184 



Report in Philology, etc. 



more letters to complete; and Monier Williams's Sanskrit 

 and English dictionary is just published, being the first 

 complete Sanskrit and English lexicon ever issued, and 

 new works grammatical aud critical, as well as the pub- 

 lication of Sanskrit texts, have been numerous. In our 

 own country, Professor W. D. Whitney, of Yale, has con- 

 tributed extensively to the journal of the American Orien- 

 tal Society, especially as regards the grammar of Sanskrit, 

 and the Vedas and Vedic, or old Sanskrit, as well as more 

 popular works. 



The problem of the origin of language has not lacked dis- 

 cussion, and, while the beginnings of human speech are 

 of course forever lost in oblivion, yet there is much in the 

 earliest forms of language known to us that may be con- 

 sidered as helps to lead us towards the knowledge of still 

 earlier times : and the study of the speech of the lowest 

 types of manhood now existing may reasonably be resorted 

 to, for the further increase of this knowledge. 



Passing now from the earliest to the latest, and from the 

 study of language in general to that of particular languages, 

 the most casual observer may note throughout the world, 

 with increasing international communication, an increasing 

 knowledge of foreign languages in almost all countries ; 

 and notwithstanding all this polyglottism, the more domi- 

 nant power and the world wide diffusion of our own Eng- 

 lish language, at the expense of all others. With the 

 knowledge of our arts and sciences we are extending also, 

 and especially in the Orient, the knowledge of our lan- 

 guage as the vehicle in which these ideas are conveyed ; 

 and while Cornell university contains one professor of Chi- 

 nese and Japanese, Japan contains numerous teachers of 

 English, and even now the project of introducing the Eng- 

 lish as the national language of Japan is under considera- 

 tion. With the Pacific railroad there comes to us Amer- 

 icans also, a wider dissemination, not so much probably 



