SECTION G ROMANCE LANGUAGES 



(Hall 5, September 24, 10 a. m.) 



SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR PAUL MEYER, College de France, Paris. 

 PROFESSOR HENRY A. TODD, Columbia University. 

 SECRETARY: PROFESSOR E. E. BRANDON, Miami University. 



BEGINNINGS AND PROGRESS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 



BY PAUL MEYER 

 (Translated from the French by Prof. T. Atkinson Jenkins, University of Chicago) 



[Paul Meyer, Member of the Institute of France, Director of the Ecole des Chartes 

 and Professor of Romance Philology in the same, Professor in the College de 

 France, b. Paris, 1840. Archiviste-paleographe, 1860; D.C.L. Oxford, 1893; 

 clerk in the National Library, Paris, Dep't of manuscripts, 1863-65; assistant 

 in the Archives de PEmpire, afterwards Archives Nationales, 1866-72. Mem- 

 ber of the Academic des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, 1883, and of many 

 foreign academies.] 



THE first Universal Exposition of which I have any recollection 

 is that of Paris, in 1855. It was called an Exposition universelle de 

 I'Industrie et des Beaux Arts, and the building constructed for it in 

 the Champs-Ely s^es was named the Palais de I'Industrie, In those 

 days only tangible and visible things were exhibited. As the pro- 

 ducts of the mind could not be set forth in material forms, no oppor- 

 tunity was given them of appearing among the exhibits. 



In 1878, at the third universal exposition at Paris, the idea of 

 providing for purely intellectual productions was carried out. The 

 method, commonly adopted since, was that of congresses and con- 

 ferences, and those of 1878, while not including all branches of 

 knowledge, comprised some widely different fields of thought. This 

 innovation was at first not very successful: the congresses of 1878 

 were few in number and poorly attended. I confess that I for one did 

 not even know of their existence. But in 1889 the germ had de- 

 veloped. At the exposition of that year there were no less than 

 sixty-nine congresses; at that of 1900 they numbered one hundred 

 and twenty-seven. Among these, however, there was none for philo- 

 logy nor for the history of literatures. I remember that several 

 persons expressed to me their surprise that no one at Paris had 

 thought of forming a congress which should bring together the 

 many scholars of all nations who were pursuing the scientific study 

 of the Romance languages. I can hardly claim to have offered these 



