divergence in the lesser known Russian names, not far removed from that
we daily meet in the nomenclature of the gods of Hindoo mythology.

The like plea of necessity cannot be urged in regard to the Teutonic or
Scandinavian languages. Within the last quarter of a century, the chief
scientific works issued in Northern Germany, and many even in Southern,
have been printed in the Roman character. Were there no other argument
in favor of its universal adoption, it has been found less trying to the
eyes. It can be read by all nations; and the other is at best but an
additional difficulty for the learner, even in the case of native
children, who are plagued with two alphabets and two diametrically
opposite systems of penmanship in their earliest years. The result is
evident: a good hand is a rare thing In Germany. It is a good sign, that
of late years public acts and records, works of learning, all the higher
literature, in fact, not purely national, as poetry and romance, are all
printed in the Roman character. Nor will any look upon this as a servile
imitation. Some of the most national of German writers and scholars, as
the brothers Grimm, have pronounced themselves loudly in favor of the
change. The tendency of the age is towards universality. It will occur
to none to talk of French imitation because chemists make use of the
excellent and universally applicable system of the decimal French
weights and measures.

What has been said above is not altogether irrelevant as characterizing
the tendency of the higher institutions of learning. Every movement in
Germany, even the least, since the Reformation, whose chief
propagators were professors in the universities,--Luther, Reuchlin,
Melancthon,--every permanent and pervading conquest of the new and good
over the old and worn-out, has issued from the lecture-room. Whatever
sticklers for old forms and crab-like progress may be found, there is