One of his earliest cares was to elevate the character of classical studies in our country. In this respect his own example did much. From the time he left the University, he was always regarded as an authority on topics of scholarship. But his labors were devoted especially to this cause. As early as 1805, in conjunction with his friend, the present Judge White, of Salem, he published an edition of the Histories of Sallust with Latin notes and a copious index. This is one of the first examples, in our country, of a classic edited with scholarly skill. The same spirit led him, later in life, to publish in the North American Review, and afterwards in a pamphlet, "Observations on the Importance of Greek Literature, and the Best Method of Studying the Classics," translated from the Latin of Professor Wyttenbach. In the course of the remarks with which he introduces the translation, he urges with conclusive force the importance of raising the standard of education in our country. "We are too apt," he says, "to consider ourselves as an insulated people, as not belonging to the great community of Europe; but we are, in truth, just as much members of it, by means of a common public law, commercial intercourse, literature, a kindred language and habits, as Englishmen or Frenchmen themselves are; and we must procure for ourselves the qualifications necessary to maintain that rank which we shall claim as equal members of such a community."
His Remarks on Greek Grammars, which appeared in the American Journal of Education in 1825, belongs to the same field of labor, as does also his admirable paper, published in 1818, in the Memoirs of the American Academy, on the Proper Pronunciation of the Ancient Greek Language.[145] He maintained that it should be pronounced, as far as possible, according to the Romaic or modern Greek, and learnedly exposed the vicious usage introduced by Erasmus. His conclusions, though controverted when first presented, are now substantially adopted by scholars. We well remember his honest pleasure in a communication received within a few years from President Moore, of Columbia College, in which that gentleman, who had once opposed his views, announced his change, and, with the candor that becomes his honorable scholarship, volunteered to them the sanction of his approbation.
The Greek and English Lexicon is his work of greatest labor in the department of classical learning. This alone would entitle him to praise from all who love liberal studies. With the well-thumbed copy of this book, used in college days, now before us, we feel how much we are debtor to his learned toil. Planned early in Mr. Pickering's life, it was begun in 1814. The interruptions of his profession induced him to engage the assistance of the late Dr. Daniel Oliver, Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at Dartmouth College. The work, proceeding slowly, was not announced by a prospectus until 1820, and not finally published until 1826. It was mainly founded on the well-known Lexicon of Schrevelius, which had received the emphatic commendation of Vicesimus Knox, and was generally regarded as preferable to any other for the use of schools. When Mr. Pickering commenced his labors there was no Greek Lexicon with definitions in our own tongue. The English student obtained his knowledge of Greek through the intervention of Latin. And it is supposed by many, who have not sufficiently regarded other relations of the subject, as we are inclined to believe, that this circuitous and awkward practice is a principal reason why Greek is so much less familiar to us than Latin. In honorable efforts to remove this difficulty our countryman took the lead. Shortly before the last sheets of his Lexicon were printed, a copy of a London translation of Schrevelius reached this country, which proved, however to be "a hurried performance, upon which it would not have been safe to rely."[146]
Since the publication of his Lexicon, several others in Greek and English have appeared in England. The example of Germany and the learning of her scholars have contributed to these works. It were to be wished that all of them were free from the imputation of an unhandsome appropriation of labors performed by others. The Lexicon of Dr. Dunbar, Professor of Greek in the University of Edinburgh, published in 1840, contains whole pages taken bodily—"convey, the wise it call"—from that of Mr. Pickering, while the Preface is content with an acknowledgment, in very general terms, of obligation to the work which is copied. This is bad enough. But the second edition, published in 1844, omits acknowledgment altogether; and the Lexicon is welcomed by an elaborate article in the Quarterly Review,[147] as the triumphant labor of Dr. Dunbar, "well known among our Northern classics as a clever man and an acute scholar. In almost every page," continues the reviewer, "we meet with something which bespeaks the pen of a scholar; and we every now and then stumble on explanations of words and passages, occasionally fanciful, but always sensible, and sometimes ingenious, which amply repay us for the search.... They prove, moreover, that the Professor is possessed of one quality which we could wish to see more general: he does not see with the eyes of others; he thinks for himself, and he seems well qualified to do so." Did he not see with the eyes of others? The reviewer hardly supposed that his commendation would reach the production of an American lexicographer.
In the general department of Languages and Philology his labors were various. Some of the publications already mentioned might be ranged under this head. There are others which remain to be noticed. The earliest is the work generally called The Vocabulary of Americanisms, being a collection of words and phrases supposed to be peculiar to the United States, with an Essay on the State of the English Language in this country. This originally appeared in the Memoirs of the American Academy, in 1815, and republished in a separate volume, with corrections and additions, in 1816. It was the author's intention, had his life been spared, to print another edition, with the important gleanings of subsequent observation and study. Undoubtedly this work has exerted a beneficial influence upon the purity of our language. It has promoted careful habits of composition, and, in a certain degree, helped to guard the "well of English undefiled." Some of the words found in this Vocabulary may be traced to ancient sources of authority; but there are many which are beyond question provincial and barbarous, although much used in our common speech,—"fæx quoque quotidiani sermonis, fœda ac pudenda vitia."[148]
In the Memoirs of the American Academy for 1818 appeared his Essay on a Uniform Orthography for the Indian Languages of North America. The uncertainty of their orthography arose from the circumstance that the words were collected and reduced to writing by scholars of different nations, who often attached different values to the same letter, and represented the same sound by different letters; so that it was impossible to determine the sound of a written word, without first knowing through what alembic of speech it had passed. Thus the words of the same language or dialect, written by a German, a Frenchman, or an Englishman, would seem to belong to languages as widely different as those of these different people. With the hope of removing from the path of others the perplexities that had beset his own, Mr. Pickering recommended the adoption of a common orthography, which would enable foreigners to use our books without difficulty, and, on the other hand, make theirs easy for us. To this end, he devised an alphabet for the Indian languages, which contained the common letters of our alphabet, so far as practicable, a class of nasals, also of diphthongs, and, lastly, a number of compound characters, which it was supposed would be of more or less frequent use in different dialects. With regard to this Essay, Mr. Du Ponceau said, at an early day, "If, as there is great reason to expect, Mr. Pickering's orthography gets into general use among us, America will have had the honor of taking the lead in procuring an important auxiliary to philological science."[149] Perhaps no single paper on language, since the legendary labors of Cadmus, has exercised a more important influence than this communication. Though originally composed with a view to the Indian languages of North America, it has been successfully followed by the missionaries in the Polynesian Islands. In harmony with the principles of this Essay, the unwritten dialect of the Sandwich Islands, possessing, it is said, a more than Italian softness, was reduced to writing according to a systematic orthography prepared by Mr. Pickering, and is now employed in two newspapers published by natives. Thus he may be regarded as one of the contributors to that civilization, under whose gentle influence those islands, set like richest gems in the bosom of the sea, will yet glow with the effulgence of Christian truth.
His early studies in this branch are attested by an article in the North American Review for June, 1819, on Du Ponceau's Report on the Languages of the American Indians, and another article in the same Review, for July, 1820, on Dr. Jarvis's Discourse on the Religion of the Indian Tribes of North America. The latter attracted the particular attention of William von Humboldt.
The Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society contain several important communications from him on the Indian languages: in 1822 (Vol. IX. Second Series) an edition of the Indian Grammar of Eliot, the St. Augustin of New England, with Introductory Observations on the Massachusetts Language by the editor, and Notes by Mr. Du Ponceau, inscribed to his "learned friend, Mr. Pickering, as a just tribute of friendship and respect";—in 1823 (Vol. X. Second Series) an edition of Jonathan Edwards's Observations on the Mohegan Language, with an Advertisement and Copious Notes on the Indian Languages by the editor, and a Comparative Vocabulary of Various Dialects of the Lenape or Delaware Stock of North American Languages, together with a Specimen of the Winnebago Language;—in 1830 (Vol. II. Third Series) an edition of Cotton's Vocabulary of the Massachusetts Language. He also prepared Roger Williams's Vocabulary of the Narragansett Indians for the Rhode Island Historical Society. These labors were calculated, in no ordinary degree, to promote a knowledge of our aboriginal idioms, and to shed light on that important and newly attempted branch of knowledge, the science of Comparative Language.
Among the Memoirs of the American Academy, published in 1833, (Vol. I. New Series) is the Dictionary of the Abnaki Language, in North America, by Father Sebastian Rasles, with an Introductory Memoir and Notes by Mr. Pickering. The original manuscript of this copious Dictionary, commenced by the good and indefatigable Jesuit in 1691, during his solitary residence with the Indians, was found among his papers after the massacre at Norridgewock, in which he was killed, and, passing through several hands, at last came into the possession of Harvard University. It is considered one of the most interesting and authentic documents in the history of the North American languages. In the Memoir accompanying the Dictionary, Mr. Pickering, with the modesty which marked all his labors, says that he made inquiries for memorials of these languages, "hoping that he might render some small service by collecting and preserving these valuable materials for the use of those persons whose leisure and ability would enable them to employ them more advantageously than it was in his power to do, for the benefit of philological science."