Gildersleeve, Basil

Gildersleeve, Basil (Lanneau) (1831–1924) classicist; born in Charleston, S.C. A child prodigy who read widely in Latin by the age of six, he received his B.A. from the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) at age 17 and his Ph.D. from the University of Gottingen at 22. Thought of as the greatest American classicist of his day, his Latin Grammar (1867), Pindar: The Olympian and Pythian Odes (1885), and Greek Syntax (1900) were used by generations of American students. He founded the American Journal of Philology (1880), was twice president of the American Philological Association (1878 and 1909), and greatly shaped the Johns Hopkins graduate school, where he taught from 1856–1915.