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(a fairly necessary) INTRODUCTION – THE STORY OF SPANISH & PORTUGUESE AT BYU The Department of Spanish and Portuguese first saw the light of day in June of 1967, created from the large Department of Languages in the College of Humanities. Yet foreign languages (German, Latin) had been taught since the creation of Brigham Young Academy in 1876; the first Spanish classes were taught in 1883/1884. The first Portuguese class was offered by Gerrit de Jong, in 1942. I have used many sources to complete the story of Spanish and Portuguese at Brigham Young University. In 1972 an emeritus professor of French, Harold W. Lee, wrote a “History of the Department of Languages” at BYU. His brief account deals with foreign language teaching from 1876 to the early 1970s. A slightly abbreviated version of Lee’s history is available in Bruce B. Clark’s “The BYU College of Humanities: 1965 – 1981. The First Sixteen Years.” I have used a few bits of this fine, detailed, three-volume history which deal with the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. I have read and used the papers and history of Gerrit de Jong. The University Archives have provided curriculum vitae files of all faculty to 1989. In 1990 chair Merlin Forster asked emeritus professor L. Sid Shreeve to complete a history of the department. Sid accumulated hundreds of pages of information and interviews from retired and current faculty members but was not able to complete the anticipated history. I have used some of the documents he gathered to write the present history. Further, since the creation of the department, the secretaries have kept a very detailed annual statistical and historical report. I have read all of these 45 binders of week-by week departmental dealings. These have been invaluable in creating the present narrative. I have read the first M.A. thesis presented to the department as well as Darrel Taylor’s Ph.D. dissertation, gone through old BYU year books, spent considerable time in the picture archives of Special Collections. Most of these source documents are now available in the office of the Department, on a shelf titled “Departmental History.” Cherilee Beus Devore has kept important historical information in various files that have been extremely valuable in creating this history. I have not wanted to place documents and letters into an appendix, fearing (knowing?) that they would likely be forgotten or at least ignored. Rather, I have placed a few such items right in the text. Further, I have used frequent charts and tables that I have created because they summarize much information in such short compass. You may say, “Too many charts.” I respond with, “Better a summary chart than a never-ending narrative.” I hope you’ll read them and not skip over them. It may take you a few minutes to look through these charts – it has taken me many hours, sometimes several days or weeks, to compile them. There are quite a few photos of faculty, some of them rather staid, yearbook-type pictures. I would have preferred more “action” shots, but this is all I could find. Lo siento. You will note that I have concentrated on the earlier rather than the “later” years of the department. This is purposeful – I have wanted to show our roots, the patriarchs from whom we descend, the sources from which we spring, the early traditions that created who we are today. In researching and writing this history I have tried to be as objective as possible. But this will surely be an “objectively biased” story of our department. I have enjoyed teaching in the department too much to simply be coolly or coldly objective. Further, point of view is a problem; we teach about this in our classes. At first I tried to make the history read as if there were no visible narrator, but that became impossible, so I occasionally insert an “I” or a “We”, often to avoid too much passive voice. Besides these pages of our history I have conducted and filmed oral interviews with ten of our retired faculty; these taped interviews will be part of the departmental history, available in the office.

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Early on I faced a problem of audience. For whom was I creating this history? The faculty? Our spouses? Our students? The dean or a vice president? An “implied reader”? In the process of researching and writing I soon felt the need to emphasize our unique legacy, a history that shows the present how the past has formed us. History as legacy. I hope that as you read you will see what the department has done, and ask yourself, “How are we doing now? What can we do better? What can we ‘use’ from the past?” There are surely typos, misspellings and errors. Forgive them (“Of you it is required. . . “). I am also sure that there will be a few dates that are not one hundred percent accurate. I have really tried very hard to check and re-check dates, but there will still be a few incorrect dates. Please advise me if I have messed up one (or more) of your favorite dates. If your picture does not appear, forgive me – I have scoured departmental files and did not find exciting pictures of you and your favorite activities. If there is an error in the details in this history, there is none in the intent. Please help me correct any such errors. Jorge Luis Borges once noted that “A philosophical doctrine begins as a plausible description of the universe; with the passage of the years it becomes a mere chapter – if not [just] a paragraph or a [single] name – in the history of philosophy.” As I have researched and written this departmental history I have kept Borges’s sad but true reductionist concept in mind – the quote above is preceded by: “There is no exercise of the intellect which is not, in the final analysis, useless.” Well, I hope not. As all of us have lived, or will live our forty or more years in the department. We have showed up morning, made assignments, corrected quizzes and tests, lived our language every day, and deeply enjoyed our students and colleagues each semester and term. But at some point, someone decides to summarize, make a lot of charts, condense, and hence delimit, those minute by minute, and day by too-fast-moving days into a single volume. Such a work obviously distorts the broad reality of each individual; I hope that the condensed result is not an insult, and at least captures the best of our humanity. I have included a few pictures, of activities, faculty, and students. But I have not tried to make this a yearbook with pictures of every faculty or staff I hope that this story is not too lengthy or detailed to enjoy. I have attempted to capture the people and events that have made us such a unique and dynamic department. I have enjoyed the writing; I hope you will too.

Ted Lyon Oct, 2013

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INDEX

Beginnings …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 1 Founding Fathers ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 5 James L. Barker (5) Benjamin Franklin Cummings (7) Gerrit de Jong (8) A Student-Centered Department ………………………………………………………………………………. 12 A New Generation of Founding Fathers .…………………………………………………………………… 18 H. Darrel Taylor (18) Lee B. Valentine (20) Ernest J. Wilkins (22) Growing into Our Own Department …………………………………………………………………………… 23 Our Students ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 28 Ph.D. program (28) M.A. degrees (29) Our undergraduates (32) An Amazing Faculty ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 36 Some Church Service ……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 40 Extending BYU Beyond BYU ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 41 Visiting Lecturers (41) Visiting Professors (44) Mini Courses (45) Studying Abroad …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 48 Dramatic Presentations ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 52 Some Faculty Recognition …………………………………………………………………………………………….. 54 “Texting” ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 56 Communications …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 58 “No problema” ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 60 Area Studies ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 63 Goodness Greatness …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 65 Workshops, Conferences, Exhibits ………………………………………………………………………………… 69 Fun(ny) Faculty ‘Fotos’ …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 72 Some Departmental ‘Homes’………………………………………………………………………………………… 77 A Tentative Ending …………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 78

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CHARTS, LISTS, DOCUMENTS Page number Title, description 3 sample pages, first text used at BYA, 1884 6 Spanish Phonetic Manual, 1944, James L. Barker 10 Semester Load Report, Gerrit de Jong 11 Chairmen, Department of Modern and Classical Languages 12 Early M.A. Degrees 22 Letter of calling and creation of FLI (LTM, MTC) 25 Full-time faculty, Spanish & Portuguese, 1967 26 All Department Chairs, Spanish & Portuguese, 1967 to present 27 Departmental FTEs – 1967 to present 28 All Ph.D. degrees granted, 1970 -1980 30 All M.A. degrees, by area of emphasis 30 Selected M.A. recipients 31 Faculty-nominated M.A. recipients 36 All faculty, by year of hire 37 All faculty, alphabetical order 38 Advanced degrees of current faculty 41 Mission presidents 42 Off-campus visitors, lecturers 44 Visiting professors 45 Mini-courses 49 Study abroad programs, by country 52 Dramatic presentations 55 Faculty recognition 59 Sample faculty meeting agenda, 1979 64 Coordinators, Latin American Studies

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THE STORY OF SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE AT BYU

Present-day Utah Valley was once part of Spain! Actually New Spain, but still, Spain. Really! And later it was Mexico, and not just as “our nearest neighbor,” but truly, Mexico. One valley, two Spanish-speaking countries, all before the Mormon pioneers even dreamed of a home in the valley.

With the help of Indian guides, Spanish priests Francisco Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and Francisco Atanasio Domínguez (obviously Francisco was a good name if you wanted to explore and become famous; witness Pizarro, Coronado, the current Pope, and others) departed from Albuquerque and made their way to the Valle de Nuestra Señora de la Merced de los Timpanogotzis – in short, Utah Valley. Arriving in September, 1776, they affirmed it as a newly-explored Spanish possession, and promised to return the following year to establish a full mission, similar to the California missions on the west coast. Their plans were frustrated by bureaucratic delay, but had they returned with a full-fledged mission, Utah would have been speaking Spanish when the Mormons arrived. As it turned out, a vigorous trade route was established. The 1776 “discovery” established a regular and well-trodden route, ending in Utah Valley, where knives, guns, and ammunitions were bartered with the Numic-speaking Utes, the “come pescado” people, in return for slaves, pelts and dried fish. As a frontier settlement, Utah Valley became a dual-language trading center and Spanish was the language of commerce. In the 1820s, when Mexico achieved independence from Spain, its vaguely defined northern territories continued trafficking in slaves and arms on the Yuta Trail, always in the Spanish language of the Mexican traders. After the brief Mexican-American war (1846–1848), the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo deeded all the northern Mexican lands to the United States, and Spanish ceased being dominant, although many Indians had learned enough to continue exchanging their goods with the opportunistic Mexicans who frequented the valley for several years.

Shortly after his arrival to Spanish Territory in 1847 Brigham Young recognized that there was a large population of natives in Utah Valley and instructed his faithful followers to settle elsewhere, so as to “not crowd upon the Utes” (his words) in prosperous Utah Valley, nor usurp their lands and livelihood. But a “more rebellious part” (3 Nephi 10:12) of the Saints came anyway and by 1849 had built some homes, established a fort and a lucrative fishing industry on the lake and river. Two of the new residents, Dimmick B. Huntington and George Washington Bean, rapidly learned the native language, and soon became the Church’s official interpreters, as the Saints settled Utah and other mountain valleys. Hence, very early on, Provo became known as the center for language learning and interpretation for the entire Church. Frequent conflicts resulted with the native Utes and Huntington and Bean became the recognized language experts and negotiators, with Provo as their home base.

Brigham Young, in his role as Territorial Superintendent of Indian Affairs, tried to limit the slave trade in Utah, wherein Utes raided neighboring tribes and carried off their women and children to sell to the Mexicans. This human trafficking in Utah Valley had been practiced since 1776 and was desired by both parties, Mexicans and Utes. During the 1850s Mexicans continued to visit Utah Valley, speaking their language and plying their trade. Young issued a proclamation instructing community leaders in Utah Valley to arrest “every strolling Mexican party and those associating with them.” This and other early documents often use the term “strolling Mexicans,” to indicate that all Mexicans were up to no good in the territory and should be viewed with suspicion, even arrest. Their language and culture was soon held in disdain and mistrust by the Mormon settlers.

As early as 1837 the LDS Church had sent missionaries to England; missionaries soon began preaching in several other European countries in the late 1840s and early 50s, laboring in Germany,

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Denmark, France and Italy, but none ventured to Portugal or Spain. During the 1840s Joseph Smith and Brigham Young also sent missionaries to the islands of the Pacific, to India, to Jamaica, but none went to Spanish-speaking countries. Finally, in 1851 Apostle Parley P. Pratt, his pregnant wife, and missionary companion Rufus Allen boarded a dirty freighter, spent two trying months on the ocean, devoting themselves to learning Spanish during the voyage. He wrote to his family at home, affirming that “We study Spanish every day. It is a beautiful language, and wonderfully adapted to the simplicity of the Lamanites.” (Autobiography, p. 388). They arrived in Valparaíso, Chile in November, 1851, the beginning of summer. Pratt was sure that he was now in the exact promised land where Lehi and Nephi had landed about 589 BC, and hence felt a divine and prophetic assurance that he would be preaching in a spot sacred to the descendants of Book of Mormon patriarchs. Pratt tried very hard to master Spanish but we have no record of this fiery missionary ever preaching a sermon in that language in Chile. He became discouraged by the political turmoil in Chile and other Latin American countries he was reading about. He associated mainly with British Protestants, and had very little communication with native Chileans. After three months, during which the couple’s new-born son Omner had died and been buried (in the Cementerio de Disidentes, in Valparaíso) Pratt returned to San Francisco, with a negative report about the future of missionary work among Spanish-speakers. Yet he continued to study the language once he was back in Utah territory, often passing through Provo. Perhaps his greatest legacy to the Spanish-speaking world is that a son (Helaman) and grandson (Ray Lucero) learned the language very well and became loved and respected leaders of the LDS Church in the U.S. and Mexico.

The first Spanish-speaking missionaries to Mexico began their service in 1875, but only after a

surprise Spanish convert, Melitón Trejo, with assistance from Daniel W. Jones had already translated selections from the Book of Mormon into Spanish and urged the opening of Mexico. The first missionaries to serve in a Portuguese-speaking country were called to Brazil in 1927 but did not speak much Portuguese – they taught in German and sought converts among the immigrants from that country. In the 1930s a few missionaries in Brazil learned Portuguese but it wasn’t until the end of World War II that the LDS Church began sending large numbers of Portuguese-speaking missionaries to that country.

Just a year after LDS missionaries were sent to Mexico, Brigham Young called German-born Karl G. Maeser to establish the Brigham Young Academy in Provo; Young admonished Maeser to teach even the multiplication tables by the Spirit – surely the same charge applied to foreign languages. Maeser was not only the first principal, but also its foreign language teacher. Among the first classes offered in 1876, he quite logically taught German. The next year he taught a Latin course, added Greek in 1880, and French in 1882. Maeser, with his training in the Classics, taught all four languages. During the school year 1883-84 the Academy offered the first basic Spanish class, taught by Mexican convert Ferdinand (Fernando) A. Lara. Lara was from the tiny town of Atluatla (in the State of Mexico) and was among the first seven or eight converts in that country. He had accompanied Apostle Moses Thatcher to Utah in 1881 (largely on horseback) and took up residence in Provo, likely because he saw some teaching opportunity in the Academy with its emphasis on foreign languages. He taught Spanish and drawing classes, for four years. During that time he also served the LDS Church by assisting in the translation of selected sections of the Doctrine and Covenants into his native language. By 1890 he had returned to his native country, taking up residence in the State of Chihuahua.

The Academy catalogue for 1885 describes the Spanish courses: “Spanish (two year’s course). The first year’s course is according to Ahn; the second is according to the same; and Spanish conversation [text] by M. Velasques de la Cadena, connected with exercises in Spanish composition. Reference book: Ahn’s Spanish Grammar.” In 1862 Englishman Franz Thimm published a series of

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“European Grammars, after an easy and improved method,” by F. Ahn. The “easy” system is basically a translation method of language learning, designed to teach English speakers how to read and speak European languages – the Spanish of this text is decidedly the pronunciation of Spain. Two pages from this early grammar text used at BYU illustrate the method.

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After Fernando Lara returned to Mexico, George Middleton, John Mills and Nels Lars Nelson taught Spanish grammar classes, beginning in 1889, through the 1890s and into the first decade of the new century. All were graduates of the Academy; Nelson also served as principal, from 1900 to 1904. They experimented with another basic text, by Ollendorf, and praised its results. Each year Maeser had to submit a report to the Board of Trustees and for the 1891-92 report, one of his Spanish teachers prepared a statement of objectives and teaching methods:

The [Spanish] class has completed Ollendorf’s Spanish Grammar. This system proceeds on the synthetic plan; so gradually are the intricacies of the language disentangled, and so copious are the illustrations given, that all the difficulties are passed ere the student is aware of them. Ability to read, write, and converse fluently is the object kept before the class constantly, and the students taking it have chiefly in view the use they shall be able to make of the language in a contemplated tour into Spanish America. I suggest that for missionaries to any of the Spanish countries this is an excellent preparatory course. N.L. Nelson, teacher. The statement certainly

exaggerates the ease with which the young academy students learned Spanish: “all the difficulties are passed ere the student is aware of them.” Classes were very small (eight to twelve students) and the Ollendorf method continued to emphasize translation as the way to master a language – little conversation was possible. In his Roughing It, Mark Twain had quite a different take on this early grammar text. After creating a business relationship to prospect for silver in Nevada, Twain notes that one of his partners is a “gentleman named Ollendorff (sic), not the party who has inflicted so much suffering on the world with his wretched foreign grammars, with their interminable repetitions of questions which never have occurred and are never likely to occur in any conversation among human beings” (Chap XXX).

Foreign languages in the United

States were normally taught more as a way to expand thinking and mental discipline than to speak and communicate. The above-cited report, however, mentions two specific and uniquely-new reasons to study Spanish. The first is a “contemplated tour into Spanish America.” As a result of teachers who had learned Spanish in Mexico, or from Mexicans in Utah, Spain was no longer the linguistic focus, and

The first Spanish text used at BYA, 1883

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possible tourism in the Americas became a reason to study Spanish. Few Utah students planned to tour Spanish America, but at least the option was now available. The second reason given for studying Spanish also pointed to a distant future use – missionary work. However, in the 1880s and 1890s most full-time missionaries were older, usually married men; those youth who “disentangled the intricacies of the language” would have to wait many years to be able to use it. And, until 1925, Mexico was the only Spanish-speaking country to which missionaries were called. In short, there was only an incipient expectation linking foreign languages and missionary work at this time.

Despite these practical reasons Spanish was only taught sporadically during the 1890s (and no one even considered teaching Portuguese at that time). When a Collegiate Department was established in the Academy (1896), for the first time a foreign language was required of all high school students who pursued that academic option. But, the only three possible languages were French, German and Latin. Greek had long since been abandoned and Spanish, too, had gone by the wayside. This trend, of teaching Latin for discipline and rigorous thinking, and French and German as the two important, “useful” modern languages, was also common in high schools and colleges throughout the United States. With just one temporary hiatus (World War I) these two modern languages dominated foreign language instruction until the 1950s in American academic circles. However, a short war briefly shifted the trend, allowing Spanish to again be taught at BYU. The ten-week Spanish-American war of 1898 which “liberated” Cuba and the Philippine Islands from Spain, also sparked a new emphasis on studying Spanish and Latin America in the United States. The Academy catalogue (“Circular”) for 1899-1900 enthusiastically affirms:

In view of the new relationships established between the United States and Spanish America including the Philippine Islands, it is believed that the Spanish language will become one of the necessary branches of a liberal education. The aim of this [new] course is to prepare the student for business transactions in our newly acquired territories.

So now a third reason to study Spanish (besides tourism and missionary labors) had been established at BYA – foreign business transactions. As the Utah and American economy began the boom of the late 1890s and early 1900s, business opportunities would surely open up in Latin America, and indeed this was the period of dynamic and increased American involvement in mining, shipping and railroads throughout Mexico, Central America, Argentina and Chile. Spanish would now be useful to enterprising entrepreneurs. The above-cited BYA “Circular” unabashedly refers to Cuba and the Philippines as “our newly acquired territories” and does not mention their own national identity or freedom.

While serving as head of BY Academy (1892- 1903), Benjamin Cluff too-enthusiastically embarked on a Book of Mormon/scientific expedition through Mexico and Central America (1900-02), expecting to go all the way to South America, with the purpose of finding the “lost city” of Zarahemla. Despite en-route disapproval from the Brethren in Salt Lake City, he steadfastly persisted, journeyed into unknown parts of Mexico and Central America; one member even reached Colombia. Cluff eventually ended the unique endeavor, but not before spending a short time in jail. The expedition certainly failed but Cluff had witnessed the urgent need to be able to communicate in Spanish, if nothing more than with his fellow felons and jailers. He left the Cluff Expedition, Departure to Mexico

http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=Benjamin+Cluff&source=images&cd=&docid=3fwQ3_gp0c7lxM&tbnid=Am4evnT8Fpx_sM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http://signaturebookslibrary.org/?p=13966&ei=mw-IUYGfH6mCiwLW9IDgCA&bvm=bv.45960087,d.cGE&psig=AFQjCNHIKh75fcuZ9d8y5IJ4Yr94J5cSQg&ust=1367957766948766

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university shortly after returning from his eighteen month cultural experience in Latin America, having personally witnessed the need to learn Spanish as a means of basic communication with our neighbors. DYNAMIC FOUNDING FATHERS – A BIG THREE

James L. Barker

During the first decades of the Twentieth century the teaching

of Spanish limped and sputtered, started up for a year or two, only to be abandoned again. Language teachers were all part time instructors, and German and French were the only languages regularly taught. In 1904 the Academy changed its name to Brigham Young University and began offering the bachelor degree, expecting that more students would study foreign languages. In 1907 a young teacher-scholar, James L. Barker brought his enthusiasm for languages to BYU and for the first time the university established a four-year language sequence, but in German and French only; Spanish struggled and was never regularly offered in these years. Yet Barker’s personal energy and language

research effected a major change in teaching methodology. In the 1910-11 BYU Catalogue he confidently affirms that “In the modern language work, translation is avoided, exercises for class and home work being in one language only. Students think directly in the new tongue, and it is used as the instrument of study.” Barker also created the first foreign language clubs on campus, but only in the two standard languages; Spanish was ignored. However a Spanish Club was eventually established in 1927. Whenever possible Barker taught some basic Spanish classes but no sequential pattern of language mastery was established. Unfortunately Barker left BYU in 1914 for more verdant pastures at Weber College, and later served for many years as chair of the Foreign Language Department at the University of Utah. His career at that state university was twice interrupted when he accepted calls to serve as mission president in Argentina (1942 - 44) and France (1946). In 1944 he published a short Spanish Phonetic Manual (Ann Arbor, Michigan) and used it as a text in his pronunciation classes; the title page and an illustration appear below. He eventually returned to BYU in 1952 and taught classes in the various languages he had mastered, including Spanish, as well as publishing much of his gospel research. He died in 1958.

James L. Barker

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University officials experimented with various structures to more efficiently administer language teaching, by creating two departments - Ancient Languages and Modern Languages (1910), but later re-joined them (1917). And, once again, a war brought Spanish to the fore. After World War I (1918) great national and world prejudice against Germany caused most American universities to abandon and even ban the teaching of German; Spanish, at BYU, and many other universities, became the replacement language. The early 1920s mark the firm and continuous teaching of Spanish at BYU. From that time it became a regular offering in every catalogue.

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Benjamin F. Cummings

After ten years of teaching at LDS High School and the University of Utah, another dynamic young professor joined the BYU faculty. Benjamin Franklin Cummings III was appointed head of Modern Languages and Latin in 1920, and served in that capacity for 31 years. At the beginning he served as the only full-time faculty member of the department, and he occasionally taught a basic Spanish class. To make himself more serviceable to the university, in 1923, he requested and received an eighteen-month professional development leave (with half pay) to study at Stanford University. Not only did he refine his skills in French and Spanish, but purposefully opened an important conduit with that university for various other young BYU professors to follow, in the 1940s, 50s and even into the 1960s. Under Cummings’ dynamic leadership courses in Italian, Hebrew, Portuguese, Aramaic, Syriac, and various Slavic languages were added to the rapidly growing department. Cummings actively recruited new faculty, often his own best

students, including Lee Valentine (1940), Carl Gibson (1949) and Darrel Taylor (1949).

In April, 1945 Cummings penned a thought-filled, sea-change memo to new president Howard S. McDonald, correctly noting that:

My period [as department chair] has been one of pioneering, and some of the results have been gratifying. But it is only honest to say that progress from now on calls for modifications. From the point of view of intensive specialized excellence it is probably better for me to confess than to boast of having taught six languages here. Other staff members have been “utility men” in lesser degree. I regard this type of set-up as highly undesirable, and by now only partly remediable in view of the fact that so many [of the professors] have similar major interests. I should like to re-shape the assignments . . . . My idea is to give each teacher a limited area in which he can attain to specialized excellence. The chief condition is stabilization of personnel. I should like to get the process under way in time to meet the increased demand incident to an expected increase in enrollment [due to the ending of World War II].

Cummings also observed that most full-time faculty were teaching as many as twenty hours

each week, and suggested stabilizing assignments at thirteen hours of foreign language instruction, and two hours of religion courses, for a total of fifteen teaching hours. This would be necessary to permit faculty to specialize in academic research areas rather than merely teach miscellaneous, basic language courses. So, for the first time, foreign language professors would have an expectation of specialization and associated research, teaching and publication in that specific area. This was a novel concept and carried the implication that specialized professors could better serve the needs and interests of individual students. An indication of this need is that in 1940 the Department of Modern and Classical Languages awarded its first Master’s degree, to Robert P. Cooper. His thesis, “A Comparative Study of French and Spanish Paronymous Verbs Followed Directly by an infinitive or by a Preposition Plus an Infinitive” is uniquely original. I have examined this thesis (BYU, Special Collections) and find it surprisingly sophisticated, creative, and very well written, including innovative charts, and comparisons. The bibliography is small but not unexpected, given the limited linguistic research extant in 1940. Cummings himself directed the thesis; Gerrit de Jong, Jr. and Bertha Roberts also served on the thesis committee, obviously demanding a high standard of excellence. Such a specialized linguistic study as this required knowledgeable faculty members to guide the original research. Faculty specialization was necessary to give the growing

Robert Cooper, 1937

B. F. Cummings, 1923

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graduate program a legitimate base. As an undergraduate Cooper majored in French but was also active in the Spanish Club. Indeed his thesis is a departmental first.

In 1945 the seven full-time members of Modern and Classical Languages enjoyed their fine offices in the Joseph Smith Building (“the best office space on campus,” in Cumming’s opinion). In the same lengthy memo cited above, Cummings recognizes that due to growing pressures the department may soon be dispossessed of those offices and affirms the need for even more and better space because the department now has a “library of books, phonograph records (Linguaphone Foreign Language Series), files for realia, maps, charts, etc.” In short, the department had acquired considerable equipment to supplement and strengthen language teaching; it had become an entity, a group of unified, united, cooperating faculty who knew their disciplines and kept up with what other universities were doing. Cummings also affirms the high quality of the faculty: “Staff members are persons carefully selected for personality, allegiance to the Church, its teachings and ideas, and most excellent training by study, travel, missions. They are not fanatical language zealots, but [are] sincerely convinced of the value of work in foreign languages, literatures and cultures. They are popular with students for they are fine human beings.” By this time almost all faculty members had had considerable experience studying abroad; LDS missionaries were serving in Mexico, and Argentina; Barker had opened a branch in Uruguay in 1944, and Brazil was receiving a few missionaries. The number of missionaries called to foreign-speaking missions mushroomed after World War II, and foreign language teaching followed suit at BYU. Gerrit de Jong

During the same exciting decade that Cummings began innovating and stimulating a deeper

study of foreign languages – the 1920s – the university undertook organizational changes to make administration more efficient. In 1925, for the first time at BYU, academic disciplines were split into colleges, administered by a dean. That year BYU lured Gerrit de Jong, Jr. from the LDS University (high school) in Salt Lake City. He became the founding dean of the College of Fine Arts, serving in that calling for a record 34 years. English and foreign languages became part of this college, and besides his broad administrative duties, de Jong enjoyed an academic teaching position in the Department of Modern Languages. Born in the Netherlands in 1892, he immigrated to Utah with his family at age 14, already proficient in music and foreign languages. He received both a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of Utah, where he majored in Spanish and education. He also spent a summer (1921) at the Universidad Nacional in Mexico City, a rare fete among North American academics during that period, when study in Europe was the prevailing norm. While serving as dean he took a leave and completed his Ph.D. at Stanford, in 1933, with an emphasis in German but he also took many courses in Romance Languages. He became the first “doctor” in BYU’s language department. His teaching of Spanish in the 1920s and 1930s was only occasional, but his great leadership, example of mastery of many languages, and innovative ideas touched thousands of students and colleagues at BYU.

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In the summer of 1942, during the first full year of World War II, the United States Council of Learned Societies invited de Jong to join with 25 other scholars to discuss and indeed set up the teaching of Portuguese in U.S. universities. This honor likely came because de Jong was already known and respected at national levels, and also because BYU was beginning to be seen as an important player in language teaching. This government-sponsored intensive summer language institute came about because generals in Washington recognized an urgent and unmet need in the teaching of foreign languages in this country. De Jong recalled, in the preface to one of his Portuguese texts, “De novo, como no ano de 1942, o Governo indica a grande necessidade dos americanos aprenderem portugues.” The classes in the summer institute were taught by teachers “imported” from Brazil, since Portuguese simply wasn’t a part of academic life in the United States before that time. Upon returning from this seminar, held on the campus of the University of Vermont, in Burlington, he immediately began to teach a basic class in Portuguese, during the fall quarter, 1942. In an oral interview with librarian/historian Mark

Grover, Elmo Turner, an early missionary to Brasil and later mission president in that country, recounts the history of this first-ever Portuguese class taught at BYU.

I went to BYU [as a freshman, in 1942] and I wanted to take a language. I thought, if I ever get to a foreign land, it’ll probably be Mexico, so I’ll take Spanish. And so I went to BYU and registered . . . and at that time you must receive permission from the Dean of the College of Fine Arts, Gerrit de Jong. And so I said, okay. So I talked to Dr. de Jong and I told him my desires and I expected that he would sign me up for Spanish. He said “No, you don’t want to study Spanish, you need to study Portuguese.” I said, “No, I would like to take Spanish.” I could hardly pronounce Portuguese. But he said, “No, there are more people in Brazil who speak Portuguese than there are Spanish-speaking people in all of South America and Brazil is rich in natural resources.” And went on and on and he was determined I was not going to take Spanish, so I finally said “Well, I want to take a language so I’ll take Portuguese.” So I registered and when I went to the class the first day, who should I behold in the front of the classroom but Dr. Gerrit de Jong. He had been back in Boston [actually, Vermont] that very summer and had learned Portuguese and was introducing it at the BYU campus and he wanted some students I guess, but in addition to me there were Dr. Franklin Harris, the president of the university, Lee Valentine, a Spanish instructor . . . and maybe one or two other freshman like myself. . . . He was very good [as a teacher]. He had good pronunciation and a good grasp of the vocabulary. I was amazed that he learned it as well as he did in just one summer. But of course he was a linguist and had a lot of interest in languages (Elmo Turner interview, page 4, BYU Special Collections).

Gerrit de Jong

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De Jong carried great personal prestige which enabled him to attract the busy president of the university to his innovative classroom; and the Portuguese language received a gigantic boost as well. From the above quote it is clear that de Jong passionately recruited to get students into this first course. Portuguese now had its beginning at BYU. In an interview with John B. Harris in 1971 de Jong admitted that “I’ve never had one lesson in Portuguese in my whole life!” (No. 1, College of Humanities Profiles, November 1971). In short, he did not learn much Portuguese while in New England, but obviously prepared himself and found sufficient materials to begin a class.

The push for Portuguese-teaching began with war-time hysteria. The Allies feared that German armies would advance through North Africa, cross the Atlantic and continue into Brazil, and there unite with the many foreign nationals from that country. Indeed early LDS missionaries to Brazil had preached almost exclusively in German. Hence, learning Portuguese now became necessary as a defensive war measure. When the war ended, and there had been no invasion of Brazil, many colleges dropped Portuguese from their offerings. Not so at BYU. De Jong fought for and singularly maintained the

emphasis. In 1947, at the invitation of the U.S. State Department, he spent an entire academic year in Santos, Brazil, as founder and director of the Brazil/United States Cultural Center. He continued for many years at BYU (a total of 47 years) as the dynamic force for the study of Portuguese language and literature, publishing Four Hundred Years of Brazilian Literature: Outline and Anthology (1969) A sample of de Jong’s semester load sheet from 1964 demonstrates his amazing dedication and commitment to nurturing students in Portuguese. De Jong lists a total of 90 hours per week spent on “university functions.” Throughout the college and university he became known as “Mr. Portuguese.” Gerrit de Jong retired from BYU in 1972, at age 80, a

Semester Load Report – Gerrit de Jong

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pleasant and necessary exception at a time when sixty-five was a mandatory and fixed retirement age at the university. Gerrit de Jong was apparently considered too valuable to retire. He received several awards and recognitions, including an early version of the Karl G. Maeser Distinguished Teaching award (1960) and the David O. McKay Humanities Award (1972). In 1972 de Jong and his wife were invited to UCLA where he was properly honored as a “pioneer in the development of Luso-Brazilian Studies in the United States.” He died in 1978.

Benjamin Franklin Cummings ended his far-sighted and long-lasting chairmanship of the Language Department in 1951. Early in his administration BYU President Ernest L. Wilkinson began encouraging a more frequent rotation of department chairs and Cummings gladly stepped aside. The following individuals served as chairmen of the Department of Modern and Classical Languages:

Chairmen – Department of Modern and Classical Languages

Name Years of service Language emphasis Benjamin F. Cummings 1920 – 1951 French, Spanish Harold W. Lee 1951 – 1953 (called as mission pres.) French Arthur R. Watkins 1953 – 1958 German Harold W. Lee 1958 – 1960 French H. Darrel Taylor 1960 – 1963 Spanish R. Max Rogers 1963 – 1967 German Creation of four languages departments

June 1, 1967

When Cummings retired in 1955 he observed that too many language classes were being taught

by teaching assistants and encouraged the hiring of more permanent faculty members. Since the end of World War II students in language classes had increased so rapidly that supply (faculty) could not keep up with demand (students), the first time this nearly-constant dilemma surfaced in foreign languages. In 1951 there were only three exclusively-Spanish teachers, and one sometime Portuguese (de Jong). Lee Valentine (hired in 1940), Carl Gibson and Darrel Taylor (both hired in 1949) made up the entire Spanish faculty, within the Department of Modern and Classical Languages. To help fill the growing need, the department contracted Ernest J. Wilkins in 1953 and C. Dixon Anderson in 1956. All taught heavy loads and large classes. This small number, of just five, dropped to four when Lee Valentine accepted an LDS Church call to serve as mission president in Argentina in 1952. His mission call established a pattern that frequently repeated itself – the LDS Church found many department members with Spanish and Portuguese backgrounds to be trustworthy and effective mission presidents. Twelve full-time faculty members have been called to interrupt their academic work to serve in this spiritually and physically demanding assignment. It is likely that no other department in the university has contributed an equal number of faculty members to LDS missionary service. A listing of these presidents and their country assignments appears later in this history.

The postwar period, when many students were able to benefit from the generous GI bill, saw an immense increase in both undergraduates and graduate students at BYU. We have already mentioned the first M.A. degree with its comparative (Spanish and French) linguistic emphasis, granted in 1940. After an eight-year lapse, the graduate program, with emphasis in both Spanish and Portuguese swelled rapidly – one M.A. completed in 1948, five in 1949, two in 1950, and continued to grow steadily through the decade. Among many outstanding graduate students who wrote innovative theses and completed the Master’s Degree were:

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Name Year Topic Lee Valentine 1948 Popul Vuh; preliminary study and translation Carl Gibson 1949 Deceptive cognates in Spanish and Portuguese Harold Dowdle 1949 Religious concepts in drama of Benito Pérez Sid Shreeve 1950 Gaucho life, gaucho poets Merlin Compton 1954 “Pundonor” in works of Lope de Vega Kay Moon 1959 Fantasy and Dreams in works of Alejandro Casona Hal Rosen 1959 Emotional conflict in works of Eduardo Barrios Jack Brown 1960 Indianistic novels from Peru Jim Taylor 1960 Oral/aural testing and placement

This partial listing of the many high quality master’s degrees conferred by the Department from 1948 through 1960 demonstrates the early development of future faculty members. All nine men listed above soon became the full-time Spanish faculty. Most used their master’s degree as springboard to Ph.D. studies at other universities, eventually returning as full-time faculty at BYU. Indeed, the post-war boom of the 1940s and 50s is the cradle for what later became the Department when Spanish and Portuguese were separated from the other modern languages. And Carl Gibson, first and long-serving chair of the new department (1967) deserves the honor of completing the first degree with a Portuguese emphasis, albeit a comparative one. Most of the theses show a traditional emphasis in literature, with a rather even split between Spanish peninsular and Latin American literature. Gibson’s topic, like the already-noted 1940 thesis, points to an interest in linguistic comparisons. Jim Taylor deserves credit for the first thesis to emphasize pedagogy, language placement and entrance examinations. A STUDENT-CENTERED DEPARTMENT

As mentioned in the introduction to this history, the faculty story is not the only one. The faculty does not exist merely to effect research, publish books or attend academic conferences. Students are the first, and final raison d’etre of the university. This was especially true during the early years of the Modern Language and later the Spanish and Portuguese Department. The rapid increases in students during the 1950 and 60s was a delight to the busy professors, but it also caused rising pressures and more expanded roles for them. Faculty members were needed to plan and structure student learning activities. So, in meetings and hallways, in offices and over postum, the professors began to talk, brainstorm (even before the word existed), and eventually develop programs and activities beyond the daily classroom, to enhance and promote better language learning for the students. The beginnings of these student-centered activities and experiences will be chronicled here but may be revisited later in their more-current structure. Among the early attempts to deepen and intensify student learning were:

1. Foreign language films on campus 1938 2. Language Laboratory 1954 3. Foreign language clubs various years 4. National honor society membership 1959 5. Foreign residence programs 1958 (Mexico); 1961 (Spain) 6. Public school outreach 1956 7. New and better textbooks various

Early MA Degrees

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(1) The first foreign-language films on campus were shown in 1938. Lee Valentine, a student at the time, ordered and presented early films in Spanish. In conjunction with professors and students in French and German he selected films that American students might understand. Each film had to pay for itself, so there was a small admission fee; and to save money the language teachers often collected the admission fee, operated the 16mm projects, and even spliced the occasional break. These films were initially shown on the lower campus, located where the Provo City Library now stands, on Fifth North and University Avenue. From this modest beginning the films moved to the upper campus when the Joseph Smith Building was completed. Professor J. Reuben Clark III oversaw the department’s first Foreign Language Film Committee, set up in 1942, often struggling with the appropriateness of this art form on BYU campus. The films became popular not only with students studying foreign languages, but the campus in general. For this reason the films often came under criticism in these early years when a student or faculty member questioned the content or propriety of the presentation. Through this student-learning activity the Modern Language Department had opened itself to the entire campus and to the occasional censorship struggles that continue to the present. From its unpretentious beginning BYU’s International Cinema program grew into one of the best foreign film programs in the country. (2) Language laboratory. Beginning in the 1930s individuals in the language department began acquiring tapes and “Linguaphone” records, and a few portable machines for use in the classroom, but the benefit to students was minor and rarely measured. In 1953 Harold Lee proposed a modest, fixed lab, with twenty booths or stations. The following year the department received permission and the first language “lab” was established. In his 1956 report, Chair Arthur R. Watkins hailed the 1954 “acquisition of the new, modern, electronic language laboratory [as] undoubtedly the finest this side of the Mississippi River.” In 1958, an entire classroom was modified in the David O. McKay Building and the “lab” space greatly expanded. By 1962 walls were removed and space created in that building for 96 student stations; two years later this space was doubled to accommodate high demand among all the foreign languages. Chairman Darrel Taylor noted the continual expansion of services in 1962, touting that “the department employs laboratory technicians, native informants and readers. The language laboratory functions 14 hours a day, Monday through Saturday.” (3) Foreign language clubs. As noted earlier, a Spanish Club was formed on campus in 1927. It continued, with some irregularity during the 1940s and 50s. Here students could mingle socially and create activities designed to further the learning of culture and literature. By 1963 Darrel Taylor included the Spanish Club as one of the laudable activities of the college. “Spanish Club activities [include] one-act plays, contests in oratory and poetry with prizes given to the top winners, and their regularly scheduled Tertulias (hours of culture in Spanish).” In 1937 the thirty one members posed with their sponsors B.J. Cummings and instructor Edmund Richardson, as pictured on the previous page. In quite typical manner, there are more women than men; among the group is senior Robert P. Cooper, who three years later would complete the master’s degree in Spanish and French. The noble purpose of the club “is to strengthen ties among American and Spanish-speaking peoples.”

Jim Taylor, 1960, with modern technology

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(4) National honor societies. The five faculty members who taught Spanish classes during the 1950s determined that students would benefit in their lives and careers if BYU were to establish a relationship with important national organizations. The chair of the language department contacted Sigma Delta Pi, the recognized Spanish honorary society which had been founded at the University of California, Berkeley in 1919. After considerable paperwork and statistical information BYU was approved to begin a chapter of the society. On May 27, 1959 Dr. Ned Davison and his wife came from the Gamma Chapter at the University of Oregon and inaugurated the new chapter at BYU. Darrel Taylor served as the first faculty adviser and each of the founding faculty later served in that same capacity. Twenty-five students and faculty were initiated, becoming the charter members of this organization that continues to function with amazing “ánimo” in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at BYU. [See photo next page] Three future faculty members, then students, were part of this original charter – Jack Brown, Hal Rosen and Jim Taylor. Since its original creation at BYU, Sigma Delta Pi has grown into one of the most outstanding chapters in the country. It inducts from 50 to 80 new students every year, engages in local and international service activities, sponsors and hosts visiting lecturers and diplomats, and publishes a respected academic journal. In its 53 years at BYU approximately 3,000 students have merited an invitation and joined the society. This was the first such language honorary society at BYU. The German faculty also made application to their national honorary society; it was accepted in 1962. French followed suit in 1963. This brief paragraph does not do justice to the greatness of the BYU chapter. Under the leadership of various professors it has surely become the most outstanding, recognized and respected chapter in the country.

(5) Foreign residence programs. By the 1950s many of the graduate and undergraduate students in the department had served thirty-month foreign missions, but many of the majors and minors had never left the United States. In an effort to provide in-country cultural and linguistic experiences for all its students, the Department of Modern Languages initiated travel and study programs in Europe and eventually in Latin America. Max Rogers and Arthur Watkins recruited and commenced the first for-credit tour, lasting 102 days, during the summer of 1952. They traveled with 36 students through France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Holland, Belgium and England. However, as with early Mormon missionaries, Spain and Portugal simply did not find place in their extensive itinerary. Spanish faculty members observed the success and excitement among the returning students

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and almost immediately created similar cultural tours to Mexico in the mid-1950s, directed by Carl Gibson, Ernest Wilkins and Darrel Taylor. Then, during the summer of 1958, Darrel Taylor and Dixon Anderson structured the first Spanish-language residence study abroad program, in Mexico City. Students were housed with Mexican families, for six intensive weeks of classes in the United States/Mexico Institute, in the Zona Rosa; they also visited the main cultural sites of central Mexico. It was the energy and excitement of the students and faculty that assured the program’s continuation each summer, and the faculty took turns directing it.

Charter Members of Delta Pi Chapter of Sigma Delta Pi Brigham Young University, Provo Utah

May 27, 1959

First Row: Harold Earl Rosen, Bartell W. Cardon Jr., Acel Lowe Jr., Gary Luis Haws, (President), Carol Ann Bell (Secretary-

Treasurer), Joseph Layton Bishop, Jack Vernal Brown. Second Row: James Scott Taylor, Mrs. Ned Davison (Visitor from Gamma Chapter), Dr. Ned Davison (Official

Representative of the National—Gamma Chapter), Prof. M. Carl Gibson, Paul Lloyd, Patricia Crane, O. Blair Williams, Paul Rodriguez.

Third Row: Dr. Ernest J. Wilkins, Dr. H. Darrel Taylor (Sponsor, Delta Pi Chapter), Dr. Lee B. Valentine, Elliott C. Howe, Gordon Kent Thomas.

Not Present When the Picture was Taken: Alma P. Burton, J. Reuben Clark III, Vernon L. Anderson, Reginal Ray Dorff, Gordon Delbert Smith, Gerald A. Hale, and Glenna Deana Jennings.

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Carl Gibson organized and recruited for the first study abroad program in Spain, in 1961; it was advertised as the “BYU Summer School in Madrid.” The students spent two months, living in hotels as well as university dorms, and attended classes at the University of Madrid. At the conclusion of coursework they traveled through much of Europe. These departmental programs in Spain and Mexico were overseen by the office of Travel Study on the BYU campus and hence far-reaching travel and sightseeing became an integral part of each program. Tensions between the Department of Modern Languages and the Travel Study office regarding financing and program control began almost as early as the programs themselves. These two Spanish language programs established the pattern, and both students and faculty began to expect foreign residence experiences every summer. While the privilege of study in a foreign country enhanced the students’ language and culture experience, it soon became obvious that the small number of Spanish professors in the department had created a beautiful, but two-headed beast. In 1961 there were only six members of the Spanish section. Finding directors and assistant directors who could leave family obligations and Church assignments for extended periods was difficult and became one of the most frequently discussed topics in departmental meetings. Nevertheless the programs grew to the point that BYU soon became one of the U.S. universities with the largest number of students participating in foreign study programs. This high number continues to the present where BYU consistently ranks among the topic fifteen universities in the country with respect to number of students participating in programs outside the United States.

(6) Public School Outreach. Even though the term (“outreach”) was not used at the time, the foreign language faculty responded to the needs of language students in public schools, by planning a “Festival of Foreign Languages.” Once again, Darrel Taylor carried the ball, and burden, of organizing the first such event, in 1956. High school students who were studying foreign languages came to campus on a Saturday, took oral and written proficiency tests, ate foods from around the world, witnessed cultural exhibits, and demonstrated their skills. Ribbons and recognitions were awarded to each of the nearly 800 participants that first year. Other Spanish professors, Ernest Wilkins, Jim Taylor, and Dixon Anderson willingly took their turn coordinating this large and popular language departmental activity. By 1963 it was so well-attended that the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters became a co-sponsor and soon

divided the state into regions, to better accommodate the thousands of participants. The University of Utah and Utah State University acted as

hosts for students living closer to their campuses. Yet BYU had been the leader in creating this annual student-recognition event. The activity has changed title and focus over the years, and has returned to the BYU campus (on a school day), but it continues as the single-most important recognition for foreign language students in Utah, essentially the state championship in foreign languages. Current faculty members Nieves Knapp and Blair Bateman have published a detailed article on this highly-anticipated and heavily-attended event which takes place each spring on our campus. Their article gives an account of the origins of one of the most popular activities, “Españolandia.” When young students from the elementary, middle and high schools are not directly involved in competition, they participate in a

Ernest L. Wilkins opening Festival of Foreign Languages, 1959.

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simulated Spanish-speaking country, purchasing food, going through Customs checks, and they may even end up in jail (in honor of a past BYA president), as evidenced by the photo. (7) New and better textbooks. As foreign language enrolments increased rapidly after World War II, BYU professors began to see the need for more and better basic texts with which to teach languages. Language pedagogy began to emerge as a relatively new academic discipline, breaking language-learning from its near-exclusive emphasis on mastering a foreign language in order to read its literature. The 1958 National Defense Education Act helped create a new emphasis on language study in the United States, as well as funding for students and faculty. As mentioned earlier, Jim Taylor completed the first M.A. degree, in 1960, with an emphasis on foreign language pedagogy and student placement. Several professors in the Department of Modern Languages began to experiment and test materials for new textbooks to better serve their students. Among these, Ernest Wilkins and newly-hired Terrence L. Hansen collaborated and field-tested various approaches and in 1964 Ginn-Blaisdell Publishing Company brought out their Español a lo vivo I, a text which used an innovative, direct method. The following year they published Español a lo vivo II. They also co-authored Español para misioneros and Español para jóvenes, in 1964. They seemed to be on publishing fire that year. Gerrit de Jong’s pioneer anthology of Brazilian literature has already been noted as an innovative, landmark text for the advanced student of Portuguese. In 1959 just six professors taught the hundreds of students who took classes in Portuguese and Spanish – de Jong as the lone Portuguese teacher and Lee Valentine, Carl Gibson, Darrel Taylor, Ernest Wilkins and Dixon Anderson in Spanish. In just ten years the faculty would swell to eighteen – three in Portuguese and fifteen professors teaching Spanish literature and language classes. Reasons for this never-seen-before-nor-since increase in faculty are multiple, but basic is the 1958 National Defense Education Act, which was largely a reaction to the Soviet Union’s launching of Sputnik, in 1957. Feeling and fearing that the United States was behind in science, math and foreign languages, the Act encouraged and supported millions of U.S. students to attend college and develop language and science skills. Among the many academic subjects considered vital for defense was the mastery of foreign languages. Both Spanish and Portuguese fell into the funding guidelines. Even though BYU did not accept federal monies at this time, the dramatic increases in student enrollment directed many to these languages. Total enrollments in Spanish had already exceeded French at BYU since the mid-1950s and continued to shoot up during the 1960s. The NDEA stimulus benefitted BYU, albeit indirectly. A more direct and dramatic cause for the increase in Spanish and Portuguese classes was the expansion of LDS missions in Latin America. Missionaries had been serving in Mexico since the late 1800s; the first mission in Argentina commenced in 1925. Brazil opened for work among Portuguese-speakers shortly before World War II. Gradually missionaries ventured from Mexico into Guatemala and eventually into other Central American countries. But even in 1955, the majority of Spanish American countries could not “boast” of their own mission, located within national borders. The years from 1955 to 1970 witnessed the rapid expansion of more than a dozen new missions in Latin America. North

Españolandia, 2012

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Americans missionaries serving in Argentina began to proselyte in Chile in 1956, and by late 1959 had experienced so much success that the Church created a new mission, comprising Chile and Peru. This mission, the Andes Mission, was soon divided into two (1961) large and successful missions. Missionaries journeyed from Peru to Bolivia in 1964 and two years later a mission was established in that Andean country. The LDS Church soon created missions in Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela in the mid and late 1960s. The Central American Mission split into various missions, during this period. New missions were created in Brazil, to handle the rapidly exploding numbers in that giant country. And even Spain, which had long been considered a no-Mormon-mission land, as long as Francisco (there’s that name again) Franco remained in power, passed a Religious Liberty Law in 1967 and by 1969 missionaries began preaching in that ancient country. No other period in LDS Church history, until 2013, has witnessed the creation of so many new missions in such a short period. And many of the returning missionaries desired to continue language and culture studies in Portuguese and Spanish classes. A third factor in the speedy growth of students in Spanish and Portuguese classes during this time is simply BYU’s dramatic growth under the direction of President Ernest L. Wilkinson. Approximately 11,000 students enrolled in classes at the beginning of the 1960s; by the end of the decade the number had jumped to 24,000. This increase in total students obviously impacted directly on the teaching of foreign languages in the university. Anticipating missions, many young men and women took classes in Portuguese and Spanish. Some young women certainly enrolled in Spanish classes because their “novios” were serving in Latin America. A NEW GENERATION OF FOUNDING FATHERS Yet not only government programs, the doubling of Spanish and Portuguese-speaking missions, nor the huge increase in total students during the 1960s explains the rapid increase in number of students and the popularity of classes in the department. Students from the 1950s and 60s recall the dynamism, the excitement, the powerful “ánimo” of their professors as key reasons for beginning and then continuing language study. We have already talked of Gerrit de Jong and his spunk and spark for Portuguese. Among the Spanish professors Darrel Taylor stands very tall. He was the son of distinguished Church educator and administrator, Dr. Harvey L. Taylor, who was serving as vice president of BYU during this rapidly-expanding time of the 1950s and 60s. His son, Darrel had responded to a mission call to Argentina and served there from 1937 to 1940; while in Argentina one of his most exciting companions was Ernest Wilkins, also an “Arizona boy,” who later became a vital member of the BYU Language Department. After his mission Darrel joined the FBI for six years, filling assignments in Puerto Rico and his beloved Argentina. Darrel completed an M.A. degree at the University of Arizona in 1948 and accepted a teaching slot at BYU the following year. In 1954 he took a two-year leave of absence to study at the University of Illinois, completing his Ph.D. in 1956 with a dissertation entitled “Joaquín V. González and Justo Sierra: “Maestros de América.” I have examined this 348-page document and find it to be insightful and innovative, a comparison of a Mexican prose writer (Sierra) with an Argentine professor-writer. Taylor concerned himself with the history of ideas and nationalistic concepts in the prose of these two authors; he seemed especially interested in the role of religion in their works and their nations. Taylor is one of the first language faculty members who had never attended BYU previously and whose academic degrees all came from other universities. While at the University of

Darrel Taylor

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Illinois Darrel engaged in another first – he submitted a paper which was accepted and read at the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association in Chicago, in 1956. Taylor obviously recognized that professors must profess, and be active in their academic fields. The paper dealt with “God and Time in the Novels of Érico Veríssimo,” once again linking religion and literature. It also attests to Taylor’s interest in the Portuguese language and emerging Brazilian literature.

Having completed the Ph.D. allowed Taylor to advance rapidly in the department. We have already noted the founding of Sigma Delta Pi under his direction; he also supervised the Foreign Language Fair for the state of Utah and performed many other collaborative tasks. With his colleagues he worked on a “teaching machine,” as well as “culture capsules” for Latin American countries, advocated how to improve foreign language proficiency for future missionaries, and more. His students regarded him as a brilliant, fun-loving teacher. And the fact that he was a publishing scholar who attended national meetings also put some pressure on other faculty members to follow his professional path. He served as chairman of the large language department from 1960 to 1963. His wife recalls that:

Darrel’s mind was always at work – learning, planning, teaching, creating. At one time he was working on a simple machine to be used in teaching foreign languages. It was an excellent concept but he didn’t have the money to develop it to completion. . . . It was in the winter of 1950 when he spoke to me of another of his ideas – that of instituting special classes at the BYU for those who had been called on foreign missions. These classes would give the missionaries special preparation in the language, the culture, the customs, the history, etc., of the countries to which they had been called, before their departure. This advance preparation would lessen the shock which some missionaries experienced. He also thought it would serve as a test to see if a foreign language was too great a barrier for a missionary, in which case he could be reassigned to an English-speaking mission. He had a file set up in his office to further his ideas on this. When the church instituted the Missionary Training Center a decade later, he was asked whom he would recommend as its first director. He was Chairman of the Language Department at that time and recommended two people, Ernest Wilkins and Terry Hansen. Ernest became the first president of the LTM, as it was then called, and Terry Hansen became the second one (“Harvey Darrel Taylor: The Story of his Life, 1917 -1963,” pp. 103-104).

A departmental colleague, Terry Hansen thanked and praised Taylor:

9 November, 1962. Dear Darrel: Just a note to express deep appreciation for the new typewriter. . . . While the ribbon is still new let me also express to you my personal appreciation for the excellent way in which you lead our department. I am always amazed at the number of things you are able to accomplish which are making our department one of the strong ones in the country. . . . It makes me humbly grateful to have the opportunity to teach [with you] at BYU (ibid, 130).

The quote indicates that some faculty members were beginning to tout the status of languages at BYU with respect to national ranking and evaluation. Darrel Taylor was largely responsible for this early national recognition. In 1963 he requested release as chair (of the Language Department), to devote more time to publishing, a move which shocked his colleagues, including Paul Hyer who lamented, “I am still concerned lest the change be premature from the standpoint of institutionalizing the things you have begun. I have [always] felt that someone was ‘tending the store,’ that there was a steady hand on the helm” (ibid, 131).

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In June of 1963 the youthful forty-six year old professor joined with other adult leaders and took his Explorer Scout group on an expedition to the deserts of southern Utah. In a terribly tragic accident their large stake-bed truck stalled, rolled backward on a hill, overturned, and tumbled 30 feet down a steep incline on a remote dirt road southeast of Escalante, Utah. Darrel and the others were thrown from the bed of the truck; some were crushed. Taylor was among thirteen who died; thirty-five were injured. His too-sudden death left a great hole in the department.

In the late 1950s a national committee on university education had recommended that U.S. institutions develop new interdepartmental and area studies programs, to better serve national needs. BYU responded by turning to an area where it already had demonstrated strength, and in 1958 created a major in Hispanic American Studies. The logical choice to direct this new interdisciplinary program was energetic faculty member Lee B. Valentine. Like most of the early members of the department, Lee had served a mission to Argentina (1935 - 1938), and thrilled to the language and culture of that country. In its early birth at BYU, the accent of Spain would have dominated Spanish teaching; later many part-time teachers with experience in Mexican Spanish instructed the students. But in the 1940s and 50s, most of the professors brought their Argentine accents to class. Valentine, Shreeve, and Taylor all appear in their mission picture (names underlined). Their mission president, Frederick S. Williams, is the father of Frederick G. Williams, current member of the Spanish and Portuguese Department.

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Valentine completed his BA degree in 1939 at BYU, and was soon hired as a full-time instructor.

He taught heavy teaching loads but completed his MA in 1948 (“The Popol Buj, a Preliminary Study and Translation”). As mentioned, Robert Cooper had written a Master’s thesis, in 1940; Valentine’s is the second granted in the broad language department, and really the first with a single emphasis in Latin American literature and culture. After some years at BYU he applied for a leave of absence, and spent several years at Stanford, where he was a popular teacher and even received an offer to stay as permanent faculty, working on research with Ronald Hilton. But a phone call to J. Reuben Clark (of the Frist Presidency) convinced him that he had a “mission” to fill at BYU. Indeed, he was called in 1952 to serve as mission president in Argentina, for a period of nearly four years. When he and his family returned to Provo in 1956, he had been gone from the department for nearly eight years. The call as mission president had delayed the completion of his Ph.D. dissertation which he eventually received from Stanford in 1958.

Valentine’s academic life is similar to many other early

professors of Spanish – he completed his MA at BYU, was hired full-time, then found it necessary to take extended leaves of absence to complete his Ph.D. Darrel, Taylor, Ernest J. Wilkins and others followed the same pattern. Valentine also took time off (in the 1960s) to return to Argentina once again to serve the U.S. Information Agency as director of Bi-National Centers in Buenos Aires and Tucumán. It was his many years of experience in Latin America that made him the wisest choice to function as coordinator of the newly-formed interdisciplinary Hispanic American Studies, from 1958 – 1964. Professor Dixon Anderson directed the interdisciplinary program for a year and aided in changing the name to Latin American Studies, to better accommodate the emphasis of both Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries. This program, which continues to the present, has usually been directed by a professor from the department. It will be discussed later in this history

Lee B. Valentine also met a tragic and early death. While driving with his daughter Angela to

their home one evening in 1967, he was injured in a car accident, and died the next day. He was only fifty-five years of age. Valentine was married to the daughter of W. Ernest Young, his mission president. His wife, Amy Y. Valentine, was hired as a full-time member of the faculty the following year (1968), and served for many years, teaching basic Spanish classes. She is the first woman to be hired in the department, an action which recognized her excellent teaching abilities as well an act of compassion and honor to her deceased husband.

The vibrant young Spanish faculty of the 1950s and 60s observed the needs for better and more

intensive language training for their students who would soon fill missions, and for years they had talked of special classes for these students. They surely felt the tradition of Provo as the place where foreign languages had been studied since early pioneer days. In the late 1950s many missionaries who had been called to serve in Mexico were delayed for three or four months, awaiting a visa. The professors of the language department tried to fit the visa-waiters into their regular classes; this did not work well since visas came through at unanticipated times and the missionary/students often had to depart before the end of the semester. It is important to note that both the BYU faculty and the Church looked to Provo to assist, with the visa-waiters as well as with a plan to teach foreign languages to future missionaries. The Church might have chosen to solve the concerns in Salt Lake City, but the BYU

Lee Valentine

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language department was the obvious and best solution. We do not know of all the conversations that might have gone on before official Church action created the program, but we do know that the enthusiastic young Spanish professors talked of and experimented with classes and techniques to better serve the missionary needs of the LDS Church. In October of 1961 Elder Marion G. Romney proposed a language training program to the First Presidency, to be called the Missionary Language Institute – it would be set up on the BYU campus. In December of that year, thirty new missionaries reported to the BYU Alumni Building for training; sixteen were to serve in Mexico and fourteen in Argentina. This is the beginning of the formal language training for all LDS future missionaries. Besides his departmental duties, Professor Ernest J. Wilkins received an additional assignment to supervise the MLI. At first the MLI simply used space on campus but soon “graduated” to other campus buildings. In 1963 the name was changed to the Language Training Mission (LTM); Portuguese and German were added that same year. The official letter, dated April 30, 1963, calls Wilkins as the “president” of this new “mission” in the Church. Quite logically he gave up his teaching in the department for a period of years.

First Presidency Letter – Missionary Language Institute

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As previously indicated, Ernest J. Wilkins had served a mission in Argentina and been a

companion with Darrel Taylor. He, like most of the faculty of that period, served the United States in World War II after his mission. He then came to BYU where he met his future wife, Maureen Lee

(daughter of Elder Harold B. Lee). Wilkins became a full-time instructor in 1953. He, like others, took a leave of absence and Ernest J. Wilkins

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completed his advanced degree at Stanford, where he was a close friend with another ex-Argentine missionary, Lee Valentine; both collaborated and published with well-known professor Ronald Hilton.

His 1954 Ph.D. was in Hispanic American Civilization and Wilkins always emphasized that interdisciplinary approach. He took a sabbatical leave in 1960 and cultivated a specialty in the essay in Latin America. He seemed to be restless, always looking for the creative corners of the university and the profession. His chair (and former missionary companion), Darrel Taylor noted in 1961 that “Dr. Wilkins is highly imaginative, creative, forceful and deeply interested in the best professional sense in a broad field of Latin-American civilizations.” He attended frequent professional conferences, perhaps the first Spanish faculty member to regularly take BYU’s experience to regional and national organizations; in the late 1950s he served as secretary, then vice president of the Rocky Mountain Council of Latin American Studies, and brought the annual meeting to the BYU campus for the first time. And even while serving as president of the Language Training Mission he continued pedagogical research, and began publishing textbooks to aid students. After his release from the MTC he was instrumental in establishing a

Language Research Center at BYU and served as its director. All the men mentioned above were dedicated, innovative, creative, energetic individuals who

seemed to sense that their field, Spanish and Portuguese, was emerging rapidly in the United States and that they were playing a vital role in projecting the discipline into national recognition. Their pictures may look a little staid, sober and serious, but they were fun-loving, exciting teachers and colleagues. The word “dynamic” may be trite, but it truly captures their personalities and contributions. And their students thought of them as terrific teachers as well. University President Wilkinson wrote a letter to the department chair in 1955, noting that “I have just had in my office Miss Susan Emmett, whose father is a distinguished surgeon at Mayo Clinic. Susan spent last year at the University of Utah and the first quarter of this year at Northwestern University, and has now transferred to the Y. Susan is thrilled with being at the Y; says she already knows more people in three weeks than she became acquainted with all quarter at Northwestern. She is particularly delighted with her teachers, among who is Ernest Wilkins. She says our Department of Modern Languages is vastly superior to anything they have at Northwestern. Congratulations, Ernest L. Wilkinson.” Indeed the specialized study of Spanish and Portuguese was ready to be a separate department. GROWING INTO OUR OWN DEPARTMENT We have already mentioned that a department is made up of individuals who translate their unique preparation, their ideas and energies into programs and classes which benefit students. Gerrit de Jong, Ernest Wilkins, Lee Valentine, Carl Gibson and Darrel Taylor were among the early group of innovative teachers who helped create an exceptional and energetic department during the 1950s and 1960s. They oversaw the hiring of new faculty, who then stimulated the existing faculty with new concepts, thoughts and programs. Dixon Anderson, first hired in 1956, later completed a Ph.D. at Texas and returned to the department where he specialized in phonetics and pedagogy and always sought ways to improve classes and course materials. He felt that language learning was too sterile, often

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memorizing word lists with no cultural context. He carried out serious research which he turned into textbooks, for beginning students, Spanish in Context and Háblame for beginning students, and Patterns of Spanish for our 321 classes. The next full time hire, Terry Hansen, actually spent little time teaching in the department. He had attended the University of Utah as an undergraduate and received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford (1950), and taught at various other institutions before joining the staff here. His short tenure in the department was broken up while he served as mission president in Central America and later, in Provo, as MTC president. We have already mentioned his collaboration on Español a lo vivo, published in 1964; a year later he and Wilkins published a second-year text with the same title. He died much too young, in 1974, at age 54. James S. Taylor was an outstanding graduate student, accepting full-time employment in 1962, completing his Ph.D. in pedagogy at Ohio State University. He directed many theses relating to language pedagogy, supervised student teachers, innovated and created “Españolandia” for our Foreign Language Field Day, and always seemed to be finding new ways to improve teaching and teachers. He retired in 2001 but continued experimenting with dynamic teaching methods for older learners. Harold Rosen, like so many of our faculty hired in this era, was drafted into military service, where he served for more than three years in the Air Force and became a Russian Language expert. He too was a founding member of Sigma Delta Pi, completed his Ph.D. at the University of Oregon and accepted full-time employment in the department in 1963. He made the Quijote and Golden Age literature his specialty. Kay Moon came to BYU the same year, completing his Ph.D. at Syracuse University. He became a specialist in literary criticism and contemporary drama. Kay also wrote his own creative literature and has published at least ten novels. Merlin Compton was the first full-time faculty to receive his Ph.D. at UCLA and came to BYU in 1964 where he became a specialist in the “Tradiciones” of Ricardo Palma and did so much creative and quantitative research that he was honored by the government of Peru for his frequent publications in and on that country. Sid Shreeve is a most unique faculty member. He was only here full time, from 1965 to 1980 but made a huge impact during those fifteen years. He had completed an MA degree at BYU in 1950, and served as a mission president in Uruguay and Paraguay, then spent years of service in public education as well as for the U.S. Information Agency in Latin America. While at BYU he took a leave of absence and completed a doctorate in Mexico. He was the moving force behind scores of programs relating the community to BYU as well as a major push for Latin American Studies.

In 1969 Ronald Dennis and Gordon Jensen were both hired directly from their Ph.D. work at the University of Wisconsin, probably the finest Portuguese graduate program in the country. Carl Gibson and other faculty members had been teaching Portuguese classes, along with dedicated work of Gerrit de Jong, but the hiring of two young Portuguese teachers indicated a much deeper, serious commitment to the Portuguese part of the department. Dennis and Jensen added their love of the language, culture and literature and increased Portuguese enrollments rapidly. Other faculty have been added and we have grown into one of the strongest and largest Portuguese programs in the United States. Following his paternal ancestry, Ron Dennis developed a deep interest in Welsh. He mastered the language, by his own efforts, and later through a leave of absence to Wales, and became BYU’s resident Welsh professor. The College of Humanities encouraged this “new” language into its expanding list of offerings. Ron became so proficient that he translated many early LDS writings and documents from Welsh to English and was often featured at the annual conferences of the Mormon History Association, as the resident expert in Welsh Church history. Dramatic growth and frequent administrative changes are the hallmark of the 1960s at BYU. In June, 1965 the Wilkinson administration divided the large College of Humanities and Social Sciences into

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two quite-logical groupings, the College of Humanities, and, the College Social Sciences. English professor and chair of that department, Bruce B. Clark, humbly accepted the appointment as dean of this new College of Humanities. As noted, enrollments throughout the college continued to expand rapidly, but none faster than Spanish. During the Fall Semester, 1966, the Department of Foreign Languages counted 4,542 students enrolled in its classes. Portuguese could boast of 108 student enrollments that semester, and Spanish 1,858. The total of these two languages, 1966 students (in 1966) repr