Benjamin Dean Meritt *25

We were saddened to learn that Benjamin Dean Meritt, the last surviving member of the Inst. for Advanced Study's original faculty, died in Austin, Tex., on July 7, 1989, at the age of 90. The valedictorian in 1920 at Hamilton College, he won a scholarship to the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, with which he thereafter remained closely associated. Two years later, he returned to the U.S. to earn his Ph.D. in classics at Princeton. Ben then taught at Vermont, Brown, Prince¬ton, Michigan, Johns Hopkins, and Oxford before he became a professor of Greek history and epigraphy at the Inst. for Advanced Study. A colleague of Einstein and von Neumann, he thrived. As his son James writes, "it was the Institute that was essentially his whole life." Among his many honors, Ben was a fellow of the Amer¬ican Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, the Hellenic Society, the Belgian Academy, and the Academy of Athens. He also received seven honorary degrees. After he retired from the Institute in 1972, he moved to Austin, where he served as a visiting professor and scholar at the Univ. of Texas until he died.

Ben is survived by his second wife, Lucy Shoe Meritt; two sons, James Kirkland '47 and Arthur Dean '57; four grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. To them and to his colleagues and friends we extend our deepest sympathy at the loss of this distinguished scholar and teacher. His passing marks the end of an era in the life of the Institute.

The Graduate School