Louise Pound

From Philosopedia

Pound, Louise (30 June 1872 - 28 June 1958)

Pound, who was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, enrolled at the University of Nebraska and earned a BA degree in l892 and her MA in l895. After two years as an English instructor at the university (from l897 to l899), she traveled to Germany and studied at Heidelberg University where she received her Doctor of Philosophy in 1900.

Returning to the University of Nebraska to be a professor of English, Miss Pound became a full professor in 1912. She continued in the English department until her retirement in 1945, when she was named a professor emeritus.

During these years she also was a lecturer, author, and an editor of books and magazines on literature, linguistics, education, and folklore. During summer sessions she lectured at other universities, including the University of California, Yale, Stanford, and the University of Chicago. She received a Doctorate of Literature from Smith College, Northampton, Mass. in 1928.

Interest in the English language and the origin and evolution of words led to her writing several books on linguistics. Other books she has written include Poetic Origins and the Ballad (l922); American Ballads and Songs (l923); Selected writings of Louise Pound (1949), and Nebraska Folklore (1959).

Dr. Pound was active in many organizations on both the local and national level. She held national offices in several organizations, including Modern Language Association of America, National Council of English Teachers, Folklore Society of America, American Society of University Professors, American Dialect Society and American Society of University Women.

While her primary interest was in the field of education, she had many other interests, including women's equality, sports, and music. She received a diploma in piano from the University of Nebraska in 1892. She was active in the National League for Women's Service and served on the women's committee of the State Council of Defense in 1918.

When she reviewed books for The Humanist in the 1950s, Pound was a member of the English department at the University of Nebraska. A sister of Dr. Roscoe Pound, the noted former Dean of the Harvard Law School, she was state tennis champion of Nebraska in 1891–1892 and state golf champion in 1916. Her specialty was regional American slang and folklore, she contributed articles to the Encyclopedia Britannica, and she was on the advisory board of American Literature, College English, and the Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors. Pound edited American Speech.

Asked about humanism, Pound responded:

Human, humane, humanism, humanist, humanitarian, humanitarianism—here is a cluster of related words for lexicographers to watch, to define, and to modify their definitions when and as necessary. To follow the history of significant words, their rise and expansions of meaning, is always of interest, and preferably it is from the basic historical meaning that start should be made.

It was in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the period of the English renaissance, with its rediscovery of the cultural and philosophical legacies of Greece and Rome, that the term humanism entered our language. It had about the same meaning as the Latin humanitas as used by Cicero and his contemporaries, that is, culture of the mind. Lists of the early English and European humanists are rarely identical, although to all humanism meant, no doubt, a break with the past. Some historians viewed early humanism as a revolt against the theological preconceptions of the mediaeval mind, a turn, as it were, to the earth and those dwelling on it. But surely on the whole it maintained for its users the tradition of religious orthodoxy while taking on the meaning it has retained into our own time, that of liberal cultural acquirement befitting human beings. To the humanist such acquirement was to be gained through knowledge of poetry, drama, history, rhetoric, logic, with especial emphasis on the ancient literatures. The latter seemed a storehouse of wisdom having permanent values for the conduct of life; and, further, Latin, the language of the church, gave unity to Christian Renaissance civilization. Hence the educated youth should be trained in the ‘humanities’ (French les humanites). Emerson writes in this tradition when he speaks in English Traits, 1856, of “an Eton youth learned in all the humanities,” that is, learned in the traditions of humanism, though by his time the word might also imply devotion to human interests and to systems of thought or action concerned with them.

Today with the lessening of emphasis on the culture of ancient civilizations and with the rise of science to dimensions incredible in older days, the meaning of humanism is enlarging. As it turns still more to the physical world and those dwelling in it, it seems to be taking to itself some of the qualities of humanitarianism. The latter word is an extension from humane, which means gentle, kindly, sympathetic. The humanist who was concerned with the ideal world of thought and valued cultural education derived from the study of the humanities may now be a person interested in the actual world of human life, sympathetic with the human race and conscious of man’s obligations to society. The new devotion to the study of the natural world makes the old limitations seem impractical. As I hear the word humanism used today it seems to have connotations of human welfare, helpfulness, and progress. The humanist may be a cultivated man who practices humanity and humanitarianism. And he believes that to attain their best possibilities human beings must rely on themselves, not on the natural or on the supernatural.

I have no new classifications to offer or proposals to try to further. On the whole, for me too the meaning of the term humanism is changing or has changed. It is enlarging from that of concern for the enhancement of mental culture, ability, and outlook into a wider naturalistic concern for general human welfare. It now implies devotion not only to the mind of man but to humanity and human interests in general. It is this meaning that as time passes will no doubt enlist most supporters.

One of Willa Cather’s biographers, Sharon O’Brien, writes that while at Duke University she came across Cather’s letters to Pound, her friend at the University of Nebraska, “romantic letters in which Cather agreed that relationships like theirs were ‘unnatural,’ ” which one secular humanist has interpreted as being a reference to the two’s specific rather than general humanistic interests.

{WAS, 4 January 1952}