Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v4.djvu/34

 446 Scholars fifth of Sannazaro's Piscatory Eclogues (1815); and, from the Italian, Lancisi On the Fens and Marshes of Rome. Not only Lindley Murray's Grammar (1795), and Noah Webster's Compendious Dictionary (1806) and Philosophical and Prac- tical Grammar of the English Language (1807), but also Web- ster's great Dictionary of 1828, though it represents twenty years of additional work and even some study abroad, belong essentially to this epoch of individual production. ^ Joel Bar- low translated Volney's Ruins. Richard Alsop, one of the Hartford Wits, made translations from the French and the Ital- ian. In The Monthly Anthology in 1805 was reprinted Sir William Jones's translation of Sacontald. . . . from the Sanscrit of Calidas. Thus the utilitarian and the dilettante production went spo- radically on, continuing, as has been indicated, long after the new forces had begun to work. The signs of these were not wanting. During and shortly after the Revolution American learning became self-conscious, and took account of itself. In 1794 Mitchill, then professor of chemistry and botany in Columbia College, made a report to the Senatus Academicus on "the present state of learning in the College of New York" {i. e. Columbia College) ; and Ezra Stiles, in his Latin Inaugural Oration upon his induction as president of Yale in 1 778, offered a prospectus of much the same kind, which is notable as showing the relative values that a highly estimable scholar then attached to the various disciplines. Stiles would have his ideal pupil study the vernacular with a view to rendering materials from other languages available in it, and for practice in writing and public speaking. Latin and Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic he is also to study; but arithmetic, algebra, geometry, geography, logic, and rhetoric are mentioned only to be dis- missed as leviora studia. Let the youth pass onward to the higher mathematics, natural philosophy, and astronomy. As- tronomy will lead him to the heavenly hierarchy, this to metaphysics and ontology, and thence to ethics and moral philosophy — the latter chiefly mystical and concerned with the Divine Love. He is to study human history too; and at odd times (subsecivis horis), music, poetry, drama, and polite and belles lettres. The programme is closed with the professional ' For early school books see Book III, Chap, xxiii.