170 LINGUISTICS IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC. 
might be the language of their particular part, without any regard as 
to whether the language was or was not the language of a dominant 
people and as such likely to survive. This no doubt is very convenient 
for the people concerned and is also advantageous for the comparative 
philologist, who thus has valuable material provided for his studies, 
but where languages abound and translators are scarce it does not seem 
wise to let men labor at a language unless there is some chance of that 
language surviving or being of use in more than its own limited sphere. 
It can not be doubted that if the native peoples survive the shock of 
civilization certain factors will cause some languages to be used in the 
future more extensively than others; such factors are (1) the use of a 
language by government or by traders, or (2) the dissemination of any 
language by reason of the vigor or the numbers of the people using it. 
If the government of New Guinea were to adopt certain languages 
for use in specified areas, say, Motuan and Wedauan, to the exclusion 
of all others (at present the government officials use a jargon), then, 
although a certain amount of hardship would be imposed on the native 
peoples at the outset, the gain to the missions from having fixed 
languages for their educational work would ultimately more than com- 
pensate for any temporal hardships in that all linguistic work could be 
focussed on given languages and an ample literature could be created, 
and so far as the people themselves were concerned the children in 
one generation would have adapted themselves to the new conditions. 
One calls to mind that in England the standard Bible fixed the language 
just as Luther’s Bible set the standard in Germany, and in France the 
language of the King’s court became the standard language for the 
literature of the whole country. 
The language of the island of Florida, where the seat of government 
of the Solomons is situated and where there is a vigorous and a Chris- 
tian population, if taken up by the Government might be made to 
serve for all the eastern islands. ‘The spread of such a standard literary 
language would be slow, and pending the establishment of such aliterary 
language it is clearly the duty of the missionaries to reduce to writing 
the languages of the various parts and to use them for the purpose of 
teaching, though at the same time languages likely to be serviceable by 
virtue of their more extended use should be carefully selected. Failing 
the appointment of some one language for a group or district, the missions 
should develop various types of language in each island or sphere of 
work; thus for the greater part of San Cristoval the Heuru and Fagani 
languages might be made to serve, while Sa‘a, Tolo, and Lau are also 
worthy of surviving on Malaita. 
Up till the year 1917 the Melanesian Mission used Mota as the edu- 
cational language in all its central schools. There was a time when 
owing to the congregating of all the members of the staff at Norfolk 
Island during the summer, and to the exclusive use of Mota in the 
school, all the other languages of the Mission came almost to be 
