Roman life and manners. This resulted from a thorough acquaintance with the more intimate types of Latin literature and with the whole range of Latin inscriptions. Probably no man of modern times has ever known better the ancient city of Rome, especially its peculiar spirit. He also knew all of its material remains: topographical, architectural, and inscriptional. It was his keen understanding of Rome and the Romans and his fine appreciation of their human contributions to civilization that made his classes the delight of all humanistic students. He was intolerant of careless work but his own courtly and chivalrous character made him one of the best-loved and most respected of the scholars of a peculiarly rich period in American classical scholarship. His interest was always in passing on what he had absorbed and his method was that of the teacher rather than the writer.
In his latter years in Rome, Tracy Peck gave unreservedly of his abundant store of knowledge to all those who came seriously to learn something of that capital of the world. He died on November 24, 1921.
Achievements
Connections
On December 22, 1870, Tracy Peck was married in Brooklyn, New York, to Elizabeth Harriet Hall of Hadleigh, England. They had two children, a son and a daughter.