The American Naturalist 

 EDITORIALS. 



—The address of Prof. Kolliker as President of the Munich meet- 

 ing of German Anatomical Society contains some word:* which are 

 deserving of repetition in this country. 



Referring to the literature of Anatomy, he expresses the wish 

 that all morphologists would agree to publish their observations 

 only in one of the four best-known languages, and at the same time 

 that it is desirable that all anatomical contributions should appear in 

 a few specified journals. He makes the following suggestions: (1.) 

 Every author who writes in another language than English, French, 

 Italian or German should provide, as is already often the case, a short 

 abstract in one of these languages. (2.) It would be of great value 

 if every country possessed a journal which should give as soon as 

 possible a short abstract of every paper which appears outside of the 

 .-pecial journals. It is often the case that important papers lie long 

 buried in society transactions which would thus have their value and 

 significance placed before the public. A few words follow upon the 

 possibilities of a universal language, in which the claims of Volapiik 

 and the like are dismissed in short order. "The savants of the middle 

 ages possessed a genuine universal language in the Latin, and it is 

 only in such wise that one is possible to-day: in such connection 

 English or French are first to be thought of." 



The rapid advance of English to the position of a universal lan- 

 guage has attracted the attention of all students. English is spoken 

 to-day by over 125,000,000 people; no other language of Europe, 

 excepting the barbaric Russian, is spoken by half that number. 

 English has an additional claim from the ease with which it can be 

 learned. It has developed further (has degenerated, if you will) in 

 that it has largely lost its inflections, and this fact has added not a 

 little to its simplicity and to the facility with which it may be acquired, 

 while its capacity for adopting Latin and Greek roots is an important 

 element in its favor. 



Another word in relation to the address of Prof. Kolliker. There 

 is to-day no other journal in America which „ti;. rs itself for the publi- 

 cation of preliminary communications in all departments of natural 

 science; there is none other which attempts to -jive abstracts of work 

 published elsewhere. Our readers know what we have done in this 

 respect in the past; we feel that we can promise that the Naturalwt 

 will in the future excel its past so far as thi- dei.-irtim nl is concerned. 



