MCGUIRE, MARTIN R.P.

Language scholar, editor, educator; b. Whitinsville, Massachusetts, Dec. 30, 1897; d. Washington, D.C., March 15, 1969. He spent his youth on a farm, enrolled in the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1916, and during World War I served in the U.S. Army, from which he was discharged as a second lieutenant. He graduated from Holy Cross in 1921 and for the next three years taught at Georgetown Preparatory School in Washington. He received a Ph.D. from The Catholic University of America in 1927 with the published dissertation S. Ambrosii de Nabuthae: A Commentary with an Introduction and Translation. In the same year he was appointed an instructor in the department of Greek and Latin and in 1946 was promoted to the rank of professor. In 1929 he married Florence Mattimore, and they subsequently adopted four boys and three girls.

From 1937 to 1947 he was dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, which he helped to save from dissolution during the war, and from 1949 to 1962 he was repeatedly elected head of the department of Greek and Latin, which was highly esteemed throughout the country. After World War II he was named a member of the President's Commission on Higher Education, the U.S. Advisory Commission on Educational Exchange, and the Fulbright Board of Foreign Scholarships. Besides discharging successfully his administrative and teaching duties, he devoted much time to research and writing. His principal publications are An Introduction to Classical Scholarship: A Syllabus and Bibliographic Guide (rev. ed. 1961), Introduction to Medieval Latin Studies: A Syllabus and Bibliographic Guide (1964), and The Political and Cultural History of the Ancient World: A Syllabus with Suggested Readings (1961). From 1946 on he was chairman of the executive committee of Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries, and a member of the editorial board of The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation. Appointed senior editor of the New Catholic Encyclopedia in 1962, he was mainly responsible for planning and organizing the 15 volumes that appeared in 1967; he not only supervised the staff editors for the various areas but also wrote 114 articles and revised countless others.

Bibliography: r. trisco, "In Memoriam: Martin R. P. McGuire," Catholic Historical Review 55 (July 1969) 153–158 (with photograph).

[r. trisco]