33% THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



domination, natural development, international agreement. It was 

 through the political domination of Home that Latin spread over the 

 whole of the ancient world. It is through the same agency that English 

 was and is diffused in Ireland, India and the Philippines; French in 

 Languecloc, Provence, Brittany, Flanders and the colonies; German in 

 Slesvig, Poland and Lorraine. Should England and America conquer 

 the world, or simply control the world, English would become every- 

 where what it is in India : the language of government, modern culture 

 and commerce. 



It can not be denied that the British Empire alone is larger, richer, 

 more varied, more powerful, than Pome ever was under Augustus or 

 Trajan. But Eome stood as practically the sole representative of civil- 

 ization : side by side with the Anglo-Saxon world there are other worlds 

 — Germanic, Slavonic, Latin and Mongolian, hardly inferior in material 

 development, and in some respects fully equal in culture. That the 

 fate of Carthage and Greece awaits France and Germany can not be 

 suggested, except in jest. Ten or twelve years ago, conditions were dif- 

 ferent. Anglo- Saxondom was a religion — hardly less aggressive than 

 Islam under Mohammed ; Khodes and Eudyard Kipling were its proph- 

 ets. China, South America, the colonies of Portugal, Holland and 

 France were to be turned into Anglo-Saxon dependencies. Sometimes 

 Germany was bidden to the feast, as a poor relation, and the London 

 Daily Mail published highly sensational maps of the coming partitions. 

 Where are the dreams of yestereve? The threatened nations have 

 prospered unimpeded; other claimants to world-wide influence have 

 come and gone for a season, like Eussia — or come to stay, like Japan. 

 The acknowledged weakness of Anglo-Saxondom in land forces has had 

 a wonderful sobering effect, and, more than anything else, the growing 

 sense of international justice, the thorough sanity of Great Britain and 

 the United States, have contributed to dispel those unholy fancies. 



Besides, linguistic domination does not always follow political 

 domination, unless there be an overwhelming disparity of forces, 

 material and moral, between the ruling people and their subjects. The 

 Tagals will learn English and the Malagasy French, but it is more than 

 doubtful that Mexico, conquered by the States, would learn the lan- 

 guage of their victors. The willingness with which immigrants adopt 

 English must not mislead us. Numerous as they are, they are, at any 

 given moment, a minority. They come unorganized, severed from their 

 traditions, into a highly civilized country with a strong national feeling. 

 Yet, the point of saturation might soon be reached. Wherever in the 

 British Empire the non-English elements are compact and have a 

 tradition back of them, they maintain their language with curious 

 pertinacity, like the Boers and the Habitants. Even the French in 

 Louisiana, although they were but a handful, have not yet been fully 



