[1] He finished his secondary education at Kristiansand Cathedral School in 1916, and graduated from the Royal Frederick University in 1922.
He was a Latin teacher at the university from 1929, having specialized in classical philology during studies in Germany, Italy and Greece.
[1] In the interwar period Skard marked himself as an opponent of Fascism, first and foremost as a follower of the Oxford Group.
[1] Germany won, but one of the many civil protests ensued when the Nazi authorities were about to change the rules for admission to the university in autumn 1943.
[2] The staff Johannes Andenæs, Bjørn Føyn, Johan Christian Schreiner, Harald Krabbe Schjelderup, Anatol Heintz, Odd Hassel, Ragnar Frisch, Carl Jacob Arnholm, Endre Berner and Eiliv Skard were sent to Grini concentration camp.