Would that I could place in sharp contrast to this the state of American linguistics in our own country! But outside of the official investigators appointed by the Government Bureau of Ethnology, who merit the highest praise in their several departments, but who are necessarily confined to their assigned fields of study, the list is regretfully brief. There is first the honored name of Dr. John Gilmary Shea. It is a discredit to this country that his “Library of American Linguistics” was forced to suspend publication for lack of support. There is Mr. Horatio Hale, who forty years ago prepared the “Philology of the United States Exploring Expedition,” and who, “obeying the voice at eve obeyed at prime,” has within the last two years contributed to American philology some of the most suggestive studies which have anywhere appeared. Nor must I omit Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull, whose Algonkin studies are marked by the truest scientific spirit, and the works on special dialects of Dr. Washington Matthews, the Abbé Cuoq, and others. Whatever these worthy students have done, has been prompted solely by a love of the subject and an appreciation of its scientific value. They have worked without reward or the hope of reward, without external stimulus, and almost without recognition. Not an institution of the higher education in this land has an instructor in this branch; not one of our learned societies has offered inducements for its study; no enlightened patron of science of the many which honor our nation has ever held out that encouragement which is needed by the scholar who would devote himself to it. In conclusion, I appeal to you, and through you to all the historical societies of the United States, to aid in removing this reproach from American scholarship. Shall we have fellowships and professorships in abundance for the teaching of the dead languages and dead religions of another hemisphere, and not one for instruction in those tongues of our own land, which live in a thousand proper names around us, whose words we repeat daily, and whose structure is as important to the philosophic study of speech as any of the dialects of Greece or India? What is wanted is by offering prizes for essays in this branch, by having one or more instructors in it at our great universities, and by providing the funds for editing and publishing the materials for studying the aboriginal languages, to awaken a wider interest in them, at the same time that the means is furnished wherewith to gratify and extend this interest. This is the case which I present to you, and for which I earnestly solicit your consideration. And that I may add weight to my appeal, I close by quoting the words of one of America’s most distinguished scientists, Professor William Dwight Whitney, of Yale College, who writes to this effect: “The study of American languages is the most fruitful and the most important branch of American Archaeology.” FOOTNOTES: