1938

I am in the thick of my work here. It has its ups and downs. I made the awful mistake of deciding valiantly to please Bates, not realizing at the time that this is his last year. I am taking Pindar, Epigraphy, and two hours of research under him. He seems well disposed but is neither inspiring nor understanding. I am doing Minoan-Mycenaean religion with Hyde. Unfortunately he regards himself as a pupil of Doerpfeld's [handwritten: r] with the result that everything Doerpfeld ever said is right. In the very first lecture he told us that the University of Michigan (sic) is digging at Troy, but that it has not been able to disprove Doerpfeld. His lectures are full of inexcusable inaccuracies. But don't tell George this, because he admires him. The more valuable side of my work is a course in Latin phonology and morphology with Kent, who seems to be a good scholar. He wanted me to do some preliminary work in philology prior to detailed work in Greek dialects next year. The other course, and the one which is really outstanding, is the Interconnections of Early Oriental Civilizations, conducted by Speiser, Ranke, Brown, and others. While primarily concerned with the interrelations of Mesopotamia, Iran, and Egypt in the earliest historical times, it is also spreading west, largely, I think, for my sake. Most of the discussion is between members of the faculty rather than the few students, so it is very lively and to the point. It is going to take a great deal of my time, but will be worth it. We are now discussing the origin of writing. Speiser has given his reasons for thinking that it first arose in Mesopotamia, and this coming week Ranke is going to plead the Egyptian cause. The following week a new man in Chinese is going to discuss the earliest chinese and then all will wrangle over the possibility of Sumerian influence upon China. Speiser has asked me to say something about the Cretan hieroglyphics. After that we will attack painted pottery and seals, and I am to hold forth on the earliest Greek phazes of both. At the moment I am hard