Bishop Schleyer claimed for his invention an equal rank among the literary languages of the world. The practical party, headed by M. Kerckhoffs, wished to keep it utilitarian and practical. With the object of increasing its utility, they proposed certain changes in the language; and thus there arose, in the second place, differences of opinion as to fundamental points of structure, such as the nature and origin of the roots to be adopted. Vital questions were thus reopened, and the whole language was thrown back into the melting-pot.
The first congress was held at Friedrichshafen in August 1884, and was attended almost exclusively by Germans. The second congress, Munich, August 1887, brought together over 200 Volapükists from different countries. A professor of geology from Halle University was elected president, and an International Academy of Volapük was founded.
Then the trouble began. M. Kerckhoffs was unanimously elected director of the academy, and Bishop Schleyer was made
grand-master (cifal) for life. Questions arose as to the duties of the academy and the respective powers of the inventor of the language and the academicians. M. Kerckhoffs was all along the guiding spirit on the side of the academy. He was in the main supported by the Volapük world, though there seems to have been some tendency, at any rate at first, on the part of the Germans to back the bishop. It is impossible to go into details of the points at issue. Suffice it to say, that eventually the director of the academy carried a resolution giving the inventor three votes to every one of ordinary members in all academy divisions, but refusing him the right of veto, which he claimed. The bishop replied by a threat to depose M. Kerckhoffs from the directorship, which of course he could not make good. The constitution of the academy was only binding inasmuch as it had been drawn up and adopted by the constituent members, and it gave no such powers to the inventor.
So here was a very pretty quarrel as to the ownership of Volapük. The bishop said it belonged to him, as he had invented it: he was its father. The academy said it belonged to the public, who had a right to amend it in the common interest. This child, which had newly opened its eyes and smiled upon the world, and upon which the world was then smiling back—was it a son domiciled in its father's house and fully in patria potestate? or a ward in the guardianship of its chief promoters? or an orphan foundling, to be boarded out on the scattered-home system at the public expense, and to be brought up to be useful to the community at large? A vexed question of paternity; and the worst of it was, there was no international court competent to try the case.
Meantime the congress of 1889 at Paris came on. Volapük was booming everywhere. Left to itself, it flourished like a green bay-tree. This meeting was to set an official seal upon its success; and governments, convinced by this thing done openly in the ville lumière, would accept the fait accompli and introduce it into their schools.
Thirteen countries sent representatives, including Turkey and China. The great Kerckhoffs was elected president. The proceedings were in Volapük. The foundling's future was canvassed in terms of himself by a cosmopolitan board of guardians, who did not yet know what he was. Rather a Gilbertian situation. Trying a higher flight, we may say, in Platonic phrase, that Volapük seemed to be about midway between being and not-being. It is a far cry from Gilbert viâ Plato to Mr. Kipling, but perhaps Volapük, at this juncture, may be most aptly described as a "sort of a giddy harumphrodite," if not "a devil an' a ostrich an' a orphan-child in one."
Business done: The congress discusses.
The congress passed a resolution that there should be drawn up "a simple normal grammar, from which all useless rules should be excluded," and proceeded to adopt a final constitution for the Volapük Academy.