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    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-

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    Propoml for a National College t ) f Language . Hi

• Citation
  • 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/