What Others Say

ANNOUNCEMENT that the Laetare Medal for 1937 has been awarded to Professor J. D. M. Ford of Harvard University adds the name of this distinguished American scholar of international reputation to the very distinguished list of men and women eminent in letters, science, and public service who have been thus honored by the University of Notre Dame.In conferring the Laetare Medal on Dr. Ford, Notre Dame University has placed the name of the occupant of the famous chair also graced by George Ticknor, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and James Russell Lowell on a roll of honor which stretches back for more than fifty years. Among previous recipients of the Laetare Medal, which was first awarded in 1883, are authors like Maurice Francis Egan, Agnes Repplier, and Frank H. Spearman; public servants like General William S. Rosecrans, Admiral W. S. Benson, Chief Justice Edward Douglas White, Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte, and Alfred E. Smith; scientists like Dr. Alfred M. Zahm and Dr. John B. Murphy, the surgeon; dramatic artists like Augustin Daly and Margaret Anglin; John McCormack, the singer; and Charles D. Maginnis, the architect. The Laetare Medal is awarded annually to an outstanding Catholic layman of the United States "in recognition of merit and as an inspiration to great achievement." It owes its name to the fact that announcement of the award is made on Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Lent, which in turn takes its name from the fact that the Introit at mass on that day begins with the words "Laetare, Jerusalem"-"Rejoice, O Jerusalem." What sort of man is the distinguished member of the Harvard galaxy of scholars who has added this signal honor to the long list of distinctions already attached to his name? Ask any specialist in the modern humanities in any American university, or any of the great humanists, medievalists, or philologists the world over and you will be likely to get a more detailed answer than if you asked some of his neighbors in Cambridge. For Professor Ford is essentially a modest man, disdainful of the methods of "popularizers" among the American professoriat, content to have his reputation rest upon the opinions of his fellow-craftsmen in an ancient and honorable profession, and upon the judgments of hundreds of former students, now eminent in various fields of scholarship, who have sat at his feet during a long and productive service in Harvard University. In Paris, in Rome, in Madrid, in Lisbon, and throughout South America, his name is an open sesame which unlocks the doors of the studies of scholars, the lecturehalls of great universities, and the treasured archives of great libraries. Jeremiah Denis Matthias Ford was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on July 2, 1873, the son of Jeremiah Denis Ford and Mary Agnes (Collins) Ford. His early education was gained in the public schools of Cambridge, and he subsequently studied at the North Monastery, Cork, Ireland, and in London. In 1891 he entered the Law School of Harvard University, but soon transferred to Harvard College, where he made a brilliant record as an undergraduate. Having received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1894, he entered the Graduate School of Harvard University, from which he received the degree of Master of Arts in 1895 and Doctor of Philosophy in 1897. In 1895 he won the Sales Prize in Spanish and the Dante Prize in Italian, his subject in the latter competition being "Dante's Influence on Spanish Literature in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries." His teaching career began in 1895, when he was appointed instructor in French and Italian at Harvard University, serving until 1897. During the summers of 1894, 1895, and 1896 he traveled in France, Italy, and Spain. In 1897 he was appointed Harris Fellow, and