North American Scholar
DANE, Nathan, II
- Date of Birth (YYYY-MM-DD): 1916-05-24
- Born City: Lexington
- Born State/Country: MA
- Parents: Francis Smith & Annie D.
- Date of Death (YYYY-MM-DD): 1980-01-19
- Death City: Brunswick
- Death State/Country: ME
- Married: Caroline Maxine Anderson, 2 Apr. 1942.
- Education:
A.B. Bowdoin, 1937; M.A. U. Illinois, 1939; Ph.D., 1941.
- Professional Experience:
Instr. Lat., Oberlin, 1941-42; asst. prof. to prof. class. Bowdoin Coll., 1946-63; Winkley prof. Lat. lang. & lit., 1963-80; pres. CANE, 1962-3.
- Dissertation:
“The D2 Recension of the Alphabetical Corpus of the Greek Proverbs” (Illinois, 1941).
- Publications:
“A Black-Figured Lekythos at Oberlin,” Hesperia 11 (1942) 349-53; An Introduction to the Languages and Literatures of Greece and Rome (Gorham, ME, 1952); Greek Attitudes, ed. with John W. Ambrose, Jr. (New York, 1974).
- Notes:
Nate Dane, Winkley Professor of Latin Language and Literature and a Bowdoin professor for 35 years, said shortly before his death, “I just want to be remembered among the very good teachers of Bowdoin undergraduates.” And in a college in which teaching is stressed, Nate is remembered as one of her finest professors—an inspirational teacher, capable of touching the lives of his students both in a professional and personal way. He always had a dedicated following of classics majors, but one of his teaching challenges and delights was Classics 12, an introduction to the language and literature of Greece and Rome, with an enrollment of about 200 students each year, for which he wrote his own textbook. About 80 percent of Bowdoin students at some point in their college career took Classics 12 with Nate Dane and as one student put it, “It was the most memorable course I took in college.”
- Sources:
NYTimes (20 Jan. 1980); WhAm 7:139.
- Author: John W. Ambrose, Jr.
