Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/499

Rh I was brought in contact is aptly illustrated by the words of Mill, quoted to me by one of the professors:

"If we were asked for what end, above all others, endowed universities exist, or ought to exist, we should answer: To keep alive philosophy. . . . To educate common minds for the common business of life, a public provision may be useful but is not indispensable."

And after these words followed a strong commendation of a plan for allowing each professor one year in three for independent original research. The wisdom of this becomes evident when we remember that the endowments of the professorships were, with one exception, given for the promotion of teaching. No research fund exists, and aside from the stated work of the university many of the instructors devote a portion of their time to private instruction, which has greatly increased since the success of the recent efforts to have women methodically instructed at Cambridge by Harvard professors. These drains upon the time and energy of the professors render it the more surprising and creditable that so much original research is being constantly carried on in the different departments of the university.

I have only aimed at noting the principal features of the original work carried on, in general, during the year. In some cases it was impossible to dissociate the researches upon which investigators were engaged at the time of my visit from preceding work, but anything like entering into details or giving a modified historical sketch has been utterly impracticable. This will be better appreciated by any one who has seen the catalogue of books and memoirs published by Harvard professors from 1865 to 1875, prepared under the direction of President Eliot in 1875, but unfortunately so printed by the Commissioner of Education as to be valueless for purposes of comparison.

While I acknowledge that my article is necessarily superficial and incomplete, I yet trust it may be found to possess a certain value as giving a view of the highest and yet least known side of the intellectual life of a university.

Professor W. W. Goodwin, at the head of the Greek department, has been recently preparing a new edition of his well-known grammar, and has also been engaged upon several articles on Attic law, Athenian antiquities, and Greek particles for the new edition of Liddell and Scott's lexicon, which is to be republished by Harper & Brothers. An article from the pen of Professor Goodwin recently appeared in Professor Gildersleeve's "Philological Magazine" on a matter of Athenian law. In this connection American scholars will be interested in knowing that Professor Goodwin's "Grammar" and his "Moods and Tenses" have been reprinted in England, and a recent visitor to Oxford spoke to me of seeing these books lying on the tables of Oxford dons and bearing the marks of frequent use.

The amount of Greek required of all students at Harvard has been gradually reduced during the past twenty-five years, until Greek