1955: Then and Now

Extract

I look back with nostalgia on my early days in the MLA. It was then tripartite with the divisions English, Romance, German. One could attend all three and hear all the papers offered in them if one wished. That was “then.” Now we migrate from room to room, sometimes from building to building, hoping to hear, if we can, the papers in the special research or discussion groups that interest us. This only to find that all those we wish to hear come simultaneously. These changes in the structure of the society did not come, of course, from changes in policy but resulted from increasing enrolment, and beyond question they have advanced professional training and scholarship among us. The MLA has risen in membership, scope, and dignity to a degree that the founding fathers could not have foreseen.