vocabulary, and seemingly scarcely less so in grammar.

Besides this, each of these stocks is subdivided into dialects, each distinguished by its own series of phonetic changes, and its own new words. What an opportunity is thus offered for the study of the natural evolution of language, unfettered by the petrifying art of writing!

In addition to these native dialects there are the various jargons which have sprung up by intercourse with the Spanish, English, Dutch, Portuguese, and French settlers. These are by no means undeserving of notice. They reveal in an instructive manner the laws of the influence which is exerted on one another by languages of radically different formations. A German linguist of eminence, Prof. Schuchardt, of Gratz, has for years devoted himself to the study of the mixed languages of the globe, and his results promise to be of the first order of importance for linguistic science. In America we find examples of such in the Chinook jargon of the Pacific coast, the Jarocho of Mexico, the “Maya mestizado“ of Yucatan, the ordinary Lingoa Geral of Brazil, and the Nahuatl-Spanish of Nicaragua, in which last mentioned jargon, a curious medley of Mexican and low Spanish, I have lately published a comedy as written and acted by the natives and half-castes of that country.

All such macaroni dialects must come into consideration, if we wish to make a full representation of the linguistic riches of this continent.

What now is doing to collect, collate, and digest this vast material? We may cast our eyes over the civilized world and count upon our fingers the names of those who are engaged in really serviceable and earnest work in this department.

In Germany, the land of scholars, we have the traveller von Tschudi, who has lately published a most excellent volume on the Qquichua of Peru; Dr. Stoll, of Zurich, who is making a specialty of the languages of Guatemala; Mr. Julius Platzmann, who has reprinted a number of rare works; Prof. Friederich Müller, of Vienna; but I know of no other name to mention. In France, an enlightened interest in the subject has been kept alive by the creditable labors of the Count de Charencey, M. Lucien Adam, and a few other students; while the series of American grammars and dictionaries published by Maisonneuve, and that edited by Alphonse Pinart, are most commendable monuments of industry. In Italy, the natal soil of Columbus, in Spain, so long the mistress of the Indies, and in England, the mother of the bold navigators who explored the coasts of the New World, I know not a single person who gives his chief interest to this pursuit.

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 Abbé 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 them, at the same time that the means is furnished wherewith to gratify and extend this interest.

This is the case which I present to you, and for which I earnestly solicit your consideration. And that I may add weight to my appeal, I close by quoting the words of one of America’s most distinguished scientists, Professor William Dwight Whitney, of Yale College, who writes to this effect:

“The study of American languages is the most fruitful and the most important branch of American Archaeology.”