The daily gazette., 1878-12-31
LAFAYETTE COLLEGE.
From the Phila. Press.

A wise and pleasant plan was inaugur.
ated at the recent dinne of Lafayette
College Alumni in this city. The pro-
position was made, aud was received
with the heartiest enthusiasm, that the
well known chair of English and Com
parative Philology at Lafayettee 80 long
occupied by Prof. +. A. March, should be
permanently endowed by his own "boys''
and forever called by the name of Its
eminent occupant. Those who have sat
in Professor March's class-rooms feel
both a sincere esteem for the instructor
himself and deep and lasting apprecia-
ton OF the value of his training; and by
the endowment of fthisprofessorship they
Will be able to give adequate expression
to both these sentiments.
This effort for the permanent establish
ment OF the English chair at Lafayette
which can hardly fail of speedy success
possesses more than moderate interestfor
Others than the graduates of the particu
lar college in question 1t is not too much
tosay that the cause of sound learning in
tue u nlted States is under great and ne
culiar obligations to Professor March.
In the new interest IN the minute histOri-
cal and comparative study of language,
onr own tongue was too long forbidden
"A share; and that English may to-day be
studied with the thoroughness bestowed
hpoi olhpi WIN IL SlIul-
larly complete ibrary of aids to the learn
or, Is due to the labor of Francis A. March
more than to those OF any other scholar
in an EngliSh-speaking country. Years
before either OF The great English univer-
sites afforded opportunities for the
profitable study of Anglo-Saxon, Profess
sor March, was Offering 10 the students
of Lafayette opportunities for pursuing
that branch to the fullest extent practi-
cable in an undergraduate course.
Indeed, iU is not two years since one of
the few competent scholars of early
Engllsh. in England, sadly acknowledge
ed, in leading critical journal, that for
suitable facilities in Anglo Saxon, the
student must go to Germany Or the
United States. So late as 1876, that
writer was chosen to a newly established
chair of Anglo Sax on in the University
of Cam bridge, and not until the same
year-seven years after the appearance
of Professor March's great "Compara-
tive Grammar of Anglo Saxon"-did an
English publisher put forth a textbook
in that division of the English language
in any respect abb east of modern scholar
ship.
Professor March's labors are KIN own
and honored in London, in Oxford, in
Berlin, in Leipzig, as fully as in our own
country. Starting almost single-handed
at a time when even professors In some |
of our chief collegas taught their students
that Chaucer was the first English writ !
er, and that Anglo Saxon was one OF the
foreign languages out of which English I
grew, Professor March has lived to see
the historical study of English put upon
a stable foHndati on. '
His own pupils now instruct in other
colleges, and his influence is not only
felt In the higher walks of pathological
study, but also in the common schools
themselves. The time is not far when
"grammarians" will no longer
feel at liberty 10 equip our language, in
every new textbook, with an entirely
new set of rules ami para 1irms, con-
,tructed from their own Fo..oure, with
out the 81, lest reference to its histor-
cal with.
1t is most fitting, therefore, that the
chair OF a scholar who is as modest as he
Is eminent, should be permanently en-
lowed by those who are most directly
indebted to his labors and that It's name
n the history of American education,
,hould bear witness In after years to his
and his success.