Born in South Boston on December 20, 1871, Rand was the only son of an established New England family that otherwise consisted of four daughters.[5] He was educated in Watertown, Massachusetts, and, being an overachiever, graduated first in his class among students who had no intention to attend college. Having been in a tight financial situation, he was encouraged by his friends to apply to Harvard and did so by ringing the doorbell of Charles William Eliot, then the president of the university, seeking financial aid.[6] To the "bemused" president, Rand asked, "I would like to go to Harvard; do you have any money?"[7] Upon hearing his request, Eliot personally saw to Rand's admission into Harvard College, where Rand would go on to graduate as class secretary with an A.B., summa cum laude, and with further honors in the classics, philosophy, Greek, and Latin.[6][8]
After traveling through Europe and arriving to study at Munich in 1898, it was there that Rand came under the influence of a number of prominent professors—most notably Ludwig Traube, the granduncle of Eduard Fraenkel—that shaped his postgraduate education.[9][10] In November 1900, he completed his dissertation, Der dem Boethius zugeschriebene Traktat de fide catholica (The treatise ascribed to Boethius,De Fide Catholica), under Traube's supervision.[11] In the spring of next year, he married Belle Brent Palmer—a native of Kentucky—and later returned to Harvard to assume a position as a Latin instructor.[9]
Academic career
Beginning with his position as a Latin instructor, Rand would become an active professor and academic until the end of his life. He often traveled abroad to assume momentary teaching positions, lecturing at various institutions such as the University of Toronto and the University of Paris.[12][13]
From 1919 until 1920, Rand served two terms as the Sather Professor of Classical Literature at the University of California, Berkeley, delivering lectures on "The History of Classical Culture during the Middle Ages" and "The History of Pastoral Literature".[14] He would, however, spend most of his years teaching at Harvard, where, from 1931 until 1942, he was its Pope Professor of Latin.[15]
Rand's office was located in Harvard's Widener Library (seen pictured in 1920)
Following his arrival to Harvard in 1901 to teach Latin, Rand gradually rose to the position of assistant professor and, eventually, received a full professorship in 1909.[18] Some of his early work consisted of examining the manuscripts of the philosopher Boethius, who had been the subject of his dissertation, and his Opuscula sacra. However, it was to the early Roman poets that Rand dedicated the majority of his early career.[19] Committed to inflating the status of the poet Virgil, he used "a somewhat audacious mixture of travel and philology" to enhance the appeal of his article, In quest of Virgil's birthplace. Following this, a series of other articles Rand wrote on Virgil were later compiled into a lecture series he gave at Northwestern University, which in turn was used in his work, The Magical Art of Virgil, published in 1931. He also wrote booklets on Horace and Ovid, delivering addresses on them and other Roman writers to the Rice Institute (now Rice University) and the Sorbonne.[19]
At Harvard, Rand spent much of his time writing reviews and articles in academic journals, later succeeding his colleague Clifford Herschel Moore as the Pope Professor in 1931. From his lectures at the Lowell Institute came his most significant work, The Founders of the Middle Ages, which had been first published in 1928.[20]
Having delivered presidential and Phi Beta Kappa addresses at the university, he developed a reputation as a skilled orator and rhetorician.[19]
Stocker, Arthur F. (Winter 1996). "Edward Kennard Rand 1871-1945". The Classical Outlook. 73 (2): 55–56.((cite journal)): CS1 maint: date and year (link)
Berrigan, Joseph (September 25, 2022). "Rand, Edward Kennard". Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences.
Legion of Honour
Order of the Crown of Italy
