North American Scholar

BAIN, Charles Wesley

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  • Date of Birth (YYYY-MM-DD): 1864-06-24
  • Born City: Portsmouth
  • Born State/Country: VA
  • Parents: George M. & Willie Frances Cherry B.
  • Date of Death (YYYY-MM-DD): 1915-03-15
  • Death City: Chapel Hill
  • Death State/Country: NC
  • Married: Isabel Plummer, 28 Dec. 1891.
  • Education:

    U. Virginia; M.A. U. South (Sewanee), 1895; LL.D. U. South Carolina, 1913.
  • Professional Experience:

    Tchr., Savannah (GA) Acad., 1885-7; priv. sch., Savannah, 1887-9; joint headmaster, Rugby School (Louisville, KY), 1900-1; first class, master McCabe's University School, (Petersburg, VA), 1889-90, 1891-5; headmaster, Sewanee (TN) Grammar School, 1895-98; prof. anc. langs. & chair dept. South Carolina Coll. (now U. South Carolina), 1898-1910; prof. Gk. U. North Carolina, 1910-5.
  • Publications:

    "On a Passage in the Trinummus," AJP 10 (1889) 84-85; "Recent Classical Studies in Germany," Sewanee Review 6 (1897) 74-85; "Bacchylides," ibid., 349-59; First Latin Book (New York & Boston, 1898; rev. ed. 1914); 77?*? Seventh Book of Homer's Odyssey (Boston, 1899); The Poems of Ovid: Selections (New York, 1902); ""Oirco? with av in Object Clauses," StPhil 7 (1911) 16-22; The Demonstrative Pronoun in Sophocles (Baltimore, 1913); "Varia Latina," CP 10 (1915) 219-21.
  • Notes:

    Charles Wesley Bain is best known for his introductory Latin text and for his school text of Ovid. A student of Peters and Wheeler at Virginia, he founded his own school in Savannah, GA. The historian of the University of South Carolina called him "one of the most distinguished language professors the institution has ever had." After a break with President S. C. Mitchell, Bain resigned his post and went to Chapel Hill, where he served until his premature death. He read proof for Gildersleeve's Latin Grammar and his own First Latin Book was said by an editor to have been "far more popular than any other book in the Gildersleeve-Lodge Series." His particular interest was Greek syntax and he had special gifts for the presentation of grammatical detail to students. His eulogist in CJ said, "He was in himself a fitting exemplification of the cultural value of the classics."
  • Sources:

    CJ 10 (1914-5) 373-4; Columbia (SC) State (16 Mar. 1915) 8; D. W. Hollis, The University of South Carolina: Volume II: College to University (Columbia, SC 1956) 195, 213, 247; WhoAm 1:45.
  • Author: Ward W. Briggs, Jr. \"ОПΩΣ