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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
and cotbparers , who would hot be swayed by the enthusiasm which has carried many etymologists aw&y ftt > m the tmth in thefr exclusive admiration for their favourite language . With such an arrangement faf labourers and directors , classification and beneficial result would be certain . The process would probably be as follows . For example ,, the whole of the qualities and properties
of the human body would be set down irk a list in English , arid each professor would set to work to give the corresponding words in other languages ., with all their cognates , and as far as could be ascertained from books ^ or in other methods , the dates at which they first occurred . The names of physical bodies in a natural state might follow after the same method , and then the objects of human invention , with their descriptions ; after that the qualities of the human mind . It is clear that such a work would be the
history of the world , and an unerring comparison of the progress of all nations . It would be a most glorious thing for a nation to pride itself upott . But it should not be merely a sedentary plan ; travellers and men of science ought also to be attached to it ; th £ world has been ransacked for the objects of physical science ,, why should not mental science have the same chance ? Mental
Humboldts should go forth , and a British public would be found , when rightly directed , far more efficient patrons of knowledge than a king of Prussia . Dr . Bowring has been sent forth , at the public } expense , to ascertain how foreigners keep their accounts .
France has penetrated into Egyptian mysteries by means of her learned men ; why should England be last in the race ? Shall it be said that Englishmen have been wholly occupied with the science of money getting and money saving , and have taken no thought for the mental improvement of mankind ? Shall it be
said that they jeoparded men s lives in the pursuit of a passage by the North Pole for the purposes of traffic , and grudged opening their purses to achieve the discovery of the origin of the first dawning of mind ? * A job , a job , I smell a job ! ' some zealous disciple of economy will cry out . Not so fast , good economist . I , as well as yourself , am
a hater of jobs , and by way of security , we will adopt a system of perfect responsibility for the new college . In the first place , men of real learning tire no worshippers of the ' golden calf . ' All they require is , decent subsistence , and when very enthusiastic , only a bare subsistence . Three to four hundred pounds per annum would probably be all that would be required for each person , and they might be attached to such an establishment as the British
Museum . It is certain that the greater portion would be industrious , enthusiastic labourers , and if some were appointed by interest , if they were not efficient , they would soon be discovered , by the fact of all being obliged to work in concert . The whole would be stopped , and it would be the interest of the industrious to get them expelled . There could be no dozing dverthe Wofrk ; air enjoy-
Untitled Article
Propoml for a National College t ) f Language . Hi
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1833, page 391, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2616/page/31/
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