354 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



until its form or sound and signification have been thrust upon it over 

 and over again. How many thousand times are familiar expressions 

 repeated in the hearing of the infant before it understands what they 

 mean, at least with any degree of definiteness. The adult foreigner is 

 almost in the same predicament. After a familiarity between sound or 

 character and idea has been established comprehension proceeds with 

 amazing rapidity. We can run our eyes over a printed page and get its 

 meaning much more quickly than we can pronounce the words. Like a 

 skillful pianist who reads an unfamiliar piece of music at sight, since 

 only the particular combinations of notes are new to him, but not the 

 general principles upon which the score is constructed, so the reader of 

 the printed or written page is familiar with the words before him even 

 when their arrangement and combination are new. "Words and phrases 

 may repose passive in the subconscious mind for many years, dead and 

 forgotten as it seemed, when suddenly either by conscious effort or by 

 an accident of association they spring into life. It is doubtful whether 

 we can ever forget a language learned in childhood, although lack of 

 practise may make us awkward in its use in after time. Sometimes we 

 may grope, so to say, for years in the effort to recall a word, especially 

 a proper name, when something suggests it to us at an unexpected 

 moment. It is like the powder which lies dead as so much dust until 

 a spark falls upon it, when it bursts into flame. The latent image, 

 figuratively speaking again, can usually be called into life more quickly 

 if the eye and the ear cooperate, than when only one of these two organs 

 is called into requisition. It is, however, easier to learn a language 

 through the eye than the ear; in fact, many languages can be learned 

 only in this way, since they have been preserved solely upon inscribed 

 materials. If a word is unfamiliar at first sight we can keep the eye 

 upon it until it is either recognized or until we have convinced ourselves 

 that recognition is impossible. A dead language is, however, a good 

 deal like a cadaver; the important thing, life, is wanting. 



A visible fact connected with the internal growth of a language is 

 its geographical expansion. The ancient Greek furnishes a remarkable 

 example. Four or five centuries before the Christian era it had already 

 spread over the greater part of the known ancient world. By the con- 

 quests of Alexander it was still farther extended. In the course of time 

 it was in some degree superseded by the Latin, at least in Europe. 

 Albeit, Latin never became the popular speech that Greek had been, 

 although it was the medium of communication between ecclesiastics 

 and scholars and so continued until displaced by the modern languages 

 of which French had for a time the precedence. The lectures in the 

 universities were given in Latin ; hence we find the same distinguished 

 scholars teaching in succession in half a dozen different countries and 

 their books circulating even more widely. The tradition was first abro- 



