All Scholars
POTEAT, Hubert McNeill
- Date of Birth: December 12, 1886
- Born City: Wake Forest
- Born State/Country: NC
- Parents: William Louis, pres. Wake Forest Coll., & Emma James Purefoy P.
- Date of Death: January 29, 1958
- Death City: Wake Forest
- Death State/Country: NC
- Married: Essie Moore Morgan, 26 June 1912.
- Education:
B.A. Wake Forest Coll., 1906; M.A. 1908; Ph.D. Columbia, 1912; D.H.L. Lehigh U., 1954; LL.D. U. North Carolina, 1955.
- Dissertation:
"Repetition in Latin Poetry, with Special Reference to the Metrical Treatment of Repeated Words" (Columbia, 1912); printed (New York, 1912)
- Professional Experience:
Prof. Lat., Wake Forest Coll., 1912-56; pres. So. Sect. CAMWS, 1925-6; pres. CAMWS, 1937-8.
- Publications:
Selected Letters of Cicero (Boston, 1916); Practical Hymnology (Boston, 1921); Selected Epigrams of Martial (New York, 1931); Selected Letters of Pliny (Boston & New York, 1937); Titus Livius Narrator—Selections from Livy (New York, 1938); Cicero, Brutus, On the Nature of the Gods, On Divination, On Duties (trans.), with intro. by Richard McKeon (Chicago, 1950); "The Functions of Repetition in Latin Poetry," CW 12 (1918-9) 139-42, 145-50; "De Vita Juvenalis," StPhil 19 (1922) 414-28; "The Carnegie Foundation and Reaction," Sch. & Soc. 19 (1924) 674-6; "Hannibal Trismegistus," CJ 22 (1926-7) 189-201; "Horace and the Eleusinians," CJ 23 (1927-8) 213-4; "Some Ancient Manifestations of the Religious Impulse," CJ 23 (1927-8) 573-87; "An Educational Credo," Bulletin of the AAUP 14 (1928) 512-7; "The Death of the Roman Republic," Latin Notes 6 (1929) 2-3; "There is Nothing New Under the Sun," CJ 27 (1931-2) 612; "Vergil and His Influence," The Biblical Recorder 96 (Mar. 1931) 3, 14; "The Werewolf Once More," CW 26 (1932-3) 207-8; "One Who Loved His Country Well," CJ 29 (1933-4) 169-88; "On Magistrates," C7 29 (1933-4) 694; "Chefs, Modern and Ancient," CJ 30 (1934-5) 429; ''Collegia and Hetaeriae," CJ 32 (1936-7) 492; "Rome and the Christians," CJ 33 (1937-8) 134-44; "Some Reflections on Roman Philosophy," CJ 33 (1937-8) 514-22; "Why Study Cicero?," CB 15 (1938-9) 25; "A Ciceronian Rogues' Gallery," U. of Texas Publications, 1939.
- Notes:
Poteat received his early education from his maternal grandmother. He attended Wake Forest College, of which his father was president from 1905 to 1927. In addition to teaching generations of Wake Forest students from 1912 to 1956, he taught Latin in summer sessions at Columbia from 1924 to 1942. His textbook edition of Cicero's letters first appeared in 1916, and others were published in the 1920s and 1930s, along with a number of articles on classical subjects and topics in education, and a number of book reviews for Classical Philology in 1923 and 1928, and for Classical Weekly in 1928 and 1937. In academic speaking engagements he vigorously upheld the traditional place of the humanities in education.From his youth he had distinguished himself also as an athlete and musician, especially as an organist, singer, and choral conductor; he was organist of the Wake Forest Baptist Church for 40 years. He was active in Masonic and Shrine organizations from 1908 on, holding high office from 1941 to 1951 (Imperial Grand Potentate for North America, 1950-1), and was much in demand as a public speaker.
- Sources:
Elizabeth Brantley, Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists, III (1971) 1914; Lillian Patton, CJ 54 (1958-9) 143.
- Author: Robert W. Ulery, Jr.