The able and learned editor of “The American Review of History and Politics”[341] remarks, that, “for very obvious reasons it could not be expected, that Philology would be duly appreciated, or cultivated to any extent, by the American public in general. The state of society in this country, so admirable under many points of view, renders this impossible. We should not be surprised or discouraged at a general ignorance of, and an almost universal indifference about the learned languages: but this is not all; the public feeling is not confined to mere apathy: it borders on hostility. Numbers are not wanting, persons even of influence in the community, who industriously proclaim, not simply the utter insignificance, but the pernicious tendency of classical learning; and who would proscribe it as idle in itself, and as dangerous to republicanism. At the same time, our progress in this pursuit is far from being in a natural ratio with our advances in other respects. Philology is in fact, even worse than stationary among us; from what cause, whether from the influence of the extraordinary notions just mentioned, or from the absence of all external excitements, we will not now pretend to determine.” ----- Footnote 341: See the editorial review, in that work, of an “Historical Report upon the progress of History and ancient Literature, since the year 1789, and upon their actual condition,” &c. vol. iii. No 1. ----- Should these judicious remarks of the respectable Reviewer be considered as containing an indirect censure on such “persons of influence” as he may be supposed to allude to, who “proclaim” the “pernicious tendency of classical learning,”—it is much to be lamented by the friends of literature and science, that there should be any just grounds for its support. Dr. Rittenhouse understood the German[342] and Low Dutch languages, well; and had acquired a sufficient knowledge of the French, to enable him to comprehend astronomical and other works written in that tongue. These acquisitions, it has been observed, “served the valuable purpose of conveying to him the discoveries of foreign nations, and thereby enabled him to prosecute his studies with more advantage in his native language.”[343] ----- Footnote 342: