Cyril attended Merced High School and a preparatory school in Santa Clara before enrolling in the University of California, Berkeley, in 1918. Cyril received his bachelor's degree in history and immediately entered the graduate program. Cyril taught at Berkeley and his studies of medieval history required research in Europe.
Cyril studied at the Ecole de Chartes in Paris, a school for archivists and historians near the Sorbonne. His research on the medieval university at Toulouse also took him to that city and to Rome. Cyril completed his dissertation and received his doctorate in 1928.
Cyril launched his teaching career as an instructor at West Virginia University in 1928. The next year he became an assistant professor at Louisiana State University, where he taught for four years. Unemployed after his appointment at LSU ended, Cyril moved back to San Francisco and worked on turning his dissertation into a book. In the fall of 1934, he joined the faculty of Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, teaching medieval and renaissance history. A devout, scholarly man, Cyril remained at Marquette until his retirement in 1967. The Marquette University Press published his book
The University of Toulouse in the Middle Ages: Its Origins and Growth to 1500 A.D. in 1958.
Cyril created a Trust, with the Virginia Smith Trust as Trustee, that would fund scholarships with one-half of dollars going to support Marquette University graduate students and the other half to provide college scholarships to worthy, deserving and needy students who attended a public high school in the City of Merced for at least three years.
The 2023-24 CST Scholarship is due March 2, 2023
Cyril Smith Scholarship Brochure PDF
PDF Do
2023-24 Cyril Smith Scholarship Application PDF Downloa2021-22 CST Scholarship Application.pdf
For more information or a paper application, please contact:
Yolanda Campos
Smith Family Scholarships Office
Merced County Office of Education
Phone: (209) 381-6604
Email: CyrilSmith
