75 8 The Smithsonian Institution 



From its foundation to the present time efforts were made 

 to collect Indian vocabularies as part of the ethnological 

 work of the Institution, and in 1876 their number amounted 

 to six hundred and seventy. They were placed in charge of 

 Doctor J. H. Trumbull, of Hartford, Connecticut, for critical 

 study. It was the intention of the Institution to publish 

 these vocabularies in the " Contributions to Knowledge," and 

 in separate form for general distribution among philologists. 

 In that year, however, Major J. W. Powell, who had collected 

 a series of Indian vocabularies from the inhabitants living 

 near the Great Colorado River, requested that the manu- 

 script material be turned over to him to be published in con- 

 nection with his work. This proposition was accepted, the 

 only conditions of the transfer being that in the publication 

 of the material due credit be given to the founder of the 

 Smithsonian, and that extra copies of the publication be fur- 

 nished the Institution for distribution. The series of publica- 

 tions on linguistics began with an article by Doctor Francis 

 Lieber, " On the Vocal Sounds of Laura Bridgman, the Blind 

 Deaf Mute at Boston, compared with the Elements of Pho- 

 netic Language." The wonderful work of Doctor Howe in 

 opening the mind of this person to outward impressions has 

 become famous, and perhaps no more interesting problems 

 are presented to the psychologist than those connected with 

 the enlightenment of a mind apparently forever consigned to 

 darkness. Doctor Lieber had exceptional advantages to 

 study the sounds first used by Laura Bridgman as indicative 

 of ideas, and his psychological and philosophical deductions 

 naturally attracted wide attention among scholars. At the 

 time of the publication of this work modern psychology as 

 now understood was in its infancy. 



For eighteen years missionaries among the Dakota Indians 

 industriously collected material for a grammar and lexicon of 



