EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



same language as spoken in America. In the 

 Middle Ages, wolves, brute and human, tax- 

 gatherers and robber barons, as well as bad roads 

 and imperfect vehicles, made a few miles of wood 

 or mountain a greater barrier to intercourse than 

 the wide ocean is to-day. For the language of 

 the thriving people to whom, as to the ancient 

 Greeks, the ocean has become (TTOVTOS) a com- 

 mon " pathway ; " who have taught mankind 

 how to drive ships with steam, and how to send 

 electric flashes of intelligence through the watery 

 abyss, for this language a future of unprece- 

 dented glory is in store. By the end of the 

 twentieth century, English will no doubt be 

 spoken by something like eight hundred million 

 people, crowding all over North America and 

 Australia, as well as over a good part of Africa 

 and India, with island colonies in every sea and 

 naval stations on every cape. By that time so 

 large a proportion of the business of the world 

 will be transacted by people of English descent 

 that, as a mere matter of convenience, the whole 

 world will have to learn English. Whatever 

 other language any one may have learned in 

 childhood, he will find it necessary to speak 

 English also. In this way our language will be- 

 come more and more cosmopolitan, while all 

 others become more and more provincial, until 

 after a great length of time they will probably 

 one after another assume the character and incur 

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