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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
This privilege of speaking my mind to you tonight was earned, not by distinguished scholarship, but by my serving you as Executive Secretary and Editor for nine busy years. Milton, therefore, will not be with us at this hour. Instead I invite you to ponder with me one of the most urgent problems that our profession faces: let us call it the problem of George. I am not, of course, referring to my able successor, George Winchester Stone. Our George, as you must have guessed, is the not so able fellow we let do the necessary jobs that we consider unworthy of our own attention.
An address delivered at the 74th annual meeting of the MLA, in Chicago, 28 Dec. 1959.
1 Younger members of the Association should realize that many other distinguished scholars have given precious time to professional activity. The above roster was meant to be illustrative only; a number of additional names come easily to mind: Albert C. Baugh, Dorothy Bethurum, Ruth J. Dean, William C. DeVane, J. Milton French, Margaret Gil-man, A. R. Hohlfeld, H. Carrington Lancaster, Sturgis E. Leavitt, Kemp Malone, Albert H. Marckwardt, Marjorie Nicolson, William A. Nitze, Ernest J. Simmons, Henry Nash Smith, Robert E. Spiller, Willard Thorp. A full, documented list might destroy the canard that productive scholars are ipso facto uninterested in professional problems. Nearer the truth is the charge that they tend to be uninterested in such problems on the state and local level, where their leadership is increasingly needed. —W.R.P.