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Date: October 1, 1999
Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, James Ward Smith Dies
Princeton, N.J. -- Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, James Ward Smith died on September 26, at the Medical Center at Princeton. He was 82.
Smith, a professor of political philosophy, was known as a dramatic and uninhibited lecturer. His course "Philosophy and the Modern Mind," which he taught for 30 years, was the most popular course in the philosophy department.
Smith was a member of Princeton's class of 1938. He was a teaching fellow at Harvard University for one year, and was awarded his Ph.D. in philosophy at Princeton in 1942.
During World War II he served in the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1946. He was Beach Master for the assaults on the islands of Kwajelein, Guam, Pelelieu, Leyte Gulf, Lingayen Gulf and Iwo Jima, earning the Bronze Star medal and seven battle stars for courage under fire. He also served as executive officer aboard a troop ship and attained the rank of lieutenant commander.
In 1946 he returned to teach philosophy at Princeton, and joined the faculty the following year. Smith's advanced course, "Philosophical Foundations of Democracy," examined the concepts of rights, freedom, equality and justice in relation to each other. Standing ovations were regular occurrences at his packed lectures, and over the years many of his students went on to become important figures in the field. He retired in 1987.
In addition to teaching at Princeton, Smith held teaching positions at Christ Church College, Oxford University in the 1950s and 1960s. He also taught and lectured in the Summer Telluride Program at Cornell University and at Princeton, influencing high school students to make the effort to continue on to college.
He was chairman of Princeton's special interdepartmental Program of American Civilization from l955 through 1961. In the fall of 1961 he was a resident at the American Academy in Rome. He also served as secretary of the American Philosophical Society.
Smith was the author of Theme for Reason (1957) and coeditor (with A. Leland Jamison) of the four-volume study Religion in American Life (1961).
Smith is survived by two nieces, Susan Smith Reilly and Melissa Smith. Plans for a memorial service will be announced at a later date.