Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T23:37:55.089Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

American Projects for an Academy to Regulate Speech

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Allen Walker Read
Allen Walker Read*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Two forces are always at work in a language—one licentious, tending towards a disregard of regulation and convention; and the other conservative, tending to hold the language within bounds and to keep it neat and tidy. It is customary to think of English in America as being under the influence of the former, because our exuberant linguistic creations very readily attract attention. Yet there is a strong current in the opposite direction, and the pattern of American speech is not complete unless that is taken into account. Among the evidences of it are the recurring suggestions that an “academy” should be founded, with duties similar to those of the Académie française. Such agitation has been incessant in England since the sixteenth century, and the early suggestions in America reflected opinion in the mother country.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , December 1936 , pp. 1141 - 1179
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1936

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See a preliminary article by B. S. Monroe, “An English Academy,” Mod. Phil., viii (July, 1910), 107–122, and the replete volume by Hermann M. Flasdieck, Der Gedanke einer englischen Sprachakademie (Jena, 1928), 246 pp.

2 An Accidence to the English Tongue, chiefly for the Use of Boys and Men, as have never learnt Latin perfectly, and for the Benefit of the Female Sex: Also for the Welch, Scotch, Irish, and Foreigners, being a Grammatical Essay upon our Language, considering the true Manner of Reading, Writing, and Talking proper English (L., 1724), pp. 21–22.

3 Ibid., pp. 14–15; and cf. his praise of colonial speech in his work The Present State of Virginia (L., 1724), as quoted by the writer in Dialect Notes, vi (1933), 322.

4 For the history of learned societies in America, see Samuel Miller, A Brief Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century (N. Y., 1803), ii, 259–263; Constitution and By-Laws of the Northern Academy of Arts and Sciences; and First Annual Report of the Curators (Hanover, N.H., 1842), pp. 15–26; E. A. and G. L. Duyckinck, Cyclopædia of Am. Lit. (N. Y., 1856), s.v. names of the societies; G. Brown Goode, “The Origin of the National Scientific and Educational Institutions of the United States,” Papers of the American Historical Association, IV (April, 1890), 93–202; Harrison Ross Steeves, Learned Societies and English Literary Scholarship in Great Britain and the United States (N. Y., 1913), pp. 204–217; Henri Reverdin, Principal Academies and Learned Societies in the United States of America, “League of Nations, Committee on Intellectual Co-operation, Brochure No. 12,” (Geneva, 1923), 8 pp.; various bulletins of the American Council of Learned Societies, particularly no. 9 (1928); Bernard Fay, “Learned Societies in Europe and America in the Eighteenth Century,” Amer. Hist. Rev., xxxvii (Jan., 1932), 255–266; Julian P. Boyd, “State and Local Historical Societies in the United States,” ibid., xl (Oct., 1934), 10–37.

5 Peter Stephen Du Ponceau [et al.], An Historical Account of the Origin and Formation of the American Philosophical Society (Phila., 1914), 196 pp., particularly the reports in the latter part.

6 Cadmus: or, a Treatise on the Elements of Written Language (Phila., 1793), pp. v and vii, and cf. p. 27; also printed in the Society's Transactions, iii (1793), 262–319, except the introduction here quoted. It was written at Tortola, West Indies, Thornton's native place, in 1792. It was referred to by James Boswell in a letter of July 28, 1793 (Letters, ed. C. B. Tinker, Oxford, 1927, ii, 453), and led to the comment of a Scot, James Adams, in 1799: “One Thorton [sic] proposed, it is said, a plan of abolishing our language, and that it was noticed by a philosophical society.” The Pronunciation of the English Language Vindicated from Imputed Anomaly and Caprice (Edinburgh, 1799), pp. 146–147.

7 One of the founders, Manasseh Cutler, wrote in a letter of October 30, 1786: “Although philosophers ought to divest themselves of all those prejudices which national contentions and combinations naturally excite, yet I doubt not it was the intention of those concerned in establishing the institution to give it the air of France, rather than that of England, and wished to be considered as following the Royal Academy, rather than the Royal Society.” William P. Cutler and Julia P. Cutler, Life Journals and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler, LL.D. (Cincinnati, 1888), ii, 267. The same was probably true of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, projected from 1779 (The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, ed. F. B. Dexter [N. Y., 1901], iii, 385, 486–487) and voluntarily formed in May, 1786. In 1784 an attempt was made in New York to establish a society in imitation of the Royal Society of London, but it perished in embryo (De Witt Clinton, in Trans. of the Literary and Philosophical Soc. of N. Y., i [1815], 37).

8 It was projected from 1778, with its corner stone laid on June 24, 1786, but petered out after about two years, when France was no longer in a position to sponsor it. It was apparently a graduate school, as Franklin's daughter, Mrs. Bache, wrote in a letter of February 27, 1783, “for the completion of the education of young men after they have graduated from college,” quoted in Herbert B. Adams, Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia. U. S. Bureau of Education, Circular of Information No. 1 (Washington, 1888), p. 24, and see pp. 21–30. Cf. Quesnay's Mémoire et Prospectus, concernant l'Académie (Paris, 1788), 52 pp., and see the translation by Rosewell Page, appended in 50 pp. to the Eighteenth Annual Report of the Library Board of the Virginia State Library, 1920–1921 (Richmond, 1922).

9 It was devoted to the fine arts: see the American Medical and Philosophical Register, iii (1814), 515–517; The Charter and By-laws of the American Academy of the Arts, instituted February 12, 1802 (N. Y., 1815), 32 pp.; and De Witt Clinton, A Discourse, Delivered before the American Academy of the Arts … 23d October, 1816 (N. Y., 1816), 30 pp.

10 The Royal American Magazine, or Universal Repository of Instruction and Amusement, i (Jan., 1774), 6–7. This periodical was given to pronouncements in a flamboyant tone, of which the following is typical: “Britain is evidently past the zenith of her attainments in the arts and sciences; and her literary fame is upon the decline—It is reserved for this new world, to produce those noble works of genius, to which past ages can afford nothing parallel” (ibid., Feb., 1774, p. 68). This suggestion was first pointed out by Albert Matthews in his remarks on “Early Discussions of Americanisms,” in Pub. of the Colonial Soc. of Mass., xiv (1913), 257–264, and thence was noted by G. P. Krapp, The English Language in Am., i, 6, and Flasdieck, pp. 87–88. It was reprinted in the New Hampshire Gazette (Portsmouth), April 22, 1774, p. 2c, as A. Matthews stated, and thence in the form of a cutting was sent by Governor Wentworth to the Earl of Dartmouth. This was noted by Viola Florence Barnes, “Early Suggestion of Forming a National Language Association,” Am. Speech, iv (Feb., 1929), pp. 183–184, and thence reprinted by M. M. Mathews in The Beginnings of American English (Chicago, 1931), pp. 40–41.

11 The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston, 1852), vii, 249–250. His phraseology clearly echoes Swift's pamphlet, A Proposal for Correcting, Improving, and Ascertaining the English Tongue (L., 1712).

12 Ibid., pp. 250–51.—About two weeks later he wrote to a friend: “I have written to Congress a serious request, that they would appoint on academy for refining, correcting, improving, and ascertaining the English language. After Congress shall have done it, perhaps the British king and parliament may have the honor of copying the example. This I should admire. England will never have any more honor, excepting now and then that of imitating the Americans. I assure you, Sir, I am not altogether in jest. I see a general inclination after English in France, Spain, and Holland, and it may extend throughout Europe. The population and commerce of America will force their language into general use” (Letter of September 23, 1780, ibid., ix, 510). Adams was the sponsor of a clause in the constitution of Massachusetts making it the duty of the officers of the commonwealth “to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences” (ibid., iv, 259). Adams's letter of 1780 was pointed out by Albert Matthews in the Boston Evening Transcript, February 28, 1896, as quoted by W. A. Neilson in the Nation, lxxiv (May 8, 1902), 365c; used in Matthews' “Early Discussions of Americanisms,” loc. cit., p. 260; thence by Krapp, i, 6–7 (quoted in Am. Speech, i, April, 1926, p. 399); by Flasdieck, pp. 86–97; by M. M. Mathews, pp. 41–43; by Albert C. Baugh, A History of the English Language (N. Y., 1935), pp. 433–4; and by H. L. Mencken, The American Language (4th ed.; N. Y., 1936), pp. 7–8.

13 Gentleman's Mag., lviii (Feb., 1788), 92.

14 A Letter, from Germany, to the Princess Royal of England; on the English and German Languages (Hamburgh, 1797), p. 2, note 1. Cf. the setting in the writer's article in Dialect Notes, vi (July, 1933), 318–19. Adams wrote in a letter of May 10, 1802, that “the Project of the Society at New York of a National Academy, shall be laid before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, at their next meeting” (William P. Cutler and Julia P. Cutler, ii, 87), but this was probably one of science; and for his attitude in 1820 see footnote 57 below.

15 Quoted by Samuel Blodget in Economica (Washington, D. C., 1806), Appendix, p. vi.

16 MS letter of January 6, 1783, in Webster Papers, New York Public Library. In a letter of July 22, 1784, printed in the Connecticut Journal (New Haven), December 15, 1784, p. 1c, he wrote: “In the infancy of rude states, language must be exceedingly imperfect—it must be changing and refining as civilization proceeds, till it arrives to a certain point of perfection. Here it will remain unless a prevailing preference for another language, or some revolution in the state, expose it to variation.”

17 In a letter of October 28, 1785 (not 1786, as printed), he wrote to Timothy Pickering: “I have begun a reformation in the Language and my plan is yet but in embryo.” Mass. Hist. Soc., Proceedings, xliii (Nov., 1909), 124.

18 Letter of May 12, 1786, ibid., p. 128.

19 His diary for that date, as printed in Mrs. Emily E. F. Ford, Notes on the Life of Noah Webster (N. Y., 1912), i, 156.

20 Mass. Hist. Soc., Proc., p. 129.

21 Mrs. Ford, ii, 455. It is difficult to know how rigorously he wished his reform to be enforced; he expressed himself modestly in 1789: “The only steps necessary to ensure success in the attempt to introduce this reform, would be, a resolution of Congress, ordering all their acts to be engrossed in the new orthography, and recommending the plan to the several universities in America; and also a resolution of the universities to encourage and support it.” Dissertations on the English Language (Boston, 1789), p. 399.

22 Diss., pp. 24–25; and yet he hankered after stability, saying a few pages later (p. 30): “It would have been fortunate for the language, had the stile of writing and the pronunciation of words been fixed, as they stood in the reign of Queen Ann and her successor. Few improvements have been made since that time; but innumerable corruptions in pronunciation have been introduced by Garrick, and in stile, by Johnson, Gibbon and their imitators.”

23 Sylvius, in the American Museum, ii (August, 1787), 118.

24 Ibid., iv (Nov., 1788), 442–444; it also appeared in the Pennsylvania Gazette, reprinted in the Massachusetts Centinel, Nov. 29, 1788, as reprinted by Goode, loc. cit., p. 170. The projects for a national university closely parallel those for an academy; see Edgar Bruce Wesley, Proposed: the University of the United States (Minneapolis, Minn., 1936).

25 American Magazine, i (April, 1788), p. 347. The writer has dealt with the subject in his article, q. v., “The Philological Society of New York, 1788,” Am. Speech, ix (April, 1934), 131–36.

26 Mrs. Ford, i, 233; New York Packet, August 5, 1788, p. 3a.

27 This Philological Society undoubtedly had no connection with the one in existence in 1829: see Minutes of the Common Council of the City of New York, 1784–1831 (N. Y., 1917), xvii, 616, for Feb. 9, 1829: “A Petition of the Philological Society to use a Room in the Old Alms House once a Week was read and referred to the Committee on Public Offices.”

28 Duncan Mackintosh and his two daughters, A Plain, Rational Essay on English Grammar (Boston, 1797), p. xx (disregarding the phonetic writing).

29 The Columbian Dictionary of the English Language, in which Many New Words, peculiar to the United States … are Inserted (Boston, 1800), Preface.

30 Vol. i (February 7, 1801), 42, marked as “For the Port Folio.” This journal was scathing in its criticism of any departure from a British standard; cf. the satirical vein, ibid., July 11, 1801, p. 223: “We are ‘free and equal’ in folly. We are ‘independent’ of precedent and rule, and to clip the king's English is an ‘unalienable’ privilege, adhesive to every freeborn boozer, from the clamorous circle of a July feast, down to citizen Sambo, who tipples alone.” While it welcomed an academy for conservative purposes, a year later an article against the establishment of an academy was reprinted from an English publication of 1787 (April 24, 1802, pp. 123–124).

31 Sketch of a Plan and Method of Education … Suitable for the Offspring of a Free People (Phila., 1808), p. 55.

32 Barlow published an anonymous pamphlet, Prospectus of a National Institution to be Established in the United States (Washington City, 1806), 44 pp.; the purpose of the Institution was to “combine the two great objects, research and instruction” (p. 30), and some members eminent in literature were to be chosen (p. 31). A senator, Samuel Latham Mitchill, of New York, wrote of it in a letter to Webster, January 7, 1807, in a context which implies that one of its objects was to regulate language (MS, NYPL).

33 The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States …, 9th Congress, 1805–1807 (Washington, 1852). On February 28, 1806, Senator George Logan of Pennsylvania gave notice for leave “to bring in a bill to incorporate a National Academy” (p. 144, and cf. p. 161); on March 5th it was referred to a committee consisting of Logan, Mitchill, and John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, who reported on it favorably the next day (p. 163); but on March 24th the opposition got busy, amending it by striking out the words “a national” and referring it to a committee consisting of Stephen R. Bradley of Vermont, Logan, Abraham Baldwin of Virginia, Andrew Moore of Virginia, and James Hillhouse of Connecticut (p. 198); there apparently it died.

34 Mitchill, in letter of Jan. 7, 1807, loc. cit.

35 The Yankey in London (N. Y., 1809), pp. 175–77; ascription to Tyler from Robert E. Spiller, The American in England during the First Half Century of Independence (N. Y., 1926), p. 301.

36 Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, iii, Part 2 (1815), 439–536; quot., p. 439.

37 A Letter to the Honorable John Pickering (Boston, 1817), p. 27.

38 MS letter, Webster Papers, NYPL.

39 American Academy of Language and Belles Lettres, Circular, July 12, 1821, p. 8.

40 MS letter, Library of Congress, Jefferson Papers, Series 2, xx, No. 35.

41 William Samuel Cardell, whose conception this academy appears to have been, was born November 27, 1780, at Norwich, Conn. He attended Williams College but left at the end of his junior year, engaged in business at Bennington, Vermont, until 1816, then taught French and English in Troy, N. Y., and New York City, and died August 10, 1828, at Lancaster, Pa. He wrote several books on education and language, and his story for boys, Jack Halyard, had wide vogue. He was a man of considerable culture and of altruistic disposition. See Reuben H. Walworth, Hyde Genealogy (Albany, 1864), i, 118, 529–530; The Vermont Historical Gazetteer, ed. Abby Maria Hemenway (2nd ed.; Burlington, Vt., 1868), i, 142–143; and the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxiii (Jan., 1869), 98—references through the kindness of the New York Historical Society, Alexander J. Wall, Librarian. Cardell was a half-brother of the distinguished lawyer Reuben H. Walworth, Chancellor of New York, as noted in Biog. Sketches of Eminent American Lawyers, ed. John Livingston, Part iv (N. Y., 1852), p. 514. In the New-York Literary Gazette, i (Jan. 7, 1825), 286, Cardell is referred to as “a man of talents, research, and perseverance”; and William S. Balch in Lectures on Language (Providence, 1838), p. vi, called him “a bright star in the firmament of American literature.”

42 Circular, July 12, 1821, pp. 3–8. The names are given in the writer's article, “The Membership in Proposed American Academies,” Am. Literature, vii (May, 1935), 148–152.

43 Cardell wrote (Circular No. III, p. 11, footnote): “Such is the spirit manifested from Maine to Louisiana, that it would be difficult to say, what state is entitled to the highest share of credit; but, least of all, can the members in New York pretend to any peculiar merit respecting the origin, or conduct of an institution, which, it is hoped, may be in all its principles, as broad as the national character and interests, and as lasting as our rivers and mountains.”

44 Two teachers in a English school in New York, Messrs. Coats and Hoxie, contributed $200 for preliminary expenses, and a small admission fee was charged. Charles Carroll of Carrollton (one of three surviving signers of the Declaration of Independence) gave $100, John Marshall gave $100, Gen. Robert Harper of Baltimore gave $25, etc.

45 Circular No. III, p. 21.

46 Constitution of the American Academy of Language and Belles Lettres (N. Y., Printed by E. Conrad, 1820), 4 pp. When this was reprinted in the Port Folio, n.s., xi (June, 1821), 407–9, the note was added (p. 409): “As the society is not yet incorporated, the following gentlemen have been appointed trustees, to receive donations, and invest the amount in such a manner as they shall deem most advantageous, as a permanent fund.” These trustees were Col. Richard Varick, Hon. Brockholst Livingston, Hon. C. D. Colden, William S. Cardell, Esq., and Dr. John Stearns.

47 Circular, July 12, 1821, p. 13. Cardell wrote further in a letter to Thomas B. Robertson, Governor of Louisiana, Oct. 12, 1821 (Circular No. III, p. 31): “It may be said that the scholars of Great Britain and America united, can exercise no binding authority to enforce their decisions. Their acts ought to have no binding force beyond what they may obtain by their evident propriety. Individuals it is said will be found, who will take pride in departing from any standard which can be formed. It may be so. There are persons silly enough to do almost any thing to attract notice.”

48 Circular No. III, p. 4.

49 Ibid., pp. 3–4.

50 Ibid., p. 30.

51 Circular, July 12, 1821, p. 13: it was intended “to collect a complete list of names of places in the United States, and fix their standard of spelling and pronunciation. It might be connected with a gazetteer, which should become an important national work. There is more confusion and inconvenience respecting names of places in America, than most persons would believe, without attention to the subject.”

52 Circular No. III, p. 5. These were to have publicity, for (p. 4) “a synopsis will be prepared monthly, and transferred to the principal American editors, who have liberally proferred the aid of their gazettes to extend this information.”

53 Circular, July 12, 1821, pp. 8–9.

54 Ibid., p. 13. Cardell wrote in a letter of March 11, 1820, to John Pickering: “The English as well as ourselves are far from being above the necessity of such an institution as is proposed” (MS letter in the John Pickering Corresp., Salem, Mass.; quoted by kind permission of the present Mrs. John Pickering).

55 Circular, July 12, 1821, p. 13. Mason's attitude towards Americanisms was one of disapproval, for on July 24, 1809, he had been the first signatory to a letter approving Noah Webster's plan for his big dictionary, except for “the introduction of words and phrases called Anglo-Americanisms” (MS letter, Noah Webster papers, NYPL). In December, 1821, Mason moved to Carlisle, Pa., to become president of Dickinson College (Jacob Van Vechten, Memoirs of John M. Mason, D. D., S. T. P., with Portions of his Corresp. [N. Y., 1856], p. 515), so that he probably gave up his chairmanship at the time.

56 Circular No. III, pp. 28–29. Cardell's letter was highly praised by Dr. Jesse Torrey in The Herald of Knowledge (Washington, 1822), p. 12, note.

57 Circular No. III, p. 5.

58 Letter of Dec. 28, 1820, ibid.

59 Ibid., pp. 10–11 (corrected by the MS, which is in the N. Y. Hist. Soc. library).

60 Ibid., p. 6.

61 Letter of March, 1820, in Letters and Other Writings of James Madison (Phila., 1867), iii, 172; he reiterated his good wishes in a letter of January 19, 1821 (ibid., iii, 202–203). The international note was sounded also by Governor Oliver Wolcott of Connecticut, in his letter of December 22, 1820 (Circular No. III, p. 8): “I sincerely hope, that men of liberality and learning in every country, where the English language is spoken, will perceive the utility, and unite in promoting the views of the Society; or, if a general concert in action should be found impracticable, that an active and efficacious support may be realized throughout the United States.”

62 Circular No. III, p. 15.

63 Ibid., pp. 26–27. General H. A. S. Dearborn of Massachusetts also argued that America has a right to add its own words (Letter of Nov. 26, 1821, ibid., p. 37).

64 He used his old age as an excuse: “With one foot in the grave, it would be very inconsiderate in me to engage in new enterprises which require, to effect them, all the vigour and length of years of youthful minds” (MS letter of March 8, 1820, Library of Congress, Jeff. Papers, Series 1, xiv, No. 190). John C. Calhoun declined even to be a member, writing in a letter of April 24, 1821: “While I feel a thorough conviction, that no nation, in the present condition of the world, can attain a high state of prosperity, or power, without the cultivation of letters, and consequently set a high value on the object of the society, yet I am inclined to think, the difficulties to be overcome by it, to produce a beneficial result, are so considerable, as to require on the part of the members much time and industry, which, as my publick engagements do not permit me to bestow, I must decline the honor of becoming a member” (MS letter, New York Historical Society; used by kind permission).

65 Circular No. III, p. 10 (MS in the Libr. of Congress, Jeff. Papers, Series 1, xiv, No. 224).

66 A notice of its formation was given in the Revue encyclopédique, x (May, 1821), 436, and further particulars were given the next month: “Son but principal serait de fixer la grammaire de la langue anglaise; il embrasserait aussi toutes les branches utiles et agréables de la littérature, surtout pour ce qui regarde l'Amérique” (ibid., June, 1821, p. 623, with a long passage from a circular translated into French). Cf. Harold Elmer Mantz, French Criticism of American Literature before 1850 (N. Y., 1917), p. 12, note.

67 A Discourse on the State and Prospects of American Literature (Albany, 1821), p. 29.

68 Vol. xiv (April, 1822), 350–359. Everett's authorship is identified in William Cushing, Index to the North American Review (Cambridge, 1878), p. 1.

69 Ibid., pp. 356–357.

70 Ibid., p. 359. Everett's own opinions in linguistic matters are discussed by the writer in his article “Edward Everett's Attitude towards American English,” to appear later.

71 The latest activity that I find record of was the election of Jared Sparks to membership on April 5, 1822, as recorded in Herbert B. Adams, The Life and Writings of Jared Sparks (Boston, 1893), ii, 594.

72 In 1825 Cardell published an Essay on Language, as Connected with the Faculties of the Mind, and as Applied to Things in Nature and Art (N. Y.), in which he pointed out the contrasting opinions concerning the regulation of language: “On the subject of making any change in spirit or form in the English language, the most opposite opinions prevail. It is said, on one hand, that it is already fixed, and can admit no change: that Dr. Johnson has settled its vocabulary; Walker, Sheridan, and Jones, its pronunciation; and Murray its grammatical rules; and that every attempt at improvement is fraught with mischief. This opinion appears to prevail to a considerable extent in the United States. Another opinion is that a living language can neither be arrested nor guided in its course, more than the wind can be chained; and this is the prevailing doctrine in England” (pp. 29–30). In the next year he announced that he had discovered a system of grammar which “will be found essentially to differ from any theory of language hitherto received” (Elements of English Grammar, deduced from Science and Practice [N. Y., 1826], p. iii). In a letter of March 9, 1822, Cardell wrote in a discouraged tone that “As a people we are not ‘ripe‘ enough to encourage national literature for its own sake” (MS Samuel Miller Corresp., Princeton University).

73 The publications of the Academy are as follows: (1) A circular in letter form dated February 25, 1820, a single sheet, 8 in. by 9$frac34 in., printed on both sides, almost identical in wording to Cardell's letter to Jefferson cited above in footnote 40. It was evidently sent only to prospective members, as it concludes: “You will be pleased, Sir, to accept this communication as a respectful invitation to join the National Academy above contemplated, as a corresponding member.” A quotation from it, translated into French, appears in the Revue Encyclopédique, x (June, 1821), 623. (2) A printed Constitution, as cited above in footnote 46. (3) A circular dated October 1, 1820. I have been unable to find a copy, but it was reprinted in the Literary and Scientific Repository, ii (Jan., 1821), 69–76, and in the Port Folio, n.s., xi (June, 1821), 397–407, and is largely identical with the earlier circular. (4) A circular dated July 12, 1821, 19 pp. According to the N. Am. Rev., xiv, 351, there was a second edition. (5) Circular No. III; to American Members, and Patrons of the Institution, from the Corresponding Secretary (N. Y.: printed by Charles N. Baldwin), dated January, 1822. It broke off (in all copies seen, and so stated in the N. Am. Rev., xiv, 358) in the middle of a sentence at the bottom of p. 40.

74 Quoted in the Middlesex Gazette (Middletown, Conn.), April 11, 1832.

75 The New-England Magazine, i (November, 1831), 369.

76 Mrs. Ford, ii, 271–273. Webster had it printed in the New-England Magazine, i, 369–370, and used it as Chapter xiii in A Collection of Papers on Political, Literary, and Moral Subjects (N. Y., 1843), pp. 289–290. It is amusing to note how Webster had shifted ground, for as a young man between the ages of twenty-seven and thirty-one he had written: “As a nation, we have a very great interest in opposing the introduction of any plan of uniformity with the British language, even were the plan proposed perfectly unexceptionable” (Dissertations, 1789, p. 171).

77 New-England Mag., i, 370.

78 Cf. the statement by A. Hopkins, a professor in Williams College, in a letter of September 4, 1856, concerning Webster's Dictionary: “This work takes the place, in our language, of the Dictionnaire Universel de L'Académie in the French” (MS Corresp., G. & C. Merriam Co., Springfield, Mass.; used by kind permission).

79 Letter to the G & C. Merriam Co., as printed in the New York Evening Post, from an undated cutting preserved among the Webster Papers, NYPL.

80 Contributions to Literature (Boston, 1856), pp. 457–458.

81 Cornhill Magazine, x (August, 1864), 154–172.

82 Constitution of the National Institute of Letters, Arts and Sciences, founded 1868 (Moorehead, Bond & Co.: N. Y., 1868), pp. 5–6.

83 Octavius Brooks Frothingham, George Ripley, “American Men of Letters” (Boston, 1882), p. 274; and cf. the letter of Whitelaw Reid, April 14, 1871, quoted in John Bigelow, Retrospections of an Active Life (Garden City, 1913), iv, 488.

84 Letter of July 30, 1868, in Retrospections, iv, 200.

85 The Critic and Good Literature, iv (April 12, 1884), 170a.

86 Ibid. (March 1, 1884), 103b.

87 Ibid. (April 12, 1884), 169a.

88 The result of the vote is given in the writer's article in Am. Literature, viii, 155–156. In the group were three whose specialty was language: Richard Grant White, William Dwight Whitney, and Noah Porter.

89 Charles W. Balestier, in the Critic, iv (April 12, 1884), 170a.

90 The Herald-Crimson (Harvard University), March 27, 1884, p. lb and c.

91 Ibid., p. 4a.

92 An anonymous writer in Science, vi (October 2, 1885), 282b. An Englishman, William Marshall, who had the idea of an academy in 1878, was willing to include America in his plans: “This society [with duties similar to those of the French Academyl will be composed of scholars elected from England, from the United States, and from our colonies” (The Past, Present, and Future of England's Language, London, 1878, pp. 105–106); and cf. p. 102: “Let me appeal to the citizens of the United States, for, despite laws and constitutions, they and we are brothers, and equal sharers in one literature.”

93 Transactions of the Am. Philological Association, 1869–70 (Hartford, Conn.), Proceedings, p. 20. See Frank Gardner Moore, “A History of the American Philological Association,” ibid., L (1919), 5–32.

94 S. S. Haldeman, reported ibid., viii (1877), Proc., p. 19.

95 See its Transactions, passim, as vi (1875), Proc, p. 8; vii, 35–36; viii, 30–31; ix, 6–8; xiv, xxix–xxx; xxiv, xxxv–xxxvi.

96 Discussed Dec. 30, 1892: see PMLA, viii (1893), lxi.

97 See, e.g., Matthews, “New Words and Old,” 1897–99, reprinted in Parts of Speech (N. Y., 1916), pp. 127–128, and cf. pp. 69 and 158; and Lounsbury in The Standard of Usage in English (N. Y., 1908), p. 6 ff.

98 A fuller discussion is given in the writer's article, “The Linguistic Interests of Government in the United States,” in Am. Speech, to appear later. According to an executive order of April 17, 1934, the Board was abolished and the work transferred to a new “Division of Geographic Names” in the Department of the Interior.

99 53rd Cong., 2nd sess., H. R. 6782, from the slip printing. Bill H. R. 6781 was almost identical except that it lacked sects. 4 and 5 above. Cf. Congressional Record, 53rd Cong., 2nd sess., xxvi, 3957b (for April 21, 1894).

100 Chicago Tribune, April 26, 1894, p. 6g.

101 Chicago Sunday Tribune, April 29, 1894, p. 38d. Cf. criticism in the Critic, n. s., xxi (May 12, 1894), 327.

102 The Englishman Andrew Lang wrote, in a tirade against Americanisms: “If America possessed an academy, it would probably have set its face against them” (Academy, xlvii, March 2, 1895, p. 193).

103 Literature (N. Y.), n. s., i (February 3 to May 19, 1899), 77–435 passim: discussed in the writer's article in Am. Literature, vii, 159–60.

104 Lit. (Feb. 17, 1899), 123.

105 Vol. xxvi (June 1, 1899), 359.

106 Vol. lxxiv (March 20, 1902), 225a.

107 Congressional Record, 59th Cong., 2nd sess., xli, 315a (for December 12, 1906).

108 Ibid., p. 318a.

109 Ibid., p. 276b (for December 11, 1906). See further in the writer's “Linguistic Interests of Government in the United States.”

110 The Abundant Life, ed. Deutsch (Berkeley, Cal., 1926), p. 254. Brander Matthews, “The American Language, with some Comments upon the Movement to Rename the Speech used in the United States,” Munsey's Magazine, xl (Dec., 1908), 345–349, quoted from some circulars of an “American Language Legion,” but I can find no other mention of it and it may have been a rhetorical fiction of Matthews's.

111 Its formation has been dealt with by the writer in Am. Literature, vii, 160–165. The best sources for the history of the Academy are Brander Matthews, These Many Years (N. Y., 1917), pp. 447–450; William M. Sloane, in In Memoriam; a Book of Record concerning Former Members of the American Academy of Arts and, Letters (1922), pp. 4–23; Robert Underwood Johnson, Remembered Yesterdays (Boston, 1923), pp. 449–452; and Armand Godoy, “L'Académie Américaine des arts et des lettres,” in Le Manuscrit autographe, viii (April–Sept., 1933), 226–266.

112 Vol. liii, No. 2734 (May 15, 1909), p. 6a.

113 “The American Academy,” Dial (Chicago), xlii (Dec. 1, 1909), 439–440; asp. 440: “Whether our own Academy will make for these ends, and for the promotion of that ‘urbanity’ which we as a people so sadly need, remains to be disclosed. It is at least a cause for satisfaction that such a start has been made, seemingly in the right direction.”

114 Congressional Record, 64th Cong., 1st sess., liii, 5987a (for April 12, 1916).

115 Academy Papers (N. Y., 1925), p. v.

116 Proceedings of the Special Meeting … held at the University Club, New York, February 22, 1917, pp. 13–14.

117 Ibid., p. 27.

118 Ibid., p. 10. More also gave as an aim (ibid.): “… to check so far as possible the intrusion of words with vulgar associations and of idioms that can never be other than local …” As to these dreadful “words with vulgar associations,” would not one be hard put to express certain ideas without them? And what intrinsic quality informs those “idioms that can never be other than local”?

119 Ibid., p. 24.

120 Academy Papers, p. 69.

121 Ibid., pp. 92–93.

122 Ibid., pp. 277–278.

123 Academy Publication No. 74 (1931), pp. 36–37.

124 Hamlin Garland, “The Radio Medal of the American Academy,” Quarterly Journal of Speech, xix (April, 1933), 212.

125 National Association for American Speech, Souvenir Program and Record of Activities, 1921–1931, p. 2. Its president, Miss Dagmar Perkins, has written: “In attempting to ‘guide the course’ of our language, however, we must take care lest we stifle its growth. A language, to be truly responsive to its obligations, must be sufficiently flexible to express the national traditions and national ideals of the people whose genius it embodies” (N. Y. Times, October 16, 1923, p. 20g). The Vice-President is Dr. Robert Underwood Johnson and its “Committee” of forty members has included such notable people as Hamlin Garland, Edwin Markham, Otis Skinner, Rachel Crothers, William Lyon Phelps, and Augustus Thomas; but on the whole the so-called “Association” is little more than an instrument to lend tone to Miss Perkins' work as a professional teacher of voice culture.

126 The Society for Pure English, largely the “private academy” of Robert Bridges, was projected at Oxford in 1913 and got under way in 1919. Bridges was friendly to America and even to much in her speech, and the Americans cooperated liberally, led by Henry S. Canby (S. P. E. Tract No. XXXV, 1931, p. 495). From the first, one of the inner circle was an American, Logan Pearsall Smith. One famous American (by no means typical) refused to join: wrote Henry James in 1913, “I am … moved to plead with you, by a single word, to the effect of your not too earnestly counting on me to join by public appearance in your lingual manifesto—for I never have joined in any sort of manifesto or signed public pronouncement that I can recollect, in the whole course of my life, and greatly hand back from any new departure in that connexion at this late day” (ibid., p. 492, note).

127 S. P. E. Tract No. X (Oxford, 1922), p. 7. It was signed by James Wilson Bright, Albert S. Cook, Charles Hall Grandgent, Robert Underwood Johnson, John Livingston Lowes, John Mathews Manly, Charles Grosvenor Osgood, and Fred Newton Scott.

128 S. P. E. Tract No. XI (1922), pp. 21–22. Sir Henry Newbolt praised the effort in an address before the Royal Society of Literature on March 22, 1922: Essays by Divers Hands (Royal Soc. of Lit.), n.s., iii (1923), 16.

129 Tract No. XVIII (1924), 25–26; xix (1929), 44; and xxv (1931), 498.

130 On April 10, 1923, before the English Association, Walter Ripman made the proposal for a conference (N. Y. Times, April 29, 1923, viii, p. 4c), and steps were taken at a meeting of the Royal Society of Literature on June 12, 1925 (ibid., June 13, 1925, p. 6c.)

131 J. H. G. Grattan, “On Anglo-American Cultivation of Standard English,” RES, iii (Oct., 1927), 430. Cf. also Flasdieck, pp. 181–184; Kemp Malone, “The International Council for English,” Am. Speech, iii (April, 1928), 261–275, which quotes amusing comments from the British press; and Logan Pearsall Smith in S. P. E. Tract No. XXV (1931), 498.

132 67th Congress, 4th sess., H. R. 14136, from the slip printing. Cf. Congressional Record, 67th Cong., 4th Sess., lxiv, part iii, p. 2861.

133 Quoted in the Nation, cxvi (April 11, 1923), 408.

134 Ibid. Cf. an editorial in the N. Y. Times, February 7, 1923, p. 14e: “Certainly, to convert it [Congress] for a period of years into a sort of American Academy analogous to the French, tracing out laboriously the history of each word and settling good usage, might provide it with a less harmful occupation than it finds for much of its time. … It is a great honor to Montana that this fertile suggestion comes from one of her Representatives in Congress. Westward the star of empire over language takes its way.”

135 N. Y. Times, October 9, 1923, p. 20i.

136 Ibid., October 10, 1923, p. 20i. Dr. Donald had made the same suggestion on August 10, 1920, at the Imperial Press Conference, held at Queen's University in Toronto, as reported in English, ii (October, 1920), 401, and in his official biography, H. A. Taylor, Robert Donald (London, 1934), p. 212.

137 Ibid., October 14, 1923, ix, p. 8a.

138 Ibid.; finding, however, that he had stumbled upon the popular side, Dr. Vizetelly the next week wrote an article expressing the contrary opinion (ibid., Oct. 21, 1923, ix, 13a).

139 Ibid., October 14, 1923, ix, p. 8c. Cf. also the opinion of R. Da Torre (ibid., Oct. 13, 1923, p. 14g): “Lovers of pure English … will pray to see the day when we shall have an Institute of English”; of S. H. Ditchett (ibid., Oct. 20, 1923, p. 14h): “the work of the Institute of English, or whatever it might be, would create a more general desire for the accurate use of language”; and of “J. J. H.” (ibid., Nov. 1, 1923, p. 20f): this proposal “to establish an Institute of English, similar to that of the French Academy, should be met with approval by all those interested in the preservation of our language. … Members of the institute could be made up of the representatives of authors, playwrights, editors, professors of English, and poets. They could meet in Washington and London, as suggested by Dr. Donald, and could thrash out the changes and additions. If the outcome were not perfection, there would at least be improvement.”

140 “H. G. P.,” ibid., Oct. 16, 1923, p. 20g.

141 George French, ibid., April 2, 1925, p. 20h.

142 George W. Lee, in Am. Speech, iv (April, 1929), 305–306: “As librarian for Stone & Webster, Inc., I am a target for questions on English usage, and we have some fifty books to refer to in settling most of the questions. But there are many that I have to settle simply from my own judgment, and I wish there were some court of appeal to which I might submit them and from which I might receive an answer that would make me feel more comfortable than I do in using my own judgment.”

143 J. C. Tressler, “Should the National Council Act as an American Academy?,” English Journal (College ed.), xxiii (April, 1934), 293–298. But note W. H. Wilcox, ibid., xxv (May, 1936), 398: “In fact, I believe that educated people should do something in an organized way to direct the changes in language. The French Academy seems to have had beneficial effect on the French language in this respect.”

144 For the attitude of certain scholars, see Lounsbury and B. Matthews, as cited above; Fred Newton Scott, The Standard of American Speech (N. Y., 1926), p. 10; G. P. Krapp, The Knowledge of English (N. Y., 1927), pp. 174–175: “No doubt on the academic and theoretical side, an intelligently conducted institute of English could get together a great deal of interesting material on the language. What it had to offer, however, could have only suggestive, not regulative value. An institute would be no more capable of formulating absolute and final rules for the language than the compilers of a dictionary”; C. C. Fries in PMLA, xlii (1927), 234–237; Barrett H. Clark, Speak the Speech (Seattle, Wash., 1930), p. 20; A. G. Kennedy, in Am. Speech, viii, No. 4 (Dec., 1933), 10; and G. W. Gray and C. M. Wise, The Bases of Speech (N. Y., 1934), pp. 197–99.