pottery and tissue and bone, in laboriously collating isolated words,
and in measuring ancient constructions. This is well, for all these
things teach us what manner of men made up the indigenous race, what
were their powers, their aspirations, their mental grasp. But closer to
very self, to thought and being, are the connected expressions of men in
their own tongues. The monuments of a nation's literature are more
correct mirrors of its mind than any merely material objects. I have at
least shown that there are some such, which have been the work of native
American authors. My object is to engage in their preservation and
publication the interest of scholarly men, of learned societies, of
enlightened governments, of liberal institutions and individuals, not
only in my own country, but throughout the world. Science is
cosmopolitan, and the study of man is confined by no geographical
boundaries. The languages of America and the literary productions in
those languages have every whit as high a claim on the attention of
European scholars as have the venerable documents of Chinese lore, the
mysterious cylinders of Assyria, or the painted and figured papyri of
the Nilotic tombs.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: What Dr. Washington Matthews says of one of the Sioux
tribes is, in substance, true of all on the Continent:--

"Long winter evenings are often passed in reciting and listening to
stories of various kinds. Some of these are simply the accounts given by
the men, of their own deeds of valor, their hunts and journeys; some are
narrations of the wonderful adventures of departed heroes; while many