CARLOS EVERETT CONANT CARLOS EVERETT CONANT, one of the founders of the Linguistic Society of America, who met his death as the result of an accident in Boston, January 27, 1925, had had a varied experience as teacher, traveller, and student of many languages. He was born at Cabot, Vt., November 27, 1870, and took his A.B. and A.M. at Lawrence College, Wisconsin, in 1892 and 1899 respectively, and his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1911. In 1908 he married Miss Julie Laubmeyer of Koenigsberg, Germany, who survived him. From 1892 to the year before his death, he held teaching positions in many colleges and universities, viz., University of Minnesota, Chadwick College (Illinois), Benzonia College (Michigan), Lincoln University (Illinois), Kalamazoo College (Michigan), Washburn College (Kansas), University of Chattanooga, Carlton College (Northfield, Minn.), University of Chicago, Indiana University, Tulane University, Peabody College (Nashville, Tenn.), and Boston University. His most important position was that of Professor of Modern Languages at the University of Chattanooga, which he held from 1908 to 1910 and from 1911 to 1921. The subjects which he taught included Greek, Latin, German, Spanish, French, Comparative Philology, and Indonesian (or Malayo-Polynesian) Philology. His specialties among these subjects were German, French, Spanish, and Philippine Languages. He devoted some attention also to the study of Sanskrit, and in his last years was specially interested in Psychoanalysis. He was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the American Oriental Society, the Académie Malgache (Madagascar), the American Dialect Society, the Linguistic Society of America, and the Tennessee Philological Association, of which last he was president in 1919–20. Professor Conant spent much time in travel; for besides his journeys in this country, indicated by the list of schools where he taught, he lived for several years in the Philippine Islands, and travelled through Asia, Africa, and Europe in 1907-08, and in Germany and Austria in 1922-23. He is best known for his work in the languages of the Philippine Islands. He was in the Islands from 1901 to 1907, where he served as supervising teacher and as government translator and interpreter of Spanish and the native languages. During this period he translated for the American Bible Society the first five books of the New Testament into Bisaya, and the Gospel of Luke into Ibanag. He was the author also of a number of articles on Philippine languages, particularly on their phonology. His most important contribution was The Pepet Law in Philippine Languages, published in the Vienna journal Anthropos, 7.920-47 (1912); for other articles, see F. R. Blake, A Bibliography of the Philippine Languages, in JAOS 40.37 f., 64 (1920). He leaves behind him an unpublished dictionary of Cebuan Bisaya, the Philippine language with which he was most familiar. Professor Conant had a most attractive personality, of which I still retain a strong impression, though I met him only once, over ten years ago. He was a linguist of ability and an enthusiastic investigator of the subjects in which he was interested. He will be especially missed from the field of Philippine linguistics, where the workers are few, and the tasks many and difficult. JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. FRANK R. BLAKE. HENRY ALFRED TODD Romance Philology suffered a very severe loss in the death of HENRY ALFRED TODD on January 3, 1925.1 Professor Todd's memory will always be deeply cherished by those who had the pleasure of coming in contact with his gracious and affable personality. He was one of the pioneers in a field that in his later years came to be recognized as one of the most important subjects in the curricula of American educational institutions. Graduating at Princeton with the A.B. degree in 1876, he became instructor in Johns Hopkins University in 1883, after having passed three years in study in Paris, Berlin, Rome and Madrid. Associated with Professor A. Marshall Elliott he began a career of usefulness seldom, if ever, equaled in the history of an American university. In enthusiastic coöperation these two eminent scholars embarked upon the problematic career of educating the American student public along philological lines, and, with that aim in view, began the publication of the Modern Language Notes, a learned journal that still occupies an important place in the scientific world. Called to Columbia University as professor of Romance Philology in 1893, he initiated at once graduate courses in his chosen subject, and never flinched in his efforts to encourage students to proceed to the doctorate. And it is only just to his memory to add that the unusually large number of doctoral dissertations that were accepted by the Department of Romance Languages of Columbia University from 1896 to almost the very day of his passing represent the results of his untiring efforts in this direction. Again in 1910, with the coöperation of Professor Raymond Weeks, Mr. Arthur Livingston, Professor J. D. FitzGerald, and many other American scholars, he founded at Columbia the Romanic Review, the first scholarly publication in the English language to be devoted entirely to the Romance field. The impetus given by his encouragement and loyal coöperation assured the success of the Romanic Review from the outset.. Gifted with that fine spirit of youthful idealism, Professor Todd was destined to be an innovator to the very end of his splendid career, for on Sunday, December 28, 1 Reprinted from the Columbia Alumni News. 1924, he took an active part in the creation of the new LINGUISTIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA. At its first session he read, with his usual dignity and charm, a paper of which the far-reaching purport won the enthusiastic approval of all the members present. His profound scholarship, tempered by a rare modesty, will ever be a shining example to all those who have the honor of calling themselves his pupils. JOHN L. GERIG. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. LIST OF MEMBERS The Executive Committee has voted that those persons who paid their dues by checks dated in March should be accounted Foundation Members, regardless of the date at which the dues were received; there are therefore a few additional members of this class. FOUNDATION MEMBERS Dean K. C. Babcock, University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill. Prof. O. C. Gebert, Univ. of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyo. (Modern Langs.) Prof. Charles C. Fries, 7 Harvard Place, Ann Arbor, Mich. (English, Univ. of Michigan) Prof. John M. Manly, Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, Ill. (English) Prof. J. W. Rankin, Univ. of Missouri, Columbia, Mo. (English) Mr. George W. H. Shield, 309A, 1240 S. Main St., Los Angeles, Calif. Prof. Henri Marcel Vigneron, New York Univ., Washington Sq., New York City. MEMBERS ELECTED IN 1925 Prof. A. LeRoy Andrews, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, N. Y. (German) (English) (Sanskrit, (English) Prof. W. E. Leonard, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. Prof. D. M. Robinson, Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, Md. (Archaeology, Epigraphy, Greek Lit.). Mr. George Van Loan, 3947 Woodland Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. |