CORRESPONDENCE. 147 



ones, shall not be left, as it were, to the accidental operations of 

 human intellect; but shall be subjected to the government of 

 combined reason and concentrated wisdom. 



IV. Every new language is a new development of the human 

 mind. The philosophy of this moving principle in man is best 

 studied where it is in fullest operation : to wit, in the constant flow 

 of human language. 



V. Our statesmen will recollect, that, in the infancy of our 

 republic, the enlightened Catharine of Russia, a nation which had 

 emerged hardly a century from barbarism, sent to the immortal 

 Washington a request for the vocabularies of the different Indian 

 tribes. The results of the investigation, which she first instituted, 

 have given rise to a new science, that is now pervading all Europe, 

 and modifying the grammars and lexicons of every language. 



How glorious to second these objects ; to carry our inquiries to 

 the very borders of the Russian dominion, and not to rest till all 

 the languages of the seas shall contribute their share to enlarge 

 human science, and accelerate the progress of man to that perfec- 

 tion in knowledge to which he is destined, and of which language 

 must ever be the only vehicle ! 



I waive, however, more minute specification ; hoping that, on a 

 subject whose relations may be less obvious to men engaged in 

 public life, our distinguished philologists, such as Webster and 

 Duponceau, Pickering and Gallatin, may be consulted, in order to 

 give impulse and direction to that part of the enterprise, the execu- 

 tion of which must necessarily devolve upon the younger and 

 more hardy and inexperienced. 



Permit me, sir, in reference to the enterprise at large, to state, 

 in my view, the absolute necessity of appointing an energetic com- 

 mittee at home, who shall publish the official communications of 

 the corps, as fast as received : this only can satisfy the impatience 

 of the learned and scientific, on the one hand, and secure the 

 activity of the corps itself, on the other. 



