In choosing this text from my favorite Old French poet, I have no designs on my audience. Be undisturbed; the Red Knight of Arthurian romance shall not obtrude his countenance here and it is indifferent to me—on this occasion—whether there are fairy-mistresses or not. Nor am I, as some of you might think, making the ambitious attempt of defending anew the Pierian Spring. Poetry today needs no defence, unless it be the défense d'imprimer, which applies to us all, poets and philologs alike, when our knowledge and inspiration lag, and the product is not worthy of the producer. My task is at once more prosaic and more definite. I propose merely to stand my ground, as a Modern Language teacher and scholar; to state, in my own way, what I think we are about, as one convinced of the value of our profession in itself and to others—despite the blight of misgivings and protests, from one quarter and another, which periodically threatens us with ruin. This, then, is the Spring which your Chairman—like so many Chairmen before him—would defend and, if possible, protect against contamination.

The publication and distribution of books possessing a scholarly rather than a mercantile value present problems that are particularly adapted as subjects of consideration by the Modern Language Association and upon the solution of which the academic investigator and the educational publisher may quite properly take counsel with each other. The entire question is also of more than timely importance not only for the advancement of pure scholarship but by reason of the fact that the unprecedented increase in our College and University enrollment and the interest manifested by students in the pursuit of Modern Languages have brought the teacher face to face with the opportunity of expanding his advanced and graduate classes and, consequently, with the need of supplying his courses with adequate and attractive tools of instruction. What is the actual state of affairs? Where does the scholar at present obtain serious books of this character? Where can he arrange for the publication of such books? What are the difficulties that confront the publishers? What remedies may be applied to conditions now prevailing? These questions can best be answered by means of a frank interchange of ideas.

The point of these observations bearing on this subject is that conditions between authors or editors and publishers of literary texts have changed materially since the days when but a few pages of notes made up, together with the original text, or a portion of it, a textbook for school and college use. Yet, as regards the remuneration of the author or editor, despite these changed conditions, the conventional ten per cent royalty contract has remained in statu quo.