Hello, Mr. Chips

Eleven years ago, the old gentleman was put out to academic pasture at Stanford University. At 76, he likes to sit about knitting afghan squares; he makes popovers and feijoa jam at his modest home on the Palo Alto campus. He owns one business suit and supports a rusty 1946 Ford on his pension of $3,200 a year.

These sad-sounding facts add up to a hilariously inaccurate picture of energy-rich little (140 Ibs.) Bayard Quincy Morgan, Stanford's former chairman of Germanic languages, author of 40 books and countless articles--and the nation's most frenetic fumigator of the myth that every Mr. Chips is a goner.

Variation & Affirmation. Last week "B.Q." sent out a three-page, single-spaced Christmas message (in verse) recounting a typical retirement year. Between crisscrossing the U.S. on translating assignments, he served as vice president of the Modern Language Association, proofread all its publications, and bounced into Washington to set up the U.S. Office of Education's first file of world languages. All this solo chore involved was a separate dossier on each of 4,300 languages and dialects, with 1,500 cross references to alternate spellings. Morgan did it in eight weeks.

In Washington he also found time to research a new edition of his monumental Critical Bibliography of German Literature in English Translation, 1481-1935, which he aims to update through 1958.

It was only part of his year's work. He helped three friends write books on subjects as diverse as phenomenology, Socrates and sea power. He tackled five major translations, including a 600-page history of German literature and two German plays (he has four more in the works). And he began organizing an advanced institute for U.S. secondary-school German teachers, which Stanford will conduct in West Germany this summer with Morgan's teaching help.

Beetle-browed Professor Morgan detests waste, and time-studies everything he does. He also eats like a bird, and for 54 years he has slept only four hours a night (he estimates that he has been 25% more productive as a result). But Morgan is no joyless Stakhanovite. He patterns his life on two exultant principles: "Recreative variation" (constantly shifting to something new after every 50 minutes of intense concentration), and "affirmation" ("Say 'yes' to everything you do-drudgery hasn't been in my vocabulary for years").

Every Day Counts. In 40 years of teaching, Morgan was never ill a single day. (He suffered a coronary attack two years ago, calmly lugged wet wash up from the basement while awaiting the doctor.) Friends know him as the sort of house guest who ends up painting the house before the weekend is over. When his telephone misbehaved, he spent days digging up the backyard to find a faulty line for the repair crew.

Not long ago, Morgan reluctantly gave up acting for the Stanford Players ("It takes too much time. No day is long enough for me now"), and aging fingers have forced him to forgo his accomplished piano playing ("It doesn't pay to do things you can't do well"). These days he focuses all his energy and experience on the electric typewriter in his tiny, cluttered study. He has letters to write to his 200 regular correspondents; his scholar's work is never done. Says he with a fierce look in his eye: "There is never enough time. I don't think 90 will see me through. I'm going to have to live until I'm 100."

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