IN CALLING OURSELVES A PROFESSION, WE WHOever we are make use of a convention, a courtesy, and, some would say, wishful thinking. Both the designation and its definition are arbitrary. Working Committee I of the Northeast Conference of 1971 argued persuasively that we were not a profession, because we did not match the behaviors and trappings of two groups universally acknowledged to be professions: physicians and lawyers.' Writing in 1974, C. Edward Scebold also reached the melancholy conclusion that there was, in fact, no profession, but that there was at least some reason for hope that a group or set of groups within the field could "have significant impact on school curriculum or on the public's awareness of the importance of language study."2 Others have reached similar conclusions. It can be argued, however, that a comparison with physicians and lawyers is not only uninstructive, it is pointless, for as a university director of development once pointed out, it is harder to raise money for the humanities than for a medical school for the simple reason that "nobody ever died of English." Since in fact society has no particular interest in policing us or imposing its will upon our activities in a way that would make us, and not merely our institutions, accountable, it finds it simpler to regard us as employees, not professionals. It is not insignificant that most teachers have or aspire to the habit of receiving a regular institutional paycheck. In truth, most of us are employees and have an employee's mentality rather than an entrepreneurial spirit, and our sense of professionalism reflects this fact.