European politics, Greece, Turkey, and Russia, the
state of Ireland, radicalism in England, the unhappy variance between
the king and queen, Charles Fox, &c., were successively the subjects of
remark. We adjourned to Mr. Johnston's.
In the evening I went into my office and wrote to Mr. Calhoun, the
Secretary of War, recommending Captain H.'s son William, for the
appointment of a cadet in the Military Academy.[28]
[Footnote 28: The appointment was made.]
_31st_. Devoted the day to the Indian language. It scarcely seems
possible that any two languages should be more _unlike_, or have fewer
points of resemblance, than the English and Ojibwa. If an individual
from one of the nomadic tribes of farther Asia were suddenly set down in
London, he could hardly be more struck with the difference in buildings,
dress, manners, and customs, than with the utter discrepance in the
sounds of words, and the grammatical structure of sentences. The Ojibwa
has this advantage, considered as the material of future improvement; it
is entirely homogeneous, and admits of philosophical principles being
carried out, with very few, if any, of those exceptions which so
disfigure English grammar, and present such appalling obstacles to
foreigners in learning the language.
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