University of Akron language professor Frank J.S. Maturo Sr. was a sophisticated, cosmopolitan fellow with a master's command of six foreign tongues.
He never anticipated that English would be the one to get him in trouble.
Maturo, 37, unwittingly ignited a firestorm in 1934 while preparing to deliver an address to 70 teenage girls in charm school at the Akron Jewish Center.
Earlier speakers in the lecture series had dispensed advice about clothes selection, kitchen techniques and home decoration. Maturo's speech, titled The Masculine Ideal of Feminine Appeal, was meant as an ode to virtue.
Unfortunately, he chose to expand on the delicate topic during a newspaper interview on the eve of the Jan. 24 speech. Maturo told Beacon Journal writer Ruth McKenney that men no longer were preoccupied with women's innocence.
''Purity has almost vanished now as a masculine ideal of women and as a fact,'' Maturo said. ''A man never thinks of that now, when he falls in love, if he ever did.''
Maturo, who was born in Italy, cited famous women in history, including Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Beatrice Portinari, Eliza Jumel, Ninon de l'Enclos, Peg Woffington and Lola Montez.
''All of the men of their time were mad about them,'' he said. ''They must have had something. . . . Hardly any of them were even mediumly virtuous.''
The article, headlined ''Purity in Women? Who Cares Is Attitude of Modern Man,'' created a national sensation. Many groups were outraged with Maturo.
Telephones rang off the hook at the Akron Jewish Center and University of Akron. Irate letters flooded the Beacon Journal with comments such as these:
• ''You certainly lowered the standard of your paper and of Akron U by allowing such trash to be printed,'' the Missionary Society of Manchester Evangelical Church wrote. ''There are too many magazines now to wreck our young people without such articles appearing in our daily papers. Let Maturo take that stuff back to his own country, but this is America.''
• Bachelor John A. Pironti responded: ''I shudder to think of what might have happened to any one of my sisters if they had chosen to study languages at Akron University. . . . Has purity vanished as a masculine ideal in women? If it has, I guess I'll remain a bachelor. I'd hate to walk down the street and be afraid to look one of my men friends in the eye for fear of what he might have been to my wife before I married her.''
• P.B. McDowell, president of St. Joseph's Holy Name Society, wrote: ''To our mind, Professor Maturo in giving utterance to such ideas, in the classroom or public press, is not a safe guide for our young women and men whose Christian parents entrust their children to his care.''
The controversy caught the university by surprise.
President Hezzleton E. Simmons, who had been in charge for only six months, told the board of trustees that he received many letters, calls and visits about Maturo. He said the university had ''suffered a distinct loss of prestige'' over the ''unfortunate controversy.''
Complicating matters, the 2,500-student body had voted Maturo as the most popular instructor the previous fall.
Frank Juan Sarno Maturo, the son of Italian immigrants, grew up in Youngstown and graduated from Mount Union College. He received his master's degree from Columbia University in 1923, and taught Spanish and Italian at Vanderbilt University and Georgetown College before joining UA in 1930.
He and his wife, Rosemary, lived at 1481 Brown St. with their young sons Jim and Frank Jr.
The professor insisted he never intended to discuss purity during his lecture to girls at the Akron Jewish Center. In fact, his speech that night focused on charms ''beyond beauty which young women can develop,'' including sympathy, understanding and intellectual attainment.
His purity remarks were in response to McKenney's questions, but he didn't blame the reporter for the public outrage. He just wished the article hadn't been so provocative.
''I think she did not stop to consider the narrow-mindedness of some Akron people,'' he said.
The scandal continued all winter and spring. Many students spoke up for Maturo, saying he shouldn't be punished for telling the truth about society.
Nevertheless, university trustees voted ''that the services of Mr. Maturo should not be continued'' after July 1. His firing was announced June 6.
''The affair is forgotten now and I do not want to discuss it,'' President Simmons later said. ''I would not want to hurt Mr. Maturo in any way. He is a nice man and has a lovely wife.''
Maturo responded: ''My stay at the university has been pleasant. I have made many friends who are loyal to me. I haven't wanted to hurt anybody, and I've been upset about people thinking me a scoundrel when I'm just an ordinary father of two boys.''
It probably didn't help Maturo's case when a burlesque performer rose in his defense.
Fan dancer Sally Rand, who was arrested four times at the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago, was in Akron to perform her sexy act at Loew's Theater. During a June interview at the Mayflower Hotel, the blond bombshell spoke up for Maturo.
''He was too honest,'' Rand said. ''Of course, anything I say on the subject has no meaning. If I agree with him, everyone will say, 'Oh, yes, that hussy.' If I don't agree with him, the public will think, 'the hypocrite!'
''Hypocrisy is a lot of nonsense. In this case, as I saw in the paper, some of the students agree with Professor Maturo. Yet they see him dismissed for saying something they feel is right. What kind of an example is that to give to our young people?''
She said it was absurd to consider purity as a litmus test for love and marriage.
''There are some virgins, both men and women, not fit to be spoken to by decent people,'' Rand said.
Students gave Maturo a standing ovation when he entered his Buchtel Hall classroom to give the final exam in Spanish. They handed him a petition with more than 300 signatures asking trustees for his reinstatement.
He admitted that he felt blue.
''I wouldn't mind at all if I weren't a family man,'' he said. ''Or I wouldn't mind if I were being fired because of the quality of my work. But I think I have done a pretty good job.''
Students hoisted him on their shoulders and paraded him around Buchtel Hall. Maturo broke free and returned to his office with tears in his eyes.
He left the Akron campus on June 13, 1934, but his career continued for nearly 35 years.
Maturo went on to teach languages at Transylvania College in Lexington, Ky., and retired from Western Carolina College in Cullowhee, N.C., in 1968. He was 96 years old when he died in 1993. He and his wife, Rosemary, are buried in Georgetown, Ky.
When the professor retired, Vietnam protests, political disputes, racial tensions and hippie love-ins roiled campuses. By then, that theory about the loss of purity didn't seem too far out.
Mark J. Price is a Beacon Journal copy editor. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or send email to mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.
