Some months ago the telegraph announced that a Congress of Americanistes had met in Nancy in France, and few people in this country could imagine who the congressmen were or whether they were of this country. It was, in fact, the meeting of a society, composed chiefly of Europeans, which means to prosecute studies in the history, language, and character of American aborigines. This is a laudable work. America probably offers the most important field for ethnological study in the world. The great extent of her two continents gave the freest scope for the complete development of whatever capacity for civilization her people had; and yet savagism continued here for many centuries after it had ceased in Europe. Thus the student in going back three hundred years can penetrate the past as far in this country as he can reach in Europe by pursuing his inquiries back for two to three thousand years. Under ordinary circumstances this fact would make American history much easier to study than those of Europe where the remnants left by the savage tribes are dimmed by an extraordinary progress or covered by the débris of centuries of movement. But the truth is it is about as easy to learn the habits of the ancient Britons as those of the American tribes, even the most civilized, five centuries ago. This is partly due to the wanton destruction of valuable records by the early conquerors and partly to the prepossession that most men, even able ones, seem to be shackled with; namely, that the origin of America's former inhabitants is to be sought in some people of Asia. If they would leave that question for the twentieth century to decide, and begin a painstaking inquiry into what was going on in this country before its discovery, ask not _who_, but what sort of men inhabited it, their habits and their relations, the gentlemen who compose this society of Americanistes would probably reach valuable results. There is plenty to occupy them. If they do not want to grapple at once such a knotty subject as the relation of the Mound Builders to the existing tribes, let them explore Spain for relics of the Aztecs. It is highly probable that records of the most precious character are still to be found there in public archives and in private hands, the descendants perhaps of common soldiers of Cortes's army, who were quite likely to send home during and after the Conquest things that were odd and quaint to them and which would be invaluable to us now. As it is, the time of the Nancy Congress of Americanistes has been too much occupied with efforts to make the ancient inhabitants of this country a tag to one of the numerous Asian migrations. All such attempts have been failures, for the simple reason that we do not have facts enough to prove _any_ theory. Still they have done some good work, and though the subject is not of the most importance, we can but think that M. Comettant's paper on "Music in America" before its discovery by Columbus