uit.

Would that I could place in sharp contrast to this the state of American
linguistics in our own country! But outside of the official
investigators appointed by the Government Bureau of Ethnology, who merit
the highest praise in their several departments, but who are necessarily
confined to their assigned fields of study, the list is regretfully
brief.

There is first the honored name of Dr. John Gilmary Shea. It is a
discredit to this country that his "Library of American Linguistics" was
forced to suspend publication for lack of support. There is Mr. Horatio
Hale, who forty years ago prepared the "Philology of the United States
Exploring Expedition," and who, "obeying the voice at eve obeyed at
prime," has within the last two years contributed to American philology
some of the most suggestive studies which have anywhere appeared. Nor
must I omit Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull, whose Algonkin studies are marked
by the truest scientific spirit, and the works on special dialects of
Dr. Washington Matthews, the Abbe Cuoq, and others.

Whatever these worthy students have done, has been prompted solely by a
love of the subject and an appreciation of its scientific value. They
have worked without reward or the hope of reward, without external
stimulus, and almost without recognition.

Not an institution of the higher education in this land has an
instructor in this branch; not one of our learned societies has offered
inducements for its study; no enlightened patron of science of the many
which honor our nation has ever held out that encouragement which is
needed by the scholar who would devote himself to it.

In conclusion, I appeal to you, and through you to all the historical
societies of the United States, to aid in removing this reproach from
American scholarship. Shall we have fellowships and professorships in
abundance for the teaching of the dead languages and dead religions of
another hemisphere, and not one for instruction in those tongues of our
own land, which live in a thousand proper names around us, whose words
we repeat daily, and whose structure is as important to the philosophic
study of speech as any of the dialects of Greece or India?

What is wanted is by offering prizes for essays in this branch, by
having one or more instructors in it at our great universities, and by
providing the funds for editing and publishing the materials for
studying the aboriginal languages, to awaken a wider interest in the