REPRINTED FROM THE
PENNSYLVANIA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.
PRINTED BY
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.
1885.
AMERICAN LANGUAGES, AND WHY WE SHOULD STUDY THEM.
Mr. President, etc.:
I appear before you to-night to enter a plea for one of the most neglected branches of learning, for a study usually considered hopelessly dry and unproductive,—that of American aboriginal languages.
It might be thought that such a topic, in America and among Americans, would attract a reasonably large number of students. The interest which attaches to our native soil and to the homes of our ancestors—an interest which it is the praiseworthy purpose of this Society to inculcate and cherish—this interest might be supposed to extend to the languages of those nations who for uncounted generations possessed the land which we have occupied relatively so short a time.