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Among the names distinguished in science are those of Malte Brun in geography; Rask, Grundtvig, Molbech, Warsaae, Rafn, Finn Magnusen and others in philology and literary antiquities. Of the two brothers Oersted, one, a lawyer and statesman, has done much to establish the principles of state economy, while the discoveries of the other entitle him to the highest rank in physical science.

These were the problems to be solved! It appeared probable that the inscriptions brought from Persepolis were written in the language of the ancient Persians, but Rask, Bopp, and Lassen had not yet studied the Iranian idioms and proved their affinity with Sanskrit.

Though Denmark is a small kingdom containing scarcely three million people, yet it has produced many eminent men of science, art, and literature. The names of Hans Christian Andersen, Rasmus Rask, the philologist, Oersted, the discoverer of electro-magnetism, Forchhammer, the chemist, and Eschricht, the physiologist, occur to us in this connection.

One of the founders of the school, a well-known New England manufacturer, came on his yearly pilgrimage ... a fanatic disciple of the great Moreton, he considered it his duty to see to the immediate conversion, by every form of persuasion and subtle compulsion, of every newly arrived student. Rask was a tall, lean, ashen-faced man. He had yellow, prominent teeth and an irregular, ascetic face.

I am forced to send Rask to the office, as I am obliged to remain on the vessel until it is unloaded.

And row by row, Rask still standing and exhorting, each student was solicited by the seniors, who went about from bench to bench, kneeling by sinners who proved more refractory ... the professors joined in the task, led by the principal himself. Finally they eliminated the sheep from the goats by asking all who accepted the salvation of Christ to rise.

Grimm, and Rask the first great Zend scholar were among these early explorers, who have been followed by so many scholars, until some knowledge not merely of Greek and Latin, but of the relations of all languages, has become essential to a truly good education. Yet after all, Sanscrit, it was soon seen, was not the parent, but 'the elder sister' of the Indo-Germanic languages.

Then there were prayers and hymns and more prayers, and a lengthy exhortation from Rask, who avowed that if it wasn't for God in his heart he couldn't run his business the way he did; that God was with him every hour of his life, and oh, wouldn't every boy there before him take the decisive step and come to Christ, and find the joy and peace that passeth understanding ... he would not stop exhorting, he asserted, till every boy in the room had come to Jesus....

The theologians appealed to the "Avesta," in their polemics, and Rhode sketched the religious history of Persia after the translations of Anquetil. Erskine's essay provoked a decisive answer from Emmanuel Rask, one of the most gifted minds in the new school of philology, who had the honor of being a precursor of both Grimm and Burnouf.

In the most prominent chair, with its plush seat and its old-fashioned peaked back, sat the evangelist-manufacturer, Rask, the shine of hungry fanaticism in his face like a beacon, his legs crossed, a dazzling shine on his shoes, his hands clutching a hymn book like a warrior's weapon.