His college education was interrupted by World War I in 1917 when he joined the U.S. army and spent 20 months overseas.
degree, Langford enrolled in 1920 as a graduate student at Harvard University, where he earned his Ph.D. in psychology under Edwin Boring in 1924.
With the aid of a Sheldon Traveling Fellowship, he studied logic and philosophy at Cambridge University during 1924–1925.
Langford became a full professor at the University of Michigan in 1933, remaining there for the rest of his career.
In the academic year 1935–1936, he was a Guggenheim fellow, dividing his time between Vienna and Cambridge, England.