ethnologists was Henry R. Schoolcraft (1793-1864). His grandfather,
James Calcraft, formerly a British soldier under Marlborough, had kept
a large school in Albany County, New York, and because of this his
name was changed to Schoolcraft. At an early age Henry Schoolcraft
became a student of mineralogy, chemistry, natural philosophy, and
medicine. In connection with his father’s glass-making enterprises
in New Hampshire, Vermont, and western New York, he was engaged for
some time in building glass-works, and in 1817 began to publish a work
on “Vitreology.” Conceiving a desire to travel in the Far West, he
started in 1818 on a journey down the Ohio and up the Mississippi. A
book resulting from this, on the mineralogy of the West, made him well
known. Another expedition was described in “Travels in the Central
Portions of the Mississippi Valley” (1825). In 1828 he was the leader
in founding the Michigan Historical Society and in 1832 he helped found
the Algic Society, for the reclamation and study of the Indians. A
narrative of his work and experiences was embodied in “Personal Memoirs
of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American
Frontiers, 1812 to 1842,” a work full of the flavour of the primitive
West. Other works were “Algic Researches” (1839), a collection of
Indian allegories and legends; “Oneota, or The Characteristics of the
Red Race in America” (1844-1845); “The Red Race of America” (1847); and
“American Indians, their History, Condition, and Prospects” (1850), an
immense work covering a wide range of subjects. His books did much to
promote knowledge of Indian life and thought.
_Charles Pickering._--Another well-known ethnologist, Charles Pickering
(1805-1878), born in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, graduated at
Harvard College in 1823 and took his degree in medicine in 1826. He
accompanied Commodore Wilkes in the _Vincennes_ on its exploring voyage
around the world in 1838-1842 and later visited India and Eastern
Africa. His great work was “The Races of Man and their Geographical
Distribution” (1848); later works of importance were “The Geographical
Distribution of Animals and Man” (1854) and “The Geographical
Distribution of Plants” (1861).
_Lewis Henry Morgan._--Lewis H. Morgan (1818-1881), born at Aurora
on Cayuga Lake, New York, and graduated from Union College in 1840,
became interested in studying the Indians through having organised a
society called “The Grand Order of the Iroquois,” which he wished to
model after the ancient Iroquois Confederacy. The first literary fruits
of his studies were his “Letters on the Iroquois” (in _The American
Review_ in 1847). Finding that he must neglect his law practice
or abandon his Indian studies, he determined to publish all his
materials and then cleave to law. In 1851, then, appeared “The League
of the Iroquois,” in which were fully explained the organisation and
government of the celebrated Iroquois Confederacy, and which formed the
first scientific account of an Indian tribe. A few years later, urged
by Henry, Agassiz, and others, he took up his studies again, and began
an investigation which was extended to embrace the whole world, and
which resulted in his scholarly “Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity
of the Human Family,” published in 1871, as No. 17 of the Smithsonian
“Contributions to Knowledge.” In 1881 he gathered his materials on
tribal organisation into an epoch-making philosophical treatise on
“Ancient Society,” which materially helped to lay the foundations of
our modern science of governmental institutions.
_John Wesley Powell._--Major John W. Powell (1834-1902) became
conspicuous both as a geologist and an anthropologist. He studied at
two or three small Western colleges, served in the Civil War, and then
taught geology in two Illinois universities. In 1867 he travelled
in the Colorado Rockies and thenceforward for many years was busied
with surveys and explorations of the Far West. From 1881 till 1894
he was director of the United States Geological Survey, resigning to
become director of the Bureau of Anthropology. He made many important
contributions to the sciences which interested him, publishing
“Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries”
(1875), “Report on the Geology of the Uinta Mountains” (1876), “Report
on the Arid Region of the United States” (1879), “Introduction to the
Study of the Indian Languages” (1880), “Studies in Sociology” (1887),
“Canyons of the Colorado” (1895), and “Physiographic Processes,
Physiographic Features, and Physiographic Regions of the United States”
(1895).
_Daniel Garrison Brinton._--Daniel G. Brinton (1837-1899) of
Philadelphia was one of the leading archæologists of the New World.
Graduating at Yale in 1858 and at the Jefferson Medical College,
Philadelphia, in 1860, he served as a surgeon in the war and from 1867
to 1887 was editor of _The Medical and Surgical Reporter_. From 1886
until his death he was professor of American linguistics and archæology
at the University of Pennsylvania. He has to his credit a long list
of important books and papers, only a few of which can be mentioned
here. He began to publish in 1859 (“The Floridian Peninsula, Its
Literary History, Indian Tribes, and Antiquities”). From boyhood he
took a deep interest in the study of the American Indians; and in 1868
he published “The Myths of the New World.” He also wrote, on Indian
subjects, “American Hero Myths” (1882), “The American Race” (1892),
and numerous ethnological and linguistic papers. He also both edited
(for the most part) and published “The Library of Aboriginal American
Literature” in eight volumes (1882-1885). In the controversies between
science and theological dogma he was a pronounced radical. Along with
his scientific labours Dr. Brinton found time for some studies in
poetry, especially of Browning and Whitman.
_Noah Webster._--Among students of linguistic science the first to be
mentioned in point of time, and one of the first in importance, is Noah
Webster (1758-1843), a native of Hartford, Connecticut, and a graduate
of Yale College, whose “Grammatical Institute of the English Language”
(spelling-book, grammar, and reader) appeared in 1783-1785. These books
had an immense sale. The grammar showed originality, but was partly
superseded by Murray’s. Webster published also “Dissertations on the
English Language” (1789), a more advanced “Philosophical and Practical
Grammar of the English Language” (1807), and “Origin, History, and
Connection of the Languages of Western Asia and of Europe” (1807); the
last being one of the first fruits of Sir William Jones’ identification
of Sanskrit in 1786. The great work of Webster’s life, however, was his
“American Dictionary of the English Language,” first published in 1828.
Revised in 1847, 1864, and 1890, this is now the “International” and
enjoys a large sale. The edition of 1901 contains 2528 pages.
_Lindley Murray._--Lindley Murray (1745-1826), a native of
Pennsylvania, made a fortune in trade at the time of the Revolution,
and then settled at Holdgate, near York, England. Here he wrote his
“Grammar of the English Language” (1795), which by 1816 had swollen to
two volumes. In 1818 he published an “Abridgement,” which went through
some six-score editions. It laid great stress on syntax, and was a
terror to generations of students.
_Joseph Emerson Worcester._--For many years the only rival of
Webster’s Dictionary was Worcester’s. Like Webster, Joseph Emerson
Worcester (1784-1865) was a graduate of Yale College. After teaching
for a time at Salem, Massachusetts, he settled at Cambridge. After
various lexicographical labours, he issued “A Universal and Critical
Dictionary” (1846), containing “in addition to the words found in
Todd’s edition of Johnson’s Dictionary, nearly 27,000 words for which
authorities are given.” In 1860 this was expanded into the quarto
“Dictionary of the English Language,” which included about 104,000
words. In a memoir of Dr. Worcester, Ezra Abbot said:
The tendency of his mind was practical rather than speculative. As
a lexicographer, he did not undertake to reform long-established
anomalies in the English language: his aim was rather to preserve
it from corruption; and his works have certainly contributed much
to that end. In respect both to orthography and pronunciation, he
took great pains to ascertain the best usage; and perhaps there
is no lexicographer whose judgment respecting these matters in
doubtful cases deserves higher consideration.
_Goold Brown._--Most of our grandfathers got their knowledge of
English grammar from the text-books of Goold Brown (1791-1857). His
education was obtained at the Friends’ School in Providence, Rhode
Island, his birthplace. He became a successful teacher and for twenty
years conducted an academy in New York City. His “Institutes of
English Grammar” appeared in 1823 and with an elementary work had an
enormous circulation. His “Grammar of English Grammars” (1851), which
brought him wide reputation, has been called “the most exhaustive,
most accurate, and most original treatise on the English language ever
written.” This is absurdly high praise; yet the book is undoubtedly a
monument of industry, and has been for many earnest souls “a court of
last resort on matters grammatical.”
_George Perkins Marsh._--In his day a distinguished diplomatist and man
of letters, George P. Marsh (1801-1882) made substantial contributions
to philology. He graduated at Dartmouth College in 1820 and studied
law. He soon turned to studies in language and in 1838 printed
privately a translation of Rask’s “Icelandic Grammar.” His “Lectures
on the English Language” (1861) were delivered originally at Columbia;
his “Origin and History of the English Language” (1862) was a course of
Lowell Institute lectures.
_Samuel Stehman Haldeman._--Samuel S. Haldeman (1812-1880) attained a
respectable place as a philologist, but was also known as a naturalist
and an archæologist. He went to Dickinson College two years, but not
liking the course of study, left to study by himself. Shortly after his
marriage in 1835, he settled at Chickies, Pennsylvania, became a silent
partner with two brothers in the iron business, and spent most of his
time in his library, where, for many years, he worked sixteen hours a
day. His nature-studies resulted in “Fresh-Water Univalve Mollusca of
the United States” (nine parts, 1840-1845); “Zoölogical Contributions”
(1842-1843); “Zoölogy of the Invertebrate Animals” (1850); and more
than seventy papers. He began early to take interest in the Indian
languages, and published papers on them, as well as on the languages
of Europe and China, and on spelling reform. These writings are now
valuable chiefly as landmarks in the history of linguistic science;
but this does not impair Haldeman’s contemporary reputation as a
learned and accurate linguist. His last works were a monograph on
“Pennsylvania Dutch” (1872) and “Outlines of Etymology” (1878).
_James Hammond Trumbull._--Well known as a thorough student of Indian
languages was James H. Trumbull (1821-1897) of Hartford, Connecticut.
He studied at Yale in the class of 1842, but was prevented by ill
health from graduating. On linguistics he wrote “The Composition of
Indian Geographical Names” (1870), “The Best Methods of Studying the
Indian Languages” (1871), “Notes on Forty Algonkin Versions of the
Lord’s Prayer” (1873), and “Indian Names of Places in and on the
Borders of Connecticut, with Interpretations” (1881). He also edited
Roger Williams’ “Key into the Language of America” (1866).
_Francis James Child._--Francis J. Child (1825-1896), created a
tradition of zeal for broad and sound learning, the influence of which
is still strong. A Boston youth, he stood at the head of his class
at Harvard, that of 1846. For forty-five years he was a professor in
Harvard. In addition to some excellent editions of texts, he published
an epoch-making monograph, “Observations on the Language of Chaucer”
(1862), “Observations on the Language of Gower’s Confessio Amantis”
(1866), and a monumental edition of “English and Scottish Popular
Ballads” (1857-1858, revised and enlarged edition in ten volumes,
1882-1898), which is a model of accurate, comprehensive work, and which
it is safe to say will not soon be superseded. It is due largely to
Child that Harvard has become one of the leading centres of English
study in America.
_Francis Andrew March._--The Nestor of living American philologists
is Professor Francis A. March (born in 1825), since 1855 a teacher in
Lafayette College. He graduated at Amherst College in 1845. At first
he pursued philosophical studies, but was later drawn to the study of
language. His “Method of Philological Study of the English Language”
appeared in 1865. His “Comparative Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Language”
(1870) was a pioneer, and with the “Anglo-Saxon Reader” (1870) did good
service in introducing the subject into American colleges. For many
years Dr. March has been an ardent apostle of spelling reform.
_William Dwight Whitney._--Probably William Dwight Whitney (1827-1894)
is best known as a writer of textbooks and popular expositor of
linguistic problems. Among scholars, however, his chief monument is his
work in Sanskrit. Born at Northampton, Massachusetts, he was graduated
at eighteen from Williams College. In the winter of 1848-1849 he began
the study of Sanskrit; this study he continued under Salisbury at
Yale, Weber at Berlin, and Roth at Tübingen. In 1854 he was appointed
professor of Sanskrit and comparative philology at Yale, and held this
chair until his death; being for many years accounted the leading
philologist in America. He was a most industrious and systematic
worker. His bibliography includes 360 titles. He wrote simple and lucid
grammars of English (1877), French (1886), German (1869), and Sanskrit
(1879); “Language and the Study of Language” (1867); “Oriental and
Linguistic Studies” (1873-1874); “The Life and Growth of Language”
(1875); several translations, with commentaries, of Sanskrit texts;
and numerous papers and reviews. He was also editor-in-chief of “The
Century Dictionary” (1889-1891) and read every proof of its 21,138
columns. But his greatest service to the cause of science was in
holding up to his pupils a lofty ideal and a rigorous scientific method.
Hellenists, Latinists, and linguists of every sort [said Professor
Perrin in a memorial address], and even historical students in the
more restricted sense, all over this country and Europe, are now
labouring, each in his chosen field, with a more equable spirit, a
broader method, and a loftier ideal, because they have caught them
all, directly or indirectly, from the master whose memory we honour.
_Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve._--Valuable work in classical philology has
been done by Basil L. Gildersleeve (born in 1831). After graduating
at Princeton in 1849, he studied at Berlin, Bonn, and Göttingen,
receiving the degree of Ph.D. from Göttingen in 1853. For twenty years
(1856-1876) he was professor of Greek (for five years, of Latin also)
at the University of Virginia. In 1876 he was called to a similar chair
at Johns Hopkins University, which he has since held. He founded (1880)
and has since edited _The American Journal of Philology_, and has
published, among other books, “A Latin Grammar” (1876, twice revised),
“Essays and Studies, Educational and Literary” (1890), “The Syntax
of Classical Greek” (part i., 1900, with Charles W. E. Miller), and
editions of Justin Martyr, Persius, and Pindar.
=Natural and Physical Science.=--It is in the natural and physical
sciences that our attempt to cover the ground will at once appear most
hopeless. In some of these sciences, for example astronomy, physics,
and geology, American scholars stand concededly among the foremost
in the world; to practically all of them Americans have contributed
noteworthy studies and discoveries. Lack of space prevents even the
mention, with one or two exceptions, of living writers.
_John James Audubon._--Among the naturalists of America no name is
more illustrious than that of the chief of our ornithologists, John
James Audubon (1780-1851). His father was a French naval officer who
had settled upon a plantation near New Orleans and married a lady
of Spanish descent. When but a child Audubon used to draw pictures
of birds; of those which were not satisfactory he made a bonfire
at each birthday. When he was about eighteen, his father settled
him on a farm near Philadelphia; here he gratified the naturalist’s
passion to such an extent that he was good for nothing else. “For a
period of twenty years,” he wrote later, “my life was a series of
vicissitudes. I tried various branches of commerce, but they all proved
unprofitable, doubtless because my whole mind was ever filled with my
passion for rambling and admiring those objects of Nature from which
alone I received the purest gratification.” He lived with his family
successively in Kentucky, Ohio, Mississippi, and Louisiana; drawing
and studying birds incessantly. Visiting England in 1826, he arranged
for the publication of “The Birds of America” (1830-1839). It was to
be published in numbers of five folio plates each, the whole to be in
four volumes and to be sold for $1000 a copy. The work was to cost over
$100,000; yet he had not money enough to pay for the first number. He
supported himself by painting. He was elected (1830) a Fellow of the
Royal Society. Audubon accompanied his “Birds” with “Ornithological
Biographies” (five volumes, 1831-1839), the literary value of which is
important; “it presents,” says one writer, “in language warm from his
having been a part of the scenes, a virgin past of our country, and its
forests and prairies, which can never be restored or so well described
again.” “The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America,” with 150 plates,
appeared in three volumes in 1845-1848; in this undertaking he was
assisted by his two sons and the Rev. John Bachman of Charleston,
South Carolina. The last three years of his life were spent in mental
darkness. His claim to honorable rank in American letters cannot be
denied.
_Spencer Fullerton Baird._--No American naturalist exerted a wider
and deeper influence than Spencer F. Baird (1823-1887). A native of
Pennsylvania and a graduate of Dickinson College (1840), he was the
friend and in some work the collaborator of Audubon, Agassiz, and
other zoölogists. Appointed assistant secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution in 1850, he directed much of the scientific exploration of
the West; organised the National Museum (1857); succeeded Henry in 1878
as secretary of the Smithsonian and largely developed its work; and in
1874 became head of the Commission of Fish and Fisheries, and organised
the science and practice of fish culture in America. He was besides
a voluminous writer. His books and papers down to 1882 include 1063
titles. Of them we may mention “Catalogue of North American Reptiles”
(1853), “The Birds of America” (with John Cassin, 1860), “The Mammals
of North America” (1859), and “History of American Birds” (with Thomas
M. Brewer and Robert Ridgway, 1874-1884).
_Alpheus Hyatt._--In zoölogy and palæontology one of the celebrated
scholars of his day was Alpheus Hyatt (1838-1902). Born in Washington,
D. C., he received his education at the Maryland Military Academy,
Yale College, and under Agassiz at the Lawrence Scientific School of
Harvard, from which he was graduated in 1862. After the Civil War, in
which he rose to be a captain, he continued his studies in natural
history and became active in fostering these studies in general.
He helped to found _The American Naturalist_ in 1868, and was the
principal founder of the American Society of Naturalists, organised in
1883. In 1881 he became professor of zoölogy and palæontology in the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in Boston University. He was
equally active in teaching, in popularising science, and in research.
Some of his books are “Observations on Freshwater Polyzoa” (1866),
“Revision of North American Poriferæ” (1875-1877), long the only work
on North American commercial sponges, “The Genesis of the Tertiary
Species of Planorbis at Steinheim,” a long and important monograph on
the influence of gravity on certain shells, published by the Boston
Society of Natural History in its “Memoirs” (1880), “Genera of Fossil
Cephalopods” (1883), “The Larval Theory of the Origin of Cellular
Tissue” (1884), giving his theory of the origin of sex, and “The
Genesis of the Arietidæ” (1889). He also edited a series of “Guides for
Science-Teaching,” of several of which he himself was also the author.
Few Americans indeed have done so much to make natural science popular
as did Hyatt. His work in research was immensely fruitful. He has been
called the founder of the new school of invertebrate palæontology,
while in systematic zoölogy he made several discoveries which led to
important revisions in biological classification.
_Alpheus Spring Packard._--The son of a Bowdoin College professor
of the same name, Alpheus S. Packard (1839-1905) naturally entered
Bowdoin and there came under the influence of Dr. Paul Chadbourne,
who encouraged his inclination toward zoölogical study. After
graduating from Bowdoin in 1861 and from the Maine Medical School in
1864, he worked under Agassiz at Harvard, devoting himself largely
to the study of insects. In 1867 he became curator of invertebrates
and in 1876 director, of the Peabody Academy of Science in Salem,
Massachusetts. In 1878 he was appointed professor of zoölogy and
geology in Brown University, retaining this post till his death. He
was one of the founders and for twenty years editor of _The American
Naturalist_. Besides hundreds of papers, he wrote a “Guide to the
Study of Insects” (1869); “The Mammoth Cave and Its Inhabitants,”
jointly with F. W. Putnam (1872); “Life Histories of Animals” (1876),
the first attempt since the Lowell Institute lectures of Agassiz to
attempt a summary of embryological discoveries; “Insects Injurious to
Forest and Shade Trees” (1890), “A Naturalist on the Labrador Coast”
(1891), “A Text-Book of Entomology” (1898), and “Lamarck, the Founder
of Evolution: His Life and Work” (1901). Apropos of the last book it
will be remembered that Packard, Cope, and Hyatt were the founders and
chief exponents of the Neo-Lamarckian school of evolution. Packard was
an indefatigable investigator and his contributions to entomology and
zoölogy immensely advanced those sciences.