AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE 281 



THE NECESSITY FOE AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE 



By IVY KELLERMAN, Ph.D. 



CHICAGO 



IT was urged by a certain Greek philosopher that in ignorance alone 

 lay the real reason of wrong-doing, and that none who truly under- 

 stood the right could thereafter be guilty of wrong. Ignorance in a 

 narrower sense has been offered as the explanation for misunderstand- 

 ing and consequent trouble of a more or less serious nature between 

 nations and races as well as between individuals. Ignorance of one 

 another's civilization, lack of appreciation of each other's character and 

 ideals, failure to comprehend the motives of essentially simple actions 

 — all these are at fault when great nations disagree. No other inter- 

 pretation is indeed possible, since longing for power, love of conquest, 

 lust to slay, can hardly be suggested in calm seriousness as motivating 

 the actions of nations who are followers of the gentle Jesus, the kindly 

 Buddha, the wise Confucius, in a supposedly civilized century. 



It seems strange at first that there should be room for such lack of 

 mutual understanding and sympathy, in view of the vaunted increase 

 of international intercourse, due to the many opportunities of com- 

 munication by mail and by wire, to the great interchange of commodi- 

 ties made possible by commercial progress, and to the growing facilities 

 for international travel. It seems strange, also, when we recollect that 

 in the employ of every nation there are numerous persons skilled in the 

 language of every other nation of political or commercial importance, 

 to serve the one as interpreters of the thoughts and words of the other,, 

 and to translate the ideas and ideals of these peoples for each other in 

 any emergency that may arise. Such experts are found likewise in all 

 great educational centers. There is not a university without its corps 

 of trained linguists, while its leaders in all of the various departments 

 must possess a fair degree of familiarity with numerous foreign tongues. 

 Even the students are becoming slightly cosmopolitan. A few Amer- 

 icans and Englishmen and Orientals are found at every European 

 university of note, while in America are scattered students from Europe,, 

 from the far east and from South America. 



Therefore we may claim to have interpreters. They are few indeed,, 

 in proportion to the number needed, as has been forcibly pointed out, 

 with the plea that "governments, universities, churches, chambers of 

 commerce, should have some definite plan of raising up a body of 

 sympathetic scholars, who shall be first-hand interpreters of one nation 

 to the other." 1 



But in this very claim lies the explanation of the puzzle. As long 



1 Document 15 of the American Association for International Conciliation: 

 " American Ignorance of Oriental Languages," by J. H. DeForest, D.D., page 12. 



