V1U TIIEFACE. 



professors and philologists of Europe, and the only department 

 of which we can hope to relieve them, with any chance of 

 success, is the collection and correct printing of original texts 

 through the supervision of our native Pandits and Manlavis. 

 We therefore hope to see fresh volumes put in hand now 

 that the series transferred by the Committee of Education is 

 so nearly completed ; and we would respectfully suggest, that 

 the Government should make over to the Society all of the 

 Sanscrit, Arabic, and Persian works that have hitherto issued 

 from the Education Press, in order that one system of distri- 

 bution and sale may be regulated for the whole series ; and 

 that, under the name of the Bibliotheca Asiatic a, this body 

 of Indian classical lore may be encouraged and regarded in the 

 light of a national undertaking, entrusted merely to the vigi- 

 lant superintendence of the Society as the appropriate organ 

 of their publication. 



But we are dwelling too long on a favorite project, and have 

 but little space left to allude to the equally prosperous for- 

 tune of the natural sciences during the present year. The 

 sincere votary of science cannot have witnessed without plea- 

 surable anticipations the introduction, altogether novel in this 

 country, of the delightful and instructive experiments of na- 

 tural philosophy among the social recreations of Government 

 House. At these parties may be kindled into action many 

 a dormant disposition to cultivate the sciences that has hither- 

 to but wanted such a stimulus ; and the community at large 

 may learn to appreciate the studies they have been accustom- 

 ed to eschew as vain or recondite, by witnessing their practi- 

 cal application and attractions. We have heard it suggest- 

 ed as an improvement on the plan adopted by the illustrious 

 Patron of the Society, to hold these soirees directly at the Socie- 

 ty'smuseum, where the objects to be explained or exhibited might 

 be prepared more at leisure, and where they would remain 

 classified with others in the same collection ; — others again 

 have advocated the giving of a more decidedly lectural character 

 to the evening's exposition. In London, where the President of 

 the Royal Society holds similar meetings, his visitors are already 

 well grounded in the subjects treated of, and need but a glance at 

 any new invention or experiment to comprehend its drift : but 



