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The MLA, 1883-1953

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2021

William R. Parker
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Extract

Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child.

—Cicero.

The aim of history is to assemble real facts and real speeches, to the end that lovers of knowledge may be instructed and persuaded.

—Polybius.

History is simply a piece of paper covered with print; the main thing is still to make history, not to write it.

—Bismarck.

If history does not truly repeat itself, knowledge of it may, sometimes, give current problems a familiar, less formidable look. That is one reason for looking backward to our origins while we, as an Association, consider anew the status of modern language study in America and seek means to amend it. Another reason is that next December we celebrate our seventieth birthday.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 68 , Issue 4-Part2: Supplement , September 1953 , pp. 3 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1953

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References

1 The three (not counting President Barnard of Columbia) : Franklin Carter, chairman; B. F. O'Connor, secretary; and, by implication, Elliott himself. The document creating the MLA (see p. 19, following) was presumably signed by most of those présent at the 1883 meeting, but it has been lost At the 1884 meeting Its inadequacies as a constitution were recognised, the Association was termed temporary, and a committee (Boyesen, Brandt, Elliott, Fay, and Williams) was appointed on Fay's motion to recommend articles of a constitution for a permanent organization. When these were adopted, it was voted “that those who should now sign this document [also lost] should be regarded as original members of the Association.” By amazing coincidence, exactly 40 signatures (the full attendance at the first convention) were handed In to the Secretary, although 53 persons attended this second convention. Of the 40, at least 17 had attended the 1883 meeting and had presumably signed the original Constitution. Bancroft, Boyesen, Brandt, Carter, Cohn, Cook, Elliott, Pay, von Jagemann, Latz, McElroy, O'Connor, Richardson, Ringer, Todd, Williams, and Woman (see pp. 7-11, following, for identifications of these persons).

The other 23 signers (“original members”) were: G. L. Andrews (U. S. Military Acad.), J. W Bright (Johns Hopkins), P. Cams (Dr. Sachs's Collegiate Coll.), P. D. Dodge (Berea), Edward Grosamann (Berkeley School, N. Y), C. E. Hart (Rutgers), W. T. Hewett (Cornell), Joseph Kargé (Princeton), C. F. Kroeh (Stevens Inst, Hoboken), Jules E. Loiseau (School of Mine, Columbia), W. L. Montague (Amherst), F. V. N. Painter (Roanoke), A. H. Palmer (Adalbert Coll., Cleveland), Sylvester Primer (Coll of Charleston), C. F. Reeves (Penn. State), A. de Rougemont (Adelphi Acad., Brooklyn), H. J. Schmitz (Adelphi Acad.), G. A. Scribner (Columbia), J. S. Simonton (Washington and Jefferson), F. R. Stengel (School of Mines, Columbia), O. B. Super (Dickinson), B. W. Wells (Friends School, Providence), and H. S. White (Coraall).

2 Elliott is very definite about the attendance, whereas the newspaper accounts characteristically vary. Only the New York Sun and Daily Graphic give the figure at 40; the Nation, Daily Tribune, Baltimore Sun, and Philadelphia Inquirer, give It at “about” 40, the last named confidently but inaccurately adding that these represented “at least” 30 institutions. The Evening Telegram for 27 Dec. puts it at about 25, but the next day increases it te about 50. The Times puts It at about 45.

3 Hamilton Hall, called by the students Anthon Hall after the famous classical scholar Charles Anthon (1797-1867), was erected in 1879. It was abandoned, as were other old sites and buildings, when the University moved to Morningside Heights in 1897.

4 The newspaper coverage of the meeting was surprisingly numerous and most of it was serious. Von Jagemann, forty years later, spoke of “facetious editorials” (“a prominent New York paper among others suggested that the Modem Languages would probably include Choctaw”), bat we have not succeeded in finding these references and wonder if he was remembering a later year. Set note 8, below.

For our account of the meeting we have drawn upon stories in the following periodicals : Albany Argus, 28 Dec (p. 1), 29 Dec (p. 2); Baltimore Sun, 28 Dec. (back page); Boston Evening Traveller, 28 Dec. (p. 4); Philadelphia Inquirer, 28 Dec, 29 Dec; Providence Journal, 28 Dec, 29 Dec; The Nation, Vol 38, No 966 (3 Jan. 1884), p. 14; and the following New York papers: Daily Graphic. 28 Dec. (pp. 430, 434); Daily Tribune, 28 Dec (p. 5), 29 Dec (p. 5), 30 Dec. (p. 6, editorial); Evening Post, 28 Dec (p. 1); Evening Telegram, 27 Dec, 4th ed. (p. 4). 28 Dec, 4th ed. (p. 1); Herald, 28 Dec (p. 4), 29 Dec (p. 2); Staats Zeitung. 28 Dec (p. 8); Star, 28 Dec (p. 2). 29 Dec. (p. 2); Sun, 28 Dec (p. 1), 29 Dec (p. 2); Times, 28 Dec (p. 2), 29 Dec (p. 8).

No account of the meeting was found in appropriate Issues of the Atlantic, Boston Evening Transcript and Globe, Century, Chicago Tribune, Education, Barter's, or St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

5 President Barnard's remarks were noted in the Philadelphia Inquirer and New York Times and Daily Tribune. Hereafter, whenever possible, the source of information will be indicated parenthetically in the text.

Barnard had earlier in his career (e.g., in 1855) been an active defender of the classical concentration on the “eminently disciplinary and inestimably valuable study of Latin and Greek,” but eventually he changed his mind. By 1866 be waa advocating substitution of modern languages for ancient languages in preparatory courses and the postponement of Latin and Greek until college.

6 The Philadelphia Inquirer for 28 Dec. mentions 22 names (plus President Barnard), including the following not mentioned in other sources consulted: Appleton, Boyesen, Lyon, Ringer, and Scott. The Daily Tribune for 28 Dec. mentions 15 names, and 6 additional names in the next day's story. Fay was found mentioned only in the New York Sun for 28 Dec All the others were found in two or more sources, except von Jagemann (see n. S, below). Elliott's enumeration of attendance by colleges provided a much-needed check on several inaccuracies In the newspaper listings of names (see p. 13). It also contains Inaccuracies, however: in his list, Boston university should be M.I.T. (Otis), and the University of Virginia should be the University of West Virginia (Lyon).

7 For biographical accounts of Elliott, see the DAB and PMLA, jam (March 1911), 1-5; LIX (Supp. 1944), 1352;; and LXVII (Sept. 1952), xvi. There is a portrait as frontispiece to toe Index, 1884-1935 (1916).

8 For evidence of von Jagemann's attendance, see his own (not quite explicit) statetment in Ρ M LA, XXXVIII (Supp. 1923), xxiii-xxiv : The present generation probably does not realize that the modern languages were then struggling for a modest place in the college curriculum, that our efforts were frowned on and antagonized in many placet by the men then most influential In American education, that at the first meeting; we ourselves bad to spend most of the time debating what we were there for, and only good luck prevented the enterprise from being wrecked by the joint efforts of its enemies and lit friends. … we have surely come Into our own. But of late our position it being again assailed, this time not by the representatives of fine traditional culture, the classicists, but by those who are either indifferent or positively hostile to all humanistic and liberalizing studies and wish to turn colleges and universities into partly vocational schools. To that pernicious utilitarian tendency the representatives of the ancient and modern languages and literatures ought to present a united front, for our ideas, and ultimate aims are the same and any injury done to one of these studies will sooner or later redound to the injury of all others“ (PMLA, XXXVIII, xxiii-xxiv).

9 In 1923 Todd wrote: “My own relations with Professor Elliott came about in this way. Having resigned my Princeton tutorship and spent three yean of study in Europe, I wrote from Paris in 1883, applying for a fellowship at Johns Hopkins. To that application the reply came in the early summer, in the form of a visit from Professor Elliott st my student quarters. This was our first meeting. … In meeting a man so alert, robust and jovial, so experienced in the world of literature, education and travel, it would have been strange, indeed, had I not immediately been attracted by Elliott's engaging personality. I have been told by persons who knew him at Harvard that a an undergraduate Elliott was unusually slender, but the morning be called on me in the rue de la Sorbonne hit face and form were already fully rounded out and Ins countenance ruddy and suffused with broad smiles. After a few words of cordial greeting, he made to me the double announcement that the fellowship had bean awarded to H C. G. von Jagemann, but that he hoped I would be willing to accept an instructorship. May I venture to remark that it never occurred to me to demur against accepting a far lower salary than I had received in my last years at Princeton? Opportunity, much more than pecuniary recognition, is still, in my opinion, what a young man should chiefly be looking out for—with the comforting reflection that there is always room higher up” (PMLA, XXXVIII, xxiv).

10 We may note in passing that only seven of these thirty-four persons survived as members into the secretaryship of Carleton Brown (1920-34): Brandt (died 1920), Cohn (1930), Fay (1931), von Jagemann (1926), Scott (1936), Todd (1925), and Wood (1925). The following wen still alive in that period but had allowed their membership to lapse: Appleton (died 1926), Bendelari (1927), Lutz (193S), O'Connor (1922), Rice (1925), and Worman (1930).

11 The unknown representative from Johns Hopkins was not James Wilson Bright (1852-1926), who was then 1880-83 (PhD. 1882) but in Germany during the academic year 1883-84; nor was be George Hempl (1859-1921), who was instructor in German there 1884-86 (abroad 1886-89) but during 1882-84 was principal of the high school in La Porte, Indiana. On both men see the DAB. Possibilities an William Hand Browne, Librarian and Associate in English, or Léonce Rabillon, Lecturer in French—but neither of these attended the 1884 meeting or belonged to the Association

12 The representative from New Jersey was probably Charles Frederick Kroeh (1846-1928) of the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, Professor of Languages from 1871. He attended the 1884 meeting and continued a member until his death. He was the originator of a “living Method” of foreign language teaching. One of the unknown representatives from New York City was probably Paul Carus, Ph.D. (1852-1919). Born in Germany, and newly arrived in the united States, in 1884 he taught at Dr. Julius Sachs's Collegiate College (a preparatory school for boys) in New York. He was a member In 1884 and 1885 only. After a short sojourn in Boston (1885) he moved to Illinois, and later edited the Open Court and Monist, was director of the Open Court Publishing Co., and wrote mon than 50 monographs.

In the old files of the Association there it tantalizing evidence that Secretary Brown attempted in 1932-33 to discover the names of the 40 who attended the first meeting There an transcripts of 5 newspaper accounts, and a typed list of 33 “Memben Present at the Fust Meeting of the Association.” This list is undocumented, alas! It does not contain the names of Appleton, Lyon, and Scott, who an mentioned In the Philadelphia Inquirer for 28 Dec, but it does contain the name of Boyesen and Ringer, whom we found mentioned only In this source. It is also unclear where, if anywhere, he found the names of Fay, von Jagemann, and Todd; but these time wen alive while he was Secretary. Most tantalizing of all, the list contairs the names of the two men described in the foregoing paragraph

13 Not surprisingly because Carey Thomas was, throughout her long, impressive life, to determined te make Bryn Mawr as good as the beat men's colleges and not another “female seminary.” She hid studied at Cornell (BA. 1877), had got permission to study (or an A.M. at Jonas Hopkins “without class attendance,” and had gone abroad to earn a PhD. at Zurich summa cum laude (1882). She Joined the MLA as a professor from Bryn Mawr before this college actually opened (1885). Her colleague, Hermann Collitz (MLA President in 1925), did not join until 1886. She was not, surprisingly, the first woman to publish an article in PMLA; this was L. Mary McLean (California) in 1891, on “The Riming System of Alexander Pope.”

14 Bendelari, Boyesen, Brandt, Cohn, von Jagemann. Lutz, Ringer, and Worman were all foreign-born (von Jagemann had come to the United States in 1881), as were Carus and Kroeh (if they may be included, see n. 12, above); and so, probably, were Huss and Stäger, about whom biographical Information is difficult to find.

Despite the point made by the Inquirer's reporter, it is interesting to note that America has continued to employ, to a far greater extent than any other country, modern language teachers of foreign birth and training—and this also despite our emphasis upon reading rather than speaking skill. The practice has undoubtedly reflected, and public attitudes toward the study of foreign languages.

15 According to surveys published in the 1884 and 1885 Proceedings, in the 20 Institutions known to have been represented at the first meeting there were 39 faculty members In English, 66 In foreign languages, in 1884; 43 in English, 71 In foreign languages, in 1885. The largest modern language departments were at Harvard (15), Columbia (10), Yale (9), St. Louis (8), Michigan, Vanderbilt, and the Hopkins (7 each). By 1889 Harvard had 13 teachers of English, 10 of foreign languages.

16 “From 1876 te 1880 Marshall Elliott had bona the entire burden of the Romance department (at Johns Hopkins], graduate and undergraduate la 1879-80 he taught 16 hour, par week, whereas Gildersleeve in Greek, never taught more than five hours.” -William Kurrelmeyer, PMLA, LIX (1944), 1352. Elliot's. remark, at the first convention doubtless. struck a responsive chord hi Whiting Bancroft of Brown, who had been ill during 1883 front overwork; his reports show that he had to read and correct about 125 essays aad orations monthly, some of considerable length, la addition to all bis classroom work in rhetoric and English literature.

17 The English and German departments st Johns Hopkins had been combined during 1882-83, with Wood as head (his this changed to Associate in German, 1884).

18 Cf. the direct quotation in the Star: “We can never succeed in introducing, the modern languages until they are made to take rank as a solid study, in the same spirit that the student approaches the study of Greek and Latin; but, as it is now, the modern language is considered by the student the ‘soft snap.‘ It it necessary therefore to make them more difficult” The Dictionary of Amaricanisms (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1951) traces “soft snap” to Johnson J. Hooper's The Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs (1845).

19 But cf. p. 26 on recent change in attitude at the German universities.

20 Taking note of the “persistent tradition” that the MLA was “created, Eve-like, by taking a rib out of the side of the older” American Philological Association, Carleton Brown in 1933 pointed out that, of the 40 persons who signed the MLA Constitution in 1884, only 13 were APA members and 3 others actually joined the APA in 1885. The 13: Boyesen, Brandt, Outer, Elliott, Hewett, von Jagemann, lutz, O'Connor, Primer, Stengel, Wells, White, and Williams. See n. 1 for identification of these men.

21 “For more than two centuries, than was nothing ‘higher’ about American higher education.’ … It must be recalled that the old-time professors did little research, and were viewed as advanced pedagogues in a society which accorded small respect to teachers in general. The need for real universities, with research faculties, was expressed by many observers from the 1790s on but with no results until after 1870. … as the fame of Paris and of the German universities spread after 1820, one critic after another declared that our colleges were only gymnasiia … The explanation of American delays in founding universities may be found in several circumstances : (1) conservative devotion to ‘general education’ and the values of ‘college life’; (2) the poverty of colleges, which had no binds for advanced work even if they desired it; and (3) the indifference felt by ‘practical’ Ameicans for abstract studies or ‘pure’ science. Similar indifference or opposition flourished in England, whence this country had inherited the college ideal. … [But after 1870] the achievements of German research wan browning more obvious, and, in addition, more applicable to technology, agriculture, and medicine. Such value, could be appreciated by the most practical of peoples.” Richard H. Shryock, The Academic Profession in the United States,“ Bulletin of the AAUP, XXXVIII (Spring 1952), 38-40.

22 The Germanic influence on American scholarship and on American university (and, subsequently, collate) teaching has been often remarked. Not so easy to assess is the influence of English thinking, at this same period, about liberal and scientific education. Two days after the first MLA meeting, the New York Daily Tribune noted editorially: “A few days ago the question of establishing a Modern Language Tripos,' or examination, came up in Cambridge University, England, and the proposition was defeated. The majority against it, however, whs so slender that the friends of the measure are confident that they will before long gain a victory. The incident marks a great change of sentiment in England on the subject of education. Greek and Latin have long ceased to be regarded as the sole basis of a liberal education, and Cambridge University Itself is the beat possible witness that mathematics at least must be considered on a level with the dead languages in the scheme of modern education. Natural science, too, has gained a firm and enduring footing both at Cambridge and Oxford.” In 1881 Napier had been appointed professor of English at Oxford. See C. C. Gillispie, “English Ideas of the University in the Nineteenth Century,” in The Modern University, ed. M. Clapp (Ithaca, N.Y, 1950), pp. 46 ff.

23 Tbe period between Christmas and New Year's Day was already, in 1885, s favored time for conventions. While the MLA was in the process of being founded, the Ohio Liquor Dealers were perfecting a state organization (to protest taxes), the Freethinkers (about 300 delegates) were convening at Salamanca in upstate New York, and the American Society of Professors of Dancing was thinking conservative thoughts in Philadelphia. Elsewhere in New York City representatives of eight eastern colleges were “holding a conference on intercollegiate sports, purposing to keep future games ”within the bounds of manly exercises rather than professional encounters.“

24 In colleges and universities the fickle friend of modern language study has been, of course, the elective system, which gained general acceptance after Eliot's reforms at Harvard In the 1870s. When it was introduced very early—and with little influence elsewhere at William and Mary (1779) and the University of Virginia (1825), modem language immediately achieved recognition at these institutions. When the elective system was accepted more or lest generally, modern languages first crowded out the classics, and then encountered competition from an ever-increasing number of new subjects and courses. How to justify the expenditure of such a disproportionate amount of time on only one subject in a besieged curriculum—when we must to often say of the subject's product that he has not had rime enough?

25 The abbreviation “M. L. A.” for Modern Language Association it recognized in the 1909 edition of Webster's (New) International Dictionary (for which Percy W. Long did editorial work), and it hat appeared in all subsequent editions, as well as in the “Collegiate.”

26 High school teachers of English and of foreign languages have never bean denied MLA membership, but the major concerns of the Association, and the nature of PMLA, have encouraged only a few to join. The “ΑAΤ” organizations, on the other reflect that broader interest- The American Association of Teachers of Spanish currently has nearly 3,400 Individual members (2,058 tea years ago); the French AAT, nearly 4,000; the German AAT, 1,100; the Italian AAT, 560; the Slavic and East European AAT, more than 400 (total, 9,460). Membership In the National Council of Teachers of English, which (unlike the College English Association) recruits members from secondary education, totals 13,462.

27 J. F. Weuemeyer, ACLS staff expert on personnel resources, informs us (June 1053) that, between now and 1960, we shall need in American colleges and universities approximately 2,400 additional (i.e., not including replacements) English teachers and 1,900 additional forden language teachers. Between now and 1970, the informed guess is: approximately 10,500 additional English teachers, 8,500 foreign language teachers. The last figure is, of course, subject to revision upward if the demand for foreign language instruction increases, as the “FL Program” trusts it will. In any case, the recruitment and adequate training of these additional people, to say nothing.of normal replacements, const rtatt ope of the major problem facing the profession. The reader should keep it in mind as he reads the paragraphs that follow.

28 Aa this ta being written, Hohlfeld is our oldest living member, having joined the Association in 1889. He was President in 1913. In 1904 he said: “Notwithstanding only of investigators, but, I might any, primarily of teachers. As s matter of fact, semiofficial regret has been repeatedly expressed that not more of our secondary teachers are among our active members and I, for one, certainly share this feeling. To maintain”, however, that every secondary teacher, yea even every college Instructor, could or should be an original Investigator b either a naïve delusion concerning the actual status of our educational system or, what is more dangerous, it ta based on a mechanical and superficial interpretation of the terms ‘original scholarship or ‘research work.’ …

“We can easily imagine how much, in the early history of the Association, the repression of narrowly methodological interests was needed. We feel deeply grateful to these who, in this struggle for supremacy, held high the banner of learning and ultimately won the day. The legitimate question new, however, teems to be whether the swing of the pendulum has not carried us too far. With our present strength as a strictly scholarly body assured, can and should we not give some more attention than we now do, to the broader educational and practical interests of our profession? Has the ideal of productive scholarship as yet taken root so little that we fear it will suffer and die unless surrounded by the Walls of a high protective tariff? We know that this is not the case. The exclusivenes which once, no doubt, was the part of wisdom tad has helped to make us strong is now the part of timidity or of superciliousness sad deprives us of the fulness of the influence which we could wield” (PMLA, XIX, xxxi-xxxvii) Hohlfeld was President of the Central Division when he made this plea; Kittredge was President of the parent organization.

29 As the profession (and the MLA with it) expanded numerically, along with steadily rising college enrollments, the old “systems” of making either major or minor staff appointments (based largely on personal acquaintance, however butted, or on traditional ties between institutions) began to break down. Most chairmen of English or foreign language departments were reluctant, however, to turn to “teachers' agencies,” and almost none could bring themselves to advertise vacancies in tbe British way; so the MLA annual meetings, despite all pretensions to the contrary, became more and more (in the phrase of the unhappy younger participants) a “slave market” This was and still is—a deplorable byproduct of academic parsimony or inertia, since, for countless persons, it makes an assembly of scholars seem like a grotesquely elaborate excuse for hiring-interviews and the making of supposedly useful “contacts,” with consequent embarrassment to both “important” and importunate members of the Association. One possible solution—detailed and candid listing of all vacancies in PMLA—is so simple sad logical that it may be decades before it is reached.

30 The Association's debt of gratitude to New York University is very great; probably no other learned society can boast so generous a host institution. The headquarters offices (including light, heat janitor service, etc.) have been supplied rent free since 1928. At present tbe Executive Secretary, Treasurer, sad Assistant Editor are all full-time faculty members, on full-time salaries, with “half” of their time formally released to the Association. At a conservative estimate, NYU thus supports the MLA each year to the extent of $10,000. The Association's present offices (since 26 March 19S2) are as commodious, attractive, and conveniently located as those of any other learned organization. Not incidentally, Vice Chancellor LeRoy E. Kimball of NYU has been Managing Trustee of the MLA since 1922.

31 For a survey of “American linguistics, 1925-1950,” ass the article so entitled by Robert A. Hall, Jr., Arckhivum Linguisticum, III (1951), 101-125, IV, 1-16.

32 PMLA, xiv (1899) 251. Smith's admirable address on the work of the MLA merits further quotation; it comes close to defining the major aims of our current “FL Program.” The MLA endeavors, he said, “by united effort to establish a centre of correct information for the settlement of questions relating to the Modern Languages and Literatures. ... It seeks by annual meetings and by publications to organize the agenda and to elevate the standard of Modern Language study In every State and County of the Union. It endeavors to educate public sentiment in regard to the Modern Languages so that the note of provinciality shall no longer characterize either the investigations of American scholars or the methods of American teachers” (pp. 240, 243).