294 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XL No. 281 



some time now devoted to the elucidation of abstract propositions, 

 and detailed elaborations in various forms of the same propositions, 

 of no direct value, and some time now devoted to applications, 

 which, designed to test the understanding, are really essentially 

 numerical substitutions, so as to find leisure to supply physical 

 problems as a test ? The latter problems best serve to call forth a 

 true knowledge of the principles. It is only in such application that 

 we discover whether we have really grasped and actually secured 

 the full meaning of the principle. So, too, in the course of physics 

 as pursued in mechanical engineering schools, some details now 

 studied, from force of habit and as being the regular thing in a 

 complete course of physics, might, it appears to me, be advanta- 

 geously omitted, and replaced by special and more extended work 

 in heat, electricity, elasticity, and the like. 



Surely, I trust, this will not be misinterpreted as a plea for the 

 abandonment of study of abstract principles. The abstract prin- 

 ciple is to be thoroughly studied, and the application is designed to 

 insure the full comprehension of the principle. But why not select 

 as far as possible, and dwell mainly on, such abstract principles, 

 which can be re-enforced by these physical tests, and select such 

 practical physical exercises, experience in which will re-act alike 

 most directly to the comprehension of the abstract, and as desirable 

 preparatory knowledge for the engineering course .' 



This is the only solution, if a four-years' course is to suffice ; and, 

 furthermore, it is in direct accord with the principle which under- 

 lies the engineering instruction, and which permits us to pay little 

 attention to many fine important engineering devices, such as the 

 printing-presses, agricultural machinery, and the like. 



You will readily appreciate that this insertion of proper exercises, 

 this working-out of special text-books and courses of study in the 

 various elementary sciences, forming the foundation and most of 

 the first two years' course of the mechanical engineer, applies to 

 the several branches taught. I cannot burden this already too long 

 address with details in the several departments ; but there is, it ap- 

 pears to me, no great difficulty in discovering them when careful 

 search is made. 



If the point here emphasized would be borne in mind more stead- 

 fastly than is now the case, I believe time could be saved in the 

 two later years, when the deficiency outlined must be then sup- 

 plied as best it can, and some further exercises bearing on useful 

 applications in design, and special lectures now crowded out, could 

 find room. 



If I have dwelt on the time available as an important factor in 

 the educational problem, it is not to be interpreted as a favoring of 

 undue haste. Better acquire some things thoroughly than a greater 

 number superficially, for only in thorough acquirement can habits 

 of correct observation and matured judgment be formed. 



If I pointed out that in the two years' preparatory work of the 

 course in an engineering school the general scheme seems to me, 

 as far as I have been able to follow the matter, to be essentially the 

 same during the past twelve years, while the fact of the rapid de- 

 velopments in applied engineering does make it important to con- 

 sider some matters, at least from a general point of view, not neces- 

 sary to consider at all twelve years ago, it is not to be construed 

 as a sweeping criticism of this preparatory course. Such course is 

 in my opinion, on the whole, admirable, but I believe it could be 

 improved in the particular named. At the same time I am aware 

 that a practising engineer, who only gives thought to these educa- 

 tional matters now and then, is apt to underrate the progress made ; 

 which progress may, in fact, be much greater than he anticipates, 

 and perhaps even in the very line of the criticism advanced. If it 

 be thus, so much the better that these words be uttered at the alum- 

 ni meeting of the leading school of mechanical engineering in 

 the country, where the presence of the faculty and their participa- 

 tion in the discussion will speedily lead to rectification of the error, 

 if such it be, and to the enlightenment of those graduates and 

 others who share the views just set forth. 



In closing, let me emphasize that what I have said is meant to 

 apply not specifically to our own alma mater, but to mechanical 

 engmeering schools in general. 



The conferring of degrees at the close of the twelfth academic 

 year of the Johns Hopkins University took place June 14. 



THE ETHNIC POSITION OF THE BASQUE NATION. 



The Basque or Euskarian people of the PyrenKan and Cantab- 

 rian ridge are supposed to count at present about six hundred 

 thousand souls. Four-fifths of them live on Spanish territory. 

 They are well-proportioned in their bodies, but rather small, so 

 that a large percentage have to be excluded from military ser- 

 vice. Most of them are of a dark-brown complexion, although 

 blondes are not scarce. Their faces are oval, their features agree- 

 able, their general health excellent; and "to run like a Basque" 

 has become a proverbial locution throughout the south-west of 

 Europe. Among the Spanish Basques the dolichocephalic type is 

 almost the only one observed. These and other ethnologic points 

 form the introductory to a learned article by Prof. G. Gerland, ' The 

 Basques and the Iberians,' inserted in the first volume of G. Gro- 

 ber's ' Grundriss der romanischen Philologie,' one of the best en- 

 cyclopedic works that ever appeared on the Romance languages of 

 southern Europe (1S86, pp. 313-334). The peculiar social and 

 legal customs of the Basques, our author continues, make of them 

 a people with archaistic survivals of various kinds, but do not by 

 any means prove them to be an ethnologically isolated race. But 

 their peculiar language shows them to be distinct from any other 

 nationality. Some said that the ' Vascuence ' was the language 

 spoken in Paradise, while others believed " that even the Devil could 

 not acquire this tongue." The sound/is wanting in all its dialects, 

 and the language belongs to the agglutinative type. The radices 

 are all monosyllables, or reducible to such, verbal roots being 

 made clearly distinct from nominal roots. Basque is a pure suffix 

 language, prefixes being unknown : even the definite article 'a ' is 

 postpositive. The language is not sex-denoting, except in the pro- 

 noun. The inflection of the transitive verb differs from that of the 

 intransitive, but in both is mainly carried on by auxiliary verbs. 

 The large number of verbal conjugations established by the earlier 

 grammarians chiefly rest on the various direct and indirect pro- 

 nominal objects that may become connected with the verb. 



All these distinguishing traits of the language separate the Basque 

 from the Celts as well as from the Romans ; but whether they 

 separated them also from the old Iberians is the problem which 

 Gerland (and so many others before him) has tried to solve. The 

 reports of the ancients upon the popular customs of the Iberians 

 wholly coincide with what we know of the Basques of to-day ; but 

 a much more stringent proof lies in the fact that the ancient local 

 names of the largest portion of Hispania, then inhabited by the 

 Iberians, can be explained through the Basque language only. 

 This region of Basque local names also extended over Aquitania in 

 south-western France ; and it is a striking fact in favor of this 

 theory, that the present Gasconian dialect does not know the sounds 

 / and V, for the Gascons are nothing else but Romanized Basques, 

 and the tribal name of the ancient Ausci in those parts is the radix 

 of the name ' Euskarian.' 



That the Iberians, or ancient Basques as we may call them with 

 Gerland, formed a unit as to their language and ethnic peculiarities, 

 is evidenced by the fact that the Spanish language was evolved in- 

 homogeneous, uniform manner throughout the peninsula, whereas 

 in France and Italy the ethnic difference of the inhabitants has 

 produced dialects in the north and south which are opposed to- 

 each other, just as so many different languages. Although an 

 immigration of Celts about 530 B.C. produced a race called Celti- 

 berians, the manners and customs have remained Iberian with 

 small modifications, and the dialectic differences among these were 

 probably inconsiderable. Among the Iberian features which have 

 impressed themselves upon the Spanish people, Gerland counts the 

 bigotry and fanaticism of the Church, and the fondness for auda- 

 cious, adventurous maritine expeditions. 



While enumerating Basque terms which have found their way 

 into the Spanish literary language, Gerland very pertinently remarks 

 that barely one-third of these is found in the Portuguese, but that 

 several had entered into the Hispano-Roman dialect at the time of 

 the Roman domination. The Latin tongue has undergone less 

 alterations in the Spanish language than in any other of the Ro- 

 mance languages of modern times. This is explained by Gerland 

 by the fact that the Basque then spoken in the country was too 

 heterogeneous for having much influence on the phonetics and mor- 

 phology of the new language then in course of formation. The 



