Harkness, Albert
HARKNESS, ALBERT (1822-1907), American classical scholar, was born at Mendon, Massachusetts, on the 6th of October 1822. He graduated at Brown University in 1842, taught in the Providence high school in 1843-1853, studied in Berlin, Bonn (where in 1854 he was the first American to receive the degree of Ph.D.) and Gottingen, and was professor of Greek language and literature in Brown University from 1855 to 1892, when he became professor emeritus. He was one of the founders in 1869 of the American Philological Association, of which he was president in 1875-1876, and to whose Transactions he made various contributions; was a member of the Archaeological Institute's committee on founding the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and served as the second director of that school in 1883-1884. He studied English and German university methods during trips to Europe in 1870 and 1883, and introduced a new scholarly spirit into American teaching of Latin in secondary schools with a series of Latin text-books, which began in 1851 with a First Latin Book and continued for more than fifty years. His Latin Grammar (1864, 1881) and Complete Latin Grammar (1898) are his best-known books. He was a member of the board of fellows of Brown University from 1904 until his death, and in 1904-1905 was president of the Rhode Island Historical Society. He died in Providence, Rhode Island, on the 27th of May 1907.
His son, ALBERT GRANGER HARKNESS (1857- )> also a classical scholar, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on the 19th of November 1857. He graduated at Brown University in 1879, studied in Germany in 1879-1883, and was professor of German and Latin at Madison (now Colgate) University from 1883 to 1889, and associate professor of Latin at Brown from 1889 to 1893, when he was appointed to the chair of Roman literature and history there. He was director of the American School of Classical Studies in Rome in 1902-1903.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
