Furthermore, Lanier himself had the spirit of research and original work which we have seen was characteristic of Johns Hopkins University. He not only had the desire to investigate, but he also gave form and shape to his investigations. In this he was in striking contrast with many Southern scholars. Joseph Le Conte, in his recent autobiography, tells of a friend of his who had the making of a great scientist. He met him at Flat Rock in 1858, and heard him talk most intelligently on the origin of species. At that early date this South Carolina planter had Darwin's idea. "Why didn't he publish it?" asks Le Conte, the answer to which question leads him to comment on the lack of productive scholars in the South. "Nothing could be more remarkable than the wide reading, the deep reflection, the refined culture, and the originality of thought and observation characteristic of them, and yet the idea of publication never even enters their minds. What right has any one to publish unless it is something of the greatest importance, something that would revolutionize thought?" Now Lanier was filled with the spirit of making contributions, however insignificant, to the development of scholarship in some one direction. He restates, for instance, with remarkable insight and conciseness, the investigations of Fleay, Edward Dowden, and other members of the New Shakespeare Society, as to the metrical development seen in Shakespeare's plays. But he adds to their investigations a suggestion as to the greater freedom with which Shakespeare shifted the accent in his later plays: "Several reasons may be urged for the belief that this might prove one of the most valuable of all metrical tests. In fact, when we consider that the matter of rhythmic accent is one which affects every bar of each line, while the four tests just now applied affect only the LAST bar of each line; and when we consider further that the real result of this freedom in using the rhythmic accent is to vary the monotonous regularity of the regular system with the charm of those subtle rhythms which we employ in familiar discourse, so that the habit of such freedom might grow with the greatest uniformity upon a poet, and might thus present us with a test of such uniform development as to be reliable for nicer discrimination than any of the more regular tests can be pushed to, -- it would seem fair to expect confirmation of great importance from a properly constructed Table of Abnormal Rhythmic Accents in Shakspere."

Lanier not only made these investigations himself, but incited his students to do so, especially those in the smaller classes of the University. A good illustration is in the suggestion he made to a class that they might together work out some interesting etymological and dialectical points. "Why should not some of the intelligent ladies of this class," he asks, "go to work and arrange the facts -- as I have called them -- so that scholars might have before them a comprehensive view of all the word-changes which have occurred since the earliest Anglo-Saxon works were written? The other day a young lady -- one of the very brightest young women I have ever met -- asked me to give her a vocation. She said she had studied a good many things, of one sort or another; that she was merely going over ground which thousands of others had trodden; that she wanted some original work, some method by which she could contribute substantially to the world's stock of knowledge: having this kind of outlet she felt sure she had a genuine desire, a working desire, to go forward. Well, of the numerous plans which I can imagine for women to pursue, I have suggested to you one which would combine pleasure with profitable work in a most charming manner. Suppose that some lady -- or better a club of ladies -- should set out to note down the changes in spelling -- and if possible in pronunciation -- which have occurred in every word now remaining to us from the Anglo-Saxon tongue. The task would not be a difficult one. All that would be required would be to portion out to each member of the club a specific set of books to be read, each set consisting of some books in Anglo-Saxon, some in Middle English, and some in Modern English. Each member would take her books and fall to reading. As she would come to each word she would write it down; and whenever she would happen on the same word in a book of a later century she would write it down under the first one; if she came upon the same word in a book of a still later century she would write it down under the other two, and so on. As each member of the club would rapidly accumulate material, the whole body might meet once a month to collate and arrange the results. In this way a pursuit which would soon become perfectly fascinating would in no long time collect material for a thorough and systematic view of the growth of English words for the last thousand years. The most interesting questions concerning the wonderful and subtle laws of word-change might then be solved."*

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* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. i, p. 134.
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In his zeal for publishing and editing books he conceived of a rather quixotic plan for starting a publishing house. In a letter written June 8, 1879, to his brother, Lanier urges him to come to Baltimore and go into the publishing business with him. They can then both become writers, and thus resume the plan of working together that they had formed just after the war. Lanier himself expects to send forth at least two books a year for the next ten years. "These are to be works, not of one season, but -- if popular at all -- increasing in value with each year. Besides these works on language and literature and the science of verse, -- which I hope will be standard ones, -- my poems are to be printed. . . . If you would only be my publisher! Indeed, if we could be a firm together! I have many times thought that `Lanier Brothers, Publishers', might be a strong house, particularly as to the Southern States." He then outlines his scheme in detail: they would need only an office, a clerk and a porter, as they could have their printing done elsewhere. He closes with a strong appeal to him to leave the South, inasmuch as political conditions at that time seemed to render the future of that section extremely doubtful.