SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XI. No. 257 



Thus, in comparing thirty different words taken from the several 

 Iroquoian languages, there is scarcely a single instance in which 

 Mr. Chamberlain has not misapprehended the true sound and real 

 meaning of the words. 



Before an effective or satisfactory comparison between the words 

 of two languages, or of two families of languages, can be made, the 

 investigator should possess at least an elementary knowledge of 

 both, a knowledge of their rules of etymology and syntax, and of 

 their laws of vocalic and consonantic change. This is especially 

 true with reference to the languages of the Iroquoian peoples. 

 These tongues are among the most difficult of Indian languages to 

 investigate and to understand. 



To a want of knowledge of these facts, and to the use of faulty 

 vocabularies, are evidently due Mr. Chamberlain's errors. An at- 

 tempt to establish the affinity and common origin of two languages 

 upon material so faulty as that criticised is scarcely likely to be 

 successful. J. N. B. Hewitt. 



Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D.C., Dec. 26. 



The Study of Languages. 



Your correspondent, H. L. E., asks in the last issue of Science 

 whether there is any practical method of learning to read a lan- 

 guage without the use of a dictionary. The present writer has 

 ■ learned to read readily two languages without the use of either dic- 

 tionary or grammar, arid believes his method not only possible, but 

 the better way, when a knowledge of the language, not its gram- 

 mar, is the one desired. His plan has been to begin with some 

 easy author, and follow its text closely while some one reads aloud 

 an English or some other familiar translation. By following such a 

 plan through a dozen or more books, one may then venture on some 

 simple author, dispensing with both dictionary and translation so 

 far as possible, and learning the meanings of the new words, as 

 they appear, from the context. After having read twenty or thirty 

 novels or similar works in this way, he should begin the study of 

 the grammar, and will then be surprised to find that conjugations 

 and declensions are no longer a task. After one has learned a lan- 

 guage, a dictionary is very useful ; but he certainly can never get a 

 thorough and exact knowledge of the meanings of words from Eng- 

 lish synonymes. W. 



New Haven, Dec. 30. 



Conspiracy of Silence. 



The following statement, made by one of your correspondents 

 {Science, x. 309) — " But a general conspiracy among men of sci- 

 ence to suppress views because they are new and unacceptable to 

 old fogies, is impossible ; and your correspondent and the Duke of 

 Argyll must certainly know that fact, and it will remain a fact, in 

 spite of any number of instances of special local repression that can 

 be cited" — is a logical curiosity. Whether or not the general 

 conspiracy exists can only be known by examining the local action 

 in special cases which may arise ; but we are told, that, whatever 

 be the result of this examination, we must recognize the impossi- 

 bility of such a conspiracy. This is decidedly a new process of 

 scientific demonstration. Old Poz, who remarked, " I've said it, and 

 that's enough to convince me," was accustomed to reason in this 

 manner. 



The same correspondent states, speaking of Mr. Bonney, " What 

 he meant in his rebuke of the Duke of Argyll is evident : he meant 

 that any one man of science not engaged in a given special line of 

 research can not and dares not make up his own mind as to the 

 validity of one of two opposing theories until those others who have 

 that special line of research in hand have practically reached some 

 consent on the subject." 



This is the true ecclesiastical method, to which Mr. Bonney ob- 

 jected. It is the method of the child in the song, who says, — 



" I believe it, for my mother told me so." 

 It is the method of the man who has a profound reverence for 

 authority, so well pictured by Thackeray : — 



" So, as he had nothing to say in reply, he began to be immensely 

 interested in the furniture round about him, and to praise Lady 

 Clavering's taste with all his might. 



" ' Me, don't praise me,' said honest Lady Clavering, ' it's all the 



upholsterer's doings and Captain Strong's, they did it all while we 

 was at the Park — and — and — Lady Rockminster has been here 

 and says the salongs are very well,' said Lady Clavering with an 

 air and tone of great deference. 



" ' My cousin Laura has been studying with her,' said Pen. 



" ' It's not the dowager : it is the Lady Rockminster.' 



" ' Indeed ! ' cried Major Pendennis, when he heard this great 

 name of fashion, ' if you have her ladyship's approval. Lady Claver- 

 ing, you cannot be far wrong. Lady Rockminster, I should say, 

 Arthur, is the very centre of the circle of fashion and taste. The 

 rooms are beautiful, indeed ! ' and the major's voice hushed as he 

 spoke of this great lady, and he looked round and surveyed the 

 apartments awfully and respectfully, as if he had been at church." 



It may be that the views imputed by Mr. Lesley to Mr. Bonney 

 are correct, but this would not be suspected from the latter's pub- 

 lished words : and it looks as if Mr. Bonney's defender, in his zeal, 

 has given away Mr. Bonney's case, and the scientist's case in gen- 

 eral, more completely even than was done by Mr. Bonney himself. 



Richard H. Buel. 



New York, Dec. 30. 



Color and Other Associations. 

 In a note on color and other associations, which I wrote, and 

 which was printed in Science (vi. 1885, p. 242), I gave the colors 

 which my daughter Mildred (then a child eight years old) associ- 

 ated with the days of the week, with the numerals i-io, and with 

 the letters of the alphabet in 1S82. I stated that I found the same 

 colors associated with the same forms in 1 88 5. I have lately ques- 

 tioned her again, and I find the same colors are still . associated 

 with the same forms in nearly every case. Saturday's color has 

 changed from pure white to cream color ; F has changed from 

 black to brown ; Q, which had no certain color, is now called pur- 

 ple ; X and Y, which had not much color, are now called red and 

 cream color (O, X, and Y are now more frequently in use than 

 then) ; 8, which was white, is now called cream color (a similar 

 change to that of Saturday); and 9, which was called 'greenish?' 

 is now called blue. With these few exceptions, the same colors 

 have been constantly associated with the same days, numerals, and 

 letters from 1882 to 1888, — six years. This case appears to me 

 now, as formerly, to deserve record in connection with the observa- 

 tions of Galton and others on the subject. 



Edward S. Holden. 



Berkeley, Cal., Dec. 20. 



Thomas Braidwood and the Deaf-Mutes. 



In a footnote to a page of Sir Walter Scott's ' Heart of Mid- 

 Lothian,' I read, '" Dumbiedikes' is really the name of the house 

 bordering on the King's Park (Edinburgh), so called because the 

 late Mr. Braidwood, an instructor of the deaf-and-dumb, resided 

 there with his pupils." 



Now, I happen to know that Thomas Braidwood sold his estate 

 (that goes by the name of our family, and is situated next to the 

 Duke of Hamilton's, some twenty miles beyond Glasgow) in order 

 to use the proceeds to start his institution for educating the deaf- 

 and-dumb ; and if Professor Bell, in his address at the Gallaudet 

 anniversary, a notice of which is published in Science of Dec. 23, 

 meant it as a reproach to the memory of Mr. Braidwood, when he 

 says the school " was a money-making institution," and that its 

 principal " had bound all his teachers under a hea\7 fine not to re- 

 veal his methods to any one," it may be pertinent to ask if, under 

 the circumstances, it was not only prudent, but a duty of Mr. 

 Braidwood, to make his institution pay its own way. His all was 

 involved in it ; and, had he not used what some people would call 

 a necessary precaution, his school might have perished for want of 

 funds, and himself been impoverished. At all events, that is the 

 view his relations take of the matter. 



And when one reviews the drear)' centuries preceding, when every 

 now and again some gentle soul proposed to educate the deaf-and- 

 dumb only for it to drop out of thought again, perhaps it would be 

 best to guard with caution the acts of him who staked his entire 

 wealth in the venture, and spent forty-six years of life in establish- 

 ing as a living fact what was but as a grand dream for centuries. 



Thomas W. Braidwood, 



Vineland, N.J., Dec. 29. 



