Page:The Whitney Memorial Meeting.djvu/112

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98
LETTERS FROM FOREIGN SCHOLARS.

nicht zu viel gesagt wenn wir ihn in gewissem Sinn als einen der Unsern ansehen. Auf dem Gebiet der Philologie verkörperte sich in ihm der Bund zwischen den alten Traditionen deutscher Forschung und der hoffnungsvoll zu hohem Gedeihen heranwachsenden Wissenschaftspflege der neuen Welt. Mögen wir diesseits und jenseits vom Ocean das Gedächtniss Whitney's ehren, indem wir diesen Bund mit unsern besten Kräften pflegen!

Ich habe die Ehre zu sein, hoehgeehrter Herr,
Ihr sehr ergebener
H. Oldenberg.

19. From Richard Pischel, Professor of Indic Philology, University of Halle, Germany.
Halle (Saale), December 3, 1894.

Dear Sir,—To write a letter in memory of Professor Whitney means to write a history of Sanskrit studies in America. You know as well as I what Professor Whitney has done for the study of Sanskrit in America, and that all the Sanskritists of your country either directly or indirectly are pupils of Professor Whitney.

Whitney has devoted his labors to the most difficult branches of Indian philology, Veda, Astronomy, Grammar, and it is universally acknowledged that he ranked with the best scholars in these departments. The value of his edition of the Atharvaveda he has greatly enhanced by his Index Verborum, a masterpiece of completeness and exactness. His editions and translations of the Prātiçākhyas, made in a time when it was much more difficult to hit the correct meaning of these rather obscure works than it is now, will always be standard works. The translation of the Sūryasiddhānta, which is his work though published by another, and many articles on Indian astronomy, show his accurate knowledge of this branch of Indian literature, foreign to most Sanskritists. His Sanskrit Grammar is the first attempt at systematically arranging and