Report on Philology, etc. 



185 



from the Orient as from the back- woods of our country, a 

 wider and more rapid diffusion of slang, painfully intensi- 

 fied by the literary productions of such writers as Bret 

 Harte, who, despite his genius, and even by the mere force 

 of genius, has done too much to corrupt the purity of our 

 noble Saxon. 



This is no age for idleness or stagnation in any depart- 

 ment ; live questions in the study of languages will be agi- 

 tated continually. Perhaps the question now most pro- 

 minently before the public mind, and especially among 

 educators, is that of the relative importance of ancient and 

 modern languages. Is it not, we are often asked, better 

 to begin with the study of spoken tongues, therein 

 acquiring a knowledge of practical benefit, and from the 

 knowledge thus acquired to ascend if desired to the ancient 

 and now obsolete forms of speech ? This question will doubt- 

 less long continue a fruitful theme for discussion, and perhaps 

 without receiving any authoritative answer will result, as 

 in fact it does practically result now, in a compromise. 



The second branch of our subject, the department, namely, 

 of Anthropology and Ethnology, seems in the scientific de- 

 velopment of it almost as new as the science of language. 

 Man upon earth ! how long have his condition and develop- 

 ment been objects to be scientifically scrutinized? How 

 far, in fact, can science even now pronounce a conclusive 

 verdict on the numerous questions pertinent to this sphere 

 of investigation ? Take the very initial question of polygen- 

 esis and monogenesis, the unity or diversity of races of men, 

 whereon doctors disagree, who shall decide it ? Then, as 

 regards the development of man, - especially primeval man ; 

 we find on the one hand Lyell, Lubbock, Huxley and 

 others, holding that the status of the lowest forms of 

 savages known to us is typical of primeval man ; and on 

 the other, a host of names, including among them profound 

 thinkers, who as absolutely refuse to accept the theory of 



Trans, viii.] 24 



