Zeph Stewart: Taught lessons of classics, humanity at Harvard
Just a few years after becoming a classics professor, Zeph Stewart sent a letter to Harvard's student newspaper in 1957 praising a colleague who would soon retire. It was not a mash note crafted to curry favor with the lords of the academic manor.
"I need not dwell on his years of service in this community, but prefer to speak of the good fortune of the University in having in its janitorial staff a person who has contributed so much to the Harvard education of so many young men," Mr. Stewart wrote in the Harvard Crimson of David Germaine, a custodian whose example "taught countless undergraduates the value of gentlemanly conduct and of directness and integrity for living a good life."
Hailing contributions by the least-noticed "was part of the fabric of his life - what he, in his little quiet way, paid attention to," said Mr. Stewart's daughter Sarah of Cambridge.
A longtime master of Lowell House, Mr. Stewart also had a deft touch with administration that helped right the finances of Harvard's Loeb Classical Library and the American Philological Association. He died of complications from pneumonia Dec. 1 in his Watertown home after a few years of illnesses and declining health. Mr. Stewart was 86.
"Zeph cared about every part of Harvard, and every part of classics in particular," said Richard Thomas, a professor of Greek and Latin at the university. "He was brilliant in a very quiet way. He knew a great deal, but he wasn't ostentatious about his knowledge, and he had an aesthetic sensibility that it was wonderful to be touched by."...
Read entire article at Boston Globe
"I need not dwell on his years of service in this community, but prefer to speak of the good fortune of the University in having in its janitorial staff a person who has contributed so much to the Harvard education of so many young men," Mr. Stewart wrote in the Harvard Crimson of David Germaine, a custodian whose example "taught countless undergraduates the value of gentlemanly conduct and of directness and integrity for living a good life."
Hailing contributions by the least-noticed "was part of the fabric of his life - what he, in his little quiet way, paid attention to," said Mr. Stewart's daughter Sarah of Cambridge.
A longtime master of Lowell House, Mr. Stewart also had a deft touch with administration that helped right the finances of Harvard's Loeb Classical Library and the American Philological Association. He died of complications from pneumonia Dec. 1 in his Watertown home after a few years of illnesses and declining health. Mr. Stewart was 86.
"Zeph cared about every part of Harvard, and every part of classics in particular," said Richard Thomas, a professor of Greek and Latin at the university. "He was brilliant in a very quiet way. He knew a great deal, but he wasn't ostentatious about his knowledge, and he had an aesthetic sensibility that it was wonderful to be touched by."...