DEPARTMENT OF LETTERS. 



LETTERS AN EMBAERASSMENT TO LITERATURE. 



By PROF. W. C. SAWYER, of Lawrence UniverBity. 



Without letters there could be no literature ; but with them, 

 its development must be in proportion to the facility with which 

 they symbolize and record our thoughts. Intellectual activity is 

 stimulated through the eye quite as readily as through the ear, and 

 recorded thought stirs the soul only less potently than the human 

 voice. 



The utterances of the tongue — not the traces of the pen and 

 the impressions of the types — constitute language. Speech is 

 made up of the symbols of thought ; literature, of the symbols 

 of speech, and is, accordingly, two removes from the energies of 

 the soul itself. The tones of the voice, however, travel but a short 

 way and perish before they have reached more than a few thousand 

 ears — not allowing for the possibilities of the telephone — while 

 the recorded words and deeds of buried generations will perpet- 

 uate their memory, in many lands and literatures, to the end of 

 time. 



There are some reasons for supposing that the present advant- 

 age of writing, over speech, may be increased tenfold with the in- 

 creasing facilities for the production, distribution, and consump- 

 tion of literature. The chief obstacle to the growth and perfec- 

 tion of our literature is in the mechanical difficulty of writing, 

 together with the consequent evil effects upon reading and general 

 culture. 



Leibnitz has said, " Give me a good alphabet and I will show 

 you a good language." The world has been suffering for cen- 

 turies from the vain endeavor to form good languages — or litera- 



