aims of the School and his wise judgment as to the means to be used in order to attain them. His personal liking for natural science, and training in its methods, added the warmest sympathy to his work in connection with this department of the University.

In the very first communication made to Mr. Whitney with regard to his work at Yale, attention was called to the opportunity for usefulness in connection with the American Oriental Society, of which he was elected a member in 1850. In 1854 his name appears in the list of the publication committee of that Society. In 1855 he was made librarian, and held that office until 1873. This latter post was no sinecure. In the winter of 1853-54, on going to visit the library (then kept in Boston), he "found it a pile of books on the floor in the corner of an upstairs room in the Athenaeum, apparently just as it had been brought in and dumped down from an earlier place of keeping." In the summer of 1855 the books were removed to New Haven. The task of "arranging, labelling, entering in the book of donations, and preparing cards" involved "a very considerable and tedious amount of work." In 1857, on Professor Salisbury's going abroad and resigning the office, Professor Whitney was elected Corresponding Secretary, and continued in this position until 1884, when he was elected President of the Society. His resignation of this latter office was not accepted until 1890, when for nearly four years the condition of his health had obliged him to absent himself from its meetings. He could well say that "no small part of his work had been done in the service of the Society"; from 1857 to 1885, "just a half of the contents of its Journal is from his pen." His care of the publications of others, also, was specially difficult, in view of the peculiar danger of typographical errors and the wide field covered by the papers; no ordinary proof-reader could render much assistance. And not infrequently articles by those who were unaccustomed to scientific composition needed thorough revision. On his positively declining to be a candidate for re-election as President, the Society adopted the following minute: "The American Oriental Society—regretfully accepting his declination—desires to record its deep sense of indebtedness to its retiring President, Professor William Dwight Whitney, of New Haven. For twenty-seven years he has served as Corresponding Secretary of the Society; for eighteen, as its Librarian; and for six, as its President. We gratefully acknowledge the obligation under which he has laid us by his diligent attendance at the meetings, by his unstinted giving of time and of labor in editing the publications and maintaining their high scientific character, by the quality and amount of his own contributions to the Journal—more than half of volumes VI-XII coming from his pen—and above all by the inspiration of his example."

The American Philological Association might have been a natural off-shoot from the Oriental Society. The latter has had a 'classical-section' since 1849, of which Professor Hadley was long at the head, of which Professor Goodwin has been the leader for nearly a quarter of a century; and classical papers had been presented by Professor Hadley, as that 'On the theory of Greek accent,' and by Professor Lane, as that 'On the date of the Amphitruo of Plautus.' Many of the early members of the Philological Association were also members of the Oriental Society. Mr. Whitney presided over the Philological Association at its first meeting in Poughkeepsie in 1869, and at the Rochester meeting in 1870, as retiring President, he delivered an address in which he sketched with great wisdom the Association's action and work. "The association is to be just what its members shall make it, and will not bear much managing or mastering. It must discuss the subjects which are interesting American philologists, and with such wisdom and knowledge as these have at command.... In every such free and democratic body things are brought forward into public which might better have been kept back.... The classics, of course, will occupy the leading place; that department will be most strongly represented, and will least need fostering, while it will call for most careful criticism. The philology of the American aboriginal languages, on the other hand, demands, as it has already begun to receive, the most hearty encouragement.... Educational subjects also are closely bound up with philology, and will necessarily receive great attention; yet there should be a limit here; our special task is to advance the interests of philology only, confident that education will reap its share of the benefit." Mr. Whitney's services to the Association, and faithful attendance upon its meetings, may be estimated from the fact that the first sixteen volumes of the Transactions contain fourteen papers by him printed in full, while occasionally he presented communications which he did not care to print. At its meeting in Williamstown in July last, the Association adopted the following minute: "The American Philological Association, at its first meeting after the death of Professor William D. Whitney, bears grateful testimony to the value of the services which he rendered for the furtherance of philological learning, and especially in connection with this Association. Fitly chosen to be its first President, and retained for a quarter of a century upon its Executive Committee, he never failed to take an active part in its work, and in many ways he advanced its interests and encouraged and assisted the studies to which its members are devoted. The record of his life-work may be left for more full recital at another time; but the Association takes this opportunity of testifying to its sense of obligation to Professor Whitney's manifold and successful labors, and of the great loss which his death has brought to its members and to philological students throughout the world."

Both the classical and the oriental philologists of the country have noted Mr. Whitney's constancy in attendance on their gatherings. In November, 1875, he apologized to the Oriental Society for his absence from the May meeting (caused by his visit to Europe in the interest of the edition of the Atharva-Veda), and added that it was his second absence in twenty-one years from a meeting of the Society! His devoted fidelity to the little Classical and Philological Society at Yale was just as marked. A quarter of a century ago, he with Professor Hadley and Professor Packard made that small gathering a deep source of inspiration. Many, if not most, of his learned papers were presented for discussion there. After the death of the lamented Professor Hadley, which gave a sudden check to the development of Yale's advanced courses in philology, Mr. Whitney was the mainstay of the Society, and his regular attendance and patient attention roused to best effort each who took part. Perhaps I ought to confess also that some of the younger instructors and graduate students shrank from presenting papers which might be compared with the finished scholar's elaborate productions. At these meetings his patience must have been sorely tried; much that was presented can have had but little interest for him; but his courtesy was unfailing. He gave without stint of his precious time to any undertaking which he believed to be doing, on the whole, useful philological work.

The first great work of Mr. Whitney's scholarship was the publication of the Atharva-Veda-Sanhitā, undertaken in 1852 with Professor Roth. The first volume of 458 pages, royal octavo, was published in 1855-56. In connection with this, he prepared and published in Weber's Indische Studien (vol. IV, pp. 9-64) in 1857 an 'Alphabetisches Verzeichniss der Versanfänge der Atharva-Samhitā'; in the Journal of the American