The Pierpont Morgan Library divides its manuscripts, somewhat arbitrarily, into two principal groups, the “Medieval and Renaissance” and the “Autograph.” Though neither term correctly describes all the materials classified in its group, the division serves well enough to distinguish the handwritten books of the period prior to the spread of printing from the more varied manuscripts of the modern era.

The Morgan “Autographs” comprise the originals of literary and historical writings (with some others of primarily artistic, musical, philosophical, or scientific interest), all letters, and all documents save only those which are in effect illuminated manuscripts. Among these “Autographs” are many manuscripts which are not strictly autograph at all: some are original, though not in the author's hand (Book i of Paradise Lost being an illustrious example of this class, which includes many letters and most documents); others are copies which, for one reason or another, have a particular importance (manuscripts of Crashaw, Sterne, or Keats, for example).

Two Centuries Ago another Dr. Johnson, commenting on the griefs and dangers that beset the scholar, advised him to pause a while from letters to be wise:

Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes …
There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,
Toil, envy, want, the garret, and the gaol.
See nations slowly wise, and meanly just,
To buried merit raise the tardy bust.

A few years later he indicated that patrons are even greater ills than garrets in the life of the scholar. The corporate patronage of our time represents some advance over the system of individual patronage that was dying in the eighteenth century, and, in the field of modern scholarship, living merit is generally acknowledged–if not always in due proportion or in the crude but useful form of hire and salary. In two centuries there has been apparent progress, though it would be difficult to say how much. It is not the purpose of this essay to refute the universality of Dr. Johnson's sobering generalization but, for our own time and place, to qualify and perhaps to document it by surveying the honors reserved for living scholars, specifically those honors awarded by groups or institutions in the United States and Canada that have been or might conceivably be given to MLA members in recognition of unusual achievement.

In the humanities folklore has won for itself only a small place. This is not surprising because it has not been able to free itself completely from the antiquarian and dilettante tradition of collecting curiosities. Proverbs, tales, ballads, customs, or superstitions are thought to be quaint and are recorded and studied for that reason. In the fifteenth century, Italian humanists brought to Germany the idea of an objective description of a country and had imitators who illustrated accounts of Westphalia and Ulm with local proverbs, stories of ghosts and nixes, wedding customs, and other bits of folklore. A little later Johannes Boemus, who ranged more widely in his Omnium gentium mores, leges et ritus (1520), and Sebastian Franck, who limited himself to Germany, proceeded more systematically. Franck saw that a knowledge of customs and manners contributed as much as knowledge of political, legal, or ecclesiastical history to the understanding of a people. Such collections of materials had, however, a somewhat nationalistic tinge and did not amount to much more than contributions to ethnography, history, or geography. A similar subordination of folklore to history and geography is seen in William Camden, Remaines of a greater worke concerning Britaine (1605). The second edition of this book (1614) contained the first alphabetical collection of English proverbs to be printed in England and we can therefore call it an early example of the organized presentation of folklore. The making of records continued and the manner of presenting them improved somewhat, but a systematic study of folklore did not arise. At the end of the seventeenth century scientific work that had been stimulated by the foundation of the Royal Society led John Aubrey to make two valuable collections of folklore and the miscellaneous interests of German and other polymaths included it. Divergent as these activities were, they did not reinforce each other and did not establish folklore as a recognized branch of the humanities.

This sentence, better than any I know, goes to the heart of letters. It defines the personal and professional quest which inspires us day by day, and brings us together in this Association year by year. It is the continuing wonder of man that the pure flame of his life is bound up in words. His greatest moments require the shape of the right words in the right order to be recognized and given meaning. Until they are uttered and recorded, the moment, the experience, is fragmentary and illusory. Emerson spoke of Shakespeare as “the man who carries the Saxon race in him.” It was no exaggeration. He said so much so simply that other men of lesser insight or gift of words have unanimously nodded their heads in agreement and offered their thanks. What they had sharply or dimly felt was given form and meaning. Henceforth it was.

Brash indeed is the outsider who ventures to talk to the members of a profession about their professional work. I would never have had the presumption, even after your persuasive Secretary's urgings, had I not thought that perhaps my own problems bore some relation to yours. I order books for a library, and try to order them selectively, buying only what seem to me to be the good books, valuable today and valuable tomorrow. Books written by members of this Association are among those to which, almost daily, I must give some scrutiny, and over the years I have reached this paradoxical conclusion: That while literary scholars in the United States are the most literate of the followers of humanistic disciplines, they produce more bad books than do their colleagues in other fields. They are more literate because they are more widely read, are more civilized, and in general, if not many of them write really well, they write better than, say, most of the people in my own profession of history.

Nature requires that between two neighboring hills there must be a valley. Perhaps this is a sufficient explanation for my presence here, and sufficient apology to anyone who thinks that the subject just announced intrudes vulgarly into a program of the Modern Language Association. Certainly our annual meetings should be devoted chiefly to exchanges of high thoughts about the humanities which it is our fortunate lot to profess, and the communication to each other of our discoveries in the delightful world of scholarship. But we know, too, that when we come together we talk of other things—of changes in this department or that, of resignations and retirements, of openings for young men and women of promise. Some of us, indeed, are besieged by hopeful applicants, and are forced to give attention, even in this academic company, to recruiting and placements which will sustain our professional strength. It cannot well be otherwise. Our problems are not simply those arising out of our own studies, but those of preceptors who accept as a principal responsibility the preparation of young men and women for useful careers in colleges and universities. To this end not only the learning which we impart but also the philosophy which we inculcate are of importance; and we may well spare a few minutes, therefore, to consider conditions now prevailing in the academic world which affect our outlook. I shall have little to say that is novel, nothing which cannot easily be discovered. I wish only to give emphasis to conclusions which recent experience has shaped.

Like many American scholars I have been interested in the issue between science and the humanities in higher education. I have heard lectures and read books that praised the humanities and made reasoned presentations of the claims of literature and the arts in the dissemination of the best and most effective culture. I have been gratified by such discourses. The inference has been that students of science and technology should be urged and persuaded to devote at least some time to history, philosophy, literature, and the arts, and to this I have no objection; but it has seemed to me that we were taking hold of the matter from exactly the wrong end. It is perhaps important for scientists to know the humanities, but it has seemed to me essential that humanists should know the sciences. I presume my acquaintance with the Renaissance has led me to adopt the view that the truths of science, as well as those of history, philosophy, arts and letters, are within the domain of humanism. I need not mention the names of great Renaissance humanists—Erasmus, Spenser, Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Rabelais, Montaigne, Ariosto, and Cervantes. We still have, however, a thrill of surprise when we hear Bacon say, “I have taken all knowledge to be my province,” although Bacon is merely expressing the professed doctrine of Renaissance humanism. The truth of the matter is that all Renaissance humanists, with due allowance for the indulgence of special aptitudes, did precisely that.