PROFESSOR WHITNEY'S GREAT WORK.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue 54, 4 March 1903, Page 4

PROFESSOR WHITNEY'S GREAT WORK.

The Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia Bnd Atlas is useful to everybody because it is a concentrated library. No one is • too busy to acquire information when it is to be had -with so little loss of time. : The technical definitions in "The Cantoy" are, of course, less useful to the - specialist in that line, than to tin general Under, for the man who has devoted him self to any one line of study is already • familiar with his own range of words and >" facta. But when he returns to any other group of subjects, his attitude becomes • .that of the general reader. And if he < 'sees that his own field of knowledge is i satisfactorily treated, he may safely asi same that he has tested the general t character of the work. From this point h of view the body of expert opinion fur- - Irishes convincing proof of the value of [■: this ttreat work of reference, which ''The i' Times" is now offering in NewZeHbnd. Cleav neR3 is the first essential in all r,methods of exposition, and it c»n bo p.t - J- tained oniy by men who are thorough - boasters of the subjects they discuss. ;There were no hack writers among the v Staff of 500 men who made "The Century" nditnrri and contributors alike were men r of the highest distinction in their various fields of activity. < The philological pre-eminence of the work is easily accounted for when one re*- ; members that it was edited by Professor -William Dwight Whitney, the famous " word-historian, who was selected by the 1 editors of the "Encyclopedia Brltannica" Yto write the article " Philology " for that work.