OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 181 



tlie results to the world. I say the scholars of our day, because, as is 

 well known, when the study of the Greek language was generally intro- 

 duced into the universities and schools of Central and Western Europe, 

 by the learned Greeks who fled from Constantinople after the capture 

 of the city by the Turks in 1453, it was taught with the Byzantine 

 pronunciation of that day, and so continued to be taught until the time 

 of Erasmus, who proposed a new but theoretical system. The Greek 

 pronunciation of the Greek language gradually disappeared from the 

 schools of Europe, and has never been known in the schools of 

 America. It is now taught only in Harvard University. 



" The visit of the Greek ship to the United States occurred three 

 years before the breaking out of the insurrection against the Turks. 

 For seven dreadful years Greece was overrun by swarthy hordes of 

 barbarians from Asia and Africa, and was reduced to the lowest stage 

 of poverty and distress. Yet the first revolutionary government made 

 provision for a system of public education, adopting as fundamental 

 principles of the provisional constitution under which the war was 

 carried on, the universal education of the people, and the perpetual 

 exclusion of slavery from the soil of Hellas. When, by the interven- 

 tion of the great powers of Europe, a portion of ancient Greece was 

 organized as an independent kingdom, and Prince Otho, the second 

 son of the king of Bavaria, was placed upon the throne, the system of 

 public education was among the earliest subjects of interest to the new 

 government ; the Constitution of 1843 embodies and extends the prin- 

 ciples already established ; and at the present moment the schools, 

 gymnasia, and University of Greece are objects of pride and affection 

 both to the people and the government, and are centres of light which 

 are rapidly illuminating all that part of the world. 



" The Greek language had never ceased to be the written and spo- 

 ken speech of the descendants of the ancient Hellenes. It had never 

 been broken up and supplanted by foreign dialects. Even the ancient 

 grammatical forms and constructions had been preserved by writers, 

 -if not by speakers, down to recent times. But language is fluent and 

 changeable. It cannot remain absolutely fixed and immutable ; for the 

 human mind, of which it is the organ, is in perpetual motion, and lan- 

 guage silently but surely undergoes perpetual change. From Homer 

 to Demosthenes the Greek language passed through a wonderful series 

 of historical developments. From the time of Demosthenes to the 



