EDITOR'S TABLE. 



265 



tempts me to send you another curious illus- 

 tration of how extraordinary geniuses in 

 times past sometimes foreshadowed in their 

 writings the marvels of a later era in the 

 world's affairs. Of all the latest wonders 

 of man's ingenuity, the phonograph would 

 seem to be at least one that was not sub- 

 ject to the dictum of Solomon, "Nothing 

 new under the sun " ; and yet, a few months 

 ago, while amusing myself with Cyrano de 

 Bergerac's Histoire comique des Etats et Em- 

 pires de la Lune et du Soleil (Paris, 1660), I 

 was amazed to come across the matter 

 quoted below, which surely foreshadows the 

 phonograph as closely as do Bacon's words 

 the steamship and railway. 



The author (De Bergerac) is on a voyage 

 over the moon. Left alone a little while by 

 his guide, the latter gives him, to help him 

 while away the hour, some books to read. 

 The books, however, are different from any 

 seen on earth. They are, in fact, little 

 boxes, which Cyrano thus describes : 



" On opening one of these boxes I found 



I know not what kind of metal (apparatus) 

 similar to our clockwork, composed of I 

 know not how many little devices and im- 

 perceptible machinery. It was a book, cer- 

 tainly, but a most marvelous one, which has 

 neither leaves nor characters ; a book to 

 understand which the eyes are useless one 

 needs only use his ears. When one wishes 

 to read this book he connects it by a sort of 

 little nerve to his ears. Then he turns a 

 needle to the chapter that he wishes to hear, 

 and immediately there emerges from the in- 

 strument, as from the mouth of a man, or 

 from a musical instrument, all the words 

 and sounds which serve the Grands Lu- 

 naires for language." 



I will say, further, that Cyrano antici- 

 pated many of the inventions and concep- 

 tions of modern aeronauts. No wonder that 

 he was considered by his contemporaries as 

 " somewhat off," or, as the French say, as a 

 cerveau brule. 



Frank L. James, Ph. D., M. D. 



St. Louis, February 28, 1895. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



THE GROWTH OF ANTHROPOLOGY. 



"TTTHEN in the seventies Prof. 

 VV J. H. Gilmore introduced the 

 study of anthropology into the cur- 

 riculum of the University of Roches- 

 ter he was probably the only in- 

 structor in the subject in America. 

 Since then the science has made 

 rapid progress. Agencies for its dis- 

 semination and the aid and encour- 

 agement of its students have greatly 

 multiplied, so that to-day the science 

 of Man is taught by specialists, and 

 holds a prominent place in many 

 of our leading educational institu- 

 tions. Among these are the universi- 

 ties at Toronto, Worcester, Chicago, 

 Cambridge, Philadelphia, Lewiston 

 (Bucknell), and Washington (Colum- 

 bian). Besides these, as Chamberlain 

 has recently shown, teachers, mainly 

 occupied with some other subject, 

 also give instruction in anthro- 

 pology at Yale, Leland Stanford, 

 Western Reserve, Indiana, Oberlin, 



Dartmouth, Bowdoin, Wisconsin, 

 Brown, Illinois, City of New York, 

 Johns Hopkins, Massachusetts Insti- 

 tute of Technology, Vassar, Cornell, 

 Lake Forest, Vermont, Kansas, Tufts, 

 Minnesota, Michigan, and Ohio. To 

 this considerable list should certainly 

 be added Wellesley, and probably 

 Union and Mississippi. The list 

 grows, and only a few days since the 

 University of California was an- 

 nounced to introduce anthropology 

 among its subjects for teaching. At 

 most if not all of the institutions 

 where special teachers are engaged 

 in the work there are laboratories 

 for research and practice, and at 

 least beginnings of museums. This is 

 great progress for twenty years, and 

 much more may be expected dur- 

 ing the next decade. A subject so 

 important must rapidly force itself 

 into all the prominent institutions of 

 higher learning. 



The university instruction reaches 



