ENGLISH AS AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE 341 



scholar and scientist in the world has to learn German first, and pos- 

 sibly French second. In this connection, again, the claims of Italian 

 are too often disregarded in America, and yet there is hardly any 

 branch of learning in which Italy is not doing excellent work. We had 

 occasion, this year, in an English-speaking university, to use the Italian 

 translation of a Danish work on the old French epic. This is a small 

 but typical instance of the growing cosmopolitanism of science, and of 

 the usefulness of Italian. 



But, in the world of science just as in the world of commerce, the 

 so-called minor languages show an increasing tendenc} r not. to recognize 

 the privilege of the three or four now in possession. Berthelot com- 

 plained that, whilst in his youth, with four modern languages only at 

 his command, he could keep in touch with scientific activity everywhere, 

 he could no longer do so at the dawn of the twentieth century. Science 

 does not quite obliterate national susceptibility. Scientists work for 

 their compatriots primarily. Perhaps they shirk the effort which the 

 use of a foreign tongue always involves ; perhaps they are afraid of the 

 traps winch the grammar of French, English or German is fenced round 

 with, and in which even the wary may fall. Scandinavian, Dutch and 

 Slavonic scientists still use the recognized world-languages occasionally 

 in preference to their own ; but there is a growing body of untranslated 

 and often valuable works in Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Bussian. The 

 unification of scientific literature under German hegemony is fast 

 becoming a dream, and English hegemony the shadow of a dream. 



The position held by English in commerce, by German in science, 

 belongs to French in the world of " polite culture w — diplomacy, society, 

 art and letters. It is a well-known fact that this position is not what 

 it used to be. "William II. is an accomplished French scholar and an 

 admirer of Frederick the Great; yet he does not cultivate the tongue of 

 Anatole France as his ancestor that of Voltaire. The Gallophobia of 

 twenty years ago no longer blinds Berlin to the merits of France, yet the 

 Prussian Academy would not as in 1784 crown a modern Bivarol for an 

 essay on the universality of the French language. There has been, 

 almost everywhere, a sharp and often unjust reaction against French 

 influence. The Belgian Flamingants have revived their neglected 

 dialect, and secured for it absolute equality with French. In Bumania, 

 where the Frenchification of the upper classes had gone to almost in- 

 credible lengths and was threatening to stifle the legitimate develop- 

 ment of national culture, there have been actual riots against the 

 " Bonjouristes." And the predominance of French in the Mediter- 

 ranean is not so exclusive as it once was. 



However, the position of French is much stronger than most Amer- 

 icans believe. America welcomes our lecturers, our actors ; few colleges 

 are without a French club, and even in small towns, ladies will meet 



