Arizona weekly citizen., 1883-12-15
WEEKLY CITIZEN.
rNrHr PRESENT. RArHER THAN PAST.

Iti.not often that great banker l:
 good for anything else but finance
 tbough once ID 8 great while one turns up who goes outside of the regular line
 of "a good banker sDd when be does he usually becomes distinguished in
 what he does, for be it known that 8 sue cessful banker must be man of brains.
 otherwise be will run through with his cash sooner than iu almost any other business in which he could engage. Sir John Lubbock, the distinguished Lon don banker, has so far forgotten him. self ss to put aside money-msking to some extent, and though 8 young man, has become one of the most distin- guished naturslIsts in the world, and Rn able writer on many subjects. Recently he delivered sn address at Bristol UnI- versity which created profound sensa- tion throughout England.
 He stated that ''he was a member of the modern slde' in education, which holds that 1t Is the business of teaching to explain to the young the world in winch they are born, the sights they see, the sounds they hear, the objects they touch and the things they come in con- tact with. The ancient side on the other hand, contends that it is ihe primary business of education to make the young mind comprehend the world ID which the ancient Athsnians and Romans lived, the languages they spoke, the religions they believed in. and the philosophy they adopted. Young men who commence to study the world from the beginning sell dom find tune to learn much about the life that now IS. They spend the best years of their life ID learning to read languages that DO one has known how 10 speak for many centuries. They read some books, by the aid of dictionary, which contain nothing of practical value 10 the people who now inhabit the earth. They are devoted to mythology and the history of events that never occurred. The fact that language is dead, has been dead for nearly score of centu- ries, and was superseded by much bet ter. went to show that 1t was of little value"
 Sir John Lubbock is of the opinion that the English language Is the best that was ever spoken, and contains so much that is valuable in science, literB- lure, philosophy, art and religioA that 1t can never become dead. There Is an- other reason why the English language can never become dead. It Is because all of the young, stslwart nations of the world, including the United States, British America aud Australia, speak the English language. These nations, which represent the new world, will number lO1OO00O0 people by the close of the present century. English colo uies will doubtless be planted in Brazil and Africa by the coming generation. These new nations, with the parent country. bupp4cueuNeu Dl tue LuS44sA speaking people of India, who are fast supplantine the HindoO and Burmsh languages, will increase the English speaking population of the world in the coming century almost beyond calculs- ton. and by the close of the present century more than half of the human Face wIll speak the English language. We believe that Sir John Lubbock IS correct in his estimation of the value lessness of dead languages, but in giv- ing him credit for the position he has taken, we should not forget that Charles Francis Adams, Jr.. of our own coun- try, in an address before the alumni of Harvard College, last spring, spoke in favor ot discontinuing the teaching of dead languages, on the ground that they were useless to the modern student, and that the time consumed in mastering them could be put to much better use.