282 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



as interpreters are needed, as long as the ability to interpret rests only 

 with the officials of the government, the faculties of the universities, 

 and the small proportion of citizens and students who have opportunity 

 of extended residence in at least one country besides the native one, 

 just so long is perfect understanding impossible. For perfect under- 

 standing between two nations results from an understanding between a 

 majority of the citizens of these two nations, not from even the most 

 perfect understanding and appreciation of one by but a small minority 

 in the other. This is true even if the minority happens to be the 

 political body in control. For in one way or another the people rule, 

 and public opinion and desire, however faulty, exert a mighty influence. 



Accordingly, if international sympathy and agreement rest upon 

 adequate mutual understanding attained through the complete compre- 

 hension of more languages than the mother-tongue among the general 

 public — whether these languages be spoken, printed in newspapers, 

 pamphlets and books, or written in letters amicably exchanged — the 

 immediate solution suggesting itself is this : Let all or a majority of the 

 citizens of each nation learn thoroughly the language of each other 

 nation. Then will the barrier to intercommunication disappear. Each 

 individual may read at will and at once the publications of every other ; 

 may express his ideas and have his questions answered, orally or by 

 correspondence, with citizens of any nation; and may feel himself 

 linguistically at home in any country of the world, without the present 

 need of guidebooks, couriers and interpreters, ever provocative of 

 mutual distrust. 



Such a proposition is, however, utterly futile from a practical point 

 of view. Persons in comfortable financial circumstances may learn 

 several languages besides their own, business men stationed in foreign 

 countries may do so to some extent, and peasant immigrants may do the 

 same in limited degree; but the possessor of more than a moderate 

 familiarity with two or three languages is called a linguist, and placed 

 in a class apart, as differing by that very fact from the majority of 

 mankind. Genuine admiration is accorded any person who has com- 

 pletely mastered three or four languages in addition to his mother- 

 tongue, and speaks and writes all of them with equal fluency, exactness 

 and elegance. Nor is any one surprised to hear that such an expert 

 spends many years and much care in acquiring these three or four lan- 

 guages with a reasonable perfection of pronunciation, syntax and style, 

 or that teaching this is in itself a profession worthy of remuneration. 



Yet to be truly a polyglot one must be familiar with not only French 

 and German, English, Spanish, Italian, Eussian, each difficult of mas- 

 tery, and the Scandinavian languages, but also Dutch, Flemish, Por- 

 tuguese, Eoumanian, Catalonian, Greek and the many languages allied 

 to Eussian, such as Bohemian, Polish, Servian, Bulgarian, Lithuanian, 

 etc., and also the non- Aryan tongues of Europe, such as Hungarian and 



