PHILIP HALDANE DAVIS
1901 - 1940
In the sudden death on February 20, l940, of Philip
Haldane Davis, Professor of Greek and Chairman of
the Department, Vassar College suffered an irrepar-
able loss. By heritage, training and taste Mr.
Davis was a scholar. His education at Princeton
University and as Fellow of the School of Classical
Studies in Athens gave him a rich equipment for his
chosen research on Greek Building Inscriptions; and
in this field already at thirty-eight he had won an
international reputation. Indeed both his scholar-
ship and his personal distinction were so early
recognized that he had been called to five other
institutions before in 1930 Vassar secured his
presence here by giving him the rank of professor.
In the congenial atmosphere of Vassar College, his
scholarship flowered into that humanism which
embraced not only linguistics but literature,ancient
and modern, enacted drama, art and music. And as a
humanist, he taught with distinction in four depart-
ments, Greek, Latin, Comparative Literature and Art.
His students mourn the loss of a great teacher, his
colleagues the loss of a stimulating and sympathetic
friend, the town of Peughkeepsie the loss of a young
leader who sought to promote ideals of democracy,
justice and peace with good-will. On the campus, the
memory of his rich and ardent life has erected a
monument more lasting than bronze, the devotion of
his fellow-workers.
As a last tribute, we offer to him an epitaph which
Plato wrote:
Thou wert the Morning Star among the living,
Ere thy fair light had fled;-
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving
New splendor to the dead.
(Shelley's translation).
Elizabeth Hazelton Height
X - 145