248 ROMANCE LANGUAGES 



instance in point is the Ladin, or Friulan, a former prolongation 

 of which has been noted in Istria and the neighboring territory, in 

 localities where at present the vernacular is Italian or a Slavic dia- 

 lect. 1 A few years ago, M. Bartoli, an Austrian subject, revealed the 

 former existence in northern Dalmatia of an idiom, now quite extinct, 

 which seems to have been the connecting link between the Friulan 

 and the Roumanian. 2 For the Roumanian groups north and south 

 of the Danube, the search for linguistic boundaries, like that for 

 ethnic origins, is complicated and obstructed by political prejudice. 

 But even in this case precise information is accumulating, thanks to 

 the zeal of learned explorers, among whom we should mention in the 

 first rank G. Weigand, editor of the Jahresbericht des Institute fur 

 rumdnische Sprache. 



Thus on various subjects relating to the history if not to the 

 formation of the Romance languages subjects which Diez had 

 scarcely touched upon the works of scholars continue to multiply. 

 The time has come now to ask how and in what spirit the labors of 

 the master have been taken up and continued. But the laborers have 

 been so numerous that it is hardly possible in this place to give each 

 one his proper mention. 



It was during the period from 1860 to 1870 that were formed 

 the principal university centres where the new doctrine was to be 

 sifted and completed. Germany, with its elastic university organiza- 

 tion, soon took the lead as to the number of chairs. In 1870 Romance 

 philology was taught in Germany by perhaps a dozen professors or 

 privatrdocenten. Quite a number of these, to be sure, were required 

 to give a part of their time to teaching English or Germanic lan- 

 guages and literatures. Since then, all the universities one by one 

 have been provided with special professors for the Romance group. 

 In France, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, founded in 1867 by Minister 

 Duruy, had from the beginning a chair of Romance philology, which 

 was entrusted to Gaston Paris. Soon after this (1869), G. Paris, at 

 first temporarily and then permanently (1872), replaced his father 

 in the chair of Early French language and literature at the College de 

 France. The teaching of G. Paris in these two institutions attained 

 from the start a high degree of efficiency, and exercised a most 

 favorable influence on the progress of Romance studies. Many 

 teachers of Romance languages and literatures in France, Germany, 

 Belgium, Holland, the Scandinavian countries, Roumania, and even 

 in the United States, are proud to be counted among his pupils. 

 G. Paris, while guiding the history of literature into new channels, 

 had at the same time assigned himself the task of rewriting, in the 



1 See Ascoli, in Archivio glottologico, x, 447; Cavalli, ibid, xu, 255. 

 * Ueber eine Studienreise zur Erforschung des AUromanischen Dalmatiens. Wien, 

 1899. 



