"Foremost . . . of Our Day"

Commuters who ride the M.T.A.'s Watertown trolley--in to Harvard Square each morning, back to Watertown each afternoon--might be surprised to learn that the friendly, diffident-looking man who travels with them every day is one of the greatest scholars in the world. Indeed, at times that fact seems to surprise and embarrass University Professor Werner Jaeger himself. Last month, for example, when the Classics Department held its first meeting of the year, the chairman congratulated Jaeger on the two high honors he had won over the summer and asked him to explain just what the awards were. Reluctantly, the Professor reported that, along with Thomas Mann, he had been named to the German order Pour le Merite, which consists of the thirty foremost living German scholars in all fields of science and the arts. Jaeger also admitted that he had received a prize from the Academia Nazionale dei Lincei, Italy's most prominent learned society. The prize, he remarked with a deprecatory laugh, amounted to something over $8,000. And then, looking apologetically at the members of the Department, Jaeger added: "I hope you don't mind."

The Department members did not mind. They appreciated, moreover, that Jaeger's sincere fear of offending them was typical of his deep interest in people and personal relationships. Busy as he is, and important as he is, Jaeger will always stop work in Widener 776 to talk for hours--literally hours--with any student who comes in on any pretext whatsoever. Unlike many insignificant section men, he always knows the names, the abilities, and the problems of every student in one of his courses. His international fame constantly brings scholars from all over the world to his office, and there is no secretary there to give them the brush off. For all these people, Werner Jaeger has time. "Under the circumstances, a member of the classics Department has said, "it is wonder that he gets any work done at all."

But somehow Jaeger does get academic work done--done so well, in fact, that he has been called "the foremost of the logically trained men of our day," and has received numerous honorary degrees from universities throughout the Western World, Just as his interests are not confined to his work, however, his work itself is not limited to one tiny niche in the world of scholarship. In an era of ultra-concentration, Jaeger can truthfully say that he has "avoided specialization by having more than one specialty."

Historically, Jaeger's main interests are the periods of the ancient Greeks and of the early Christians. In terms of scholarly technique, he likes equally well minute textual analysis and general critical interpretation. In title, he has been both philologist and philosopher. These assorted specialties have brought forth over Jaeger's 45-year career a host of publications (29 entries in the Widener catalogue) that are all admirable and nearly all different. Probably his best known works is Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His Development, a book which he published at the age of 35 and which revolutionized all Aristotelian scholarship, and set the context for virtually everything that has since been written on the subject. Characteristically, however, Jaeger looks back on the book less with pride than with a sort of parental indulgence. "I was young then," he explains, "and wanted to tear down tradition wherever I found it."

Jaeger has devoted himself to this "contemplative life" ever since 1897, when, as a nine-year-old student in Lobberich, Germany, he got his first Latin text book and worked all the way through it immediately "because it was so interesting." He went on to get his Ph.D. at the University of Berlin, taught there for a year, and then, at the age of 27, was named Professor of Philology at the University of Basel, Switzerland--the same chair that Nietzsche had occupied. From there he returned to Germany and a professorship at the University of Kiel, and then--at the amazingly young age of 34--he was named full Professor of Philology back at the University of Berlin. Two years later he was elected to the exclusive Berlin Academy, at whose meetings he and Albert Einstein became good friends. In this city Professor Jaeger planned to stay forever.

But Hitler had other ideas. Despite the confidence of many Berlin scholars--including Einstein--that the Fascist rise to power in Italy "cannot happen here," Jaeger saw early that it was happening, and decided to leave the country. This he did by 1936, teaching first at the University of California, then the University of Chicago, and finally, in 1939, coming to Harvard as a University Professor.

Unable to travel during much of his life because of wars, Jaeger in recent summers has been going to Europe (in 1952 the classicist visited Greece for the first time); but otherwise he likes to retreat to New Hampshire or Vermont, where he can answer letters that have accumulated over the year and can get his only exercise by walking, very slowly and contemplatively, over the hilly countryside. "Of course the walks are getting shorter now," he notes.

The excitement is just as great, however--on both the intellectual and the personal level--for the student who encounters Jaeger for the first time. Talking with anyone who has wandered into his cluttered office, the benign professor with the high-domed forehead and wispy gray hair inevitably begins to discuss his own life, work, and thoughts. In another academician this topic would be boring, but something is different as Jaeger talks on in his slow, clear English--describing, say, the thrill of puzzling for days over the meaning of a certain word in an ancient text, and then, suddenly, getting the answer and throwing up both hands "as a free man again." While Jaeger talks the light in his eyes and the soft laugh in his voice gradually take effect, and the listener is soon as excited as the Professor about the supposedly dull "contemplative life." Likely as not, the next thing the visitor will notice is Likely as not, the next thing the visitor will notice is that outside the window, dusk has descended on the yard.