Recent news of the retirement of William Scott Ferguson, McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History, has attracted more attention in international academic circles than in Cambridge, for while Professor Ferguson has in the past played a major role in Harvard administration he is known primarily as a scholar--"one of the most distinguished ancient historians of his time," to quote a colleague.
Recognized as a world authority on Athenian history and inscriptions, Professor Ferguson is especially noted for his discovery of the basic law, known as "Ferguson's Law," upon which chronology of the later Greek history is based. He discovered this law while working as a graduate student at Cornell.
Appointed to an assistant professorship in History in 1908, Professor Ferguson attained the full professorship in 1912, after the publication in the previous year of his masterpiece, "Hellenistic Athens." He won the McLean chair, which he has held until this time, in 1929, and for many years he was chairman of the History Department.
Professor Ferguson was always a scholar living in Cambridge and quietly teaching and writing books and articles on Greek history. He was one of the few American contributors to the "Cambridge Ancient History."
Not until the '30s did Professor Ferguson make headlines. In 1938 he was on the Committee of Eight, with such professors as Felix Frankfurter, Kenneth B. Murdock '16, Ralph Barton Perry, Arthur M. Schlesinger, and Harlow Shapley, which was appointed by President Conant to investigate terminating appointments at Harvard after the much-touted Walsh-Sweezy affair.
(In 1937, J. R. Walsh and A. R. Sweezy '29, were given terminating appointments and the University was accused of discriminating against them because of their allegedly leftist views.)
After reporting on the Walsh-Sweezy case, the Committee went on to study the entire tenure system for young instructors at Harvard and to advocate drastic changes. At the time, Professor Ferguson was considered part of an anti-administration faction in the Universities.
The present system of tenure, drawn up by the 1939 Committee, is placed on a rational basis, it is said. It provides for replenishment of the teaching staff, sets salaries, and makes it possible for a man to know what he can expect so that he won't have to wait until someone dies or retires. Flexibility of finances is fundamental to the system, which has been copied in many other universities.
It is not generally known that Professor Ferguson invented the reading period which is now used at Harvard.
In the spring of 1939, when the late George D. Birkhoff '04, Perkins Professor of Mathematics, had been appointed exchange professor to France, Professor Ferguson succeeded to Professor Birkhoff's position as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; and it is said that Professor Ferguson groomed as his successor Paul H. Buck, present dean.
In his new position, Professor Ferguson was largely concerned with the problems of Faculty personnel and promotion that he had previously studied, and the application of the Tenure Committee report can perhaps be largely credited to the powerful influence over appointments and periods of tenure that Professor Ferguson was able to exercise in the Dean's Office.
While Professor Ferguson was winning administrative plums, he remained the historical scholar. In 1930 he was President of the American Historical Association. Not yet 70, but four years older than the standard retirement age, Professor Ferguson will continue to live in Cambridge and to report on his investigations of history
