About Frederic Melvin Wheelock
Frederic Melvin Wheelock was an American Latin professor known for his milestone Latin textbook.
Biographical details
Basic information
| person Full name | Frederic Melvin Wheelock |
| cake Date of birth | September 19, 1902 |
| event_busy Date of death | October 29, 1987 |
Core DBCS data
| Name | WHEELOCK, Frederic Melvin |
| Dates (life) | September 19, 1902 - October 27, 1987 |
| Education | A.B. Harvard, 1925; A.M., 1926; Ph.D., 1933; Corey Fell., 1933-4. |
| Professional experience | Instr. Lat. Haverford, 1926-9; instr. & tut. Harvard, 1929-30; instr. CCNY, 1935-8; instr. to asst. prof. Brooklyn Coll., 1938-52; prof, human. Cazenovia Jr. Coll., 1954-8; dean, 1957-8; master Lat. Darrow Sch. Boys (New Lebanon, NY), 1958-60; asso. prof, to prof, class. U. Toledo, 1960-8; vis. prof, class. Florida Presbyterian (now Eckert) Coll., 1969-70. |
Top works
Rutgers DBCS data for Frederic Melvin Wheelock
Frederic Melvin Wheelock has a dedicated entry page on the Rutgers database of classical scholars with the name. Included data from this source may provide the person's name, date of birth, date of death, major works, professional experience, obituaries, and compiler remarks.
About the Rutgers DBCS
The Rutgers Database of Classical Scholars (DBCS) is a database of classical scholars that is owned and operated by Rutgers University. It is a project within the Department of Classics at the School of Arts and Sciences in New Brunswick, NJ. Started in 2018, the database has over 900 records of scholars as of April 2020. The core set of records comes from a book by Ward W. Briggs, Jr., titled Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists.
Record numbers
Main details
| Name | WHEELOCK, Frederic Melvin |
| Dat of birth | September 19, 1902 |
| Born city | Lawrence |
| Born state/country | MA |
| Parents | Franklin Major & Etta Robinson Goldthwaite W. |
| Date of death | October 27, 1987 |
| Death city | Kent |
| Death state/country | CT |
| Married | Dorothy E. Rathbone, 14 Aug. 1937. |
Career and works
| Education | A.B. Harvard, 1925; A.M., 1926; Ph.D., 1933; Corey Fell., 1933-4. |
| Professional experience | Instr. Lat. Haverford, 1926-9; instr. & tut. Harvard, 1929-30; instr. CCNY, 1935-8; instr. to asst. prof. Brooklyn Coll., 1938-52; prof, human. Cazenovia Jr. Coll., 1954-8; dean, 1957-8; master Lat. Darrow Sch. Boys (New Lebanon, NY), 1958-60; asso. prof, to prof, class. U. Toledo, 1960-8; vis. prof, class. Florida Presbyterian (now Eckert) Coll., 1969-70. |
| Dissertation | "De Probi commentariorum Vergilianorum textu recensendo" (Harvard, 1933); printed as "The Manuscript Tradition of Probus," HSCP 46 (1936) 85-153. |
| Publications | "Leto's Hand and Tasso's Horace," HSCP 52 (1941) 99-123; Latin (New York, 1956; 2d ed. as Latin: An Introductory Course based on Ancient Authors, 1960; 3d ed. 1963; 4th ed. as Wheelock's Latin Grammar, 1992); Latin Literature: A Book of Readings (New York, 1969); Quintilian as Educator, trans. H. E. Butler, intro. & notes by Wheelock (New York, 1974). |
| Notes | Wheelock did important work on Probus' Life of Virgil (the basis for C. Hardie's text of Probus, Vitae Vergilianae Antiquae [Oxford, 1966], 25-8), but his name will always be synonymous with Latin instruction, for his textbook has been the most popular college Latin text of its day. He began writing the book while on sabbatical from Brooklyn College in 1950 at San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. He dropped out of the field and "dabbled in business" for two years at Cazenovia, NY, before returning to academics and completing his textbook for publication in 1956, the first of four editions. He was attracted to the Darrow School by the opportunity to teach nothing but Latin and later he moved to the University of Toledo to reinstitute a classics program ten years after it had been canceled. The course was successful and the program rapidly grew to employ three professors. He retired to a world of hobbies in Amherst, NH, but in 1969 he slipped back into the traces for a year at Florida Presbyterian. Wheelock was a conservative, unattached to any doctrine but discipline. His book frees the teacher to exercise his/her own personality in the delivery of the lessons, and his refinement of the materials in his Brooklyn College classes (in which students leafed through mimeographed copies) tell in the structure and arrangement. It presents the grammar in a most sensible order, alternating verbs and substantives, with an appropriate balance of grammar and forms, without excessive vocabulary. The addition of unabridged Latin passages (Loci Immutati) and self-tutorial exercises in the second and third editions increased the book's value as a self-teacher for the older student. His taste in readings ran heavily to the Ciceronian with the result that his reader was far less successful because of its difficulty and monotony. His conservatism came to the fore in his last work, his edition of Butler's Quintilian, "in which some of the old, time-proven values and requisites in education are presented to our troubled period." He said, "Teaching is an act of faith which often bears its fruits years later when the teacher is not present to witness them. Some say that how one teaches is as important as what one teaches. For let us along with Quintilian emphasize that character is paramount and example is more effective than preachment." |
| Sources | DAS 1982:525; Richard M. Krill, APA Newsletter (Winter 1988) 15; NYTimes (10 Nov. 1987) D33. |
| Author (entry) | Ward W. Briggs, Jr. |
Record notes
About these data
| Retrieval date | Apr. 19, 2020 |
| Copyright | DBCS @ Rutgers |
Rutgers Database of Classical Scholars Est. 2018The Rutgers Database of Classical Scholars (DBCS) is a database of classical scholars that is owned and operated by Rutgers University. It is a project within the Department of Classics at the School of Arts and Sciences in New Brunswick, NJ. Started in 2018, the database has over 900 records of scholars as of April 2020. The core set of records comes from a book by Ward W. Briggs, Jr., titled Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists.
