in Italian and Greek, and far more in Dutch, but there are mines of knowledge only to be reached by acquiring Russian and Hungarian. I am told that the geological and zoological observations over the huge area of Asiatic Russia are now published in Russian transactions; I know that the most interesting reports on Hungarian social and political questions are now in Hungarian yellow books. Some years ago all these things were printed in French or German. Now we must spend half our youth in acquiring a series of foreign tongues, and the remainder in lamenting that what we have acquired is insufficient.

Is there to be no limit to this absurdity? It is only recently that I was sent a pronouncement regarding the Irish (Celtic) language, signed, I grieve to say, by a Protestant bishop and canon, among other names which represent either hostility to England or mere gratuitous folly, recommending that an agitation should be commenced to prevent the appointment of any officials in the south and west counties who could not speak Irish, and suggesting other means of galvanizing into life a most difficult and useless tongue-not only useless, but a mischievous obstacle to civilization.

We can see in the single example of Wales how a country adjoining the most civilized population in Europe, and under its laws, can be kept barbarous by upholding its own obsolete language. The sentimentality of confining Welsh appointments to those who speak Welsh is lowering the standard of Welsh officials to a most melancholy extent. The further the Welsh-speaking remnant falls behind in the march of civilization, the worse the evil will become. One shudders to think of such principles applied in Ireland. But the sense of humor in our people is our great safeguard. The only advice I can offer to the signatories of the mon

1 There is no country in which sham excuses, political and religious, for appointing incompetent men to responsible posts flourish more signally than in Ireland. Are we now to add a new sham, the linguistic excuse?

strous document I lately received is to urge them to agitate for the resuscitation of Cornish and of Manx. They might also turn their attention to the dying languages of the Maories and the natives of Australia.

The general result is that not only is no advance being made towards a better mutual understanding among civilized nations, but that every miserable remnant of barbarism, every vanquished and half-extinct language which has lost its literary worth, and has become a hindrance to the commercial and political progress of the world, is now coddled and pampered as if it were the most precious product of the human mind.

But let me not be misunderstood. I am very far from imagining that it would be either possible or useful to supplant the language of any nation by an artificial or foreign growth. The extraordinary diversity of tongues in the world-Terrien de la Couperie had counted at least eight hundred-not only points to the great fact that the invention of language is natural to man in every clime and circumstance; it marks and perpetuates psychological differences of great moment in national character; it has supplied us with all the splendor and the variety of many great masterpieces, none of which is capable of showing its perfection in any other dress than its own. But I am now considering language merely as a means of easy and wide communication among them. It is indeed no damage to France that Breton, Walloon, Provençal, Basque are spoken in its provinces, but only so long as French is the imperial language of the courts, of Parliament, of science. The languages of special corners of the world are like their national costumes, interesting and picturesque; but to wear national costume out in the great world is only found practical with one professionthat of wet-nurse. Elsewhere we must seek it either in the artist's studio or at the fancy ball. Provided, then, there be an imperial language in use, not only

• Probably because it suggests rural innocence and health.

jargons or dialectical varieties, but even distinct languages, are to be regarded with indulgence and consideration. The test point is this: which is made compulsory, the imperial or the local tongue? If the former, we are advancing, if the latter, we are receding, in civilization. To give examples. Since Hungary was so ill advised as to discard German as its State language, and has introduced its Tartar language into the schools and public offices as the national and necessary language, it is losing touch with the rest of Europe, and drifting away into the herd of semiOriental nationalities which are seeking to establish doubtful claims to be included in the peerage of European culture. So long as Wales, or the sentimental English government of Wales, will appoint no bishop or curate that cannot preach in Welsh, it is certain that the majority even of really civilized Welshmen will be excluded from serving their country in this department, and so Wales will in future contribute even less than she has done to British greatness. If, on the other hand, Berkeley and Swift, Goldsmith and Sheridan, Grattan and Burke had been compelled to speak and write in Irish, for the sake of official promotion, or to soothe national sensibilities, not only would the English-speaking world, but Ireland herself, have suffered immeasurable damage. So far as purely national sentiment requires it, let us have poetry and prose in every tongue; let the Scotch heart beat faster to the Jargon of Burns, or the Dorsetshire to that of Barnes; let us have the flavor of each nationality, and the perfume of its finest bloom, expressed in myriad tongues; but when we come to international questions, imperial policy, discoveries in science, history, economic and social problems, we should surely insist upon some limitation in the

1 I see it reported by the special correspondent of the Morning Post at the Millenary celebration in Hungary (7th of May, 1896) that German is rapidly losing ground there, and that the Hungarians are quite proud at their success in recovering the preponderance of the Magyar language. Nothing

proves more clearly the fact that they have not yet appreciated European culture.

vehicle employed. As a matter of fact, we do censure the modern vagaries on this subject. We neglect even valuable dissertations written in out-of-the-way tongues. The author loses most of the recognition which he would receive if he addressed the civilized world; he too often consoles himself, however, with that most silly and yet engrossing of modern illusions, a patriotic pride in his own jargon as the finest language of the world.

Having now stated the mischief, I should proceed to consider the means, actual or possible, by which we might remedy, partially at least, this great obstacle to our progress in civilization. But hitherto I have only considered the trouble entailed on those who really master several languages; I ought to say a word before passing on concerning the stone of Tantalus which occupies the time and labor of the average school boy or girl. The tyrannical shams of modern life have imposed it on all systems of secondary or higher education, that they shall at least pretend to teach modern languages. Some of these languages, especially French, are made compulsory in almost all competitive examinations. Every officer in the British army, for example, is now supposed to have qualified in French. How many of them have any working knowledge of that language? Shall I say not one in every five hundred? At all events in Egypt a few years ago, when there was a considerable British army there, and many British officers in the Egyptian service, it was a matter of common knowledge that the only officer who could speak French with any correctness to the distinguished visitors who used that tongue was the general commanding, a man brought up in days long anterior to the competitive system. At the same time there was but one officer who had any command of German, and he had been a German dragoon officer for ten years. At that time, at all events, it was manifest that the whole of the hours spent in the attempt to learn French by many hundreds of young men had been absolutely wasted. Many of them told me that

they had forgotten every word of the smattering acquired for their examination. And this is so all over the country. In the Irish intermediate examinations, many hundreds of school boys and girls compete in French. I have good reason to know that it is most difficult to find one of them who could translate at sight any average French prose, or even read it out, so that any Frenchman could by any chance understand it. To understand spoken French or to reply to a question in that language, is not even part of the training, as they are examined on paper only, and do not learn even the rudiments of French pronunciation! Risum teneatis amici! Was there ever so complete an instance of teaching a dead language? But indeed it is no laughing matter, seeing that millions of hours of labor are absolutely wasted by the absurdities of modern education. Those who succeed in mastering a language have at least laid up one valuable deposit, upon which they can draw hereafter, though under a more perfect civilization this labor need not have been required of them; those who attempt and fail, or who merely strive to qualify in a book examination with the intention of throwing the subject aside forthwith, are a far larger class, and the amount of force wasted in this manner is one of the most disgraceful extravagances of our modern life.1

Let me not be told that all this applies equally to the study of the dead classical languages. The Latin learned by a

1 Here is an instructive anecdote in point. It happened that an examiner, when controlling an examination in French, set one of Daudet's books of short essays as a specimen of the modern language. When candidates complained that they could not find in their dictionaries the words used, it "transpired," as the papers say, that they had nothing but the vocabularies at the end of their

elementary lesson books to consult. He thereupon

published a recommendation to use Littré's abridged Dictionary, an excellent book, which costs 118. 8d. net. Since that time the majority of the candidates dropped French. They had no idea of investing 11s. 8d. in a book perfectly useless to

them when the examination was over. Besides, modern education must not cost anything; it is a mere engine for winning prizes without any outlay beyond time.

candidate for the army does not profess to be intended for conversation; it is therefore no sham! the Latin grammar is and must remain of use to him, not only whenever he desires to learn a foreign language, but whenever he aspires to a literary use of his own. But the objection is too stale and oft refuted to require another word. I only desired, before passing on to the discussion of the remedies for our Babel, to impress upon the reader that the increase in the number of current European languages has been accompanied with an increased pressure upon our youth to learn them; and that this pressure produces a waste of millions of valuable hours every year among those who fail in the task, whether from natural stupidity, or from incompetent and antiquated teaching, or from a rotten and ridiculous system of examinations. The evil is therefore more aggravated than it ever was, and requires more urgent consideration.

No remedy can be proposed with any chance of a hearing if the author shows himself ignorant of previous solutions. The most obvious condition of success in so difficult a problem is to know what others have essayed; and if they have failed, to understand the causes of such failure.

The system adopted by the Chinese and surrounding peoples may be called thoroughly successful in its way, but is nevertheless out of the question for our purpose. By the use of a system of writing which does not represent sounds (words), but the things themselves (images or ideas), they have attained to a mode of representing their thoughts which can be expressed in many different languages. The Japanese, Corean, or Mandschu educated man can read and write the same signs, while each of them pronounces these signs according to his own tongue. Thus, any one of them, if educated in this system of writing, can converse in writing with any other, though the languages spoken by each are wholly distinct. Of course, a graphic.system not of sounds but of ideas must be very cumbrous; a mandarin requires to know

at least two thousand signs for his literary idiom; but what is the labor of learning these in comparison with the labor of learning even one of the languages required? This is therefore a very reasonable solution, though it falls short of establishing a common system for conversation. Nor is there any possibility that we should ever again set up an ideographic system of writing in the world. The advantages of our phonetic alphabet are too obvious.1

I have spoken above of the far more satisfactory mediæval solution of speak ing and writing Latin in addition to one's mother tongue. We can hardly call it a solution, since it grew up in Europe through the force of circumstances. Latin, having been the official language of the Roman Empire, be came the language of the Church and of the Law, and so survived among the diverging nationalities of the early Middle Ages. The only difficulty to answer is: why did it ever fail? Why did so sensible a system ever make place to our modern confusion? The reply which occurs to me is this: Latin was not confined to be the mere instrument of international communication; as such it even still has considerable vogue in the learned world; but in the early Middle Ages Latin was not only the vehicle of Law and of Religion, it even aspired to express the private feel ings of men and to supplant local poetry and familiar prose; thus it became identified with the tyranny of Church, of State, of Scholasticism, which the Reformation overthrew. While the Church intoned in Latin, the Reformers made it a principle to preach in "the language understanded of the people."

1 Nevertheless one man at least has been so impressed by the Chinese solution that he has proposed one for European consideration. Here is

the title of his book on ideography, quoted, with a short account of his system, by Professor Max

Müller in the second series of his "Lectures on the Science of Language:" "Mémoire sur la possibilité et la facilité de forme une écriture générale au moyen de laquelle tous les peuples puissent s'entendre mutuellement sans que connaissent la langue des autres:" par Don Sinibaldo de Mas, Envoyé Extr. et Ministre Plén. de S.M.C. en Chine. Paris, 1863.

While the wits of the Renaissance published their polished conceits and artincial loves in Latin verse, sterner men sang the ruder words of deeper passions, of honest convictions, in thel own tongues. Thus the reaction against their language, and with the domination, perhaps even the tyranny, oi Latin, there was swept away the great and useful function which it was per forming as an international language.

Since the monarchy of Latin has given way to the oligarchy of five or six leading languages-an oligarchy now threatening to degenerate into a democracy of numerous outlandish tongues several attempts have been made to construct a common vehicle of communication. I shall mention but two. These are the philosophical attempt of Bishop Wilkins (1688) and the recent scheme called Volapük. The bold and thorough-going plan of Bishop Wilkins may most easily be comprehended by the sketch of Professor Max Müller in the book above cited. It is there shown that Leibnitz was imbued with the same notions, probably borrowed from the bishop's work. Wilkins aimed at a complete rehandling both of language and writing. He proposed to classify all the objects in nature afresh, classify the sounds which should represent them, classify the signs correspondingly, and so to construct a perfectly logical and complete system of sounds and signs, absolutely independent of all existing languages and graphic systems. The professor's initial objection to this remarkable proposal is that any classification of nature must be defective, that it must require modifications with the increase of knowledge, and so imply disturbances of the system of sounds and signs. It is not worth making this objection, which, by the way, applies to many living tongues, when there remains a far larger and deeper difficulty. Language is a growth, and not an invention. All the resources of science cannot construct a piece of tissue, which will live and grow, though all the animal and vegetable world consists of such tissues, developed from the microscopic cell.