396 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 
These are invariably warmly favourable. The Board of Education gives grants for 
Esperanto classes to a large number of evening and commercial institutes. 
In other lands, Esperanto has received far more official support than in this country. 
In the last few months, Esperanto has been introduccd into schools in Geneva, Breslau, 
Chemnitz, Milan, and many other towns, and the educational authorities of Czecho- 
slovakia, Bulgaria, and Hesse have encouraged its instruction in the State schools. 
The Paris Chamber of Commerce is now introducing Esperanto into the commercial 
schools of Paris, and has published a long report on the reasons for its decision. 
Literature.—The catalogue of any Esperanto publisher will show that a very large 
amount of literature of all kinds has been published in Esperanto—in prose and verse, 
both translated and original, much of which is of remarkably high literary merit. 
As a means of exact translation it is indeed unapproachable. The British and Foreign 
Bible Society has sold over 12,000 copies of the Esperanto New Testament, and will 
shortly publish the Old Testament. Some sixty Esperanto periodicals are now 
appearing. 
Esperanto in Commerce.—As an example of the increasing use of Esperanto com- 
mercially, it may be mentioned that in the last twelve months the following inter- 
national fairs have advertised largely, and with good results, in Esperanto :—Leipsic, 
Lyon, Basel (2), Padova (2), Paris (2), Helsingfors, Ghent, Frankfurt (3), Breslau, 
Reichenberg. 
Official Support.—In the last year, resolutions in favour of Esperanto have’ been 
passed by the World Congress of the Union of International Associations, the National 
Institute for the Blind, the International Women’s Suffrage Alliance, the Women’s 
Co-operative Guild, the Women’s International League, the Christian Internationale, 
the 10th International Congress of the Red Cross, by twenty-one members of the 
French Academy of Science, and a number of other international bodies. Among 
bodies that have recently used the language officially for their own purposes are the 
Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), the International Congress of Freethought, 
the Hungarian Academy of Science, the Czech Academy of Science. The Pope has 
just given the Apostolic Blessing to the Roman Catholic Esperanto organ. In 1920, 
the Finnish Parliament subsidised the Esperanto Institute of Finland to the extent 
of 5,000 marks, and in 1921 voted 25,000 marks for the propaganda and instruction 
of Esperanto in Finland. 
A resolution in favour of Esperanto, presented by Senator Lafontaine, of Belgium, 
to the League of Nations during its meetings at the end of 1920, was subscribed by 
Lord Robert Cecil, and the representatives of Brazil, China, Chile, Colombia, India, 
Haiti, Italy, Persia, and Czechoslovakia. It was referred for consideration to a 
committee, which reported favourably. Unfortunately (the session being almost 
at an end), discussion was ruled out, and for the moment the matter remains in 
abeyance. 
Reforms.—As Esperanto draws its elements from the principal European languages, 
many of its features are necessarily of the nature of compromises. The language, — 
therefore, presents a temptation to experimenters who think that the adoption of 
some change in this or that detail would make it more in accordance with the principle 
of maximum internationality, er would render it more acceptable to this or that — 
nation, or for use for scientific purposes. Hence, numerous projects for reforming — 
Esperanto have been introduced to the public, some of them boldly using the principal — 
features of Esperanto while adopting for themselves another name. Few of these — 
projects ever reach completion, none has more than a handful of partisans, or any — 
literature. These reforms often contradict one another; some features of Esperanto 
which one rejects, another judges to be essential. They thus afford some justification 
for the maintenance of the language in its original form. Of these projects Ido is 
the best known, but, in spite of advertising and its attractiveness on a superficial — 
view, it has met with comparatively little support. Many of its original adherents 
have become Esperantists or have published ‘ reformed’ Idos, which though some- 
times avoiding the more serious faults of Ido have difficulties of their own, find no 
following and hardly call for serious consideration as competitive projects, though 
containing interesting suggestions regarding details. 
The claim that Ido was the creation of a competent and authoritative delegation, 
while Esperanto was the work of a single individual is, to say the least, misleading. 
The Committee is referred to the detailed criticism of Ido already furnished to 
each of its members. The Esperantists stoutly resist any modification in the 
