DR. TH. NEUMANIT. 143 



makes Great Britian the ruler of the waves and elevates 

 it to OQe of the first powers on both hemispheres. In East 

 India where we find only about 150,000 English to two 

 hundred million native inhabitants, the official language 

 of government, administration, commerce and intercourse 

 is English. Anglicized are the members of all nations 

 that emigrate to North America or Australia, and with 

 great difficulty only foreign idioms are preserved 

 here and there in small spots within o?ie household, while 

 the settlers are forced to use English as soon as 

 they step outside their threshold. And even inside the 

 house we do not find the other idioms kept pure and un- 

 changed — proof enough for instance, the Pennsylvania 

 German, the French in the South and the Swedish in the 

 Northwest: " Putten sie das noch a minute in die 

 Eis-box" — "feeder les chickens," etc. — what a mixture ! 

 All over the world English is now the key-stone of mutual 

 understanding, and even such nations as the Germans, 

 who have now colonies of their own, are obligedto learn 

 English in order to speak with the natives, who, if they 

 know any but their own, know only the English language. 

 But is it deplorable that the foreigners must learn 

 English. In their literary inheritance the readers of the 

 English language are among the richest people that the 

 sun shines on. Their novelists paint the finest portraits 

 of human character, their historians know the secrets of 

 entrancing description and of philosophical narration, 

 their critics have acumen, their philosophers probe far 

 into the philosophy of mind, their poets sing the sweetest 

 songs. And as to Shakespeare, is not his name the 

 greatest in English literature, perhaps the greatest in all 

 literature? No man ever came near him in the creative 

 powers of the mind ; no man ever had at once such 

 strength and such variety of imagination. Are not the 

 works of our immortal William alone worth the study of 

 the English tongue \ 



99 



