at every turn
the engine was so contrived that the words shifted into new places as
the square bits of wood moved upside down. Six hours a day the young
students were employed in this labor; and the professor shewed me
several volumes in large folio, already collected of broken sentences,
which he intended to piece together, and out of those rich materials
give the world a complete body of all arts and sciences.

We next went to the school of languages, where three professors sat in
consultation upon improving that of their own country.

The first project was to shorten discourse by cutting polysyllables
into one, and leaving out verbs and participles; because, in reality,
all things imaginable are but nouns. The other was a scheme for
entirely abolishing all words whatsoever; and this was urged as a
great advantage in point of health as well as brevity; for, it is
plain that every word we speak is in some degree a diminution of our
lungs by corrosion, and consequently contributes to the shortening of
our lives. An expedient was therefore offered, that since words are
only names for things, it would be more convenient for all men to
carry about them such things as were necessary to express the
particular business they are to discourse on. And this invention would
certainly have taken place, to the great ease as well as health of the
subject, if the women, in conjunction with the vulgar and illiterate,
had not threatened to raise a rebellion, unless they might be allowed
the liberty to speak with their tongues, after the manner of their
forefathers; such constant irreconcilable enemies to science are the
common people.

Another great advantage proposed by this invention was, that it would
serve as a universal language to be understood in all civilized
nations, whose goods and utensils are generally of the same kind, or
nearly resembling, so that their uses might easily be comprehended.
And thus ambassadors would be qualified to treat with foreign princes
or ministers of state, to whose tongues they were utter strangers.

I was at the mathematical school, where the master taught his pupils
after a method scarce imaginable to us in Europe. The proposition and
demonstration were fairly written on a thin wafer, with ink composed
of a cephalic tincture. This the student was to swallow upon a fasting
stomach, and for three days following eat nothing but bread and water.
As the wafer digested, the tincture mounted to his br