SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 317 



of its earliest and most important services was that it brought the 

 Sanskrit language emphatically to the knowledge of Europe. The 

 similarity of this to Latin and Greek, especially in the grammatical 

 forms, struck every one with surprise. At first the old literary party 

 resisted its claims, some of them even affirming that it never had been 

 a spoken tongue, but that it had been fictitiously constructed out of 

 Latin and Greek. The creation of comparative grammar by the 

 great German scholar Bopp, in 1816, threw a flood of light on the sub- 

 ject; and the discovery in 1828, by Hodgson, of the Buddhistic sacred 

 writings in Nepaul, revealed to astonished Europe a literature of 

 grand antiquity and prodigious extent, in which is contained the reli- 

 gious belief of 400,000,000 men ten times the present population of 

 the United States. Greek and Latin had now to descend from the 

 imperial thrones on which they had been seated, and take their places 

 as later and less perfect forms of this wonderful Oriental tongue. 



In the higher regions of literature all over Europe, these discover- 

 ies made a profound impression. It was at once seen by the great 

 scholars of the times that the existing educational system, founded, 

 as it so largely was, on the languages of the Mediterranean peninsu- 

 las, was altogether on an imperfect basis. They saw that philology 

 was about to occupy a higher platform, and that, though it might cost 

 a struggle with present interests, a change in public education was 

 necessary. But though these languages have suffered an eclipse, 

 there still remains that priceless heritage which they have trans- 

 mitted to us immortal examples in national life, in patriotism, in 

 statesmanship, in jurisprudence, in philosophy, in poetry. Still there 

 remain the ruins of the Parthenon, the relics of those statues which 

 have no rival elsewhere in the world embodiments of the beautiful, 

 before which, even at the risk of being denounced as a pagan, a man 

 might fall down and worship. Still there remains the history of that 

 awful empire which once bore sway around the Mediterranean Sea, 

 an empire to which we owe our civilization, our religious convictions, 

 and even our modes of thought. 



I add this great discovery in letters to the scientific and industrial 

 movement I have described as bringing on the epoch of 1840. 



Educational institutions are in their nature very much under the 

 influence of the past. They are guided by men of the parting gener- 

 ation, and are essentially conservative. The changes they began to 

 manifest did not originate within them, but were forced upon them 

 from without. They clung to the mediaeval as long as they could, and 

 only accepted the modern when they were compelled. 



Among American colleges which are emancipating themselves 

 from the mediaeval, we may number Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, 

 Prindeton, University of Virginia, Yale. Doubtless there are many 

 others that would follow the example if they could, but they are fet- 

 tered with the gyves of sectarian or local restraint. They march 



