[3] The common notion that the Académie combats changes is quite erroneous. In the preface to the first edition of its dictionary (1694) it disclaimed any purpose "to make new words and to reject others at its pleasure." In the preface to the second edition (1718) it confessed that "ignorance and corruption often introduce manners of writing" and that "convenience establishes them." In the preface to the third edition (1740) it admitted that it was "forced to admit changes which the public has made." And so on. Says D. M. Robertson, in A History of the French Academy (London, 1910): "The Academy repudiates any assumption of authority over the language with which the public in its own practise has not first clothed it. So much, indeed, does it confine itself to an interpretation merely of the laws of language that its decisions are sometimes contrary to its own judgment of what is either desirable or expedient." [4] Cf. /Scandinavian Studies and Notes/, vol. iv, no. 3, Aug. 1917, p. 258. [5] This movement won official recognition so long ago as 1885, when the Storting passed the first of a series of acts designed to put the two languages on equal footing. Four years later, after a campaign going back to 1874, provision was made for teaching the /landsmaal/ in the schools for the training of primary teachers. In 1899 a professorship of the /landsmaal/ was established in the University of Christiania. The school boards in the case of primary schools, and the pupils in the case of middle and high schools are now permitted to choose between the two languages, and the /landsmaal/ has been given official status by the State Church. The chief impediment to its wider acceptance lies in the fact that it is not, as it stands, a natural language, but an artificial amalgamation of peasant dialects. It was devised in 1848-50 by Ivar Aasen. /Vide/ The Language Question, /London Times/ Norwegian Supplement, May 18, 1914. [6] A few such works are listed in the bibliography. More of them are mentioned in Americanismos, by Miguel de Toro y Gisbert; Paris, n. d. [7] Maximilian Schele de Vere: Americanisms: The English of the New World; New York, 1872. [8] Richard H. Thornton: An American Glossary ..., 2 vols.; Phila. and London, 1912. [9] Organized Feb. 19, 1889, with Dr. J. J. Child, of Harvard, as its first president. [10] Author of Travels in North America; London, 1829. [11] A Vocabulary or Collection of Words and Phrases which Have Been Supposed to be Peculiar to the United States of America; Boston, 1816. [12] A Letter to the Hon. John Pickering on the Subject of His Vocabulary; Boston, 1817. [13] 4th ed., New York, 1870, p. 669. [14] /Op. cit./ p. 676.