CHAPTER VII 



CONCLUSION : READING, WRITING, AND SPEAKING 



ANYONE who wishes to swim without the help of others 

 is faced by a " vicious circle." In order to swim he must 

 jump into the water, but before he entrusts himself to the 

 water he ought to be able to swim. In spite of this, many 

 people learn to swim without a teacher. How do they do that ? 

 They go at first only into shallow water, and splash about 

 there until they have become more or less familiar with 

 this element. Then, when they perceive that they can 

 propel themselves in it, they go gradually into deeper 

 water. 



If we wish to get scientific men to use the international 

 language, we must probably recommend the same method 

 and advise them to move about in the shallower regions of 

 every-day language before they venture into the deeper 

 waters of science. The instruction concerning the move- 

 ments of swimming given by the swimming-master on dry 

 land corresponds to a lesson of a couple of hours on the 

 simple grammar of the international language. Further 

 progress, leading up finally to the introduction of the latter 

 into science, can be divided into three stages, which 

 we may describe by the words reading, writing, and 

 speaking. 



I. Reading. The extraordinary ease with which every 

 educated person, and especially anyone who has learnt Latin 

 or one of the Romance languages, can read and understand 

 the language of the Delegation almost without any previous 

 study, indicates that the first stage will not be difficult of 



