All Scholars
SMITH, Charles Forster
- Date of Birth: June 30, 1852
- Born City: Abbeville Co.
- Born State/Country: SC
- Date of Death: August 03, 1931
- Death City: Racine
- Death State/Country: WI
- Married: Anna L. DuPre, 21 Aug. 1879.
- Education:
A.B. Wofford Coll. (SC), 1872; study at Harvard, 1874; Leipzig & Berlin, 1874-5; Ph.D. Leipzig, 1881; LL.D. U. Arkansas, 1910; Wofford Coll., 1910.
- Dissertation:
"A Study of Plutarch's Life of Artaxerxes, with Especial Reference to the Sources" (Leipzig, 1881).
- Professional Experience:
Prof, class. & Germ. Wofford Coll., 1875-9; asst. prof. Lat. & Gk. Williams Coll., 1881-2; prof. mod. langs. Vanderbilt, 1882-3; prof. Gk., 1883-94; prof. Gk. & class, philol. U. Wisconsin, 1894-1917; pres. APA, 1902-3; asso. ed. CP, 1905-6.
- Publications:
"On Southernisms," TAPA 14 (1883) 42-56; "Southern College and Schools," Atlantic Monthly 54 (1884), 542-57 & 56 (1885) 738-50; Thucydides Book VII (Boston, 1886); "On Southernisms," TAPA 17 (1886) 34-46; Thucydides Book III (Boston, 1894); "Some Poetical Constructions in Thucydides," TAPA 25 (1894) 61-81; "Matthew Arnold," Sewanee Review 7 (1899) 189-220; "Traces of Epic Usage in Thucydides," TAPA 31 (1900) 69-81; "Stephen Phillips," Sewanee Review 9 (1901), 385-97; Gustav Friedrich Hertzberg, Ancient Greece, trans, under the supervision of J.H. Wright (Philadelphia & New York, 1902); "Character-Drawing in Thucydides" (Presidential Address), TAPA 34 (1903) x-xv, expanded in AJP 24 (1903) 369-87; Xenophon's Anabasis, the First Four Books (New York, 1905); Greek Literature (New York, 1912); "Personification in Thucydides," CP 13 (1918) 241-50; Thucydides (trans.), LCL, 4 vols. (London & New York, 1919-23); Charles Kendall Adams (Madison, WI, 1924). Festschrift: Classical Studies in Honor of Charles Forster Smith (Madison, WI, 1919).
- Notes:
Born to a Southern family with colonial roots, Charles Forster Smith had a reputation in Nashville as scholar and teacher as well as essayist and intellectual that made him a fixture in the cultural life of the city, but the death of his wife in 1898 and the maintenance of his five children obliged him to move to the University of Wisconsin. As a member of the "Greek Conference" (1892) and the APA "Committee of Twelve," he labored enthusiastically on behalf of better college preparation in the high schools. He contributed essays to the Atlantic Monthly, Century Magazine, and Sewanee Review. In his retirement he completed his precise and smooth translation of Thucydides for the Loeb Series.
- Sources:
CJ 27 (1931-2) 237; NatCAB 12:368; C. F. Smith, Reminiscences and Sketches (Nashville & Dallas, 1908); R. G. Thwaites, The University of Wisconsin (Madison, WI, 1900); WhAm 1:1138; Casimir D. Zdanowicz, DAB 17:247-8.
- Author: Ward W. Briggs, Jr.