356 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



and the rest of the world with nine millions we get a total of twenty- 

 seven millions, which is probably a liberal allowance. We are, however, 

 here concerned with the language of the Spanish-speaking people, not 

 with their ethnology. 



Coming now to England, it is calculated on the basis of the parish 

 registers, as no one in those days thought of taking a census, that its 

 population, including that of Wales, at the middle of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury was about five millions. Two centuries later it had risen to six and 

 a half millions. At the present time the number of persons whose native 

 speech is English, or one of them if they speak two, falls not far short of 

 one hundred and fifty millions. There are many persons in Wales, in 

 Canada, and in other parts of the world who use two languages with 

 about equal facility, but who would not claim English as their mother- 

 tongue. Probably as many as three fourths of this number have re- 

 ceived, or are receiving, systematic instruction in the English language. 

 It is probable that an equal, if not a larger, proportion are of Anglo- 

 Saxon, or at least of Germanic stock. 



I have spoken above of the aversion of the ancient Greeks to the 

 acquisition of foreign languages. In modern times the French have 

 manifested a similar reluctance. As " France marches at the head of 

 civilization," why should Frenchmen concern themselves about those 

 who are behind them? When almost every intelligent person in con- 

 tinental Europe knew French a Frenchman rarely took the trouble to 

 learn a language spoken outside of his native country. This ignorance 

 eventually cost the nation dear; for if Frenchmen had kept themselves 

 informed of what was going on beyond the Ehine they would have been 

 less eager to engage in a war with the nation that dwelt there. The 

 same charge is frequently brought against English and American repre- 

 sentatives of commercial houses in foreign countries. We have been 

 told many times that the United States lose a great deal of trade be- 

 cause their agents will not take the trouble to learn the language of 

 the natives with whom they desire to do business and that the Germans 

 far outstrip them in this respect. It may be said further that the 

 efforts of the Germans to preserve their speech in foreign countries 

 meets with small success. The children of German immigrants rarely 

 learn the language of their parents so well that they are able to use it 

 as readily as that of their new habitat. 



We have here what seems to be the only practical solution of the 

 problem of a universal language. When we take note of the rapid ex- 

 pansion of English within the last century, it does not seem a fanciful 

 prediction that before the end of another century all persons who wish to 

 learn another language besides their own will choose English. German 

 received a serious set-back by the Thirty Years war. The population of 

 the country in 1618 is estimated at twenty-five millions. There are 



