LINGUISTICS IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC. E7I 
neglected. Mota was in a fair way to being regarded as the sacred 
language of the Mission, and indeed it furnished popularly the standard 
by which all the other languages were supposed to be measured, and the 
fact that these languages were able to show words or usages that 
corresponded to those of Mota was apt to be construed philologically 
much in the same way as if the presence in the other Aryan tongues of 
words similar to Latin were held as proving that Latin was the root 
language of them all and not itself a branch language. 
When native teachers speaking various languages have an education 
in a language like Mota, which is foreign to most of them, much care 
must be exercised in order that the ideas given in the course of teaching 
may be made quite clear to the minds of the pupils. Dr. Codrington 
used to get his pupils to write down the gist of the lesson in their own 
tongues that he might test thereby their understanding of it. 
At the conference held in 1916 the staff of the Mission decided to 
make a change in the language used as the medium of instruction in the 
central schools; Motawas to be abolished and English substituted in its 
place. Effect has already been given to this determination. The 
reasons advanced publicly for the change from Mota to English were: 
(1) Mota is not well known by the English staff in the Solomons and 
the languages spoken by the boys at the two centtfal schools there do 
not bear any very great superficial likeness to Mota, so that Mota may 
be said to be practically a foreign tongue to all concerned. 
(2) Only a small literature is available in Mota, and the learning of 
English would open the way for the provision of a larger literature. 
(3) English is likely to become the language of general communica- 
tion. 
(4) The trained teachers ought to be able to act as interpreters for 
any whites who might visit their villages. 
Now, there is undoubtedly every reason why English should be 
taught as a partof the curriculum in the central schools (and also in the 
village schools if possible), but to do this is surely a different thing from 
making it the only means of communication at the central schools. 
While not contending for the continuance of Mota in the schools of the 
Solomons, one does contend strongly for the principle that the Mela- 
nesian should be taught Christianity through the medium of one of his 
own languages. English is a foreign language, but when all is said and 
done Mota can not possibly be classed as foreign. Outwardly it may 
present many dissimilarities from the Solomon Island languages, yet it 
is thoroughly and typically Melanesian, and any Melanesian can learn. 
it or be taught it without any trouble whatever. 
Mota has hitherto been of quite extraordinary value for purposes of 
translation; most of our translations into the other Melanesian lan-. 
guages were made in the first instance from Mota as a basis, and in 
many places it was quite possible thereby for a teacher of average 
