SKETCH OF PROFESSOR W. D. WHITNEY. 



121 



children in repulsive tasks is still punished, less grossly than but often 

 quite as cruelly as ever. In Combe's time " children," he says, " were or- 

 dered to learn, and scolded and punished if they did not get their les- 

 sons." Does not this pretty fairly describe the present state of things ? 

 Most parents still think, with the elder Combe, that to educate is to 

 send to school, and the experience of George Combe should do some- 

 thing toward dispelling this prevalent error. 



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SKETCH OF PEOFESSOK W. D. WHITNEY. 



WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY was born at Northampton, 

 Massachusetts, February 9, 1827. He received an academic 

 education at Williams College, in the same State, graduating in 1845. 

 On leaving college he became clerk in a banking-house, and continued 

 in this employment for about five years, devoting his hours of leisure to 

 the study of languages, but particularly of Sanskrit, the ancient lan- 

 guage of India. In 1850 he visited Germany for the sake of enjoying 

 the exceptional advantages afforded by the universities there for the 

 pursuit of linguistic studies. For three years he attended in the Uni- 

 versities of Berlin and Tubingen the lectures of the foremost philologers 

 and Sanskritists of the time, namely, Professors Bopp and Weber, of 

 Berlin, and Roth, of Tubingen. In conjunction with Professor Roth, 

 he prepared an edition of the text of the " Atharva Veda Sanhita," 

 which was published in 1856 at Berlin. Whitney transcribed the text 

 from the MS. in the Royal Librarj 7 at Berlin, and collated it with the 

 MSS. of the Libraries of Paris, London, and Oxford. In a second vol- 

 ume, which is in course of preparation, the editors will publish a trans- 

 lation of the work, with commentary, notes, and index. Since 1849, 

 when he became a member of the American Oriental Society, he has 

 distinguished himself among all his associates in that learned body by 

 the number and the value of his contributions to its " Transactions," 

 and his untiring efforts to promote the objects for which it was founded. 

 He was Librarian of the society from 1855 to 1873, and has been its Cor- 

 responding Secretary since 1857. Of volumes v. to ix. of its " Jour- 

 nal," more than one half was contributed by him. He was in 1854 

 appointed Professor of Sanskrit, and in 1870 Professor of Comparative 

 Philology, at Yale College, which chair he still occupies. In 1858 he 

 edited, with notes, the republication of Colebrooke's "Miscellaneous 

 Essays," which have principally to do with subjects connected with 

 Sanskrit scholarship. 



Besides contributing voluminously to the "Journal" of the Ameri- 

 can Oriental Society, he is the author of several critiques and essays 

 published in sundry journals, American, English, and German. Among 



