Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1943, Qupperneq 29

THE ROYAL GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS
ACADEMY 1932—1942
By Jöran Sahlgren,
Professor in the University of Uppsala.
ONE day in the early spring of 1920 three lecturers of
the University of Lund, Herbert Petersson, Wilhelm von
Sydow, and Jöran Sahlgren, were sitting in a restaurant
in their university town discussing life’s troubles and tribulations.
The one who was loudest in his complaints was Herbert Pe-
tersson, who was then qualifying himself for the Professorship
of Sanscrit and comparative philology. He had just got his
magnum opus, “Studien iiber die indogermanische Heteroklisie,”
ready for the press, but he could not afford the expense of print-
íng it, and nobody else could be found to pay for its pubiication.
The two others, who cordially sympathised with Herbert
Petersson’s aspirations and hoped that he would get the chair,
became much concerned about his chances of success. After some
discussion and a good deal of cogitation, I made the suggestion
that the three of us should found a new scientific society for
young scholars, to which we should elect paying members. I pro-
posed that the paying, or charter members should contribute
an annual subscription of 1000 kr. for six years. The first annual
contributions were to constitute a fund at our immediate disposal,
while the subsequent contributions were to constitute a capital
fund.
The idea was at once taken up by my two friends, and we
broke up immediately so as not to lose any time in carrying it
into effect. As the first president of the projected society we had
in mind Lauritz Weibull, Professor of History, who was noted
for his sympathy with the younger generation of scholars, and
on him we decided to call first. Before we had got very far on
our way to his house we met Sigurd Agrell, then a university
lecturer, whom we initiated into our plans and who immediately
became enthusiastic about them.
As we had expected, Lauritz ’W’eibull assumed a sympathetic
attitude to the scheme, and the new society had thus acquired
five members already on the first day of its existence. We pru-
dently secured places on the executive committee for ourselves: