Kenneth Murdock was an Assistant Dean of Harvard College. A Boston native, he was just 25 years old at the time of the Court. He graduated from Harvard "summa cum laude" in 1916 and then served in World War I as an ensign in the Navy. He then returned to the college as assistant dean, while his father, a successful banker, was serving on a committee that was reorganizing the university's finances. He later earned his doctorate in English from Harvard and enjoyed a distinguished academic career as Francis Lee Higginson Professor of English Literature, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (1931–36), and the first Master of Leverett House (1930–41). Among his many publications were "Literature & Theology in Colonial New England" and "The Notebooks of Henry James", which he edited with F. O. Matthiessen. He died in 1975.