RECENT ORIGINAL WORK AT HARVARD. ' 483 



I was brought in contact is aptly illustrated by the words of Mill, 

 quoted to me by one of the professors : 



" If we were asked for what end, above all others, endowed univer- 

 sities exist, or ought to exist, we should answer : To keep alive philos- 

 ophy. . . . To educate common minds for the common business of 

 life, a public provision may be useful but is not indispensable." 



And after these words followed a strong commendation of a plan 

 for allowing each professor one year in three for independent original 

 research. The wisdom of this becomes evident when we remember 

 that the endowments of the professorships were, with one exception, 

 given for the promotion of teaching. No research fund exists, and 

 aside from the stated work of the university many of the instructors 

 devote a portion of their time to private instruction, which has greatly 

 increased since the success of the recent efforts to have women methodi- 

 cally instructed at Cambridge by Harvard professors. These drains 

 upon the time and energy of the professors render it the more sur- 

 prising and creditable that so much original research is being con- 

 stantly carried on in the different departments of the university. 



I have only aimed at noting the principal features of the original 

 work carried on, in general, during the year. In some cases it was 

 impossible to dissociate the researches upon which investigators were 

 engaged at the time of my visit from preceding work, but anything 

 like entering into details or giving a modified historical sketch has been 

 utterly impracticable. This will be better appreciated by any one who 

 has seen the catalogue of books and memoirs published by Harvard 

 professors from 1865 to 1875, prepared under the direction of Presi- 

 dent Eliot in 1875, but unfortunately so printed by the Commissioner 

 of Education as to be valueless for purposes of comparison. 



While I acknowledge that my article is necessarily superficial and 

 incomplete, I yet trust it may be found to possess a certain value as 

 giving a view of the highest and yet least known side of the intellec- 

 tual life of a university. 



Professor W. W. Goodwin, at the head of the Greek department, 

 has been recently preparing a new edition of his well-known grammar, 

 and has also been engaged upon several articles on Attic law, Athenian 

 antiquities, and Greek particles for the new edition of Liddell and 

 Scott's lexicon, which is to be republished by Harper & Brothers. 

 An article from the pen of Professor Goodwin recently appeared in 

 Professor Gildersleeve's " Philological Magazine " on a matter of 

 Athenian law. In this connection American scholars will be inter- 

 ested in knowing that Professor Goodwin's "Grammar" and his 

 " Moods and Tenses " have been reprinted in England, and a recent 

 visitor to Oxford spoke to me of seeing these books lying on the tables 

 of Oxford dons and bearing the marks of frequent use. 



The amount of Greek required of all students at Harvard has been 

 gradually reduced during the past twenty-five years, until Greek 



