receive the fees which were then paid for such teaching. It was understood, further, that Mr. Whitney would co-operate with Professor Salisbury in editing the Journal of the Oriental Society. Professor Salisbury undertook to create a fund which with the fees for modern-language instruction might furnish nearly the ordinary salary of a Yale professor at that time.

Mr. Whitney replied from Paris, on April 4, 1853. Professor Salisbury's letter had reached him at Berlin at a time when he was engaged in closing his work there, and "had hardly an hour for quiet thought upon any subject." He expressed his gratitude for the kind feeling toward him "which has had a share in the dictating of the proposal," and continued: "Nor can I well say how much I am struck by the true and self-forgetting zeal for the progress of Oriental studies, of which this, like all your previous movements, affords an evidence. But ... I am compelled to ask myself whether ... I can hope to render any such service to Science as would be an adequate return for the kindness you exhibit toward me; whether, finally, it would not be in me an act of unpardonable presumption to take upon my shoulders an office which you are desirous of throwing off.... I need not say how high and honorable a post I regard that of a teacher at Yale to be, how many and extreme attractions, both in a personal and in a scientific point of view, the prospect of such a situation would have for me.... So far as my own interests are concerned, I could find nothing in the terms which you propose or the duties which you suggest to which to raise a moment's objection.... All that I could bring up against the arrangement would be that the advantage is too entirely upon my side." He desired further time for reflection and consultation with his friends, and thought the postponement of a decision less objectionable because he did not expect to be able to finish his work in Europe and return before the last of August, and then, after a three years' absence from home, desired to spend some time with his friends. His eyes, too, had been giving him "during the winter ground for some apprehension," and "would doubtless be best consulted for by a period of rest and inaction."

In Paris he was "at work on a MS of the Atharva which belongs to the Imperial Library." "Probably it will cost me about six weeks' labor.... Then will follow two or three months of similar labor in London and Oxford.... During the whole winter I was compelled to neglect all other studies; that, however, chiefly owing to the condition of my eyes, which robbed me of about half my time. Persian and Arabic had to be laid aside altogether, and what of time and strength I had to spare from the Sanskrit, I devoted to the Egyptian and Coptic. I cannot well express to you the interest which this latter branch of study has awakened in me, and the strong desire I have felt to penetrate further into it than the mere surface exploration which could be made in the odd moments of a single winter. I would not, however, sell for a very large sum the little insight into this wonderful subject which I have already obtained, and it will be my highest pleasure to attempt to draw it somewhat more into the circle of our Oriental inquiries than has been generally the case hitherto.... There is nothing new of particular interest, so far as I know, to communicate to you from the Sanskrit world on this side of the water. The main interest attaches to the Lexicon which is going to be really a great work, and to push forward the whole study of that language a long way with one thrust. A slow thrust, unfortunately, it will have to be; Prof. Roth estimates ten years as needed for its perfection. [It was completed in 1875.] I am going to contribute my small mite also toward it, by furnishing to Prof. Roth the vocabulary complete of the Atharva. The latter, as you perhaps know, has now the sole redaction of the Vedic material, Aufrecht having left Germany. The next number of Weber's Zeitschrift will be out now very soon, and will contain a contribution from me, a Vedic concordance."

Mr. Whitney reached home earlier than he had expected—about Aug. 8, 1853—and on Aug. 15 he wrote: "Although not less distrustful than before of my ability to discharge to your satisfaction and my own the duties of the post to which you would assign me, I should be disposed to accept gratefully your proposals, and do my best at least to accomplish that which such an acceptance demands of me." But Mr. Whitney desired a modification of the plan. "I have no such knowledge of French as would in any manner justify me in making pretensions to ability to teach it." His estimate of his knowledge of modern languages was lower than that of his friends. Not until 1856 did he accept the title of "Instructor in German." A year later, after he had taken nine months of travel and study in southern Europe, the college catalogue calls him "Professor of Sanskrit, and Instructor in modern languages."

The importance to American scholarship of the offer of this chair to Professor Whitney may be better appreciated if we remember that his predecessor still lives, and that no other chair of Sanskrit was established in this country for about a quarter of a century.

At a special meeting of the Corporation of Yale College, on May 10, 1854, the "Professorship of the Sanskrit and its relations to kindred languages, and Sanskrit Literature" was established, and Mr. Whitney was elected to hold it. The founder's desire for the range of the department was indicated distinctly, but the shorter name of the professorship, "Professor of Sanskrit," was used in the college catalogues until 1869, when the words "and Comparative Philology" were added, without indicating any change in the direction of the incumbent's studies or in the plan of the university.

In 1854 the announcement of philological courses in the Department of Philosophy and the Arts covered Professor Gibbs's lectures on general Philology, Professor Thacher's course of two hours a week in Lucretius and in Latin Composition, Professor Hadley's course of two hours a week in Pindar or Theocritus, and contained the following statement: "Professor Whitney will give instruction in Sanskrit from Bopp's Grammar and Nalus, or such other text-books as may be agreed upon, and in the rudiments of the Ancient and Modern Persian, and of the Egyptian languages." The last clause here reminds the reader of the enthusiasm for the Egyptian and Coptic expressed in the letter of April 4, 1853; and of the fact that Mr. Whitney's first 'bibliographical notice' in the Journal of the Oriental Society discussed Lepsius's work on the 'First order of Egyptian deities,' but we read little more of these studies, except a paper on Lepsius's Nubian Grammar in the second volume of this Journal. In 1858 Professor Whitney's announcement read: "Professor Whitney will instruct in the Sanskrit language, and in the History, Antiquities, and Literature of India and other Oriental countries; also in the comparative philology of the Indo-European languages, and the general principles of linguistic study. He will also give instruction to such as may desire it in the modern European languages."

The appointment of Professor Whitney in 1854 was for five years, with a pledge of reappointment "for life," five years later, if he desired it. In 1859 this reappointment was made—the founder of the chair stipulating that Professor Whitney should be free to retire from the professorship at any time. Mr. Whitney wrote, on July 15, 1859: "My present situation in New Haven is so pleasant to me on so many accounts, and holds out such prospects of honorable and useful employment in the time to come, that I should exceedingly regret being compelled to go elsewhere. Nor, although it would be in many respects more agreeable to me to be able to devote my whole time to my own