THE NEED FOE A COMMON SCIENTIFIC LANGUAGE 5 



university, sufficient keenness and moral courage to subject 

 themselves to the ordeal of linguistic studies, from which 

 they have joyfully escaped on their entrance into the 

 university. Few possess at that age a full conception of 

 the usefulness and necessity of a knowledge of languages. 

 And it is just those young people who wish to devote them- 

 selves to the professions of literature or science who ought 

 to devote their whole time and full powers to their pro- 

 fessional work, and not be obliged to break up their time 

 with linguistic studies. 



The proposal to exclude the classical languages from the 

 secondary schools has encountered, however, from many 

 quarters very weighty objections, the force of which cannot be 

 denied, even by the opposite side. We shall, however, not 

 enter into this much-debated question, contenting ourselves 

 with the remark that at the present day insuperable 

 obstacles stand in the way of a complete or partial substi- 

 tution of modern for classical languages. Experience shows 

 also that the teaching of modern languages in schools seldom 

 leads to a practical result, although it must be conceded that 

 nowadays, with newer methods, much better results are 

 obtained than formerly, when the grammar, but not the 

 practical use, was taught. If, therefore, the teaching of 

 modern languages cannot well be carried out either at the 

 universities or in the schools, there remains only the time 

 before school studies. It is, in fact, possible (as is done in 

 many well-to-do families), by means of a French or German 

 governess, to teach a child, besides its mother tongue, one 

 of these languages, in so far as its mental development 

 permits. It is probably inadvisable to teach more than one 

 new language in this way, in order to avoid injury to the 

 child's own mother tongue. Such a knowledge, however, is 

 quite insufficient for the needs of the young scientific man, 

 and so the acquaintance with a language gained in this way 

 requires constant extension and development. 



