The appearance of the Journal of the International Phonetic Association offers a natural opportunity for taking both a look backward and a look forward in the field of phonetics. Ever since the publication of The Phonetic Teacher in 1886 and through the long period of Le Maître Phonétique, the organ of the Association has continued to appear, even if during war years the interval between successive numbers may sometimes have been long. It now comes in a new guise, the major change being the setting of the body of the journal in orthography instead of in phonetic transcription, and this is a suitable moment at which to ask what this change, a far from superficial one, betokens: what kind of scholars were the men who formed the Association and guided its early years, was their work of lasting value, what fresh light has been shed on the field in the intervening period, where do we stand now and what guesses can we make about the sort of work our successors will be doing?