Washington, D.C.
October 16-18, 1996
Phyllis Franklin, Executive Director
Modern Language Association
I stand before you today because, at several meetings with ARL representatives, I engaged in special pleading and referred to old connections between modern language scholars and research libraries that scholars and librarians might want to revitalize. I take it that I have been asked to explain myself, and I am glad to do so because I think we should renew an old and entirely respectable connection. I want to talk a little bit about what brought us together in the past.
Like many good relationships, the ties between scholars and librarians were based on passion; on the modern language scholar’s side, this was a passion to explore the origins and evolution of the modern languages as they were beginning to be studied in Germany early in the nineteenth century. Let me tell you about one modern language scholar who was drawn to this new work early in the century, so that you can see how his interest in philology connected him to libraries.
George Perkins Marsh was a lawyer, ambassador, and legislator; he served on the Vermont legislative council and in the United States House of Representatives. He described his scholarly interests as “my passion for old English and all manner of Old World nonsense” (C. C. Marsh 34). He was drawn to the study of symbols he thought “instinct with organic life” and “susceptible of the application of organic law” (Human Knowledge 7), symbols that conveyed — for emulation — the language of commerce, of civilization, of social and religious freedom, of progressive intelligence, and of active catholic philanthropy. . .” (Lectures 25, 11). Attracted to scholarship in 1821, when he was twenty years old, Marsh pursued this avocation throughout his life (Lowenthal 28). In his spare time, he taught himself to speak, read, and write French, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Turkish, Arabic, and Persian, waking before dawn every day so that he could begin his studies by five. He worked until eight, had breakfast, and then went to his office (Curtis et al. 30). By the time he was thirty-seven years old, he not only had an established law practice, but he also had completed for publication A Compendious Grammar of the Old Northern or Icelandic Language, which was admired on both sides of the Atlantic.
Invited to give the Phi Beta Kappa address at Cambridge in 1847, Marsh argued that a new stage in scholarship had been reached, requiring a new kind of scholar. Knowledge had so expanded that “none can hope to possess it in its full extent. . . . He therefore who aspires to be initiated into the mysteries of science must elect his faculty, and choose ignorance of some things well worthy to be understood . . . ” (Human Knowledge 14). The “modern” scholar, Marsh insisted, was a specialist. To understand how thoroughly radical a statement Marsh made in this address, one has only to compare it with Emerson’s far more famous Phi Beta Kappa address, presented a decade earlier.
A major impediment to Marsh’s pursuit of his passion for modern language philology was the lack of books in this country. (In the 18th century Benjamin Franklin had formed a club so that members could share their books; a century later, in 1842, the founders of the American Oriental Society were still eager to collect and share books.) Although Marsh teetered on the brink of financial disaster for most of his adult life, he somehow managed to buy the books he needed to pursue his studies. (When he died he owned 12,000 volumes.) The point is, he knew what it was like to want books and be unable to get them.
This driving need for books led Marsh to argue, when he was a member of the House of Representatives, that the United States should have and should support a national research library. Marsh used the occasion of the debate about the disposition of James Smithson’s bequest to make his case. The debate focused on whether the purposes of the Smithsonian Institution should be intellectual or practical. Arguing on the side of the practical were the westerners; Senator Benjamin Tappan of Ohio and Representative Robert Dale Owen of Indiana advocated “agricultural schools, popular lectures, chemical experiments, and other projects of immediate value to the common man.” Arguing for the intellectuals were Marsh, John Quincy Adams (another modern language scholar), and Rufus Choate. They “favored a big museum and a great national library for basic research and the diffusion of knowledge among scholars” (Lowenthal, Marsh 82). Marsh entered the debate both in committee and on the floor of the House. In what has been called his most important speech, he effectively argued the intellectuals’ case: first, he objected to the narrow definition of science offered by the westerners in an early version of the bill as “the numerical and quantitative values of material things” and insisted instead that:
a national library can be accommodated to no narrow or arbitrary standard. It must embrace all science — all history — all languages. It must be extensive enough, and diversified enough, to furnish aliment for the cravings of every appetite. We need some great establishment, that shall not hoard its treasures with the jealous niggardliness which locks up the libraries of Britain, but shall emulate the generous munificence which throws open to the world the boundless stores of literary wealth of Germany and France — some exhaustless fountain where the poorest and humblest aspirant may satisfy his thirst without money and without price . . . . (Speech 6, 8)
Marsh’s speech was much applauded, and what is more important, it was widely reported and praised in the press. One report said Marsh presented to the westerners an example of “a living scholar.” And the intellectuals won, at least in principle. The library at the Smithsonian never developed as Marsh hoped it would, at least not until after 1866, when the collection was moved to the Library of Congress, but he helped gain public acknowledgment of the need for federal support of a research library that would be open to everyone.
Not all modern language scholars could wield the kind of influence that Marsh had. He was a public person of some importance. But there were growing numbers of other modern language scholars who shared Marsh’s passion and who taught in U.S. colleges and universities. Before the traditions of the German research university helped redefine American higher education, intellectual life was quite limited, and the case for libraries had to be made. In 1871, James Garfield honored a college teacher he revered by saying: “Give me a log hut, with only a simple bench, Mark Hopkins on one end and I on the other, and you may have all the buildings, apparatus and libraries without him.” Neither Garfield nor Hopkins thought books were important. In fact, Hopkins seems to have prided himself on having little to do with books. He is reported to have said, “You read books. I don’t read books, in fact I never did read any books” (Clayton 122).
But modern language scholars did read books, and in many fields, because they defined modern language studies in the broadest possible way. Francis March, who held the first title of English professor in this country (at Lafayette College), described what he thought the study of English included: language mainly as literature and the study of grammar, etymology, rhetoric, poetry, criticism, psychology, history, and nature. To do his work, March needed to consult “many books in many languages, since it is only by comparison of works of different nations and ages that we can find out the peculiarities of each nation, age, and person, and trace the influences from which a great work has sprung, and the influences which it has exerted on other minds and on language" (Method, n.p.). Can you imagine a better group of scholars to pressure for the establishment of research libraries in the academy?
And apply pressure they surely did. Consider George Ticknor, who, in 1819, became the first Smith Professor of French and Spanish Languages and Literature at Harvard University. After earning an undergraduate degree from Harvard, Ticknor went abroad to study, and he learned to see libraries in a new way. In 1812, while he was still in Germany, he wrote to a friend:
. . . one very important and principal cause of the difference between [Harvard] and the [university] here is the different value we affix to a good library. . . . In America we look on the Library at Cambridge as a wonder, and I am sure nobody ever had a more thorough veneration for it than I had; but it . . . is . . . half a century behind the libraries of Europe. . . . [Even] worse than the absolute poverty of our collections of books is the relative inconsequence in which we keep them. . . . . We have not yet learnt that the Library is not only the first convenience of the University, . . . it is the very first necessity, . . . it is the life and spirit. (Long 12)
Books were so important to Ticknor that he would not accept the Smith professorship until Harvard agreed to allocate funds for books. The scholars who followed Ticknor at Harvard — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and James Russell Lowell — were no less energetic about adding to Harvard’s collections. They were joined in this effort by Francis Child, who taught rhetoric and English literature. And they succeeded. A letter written 12 August, 1878 by Child to Lowell indicates just how much. Child says,
I keep an eye on all the books I think you would like, and as we can spend nigh 16,000 a year now, one gets pretty much what he asks for. I am even proposing to the Council to buy 3500 dollars worth of Medlicott’s Books — including some really fine things in the way of old authors More, Erasmus, Spenser, etc. . . . They are beginning to pet us Jamie — just as we are leaving them. (Scholar-Friends 37-38)
I cite these modern language scholars only as examples. They were not alone in their passionate need for books and their support for the development of research libraries.
In an important way, you — or, rather, the institutions you lead — are what these nineteenth-century scholars dreamed of having. And it is not surprising that, having made a case for books and libraries and having seen these libraries put in good hands, that scholars went about their business.
Unfortunately, several years ago, when a number of MLA members became concerned about the future of primary records, they discovered that there was no obvious way to reestablish an easy connection with librarians. We are particularly grateful, therefore, that Duane Webster was willing to listen to our concerns and to call these concerns to the attention of the ARL Preservation Committee, which then met with us to talk about this important problem. My colleagues in history, religion, art, and other fields are also pleased. We know that the task we have taken on is more difficult than the challenges the nineteenth century scholars and librarians faced. First, the nineteenth century was a period of growth for higher education. We seem to be in a period of perpetual fiscal constraint. Second, technological changes present new opportunities, but they also introduce uncertainties about the way scholars and librarians will do their work in the future. Third, the need — and passion — for primary materials may be limited in the future to small groups of scholars in all fields. Finally, we — scholars and librarians — have changed. I know that it’s a commonplace to say that scholars are too specialized, but, I assure you, we are all equally specialized. You can’t do what you do without specialized knowledge — and a way of viewing books and libraries. At the meetings we have had with ARL representatives I have been struck with how different our perspectives and our vocabularies are.
Scholars have much to learn about how you do your work. We need a better understanding of this to accomplish our goal, and you will need to be patient with us. In the meantime, I must say that I have learned a great deal from our meetings. I look forward to learning more.
Copyright � 1998 by Phyllis Franklin
Child, Francis James. The Scholar-Friends: Letters of Francis James Child and James Russell Lowell. Ed. M. A. DeWolfe Howe and G. W. Cottrell, Jr. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1952.
Clayton, Howard. “The American College Library: 1800-1860.” Journal of Library History 3 (1968): 120-37.
Curtis, Jane, Will Curtis, and Frank Lieberman. The World of George Perkins Marsh. Woodstock, Vt.: Countryman, 1982.
Long, Orie William. Literary Pioneers: Early American Explorers of European Culture. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1935.
Lowenthal, David. George Perkins Marsh: Versatile Vermonter. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1958.
March, Francis A. Method of Philological Study of the English Language. New York: Harper, 1865.
Marsh, Caroline Crane. Life and Letters of George Perkins Marsh. New York: Scribners, 1888.
Marsh, George Perkins. Human Knowledge. Boston: Little, Brown, 1847.
— . Lectures on the English Language. New York: Scribners, 1859.
— . Speech of Mr. Marsh of Vermont, on the Bill for Establishing the Smithsonian Institution Delivered in the House of Representatives of the United States April 22 1846. Washington, DC: Gideon, 1846.