the poet, the philosopher or the artist, whose genius is the glory of his age, should be the direct lineal descendant of some naked and bestial savage, whose intelligence was just sufficient to make him a little more cunning than the fox and by so much more dangerous than the tiger. But there is this tremendous difference, after all-that the fox and the tiger are born what they must remain, while the naked and bestial savage is still a man, with all the faculties of a man, including unlimited improvability. And of all the discoveries by which man has glorified his God and raised his own state, none has helped him onward like the Art of Writing. Century after century, through untold ages, men continued to vegetate; and so on from generation to generation to perpetuate their race, and re-appear to run the same aimless, monotonous round of existence; their laws, the unrecorded decisions of their elders and chiefs; their history, a vague floating tradition; their language, a shifting jargon.* Much, indeed, was doubtless accomplished with the aid of the divine gift of language alone, as elaborated and moulded to express the great thoughts of quick and pregnant minds and by superior races of men. But without some mode of fixation, how imperfect and slow must have been all intellectual progress! The fame, even the very names of the hero and the sage passed away with the generation that * Gabriel Sagard, who was sent as a Missionary to the Hurons in 1626, and published his Grand Voyage du pays des Hurons at Paris, 1631, states that among these North American tribes hardly one village speaks the same language as another; nay that two families of the same village do not speak exactly the same language. And he adds that their language is changing every day, and is already so much altered that the ancient Huron tongue is almost entirely different from the present. Some French Missionaries in Central America attempted to write down the language of savage tribes, and compiled with great care a dictionary of all the words they could lay hold of. Returning to the same tribe, after the lapse of only ten years, they found that this dictionary had become antiquated and useless; old words had disappeared and new ones had come up and, to all outward appearance, the language was completely altered. The Rev. Robert Moffat (Missionary Scenes and Labours in Southern Africa) bears striking testimony to the same effect. had known them; and the eloquence of the orator died with the occasion that had given it birth. To put the matter in the simplest words :-the distance at which the ears could hear was the exact measure of the bounds of human intercourse. But, with the invention of the glorious art of writing, those favoured nations who possessed it at once took the lead. The attainments of one age could henceforth be fixed to become the starting point of the next, and the knowledge acquired by one might become the common heritage of all. Then did mankind take a new start in the onward race. Language was thenceforth a distinct and settled reality. Its fleeting forms were fixed; grammatical rules were established; and it became something more than an unstable heap of sounds continually changing. With it also comes a literature -a historical past-all those glorious associations which exalt a nation. Yet how shall we, spoilt children of civilization The heirs of all the ages, in the foremost files of timeduly learn to appreciate this greatest of gifts that the past has bequeathed to us. That excellent missionary, the Rev. John Williams, tells a striking story which may help us. He says:-"In the Rarotonga] a circum 66 66 66 66 erection of the mission chapel [at stance occurred which will give a striking idea of the feelings of an untaught people when observing for the first time the effects of written communications. As I "had come to the work one morning without my square, "I took up a chip and, with a piece of charcoal, wrote upon it a request that Mrs. Williams would send me that article. "I called a chief and said to him—' Friend, take this; go to our house and give it to Mrs. Williams.' He was a sin"gular looking man, remarkably quick in his movements, "and had been a great warrior, but in one of the numerous 66 66 6 "battles he had fought had lost an eye. 666 Giving me an inexpressible look with the other, he said-Take that! she will "call me a fool and scold me if I carry a chip to her.' “No,' I replied, 'she will not; go immediately, I am in "'haste.' Perceiving me to be in earnest, he took it and "asked- What must I say ?' I replied-'You have nothing to say; the chip will say all I wish.' With a "look of astonishment and contempt, he held up the piece "of wood and said-' How can this speak? Has this a "mouth?' I desired him to take it immediately and not "spend so much time in talking about it. On arriving at the house he gave the chip to Mrs. Williams, who read "it, threw it away and went to the tool-chest, whither the chief, resolving to see the result of this mysterious proceed"ing, followed her closely. On receiving the square from her, he said—' Stay, daughter, how do you know that this is "what Mr. Williams wants?' 'Why,' she replied, ' did you "not bring me a chip just now?' 'Yes,' said the astonished "warrior; but I did not hear it say anything.' "'not I did,' was the reply, for it made known to 66 66 66 6 66 6 66 If you did me what he 'wanted; and all you have to do is to return with it as 'quickly as possible.' With this the chief leaped out of the "house and, catching up the mysterious piece of wood, he ran through the settlement, the chip in one hand and the square in the other, holding them up as high as his arms "would reach, and shouting as he went, See the wisdom of “these English people! they can make chips talk, they can "make chips talk!' On giving me the square, he wished to know how it was possible thus to converse with persons at a distance. I gave him all the explanation in my power; "but it was a circumstance involved in so much mystery that "he actually tied a string to the chip, hung it round his neck, "and wore it for some time. During several following days. we frequently saw him surrounded by a crowd, who were listening with intense interest while he narrated the wonders "which this chip had performed." As some mighty river is fed by tributaries from many lands, so this wondrous art has originated in small beginnings and in many regions. It supplies a universal want, and must have been the product of innumerable anxious endeavours. The book of Genesis long existed only in patriarchal memories. The poems of Homer were for ages unwritten, and were recited by rhapsodists at the great festivals of Greece. The Sanscrit Vedas must have been transmitted for ages by oral tradition only. Even to this day the chief education of the Brahmin consists in learning by heart from the lips of an old Brahmin all those sacred books which pertain to his class. To relieve the over-burdened memory many little devices would arise. Such we see in the rosary or chaplet, a convenient mode of counting prayers, which has been in use for more than 2,000 years amongst the Buddhists of Central India. The abacus and the tally are not yet out of use. The curious wooden almanacks called prim-staves, or mass-day staves, the use of which had doubtless descended from Pagan times, may here be referred to. An interesting paper on one in this Society's Museum will be found in our fifteenth volume. They were long staves of hard wood, which served also as measures of an ell, on the edges of which were notches, one for each day in the year; and on the sides were rude carvings, having reference to the weather, the operations of husbandry and the saints' days. The Jews were accustomed to wear a piece of cloth, worked with various fringes, threads and knots, which served to keep perpetually before their minds the 613 precepts of the law. The ancient Peruvian quipus was a far more complex affair. Quipu signified a knot; and the quipus in use for recording facts, or committing ideas to safe keeping for transmission to future generations, consisted of a cord of different-coloured strings, to which a number of other cords were attached, distinguished by their colours. With these specific ideas were associated. Yellow denoted gold and all the allied ideas; white, silver or peace; red, war or soldiers; green, maize or agriculture &c.; and each quipus was in the care of its own Quipu-camayoc or keeper of the quipus, by whom its records were interpreted. Upon the cords various kinds of knots were tied which expressed figures; and by such means registers were kept of the census and military rolls, accounts of the revenues and other important statistical information. Even the public annals and genealogies were thus preserved by this curious system of artificial memory. The wampum belt, which has been in use even to our own times among some of the North American Indians, consists of strings of beads of various colours, so arranged as to suggest by association to the interpreter the exact law or transaction of which it was made the sole evidence. There was accordingly a Sachem specially appointed "Keeper "of the Wampum," and verbal promises interchanged either with themselves or with foreign tribes were regarded as of little moment if no strings of beads or belts were employed to ratify them and secure their remembrance. The wampum belt delivered to the great William Penn after his treaty with the Indians in 1682, recording their cession to him of a large tract of land, is still preserved. Catlin (Travels and Adventures among the North American Indians, vol. ii), tells of an ingenious priest and chief among the Kickapoo tribe who, having been solicited by a Methodist preacher for permission 'to preach in his village, refused the privilege; but kept him at his own hut secretly, until he had learned from him his "creed, and system of teaching it to. others. He then discharged him, and commenced preaching amongst his "people himself, pretending to have had an interview with some superhuman mission or inspired personage, ingeniously 66 66 66 66 |