The Treasurer reports the receipt of the interest due on this Bond, up to and including September 15, 1937, and that the proportionate part, $64.42, has been placed to the credit of the Linguistic Institute. Assets: (signed) F. Corlies Morgan E. B. Williams Roland G. Kent, Treasurer. SCHEDULE OF ASSETS AND LIABILITIES, AS OF DEC. 31, 1937 [The signed report of the Auditórs, dated January 5, 1938, is as follows: We have examined the final revised accounts of the Treasurer for the period Dec. 19, 1936 to Dec. 20, 1937, and found them correct.W. Norman Brown, Isidore Dyen.] On behalf of the Executive Committee, the Secretary presented the following report: During the year the Executive Committee, acting by correspondence, fixed the time and place of the present meeting, elected to membership several lists of nominees published in LANGUAGE as elected in 1937, and arranged the program of the present meeting. The Society voted, in its business meeting on December 28, 1936, to refer to the Executive Committee with power, the matter of protest against the attacks recently made on languages as objects of study (Bulletin No. 10, page 16); and after much consultation the Executive Committee adopted the following statement: The Linguistic Society of America views with deep concern the declining importance given to the study of foreign languages, both ancient and modern, in colleges and secondary schools. It deplores the increasing attempts on the part of many leaders in curriculum reorganization and of educational administrators to remove such study from the secondary curriculum. It therefore endorses the current movement on the part of the four regional classical associations, with the cooperation of similar groups in the fields of modern languages and mathematics, to defend the place of humanistic studies in American education. It further instructs its representatives to the American Council of Learned Societies to join the representatives of the American Philological Association in urging upon the Council the undertaking of a study of the proper place of the humanities in American education. The Executive Committee also formulated provisions under which Groups of scholars with specialized linguistic interests might be organized and administered by the Society, with each Group having its own Managing Committee and such other Committees as are needed for its work. The Secretary has aided in the formation of two such Groups: the Group for Phonemics and the Group for American Indian Linguistics. The detailed provisions under which the Groups operate are printed in LANGUAGE 13.256-8. The Executive Committee received with regret the resignation of President Merle M. Odgers of Girard College as Trustee of the Endowment Funds of the Society, and sent to him a statement of the Society's grateful appreciation of his services. They then appointed Professor Edwin B. Williams of the University of Pennsylvania as his successor. The Executive Committee, with the Committee on Publications, met on Monday, December 27, at 10.05 P.M., in Room M-17 of The Drake. Present, President Buck, presiding, and Messrs. Bolling, Kurath, Kent, Lane, Sperber, Twaddell; also, by invitation, Messrs. Edgerton, Flom, Fries, Miss Hahn, Messrs. Hanley, Lotspeich, Sturtevant. Additional nominees for membership in the Society were elected. The reports of the Secretary, the Treasurer, the Editor of the Publications, the Director of the Linguistic Institute, the Committee on Research, and the Delegates to the American Council of Learned Societies, were informally presented and their contents considered. The Executive Committee recommends that the present Committee on the Linguistic Institute be continued in connection with a Linguistic Institute of the University of Michigan and the Linguistic Society of America in the summers of 1939 and 1940, provided the Society assume no financial responsibility; and that a sum not exceeding $65.00 of the current funds of the Linguistic Institute be placed at the disposal of the Committee to be used toward the expense of bringing lecturers to Ann Arbor in 1938 to give public lectures on linguistic topics. The Executive Committee authorized the Secretary of the Society and the Director of the Linguistic Institute to arrange a special meeting of the Society at Ann Arbor in the last week-end of July, 1938. For the Committee on the Present Status of College and University Courses Announced under the Name of Phonetics, Prof. M. L. Hanley as Chairman (with R. H. Stetson, J. S. Kenyon) reported as follows: A knowledge of phonetics is important in many fields of study, but at present our college curricula show a wasteful dissipation of effort, with much duplication and overlapping. The elementary principles are taught over and over again, but what is worse, are often incompetently taught. There is no agreement as to either content or aim. The Committee recommends that curriculum committees in various institutions consider the possibility of offering a general introductory course, to be supplemented by work in the various language fields, speech, anthropology, music, etc. There are not enough competent teachers at present, but this lack should be remedied within a few years. The Executive Committee ordered the report filed and the Committee continued. The Executive Committee considered the provision of the American Documentation Institute (address, Offices of Science Service, 2101 Constitution Ave., Washington, D. C.), that the Linguistic Society of America be one of the (about 68) Societies privileged to nominate a voting member of the Institute. As the Institute is a non-profit corporation intended to serve scholars by the mechanical reproduction of materials and sources, etc., the Executive Committee recommends that the offer be accepted, and that the naming of the Society's delegate be left to the Executive Committee. The Executive Committee recommends that the Society add to the Constitution a new Article IV, renumbering the present Articles IV, V, VI as V, VI, VII; the text of the new Article, printed in Language 13.256–7, to be as follows: To meet the needs of scholars with specialized linguistic interests, Groups may be organized, on terms approved by the Executive Committee. The Society shall, through its officers and members, cooperate with the Groups in the furtherance of their aims. The Executive Committee recommends that Prof. J. Vendryes of Paris be elected to Honorary Membership. The Executive Committee recommends that a Committee of Three on the Application of Linguistic Knowledge to the Practical Problems of the Teachers of English be authorized, to be appointed by the Executive Committee, to cooperate with similar representatives from the National Council of Teachers of English and the Present-Day English Group of the Modern Language Association of America. A number of other matters were discussed, but it seems unnecessary to give them a place in this formal report. The report was ordered to be received and filed. The Society, on motions properly seconded, elected to Honorary membership the nominee of the Executive Committee, adopted the amendment to the Constitution, and authorized the nomination of a member of the Society for membership in the American Documentation Institute and the appointment of a Committee on the Application of Linguistic Knowledge to the Practical Problems of the Teachers of English. It postponed action on the recommendations regarding the Linguistic Institute, until the report of the Director of the Institute should have been presented. The Society also expressed its approval of other actions of the Executive Committee which did not require formal adoption. The Secretary then announced that the Executive Committee named Prof. E. H. Sehrt as its nominee for membership in the American Documentation Institute, and Prof. C. C. Fries, Prof. L. Bloomfield, and Prof. J. S. Kenyon as Committee on Application of Linguistic Knowledge to the Practical Problems of Teachers of English, the firstnamed to serve as Chairman. Prof. G. M. Bolling, Editor of the Publications of the Society and Chairman of the Committee on Publications, presented the following report, which was ordered to be received and filed: For the Committee on Publications I have the honor to report that the Society has issued the following Regular Publications in 1937: Language, Vol. 13, 335 pages. Language Monograph No. 17: William Edward Collinson, Indication; a study of demonstratives, articles, and other 'indicaters', edited by Alice V. Morris; 128 pages. Language Dissertation No. 23: Moshé Berkooz, The Nuzi Dialect of Akkadian, orthography and phonology; 64 pages; University of Pennsylvania Dissertation. Language Dissertation No. 24: Mark Hanna Watkins, A Grammar of Chichewa, a Bantu language of British Central Africa; 158 pages; University of Chicago Dissertation. Language Dissertation No. 25: Margaret Whilldin Herr, The Additional Short Syllables in Ovid; 31 pages; University of Pennsylvania Dissertation. Bulletin No. 10: Proceedings and List of Members 1936; 59 pages. The following Special Publication was issued: George C. S. Adams and Clement M. Woodard, with the cooperation of Urban T. Holmes Jr., A Census of French and Provençal Dialect Dictionaries in American Libraries, 17 pages; and Supplement, 1 page. The following have been accepted for publication in 1938: Language Monograph No. 18: Robert A. Hall Jr., An Analytical Grammar of the Hungarian Language. Special Publication: Eduard Prokosch, Comparative Germanic Grammar (in the William Dwight Whitney Linguistic Series of Yale University). Special Publication: Edward Sapir and Morris Swadesh, Nootka Texts (in the William Dwight Whitney Linguistic Series of Yale University). A number of other volumes, including several dissertations, are under consideration. Prof. C. C. Fries, Director of the Linguistic Institute, presented the following report for the joint Committee of the Linguistic Society and the University of Michigan (C. C. Fries, Chairman; E. H. Sturtevant, N. L. Willey, W. H. Worrell, R. G. Kent): The Linguistic Institute of 1937, like that of 1936, was an integral part of the Summer Session of the University of Michigan. Even more than in 1936, however, it maintained a distinct unity within itself. The publicity which its lectures and conferences received served to attract to linguistics the attention of groups that very rarely hear of linguistic science and the problems with which it deals. There were twelve evening lectures and thirteen luncheon conferences on linguistic subjects. Three of the lectures, those by Professors Petersen, Sturtevant, and Bloomfield, were made possible by the funds provided by the Linguistic Society. The usual attendance at the lectures was 75; at the luncheon conferences, 85. Lively discussions invariably followed the talks. The faculty of the Institute consisted of eighteen men, twelve from the staff of the University of Michigan and six from other universities. This faculty gave 28 courses in which there were 356 elections from 258 separate students. Of these students, 29 held the Ph.D. degree and were, in most cases, members of the faculties of other colleges or universities. (These figures do not include the staff members who visited courses given by their colleagues.) Ten students received scholarships provided by the American Council of Learned Societies. Those who attended the Linguistic Institute for 1937 seemed genuinely enthusiastic concerning the work accomplished. Greater numbers as such are not desired, but it is hoped that the Institute will continue to attract to its sessions an ever increasing proportion of the active workers in linguistics. We ask the following actions by the Society: 1. That, inasmuch as the administrative officers of the University of Michigan have agreed to continue the support of the Linguistic Institute for the years 1938, 1939, and 1940, and the Linguistic Society has already sanctioned the carrying on of the work for the year 1938, the Society authorize arrangements for sessions in 1939 and 1940. 2. That, inasmuch as in 1936 and 1937 the Linguistic Society made appropriations from the current funds of the Linguistic Institute, for special lectures to be brought to Ann Arbor from other universities, the Linguistic Society continue this practice in 1938. 3. That the Linguistic Society arrange for a summer meeting at Ann Arbor in the last week-end in July, when a concentrated program of great value to the Linguistic Institute and to the Linguistic Society of America might be held, with one or two special invited lecturers. Such a meeting would provide an opportunity to bring the Society to the attention of a fairly large group of academic people who should be interested in its activities. On motion, properly seconded, the Society adopted the recommendations of the Executive Committee applying to the Linguistic Institute, which were contained in the report of the Executive Committee. |