4-98 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



known ; and how they have languished, 

 when introduced, is equally notorious. 

 The modern languages have fared no 

 better, although, after a long contest, a 

 point has at last been gained in their 

 favor at Cambridge, which is thus de- 

 scribed in Nature of June 6th : 



" An event occurred on Thursday 

 last at Cambridge, not in itself, perhaps, 

 of imposing magnitude, but yet fraught 

 with very important consequences. For 

 this long while back an agitation has 

 been going on with the purpose of 

 making Greek no longer absolutely 

 essential to the Previous Examination 

 (or 'Little Go, 1 as it is popularly 

 called), but of allowing French or Ger- 

 man, or both, to be substituted for it 

 at the option of the candidate. As any 

 long-headed man might have foreseen, 

 the genuine scholarship and liberal in- 

 telligence of the university are in favor 

 of such a change ; but the opposition 

 has been neither feeble nor silent. Dis- 

 cussion has abounded more and more, 

 and 'fly-sheets' have fallen like the 

 latter rain. The advocates of the 

 change seem to have been more or 

 less governed by a dislike to many 

 words, and to have had large faith in 

 the merits of their cause ; their oppo- 

 nents, on the other hand, appear to 

 have believed in the efficacy of much 

 speaking, and in the effects of argu- 

 ments drawn from all quarters, and 

 looking all ways ; their papers and 

 speeches, all put together, form as 

 pretty a piece of incoherence as may 

 be found in a literary day's march, and 

 would have been a perfect godsend to 

 the great Skepsius when he wrote his 

 famous tract 'An hominibus mens ab- 

 sitS The reasons, indeed, for making 

 the change were so clear and cogent, 

 that there seemed hardly any hope of 

 its being accomplished. Yet, by one 

 of those freaks of fortune which are 

 met with even in the universities, wis- 

 dom prevailed; and by the vote of the 

 Senate on Thursday last, which will, in 

 all probability, be speedily ratified at a 



second meeting, the student who de- 

 sires to go out in an 'honors' examina- 

 tion henceforth need not at his Little 

 Go scratch up a smattering of bad 

 Greek, if he satisfies his examiner that 

 he possesses a real knowledge of French 

 or German. We trust that the scien- 

 tific workers at Cambridge will take 

 heart at this happy issue of the strug- 

 gle, and gird up their loins for the 

 heavy task of introducing order and 

 system into the chaos in which the 

 natural-science studies at Cambridge 

 are now lost. It is not a little to the 

 credit of this university that she should 

 have been actually the first to remove 

 one more of the old-fashioned swad- 

 dling-clothes which have been check- 

 ing the development of youthful science,- 

 and we trust it is an earnest of still 

 greater changes which she means to 

 take in hand. Science has been too 

 long at that old university a sort of 

 blind Samson, bound with many cords, 

 and serving chiefly to make sport for 

 mocking Philistines of the classical and 

 mathematical tribes. It is time his 

 cords were loosed, and his strength 

 made use of for the general advance- 

 ment of the university." 



ANTHROPOLOGY AND ETH- 

 NOLOGY. 



These are hard words, and will be 

 ranked by many among those pestilent 

 " ologies " of which so much is said 

 by the learned, and which are supposed 

 to be of so little use or importance to 

 ordinary people. Yet they are signifi- 

 cant and indispensable terms, and stand 

 for very weighty things ; and, more- 

 over, they represent subjects which 

 are forcing themselves more and more 

 upon the attention of intelligent peo- 

 ple. It is, therefore, desirable to have 

 distinct conceptions of what they 

 mean. 



Anthropology is the term now ap- 

 plied to the general science of man. 

 It, therefore, comprehends many things, 

 and has, perhaps, not yet reached its 



