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Professor F. G. Don nan 



[March 24 y 



Esperanto is very proud of its celebrated table of correlative 

 words. Although this table is very ingenious and neat, it represents 

 an arbitary a priori element in the Esperanto language. Here is an 

 example : — 



To see the great practical progress made by Zamenhof as com- 

 pared with Schleyer it is sufficient to compare the following version of 

 the Lord's Prayer in Esperanto with the Yolapiik example previously 

 given : — 



" Patro nia, kiu estas in la cielo, sankta estu via nomo ; venu regeco 

 via ; estu volo via, tiel en la cielo, tiel ankaii sur la tero. Panon nian 

 ciutagan donu al ni kodiau ; kaj pardonu al ni suldojn niajn, kiel ni 

 ankau pardonas al niaj suldantoj ; kaj ne konduku nin en la tenton, sed 

 liberigu nin de la malbono." 



Here is another sample of Esperanto, culled from the Esperanto 

 Manual of Margaret L. Jones : — 



" Unu el la cefaj taskoj de cm homo estas la perfektigo de si mem. Ciu 

 homo devas^konsideri ke li estas ciama lernanto, ciama studento, eiama 

 edukato. Ciutage li devas dernandi sin, cu, tiun tagon, li estas pli 

 perfekta ol la antauan ; cu li faris progreson en la perfektigado de sia 

 korpo kaj de sia spirito." 



In spite of many obvious and indeed glaring defects, Esperanto 

 is undoubtedly, so far as numbers are concerned, the greatest and 

 most successful linguistic experiment that the world has yet seen. 

 Let us not criticise too severely the work of a man who was neither 

 a great scholar nor a great professional philologist, but let us rather 

 admire the splendid effort which he made. His work has been of 

 the greatest service in demonstrating to an indifferent world the 

 practical possibility of an auxiliary international language. So great 

 was the interest taken in this branch of science at the Paris Exhibi- 

 tion of 1900 that, under the leadership of M. Leau, a French 

 professor of mathematics, a number of scientists and delegates from 

 learned societies were gathered together, and on January 17th, 1901, 



