1880.] ^>51 _ [Cuttell. 



man and man, is also true in a most significant and solemn 

 sense of the great Word, which was in the beginning with 

 God, and which conveyed to man the thoughts of God. 

 For lie was not merely a teacher. He was himself a reve- 

 lation. We must not only 'know what He taught; — it is 

 life eternal to •' know Him." 



In the retrospect, which our celebration to-night suggests 

 to us all, we must as American citizens rejoice in the 

 progress which the study of language, in whatever light we 

 view it, has made in our own country during the past cen- 

 tury. I venture to say that never in any other age or country 

 has the great and noble end of this study been more in- 

 telligently apprehended or have its methods and appliances 

 been more complete. To enumerate the really valuable text 

 books and publications upon this subject that have appeared 

 in America, even within the last quarter of the century, 

 would be to recite a list as long as the catalogue of ships in 

 the Iliad. The work done by the American Philological 

 Association is in the advanced line of comparative philol- 

 ogy. Our colleges vie with each other in the intelligent 

 application of the latest results of philological investigation. 

 The London Athcnceum, an authority in such matters, says 

 that the studies of a philological character carried on in 

 one of our Pennsylvania colleges, "are not surpassed in 

 thoroughness hy those which we are accustomed to associate 

 with German universities." And then the great scholars 

 who have arisen among us to give lustre to the acre! In this 

 presence I need not name them; but I beg to give one illus- 

 tration of the progress made in American scholarship. Mr. 

 Jefferson, in the essay from which I have already quoted, 

 alludes to the few printed works in the Anglo-Saxon 

 then published, and confesses with patriotic grief, that 



PROC. AMER. 1MIILOS. SOC. XVIII. 100. oS. PRINTED MAY 22, 0. 



