WE venture to affirm that PMLA should reflect the most distinguished American scholarship in modern languages and literatures. In our opinion it should not be a place for beginners to try their wings, unless those wings are used for sure and significant flight; and it should not be a place for established scholars to publish their incidental efforts, unless those efforts compare in excellence and value with the efforts of younger men. As the official Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, PMLA should publish to the learned world the most important work of members of the Association—that, and nothing less.