change it. We must get another name for ourselves or for the continent. It appears to us that the latter alternative is the preferable one. We think it is quite practicable even now, and if practicable most proper, to give the name of Columbus to the continent, and to retain America for ourselves. The great navigator was robbed of the honor which was his due. Whatever antiquaries may say of the voyages of the Northmen, and of the traditions of their discoveries which lay scattered about Europe, to Columbus belongs the unquestionable merit of having first reasoned himself into the firm belief that an undiscovered continent lay in the west; of having cherished that belief through many years of disappointment and distress; of having persevered in his efforts to fulfil the dream of his life, till he actually set his foot upon a new hemisphere. If the name of any man should have been given to these shores, it was his. He discovered a new world, and it was his right to give it a name. By a singular mischance, which his contemporaries lamented less indeed than their posterity, his own name was lost, and the name of another, a mere adventurer, who followed long after, fell upon the land. Is it now too late to repair the wrong? Is the Christian name of Vespucci so finely imbedded in the soil, that it cannot be torn out, to make room for the worthier name of the great discoverer? It may have been reserved for the inhabitants of the New World to do him the justice which the Old denied. There was a strange apathy in those times respecting the merits and the wrongs of Columbus. Perhaps the rivalry between the different nations prevented that unanimity which might otherwise have existed. And there was wanting a public sentiment, extending and working through out Christendom, such as there is in our days. We are aware of the reluctance with which men make great changes, and the difficulty they find in adapting themselves to them. We have not overlooked the obstacles which must first be overcome; and yet we are satisfied that the change can be made, and that nothing more is necessary for it than the concurrence of our own people. The world is accustomed to great changes in the names of places. There is nothing less permanent than geography. What mutations in the names of places have been constantly going on! Ancient and modern geography seem hardly to describe the same world. Cities, provinces, and kingdoms have changed. The maps of modern Europe have to be renewed every quarter of a century, such are the changes perpetually occurring in that most civilized and stable quarter of the world. Every new general treaty of peace re-arranges the continent. What has happened almost within our own recollection? Poland has been contracted, extended, blotted out, and replaced. The Batavian, Helvetic, and Cisalpine Republics were constructed, and fell in pieces in a few years. The kingdom of Westphalia appeared a short time in the list of continental states, and then vanished. Within the last fifteen years a new kingdom has arisen at the mouths of the Rhine, and taken the old name of Belgium. All the maps of Europe that we studied in our boyhood made the Don its eastern boundary. Under the direction of Russian geography, the limit is now pushed forward to the Volga, and an immense tract separated from Asia. On our side of the ocean, the great island of Hispaniola has changed its name once to St. Domingo, and a second time to Hayti. The peninsula on our eastern border was formerly known as Acadia, till it fell into the dominion of the Stuarts, and got a new name from the country which gave its origin to that house. Within twenty years the continent which bounds the Indian ocean on the east was everywhere known as New Holland; it is now Australia. Many of the objections which may be urged against the change of name of our continent, might have been made against that. It had been known by that name more than two hundred years; geographers had designated it so in every section of Christendom; historians had written of it; large settlements had been formed on its coasts; yet no difficulty was found in making the change. Besides this change, a new nomenclature has been adopted for the islands of the South Seas. Otaheite and Owyhee have disappeared from the maps, and Tahiti and Hawaihi written in their places. These considerations may satisfy us that custom does not interpose an insurmountable obstacle. The change will make no confusion after a few years; no sooner is it resolved upon than it is accomplished. Ce n'est le premier pas qui coute is as true here as it ever was. Many will make mistakes at first perhaps, as they do when they begin a new year, writing the old a few times when they should have written the new, but in a short time the new name becomes the most natural. Other obstacles there are none; the change opposes no interests; it disturbs no balance of power; interferes with no international arrangements; changes the relations of no state; it proposes simply to substitute one word for another; to write CoLUMBIA instead of AMERICA. We should then have North and South Columbia, instead of North and South America. Our own country fortunately stands at the head of the New World; we lead the mind as we control the politics of the hemisphere; what we resolve upon, we have the means of accomplishing In this matter, our influence would be as certain as any thing could be. If Congress were once to authorize the change, it would spread with unexampled rapidity. But whether done by resolution of Congress, or even by the agreement of our learned bodies, our writers, geogra phers, and all our people, would in a few years forget that they had ever known any other designation. One edition of a new geography, with the new names, extensively circulated and used in the schools, would soon accustom our people to the change, and once adopted in this country the new name would become general in the rest of the world. The change in the calendar from the old to the new style was a very formidable undertaking. The calendar was in daily, hourly use; the change was sudden and complete. Every person had at first to make an effort to bear it in mind. There was an instantaneous and total revolution in every calculation of time and in the date of every document and every letter. The old engrafted prejudices respecting the changes of seasons and their times had to be overcome. Everybody, no doubt, began to write the date in the old style, recollected himself, drew the pen through what he had written, and wrote it again in the new. So it would be in this case. At first everybody might begin to write America, then draw the pen through the word, and finish by writing Columbia, and in a little time the hand would cease to write America in the accustomed places, and the change would be perfect. Fortunately the name of Columbia is still unappropriated, for we lay out of view the republic that once arose in the south, and took that name for a few years. That has broken in pieces and disappeared; the name no longer appears in maps or geographies. Nor do wer egard the circumstance, that, in poetry, Columbia has sometimes been used to signify this country. In ordinary language the name is unknown. The way is therefore clear for our restoring to Columbus the lost honors which were the right of the Discoverer. It has been sometimes proposed to call this country after Columbus. And if it were not possible to pay his name the more appropriate tribute of calling the whole continent after it, we should think the suggestion worthy of a great deal of consideration. But it appears to us not more difficult to give his name to the continent than to this particular portion of it. And if the two things are equally easy, certainly the continent should take the name. Compare the difficulties of the two changes. America has now two significations. It signifies a great country, and a great continent. We are obliged to choose between them. It is easiest to discontinue the use of that signification which is least frequent. A continent is less often mentioned than a great country, one of the leading powers of the world. In nine cases out of ten, whenever this country is named, it is named as America. Let any one look into the newspapers, public acts, familiar treatises, not grave histories and precise state papers, and he will soon satisfy himself how much oftener the word America is used in reference to this country, than to the continent of which it is the leading State. As a question, therefore, of comparative facility, we should be led to choose the discontinuance of the present name of the continent. Nor must we forget, even in this view of practicability, the influence of the important consideration, that by changing the name of the continent we shall be doing a long deferred act of justice to Columbus. We shall do more readily what we know to be just. It is fit that the name of Columbus should be engraven upon the shores of both the continents. We would call the whole hemisphere Columbia, that the voyager from the old world, whenever, on his voyage hither, he descries the land, may be reminded of him to whom it owes its discovery. We would call it Columbia, that the name of the great discoverer may be on men's lips, whenever they speak of the new world, that he laid open to the old. We would call it Columbia, as an everlasting testimonial to heroic virtue, as a memento to the child, to the scholar, to every man, of the reward which the world finally bestows on greatness. The balance of difficulties, then, is in favor of doing now that justice to Columbus, which his contemporaries denied, and which Europe has been too tardy in making good. If the difficulties even were only equal, the opportunity of doing this justice should determine our choice. But, fortunately, they are not so. We are in the infancy of our existence as a nation. We have already placed ourselves in power by the side of the oldest and strongest nations. But we have a literature to create, tastes to form. In this grow ing state we receive impressions rea dily. This is the time, if ever, to accomplish so great, so noble a purpose. The occasion is urgent. We cannot remain as we are; we must choose; we must take a new name for the United States, or a new name for the continents of North and South America. Which is easier? Which is better? We have tried to answer. The work is already half done. It requires but little effort to perfect it. In connection with this subject, we have something to say of proper names generally in this country. If one were to judge us by the names he sees upon our maps, he would be apt to think that the Americans had no originality, and no taste. Instead of the old Indian names, which had a signification relat VOL. XI-NO. LIII. 61 ing to the places,-instead of new names, appropriate to the places they are given to, we have the names of the towns of the old world, thrown at random, without the least regard to their real signification, or their appropriateness to the new places,-and what is worse, the names of classical heroes sprinkled, as if by chance, upon the maps. The process of settlement is going on so fast in this country that it is very natural the settlers should be sometimes puzzled to get names for their new townships; and when the matter happens to fall into the hands of incompetent persons, it need not surprise us that they should make mistakes of taste. But there is something so barbarous and ridiculous in giving the name of some old capital or hero to a certain number of square miles in the wilderness, that no person, however ignorant, is excusable for it. Somebody has said that the military tract, in New York, must have been named by a drunken pedagogue. Certainly no person of taste could have had anything to do with it. Those names mar one of the richest portions of the State. Beautiful scenery gladdens the valleys, and is reflected from the lakes of the district. But the name frightens away, by its striking unfitness, all poetical ideas. Who can have agreeable associations with townships that have stolen such names as Pompey, Lysander, Manlius, and Cicero? Not so ridiculous and uncouth, but still most inappropriate are the names of places in the old world. In the place of their origin they have meaning. Take, for instance, Falmouth-that is, the mouth of the river Fal. A town is settled in America, not at the mouth of a river Fal, nor of any river, but in the interior, perhaps, beyond the mountains, and it is called Falmouth. Here the name has no signification. It betrays poverty of invention and want of taste, and it leads to confusion. If the new Falmouth should by any chance become a place of consequence, the two towns might often be confounded. Boston in America is a place of greater importance, and, therefore, more known in the world than Boston in England. What a pity that our beautiful Massachusetts capital had not retained its original name of Tremont, or taken some other appropriate name. What makes the matter still worse is the prefix New, before so many of the old names. This always makes a name harsh, which before might have been only inappropriate. New York what a name for the mart of the New World, the Queen of American cities, the maritime capital of both the continents! Compare it with the name of the Indian,―barbarian, as we call him,Manhattan, or Manahatta. Is there a resident of this city who would not wish to restore this euphonious name of the original inhabitants! There is not a country on the face of the earth disfigured by so many harsh and inappropriate names as this. England, France, Holland, have names peculiar to their own soil, engrafted on their language, and bearing analogous terminations. In Italy and Spain the names, call up associations of immortal renown or old romance. Germany and Switzerland have names which seem to have been made for their green valleys and their wild mountain passes. Denmark and Sweden owe theirs-soft and musical they areto the Goths and Vandals. And Russia, Poland, Bohemia, harsh as many of their names appear to us, have at least such as are significant to the Selavonic races. But here, what an admixture of English, French, Italian, Sclavonic, and Gothic-a piebald map -a confused jumble of old and new, Saxon and Frank, Arab and Mongol; as if there were nothing native, nothing that became the soil, nothing that distinguished the mass of human beings who are spreading themselves, with the rapidity of the prairie fires, from sea to sea. The vast, tempestuous lakes, the almost interminable rivers, the wild mountain scenery, the dim, lonely forests, the beautiful, most beautiful alternation of hill and valley, the pure, elastic atmosphere, fit this land of ours for the home of poetry and romance, not less than of wealth and power,- -a dream-land, and a land of song. But what can we do with the strange name, with which carelessness or a depraved taste is marring this beauty, and poisoning the fountains of romance and song? What can we make of the Syracuses, the Pompeys, the Memphises, New Hampshire, New York, New Orleans? We can do nothing with them, but thrust them forthwith out of the country. We can do it, and we must do it. In this our season of rejoicing youth, of unhesitating spirit, accustomed effort and to change, we can do it, with a single effort. to It will be our own fault if our associations with any part of this most beautiful of lands should be made disagreeable from any such cause. We have committed two faults which it is not too late to repair. We have too often dropped the Indian names, and we have substituted for them the names of places in the old countries. We must repair the evil by undoing what we have done. We must restore the Indian names whenever we can. They must not be lost. They are both euphonious and appropriate. It would be a most beautiful memento of the Indian races, who are soon about to perish from our sight, if their names were left on our hills and rivers, "Their baptism on our shore." Who can think of these red men of the forest, melting away like dew before the heat of advancing civilisation, without wishing that their musical languages had left more traces upon the land over which they roamed? It will not be difficult to find the Indian name for almost every town. But as the Aborigines lived in small communities, and gave no names to large territorial divisions, we shall have to take the names of some of the most prominent natural objects, such as mountains, rivers, or lakes. We would change the name of the city of New Vork to MANHATTAN, and of the State to ONTARIO. We would banish every classical name from the military district, and search out the names of the Oneidas, one of the most poetical and eloquent of the Indian tribes. When no Indian name can be found, belonging to the place, or to some natural object in the neighborhood, we would invent one rather than borrow from Europe. Compound words might be found significant of places. If we found any difficulty in inventing a name appropriate to the place, we would take some other Indian word, or invent a word without meaning. This, if it should become necessary, might easily be done. Lists of Indian names might be made out from old maps, from the early colonial annals, the histories of the southern and western tribes, and from the treaties which are yearly made with the Indians. If nothing else would do, unmeaning compounds might be formed a thousand times better than any imported name. From a few euphonous syllables an endless combination of words might be made, as any one will see who will take the trouble to try. Take any known names, and vary their terminations; or any three or four syllables and combine them indefinitely. For example, from Oneida might be formed Oneidan, Oneidana, Oneidanland; and the three syllables, War, Ran, Ca, would make in combination, Warranca, Warcaran, Ranwarca, Rancawar, Cawarran; or Lin, Ga, Den, would make Lingaden, Lindenga, Galinden, Gadenlin, Denlinga, Dengalin. It might never be necessary to make any such words. In most cases a name could be obtained from the Indian languages, or some natural object would suggest one; but if neither, then it would be better to make one, without a signification, than one whose signification would mislead, and suggest comparisons with very different places, or affront good taste. Better to coin any words for the occasion than to plant such words as Cairo, Memphis, Sempronius, or any of the like, in the American forests. American literature is at some future and not very distant day, we trust, to break forth, like the earth in spring, teeming with life, with fragrance, and beauty. Let us hope that sweet words may be scattered on all her hills and villages; that as our associatious with Italy are more interesting and poetical, because of the beautiful names with which that fair land is studded, so our own America may bind our hearts to her, not only by the love of home and the love of country, but the associa tion of pleasant names with pleasant scenes. BROOK FARM. BY 0. A. BROWNSON. THE subjoined Letter from a highly esteemed friend and distinguished lite rary lady, giving some notice of Brook Farm, or the Community at West Roxbury, Mass., was addressed to me while Editor of the Boston Quarterly Review, and would have appeared in the last number of that journal, but for the want of room. This will explain its personal address and allusions. It is laid before the readers of the Democratic Review, because its details can hardly fail to interest them, and be cause it gives me an opportunity to offer some additional remarks on the importance of establishments like that of Brook Farm, in working out the moral, intellectual, and physical amelioration of mankind, especially of the poorest and most numerous class. That there is something defective in our social organisms, that mankind are susceptible of a far higher degree of moral and physical well-being, than they have ever yet attained to, has be come a very general conviction, and is every day becoming wider and deeper. The spread of Christian principles, the great doctrines of the unity of the race, human brotherhood, and democratic equality, has enlarged men's hopes, and made quite apparent the glaring disproportion there is everywhere be tween the actual and the possible condition of mankind. Everywhere do men feel that they have not reached that social state, which they are bound in religion and in morals to labor to realize. Everywhere is the question raised, How shall the actual condition of mankind be made to correspond to the Christian Ideal? How shall be introduced that equality of moral and physical well-being which is the expression of the equality of all men before God and the State? This has become, in fact, the one great, all-absorbing question of the |