The foundation of a professorial chair in the University of Oxford marks an important epoch in the history of every new science. There are other universities far more ready to confer this academical recognition on new branches of scientific research, and it would be easy to mention several subjects, and no doubt important subjects, which have long had their accredited representatives in the universities of France and Germany, but which at Oxford have not yet received this well-merited recognition. If we take into account the study of ancient languages only, we see that as soon as Champollion’s discoveries had given to the study of hieroglyphics and Egyptian antiquities a truly scientific character, the French government thought it its duty to found a chair for this promising branch of Oriental scholarship.
