OCR Text |
Show SCANDINAVIANS MAKE AN APPEAL Salt Lake, Aug. 21. An appeal has been issued by the University of Utah publicity bureau to Utah Scandinavians, Scandina-vians, calling upon them to rally to the support of a plan to have Included in the university curriculum a chair of languages and literature of Scandinavia. Scan-dinavia. Torild W. Arnoldson, professor of modern languages at the university, is leading the movement and has written a circular on the subject, which is being be-ing sent out through the state. To further the plan a fund has been established called the Scandinavian fund of the modern language department depart-ment of the University of Utah. Contributions Con-tributions to this fund are solicited and may be paid to the secretary of the university. Each contributor will be asked to become a member of the Scandinavian society of the University Univer-sity of Utah, which is to be organized in the near future. Legislative action creating a chair of the languages and literatures of the northern nations will be sought by this society, but in the meantime it Is planned to raise a fund sufficient to malte u beginning in that direction independently of legislative enactment. enact-ment. Languages Neglected. ' ' a iwrtion oi tne circular issued follows: fol-lows: "If it Is true that Utah leads In her devotion to education, and that she leads in the percentage of her Scandinavian population, it seems rather strange that the languages and literature of Scandinavia have not received re-ceived proper recognition at our state university. "In many other Btates we find a department of Scandinavian in the higher institutions of learning with the Germanic department. "The reason for the neglect in our state is certainly not due to lack of Interest. Frequent requests have been made from time to time for the introduction intro-duction of Sacndinavlan as a regular part of the university curriculum. But so far the initiative has been lacking "This initiative, however, must comefrom the Scandinavians themselves. them-selves. Though thero may be a general gen-eral feeling that the northern countries coun-tries have contributed considerably to the world's progress, It must not be expected that a more Rnpoinn inu.nn. can bo taken In things Scandinavian unless thoy are presented to the public pub-lic by those most interested and therefore there-fore most enthusiastic. Popular Misconception. i,Theu,ayorase American admires hat which is big. Hence the popu' lar misconceptions in regard to the value of tho cultural life of the small er nations Persons acquainted but superficially with foreign languages tah,eR.lie fS,kIne 8Uch estlfnsgas this: What Is Swedish, anyway' a SS-6 Af f?ejan ad English, or what? Another will question whether the language of a small nation like ,m?anAh " " of expressing human thoughts as well as the lan- nl!aBA S,reftter natIons IIke England and America, etc. Why should the I Intelligent Scandinavian-American not be interested in removing these false notions? "For cultural purposes the study of the languages and literatures of all highly civilized nations may be considered con-sidered equally profitable. Hence, where mercenary motives are not exclusively ex-clusively considered, there is no good reason why the Scandinavian languages lan-guages and literatures should not be put as electlves on a par with French, German, Spanish or Italian. "Many a person devotes years of study to Italian for the sole" purpose of enjoying Dante's masterpiece In the vernacular. How many would not delight de-light In getting closer to the great Scandinavian writers of modern times, like the Norwegian Ibsen and Bjorn-pon, Bjorn-pon, by a study of their native tongue?" |