The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-11-14

permanency of English. In Latin New ton wrote his "Principia"; and Milton wrote number of state papers in that seem, Dante wrote his defence of the Italian vernacular, De Vulgari Ele quio,' in Latin. Nearly all the works of the great philosopher Leibnitz, were written in Latin. Indeed, in that lan- guage were published nearly all works on science, philosophy. theology, medicine, mathematics and the other learned studies. So universal was this custom, that there was built up, almost uncon- sciously, an association or guild of schol- ars of all lands. The masses being unable to read Latin, to them the sources of ed- ucation were closed, since the things that could educate were shut up in lan- guage unknown by them.
 In the middle ages in Germany there was law that permitted only members of the nobility to wear velvets and pearls. But not only in the middle ages and not only in Germany there seemed to have been an unwritten law that per- mitted only those who could wear velvets and pearls to acquire any knowledge ex- cept the barest elementary principles and facts. The tendency of this condition was to broaden the breach between the cultured classes and the illiterate masses. As rule the latter dared not hope for intellectual advancement, and accepting their life of subordnation, they became vassels to feudal lords or serfs to nobles whose wealth and position gave them &C., cess to seats of learning, and thus fur thered the permanency of a social aris- tocracy even as there had already existed an aristocracy of learning.
 As the result of more modern prog ress, due to number of causes which I cannot enumerate in this brief paper, Latin finally lost its hold upon the inter- national guild of scholarship, and an- other tongue common to philosophic thought was employed to maintain the comity of writers of all lands This was French, and as the nations progressed 1t became not only the language of the learned, but of kings, of courts, of polite society, of salons and of diplomacy. The reason for selecting French is patent. It was and Is largely Latin. The man who knew his Latin, already knew one-half of the French tongue if he were English or German, while the Spanish and Italian student knew at least three-quarters Of French, since it, like their own tongues, belonged to the Romance family of lan- glages.
 
 Dante for native literature in the lan- guage of the people. The dream of the Humanists of the type of Petrach and the leading spirits of the Renaissance had expanded beyond the fondest hopes of early Humanism. A literature under standed by the people, must now be given, and learning must be as liberal as the bounds of the race and open to all. This was not the original purpose of Humanism. At first, following the down. fall of Constantinople and the revival of letters, its aim was to extend and in- tensify the study of Greek, Latin and Hebrew in every land; but its cause ad- vanced until the Humanist became the chan,yion of the people at large and con- tended for their intellectual elevation. One result was the giving to the people of all nations books and literature Tn their own tongue, which was furthered by the invention of printing: another re- suit. in time, was the displacement of French as the medium of technical schol- arship.
 But progress moves in circles. as Em- erson's essay on Circles discloses. As we stand in line with the sweep of modern progress we see a vast circle forming about the nations, whose tendency Is to include all peoples in one vast family, who shall inevitably speak one language soon or late. and whose ends shall be of common interest. In other words, the world did away with Latin and with French as media between the learning of the nations. but now feels the need of one dominant tongue which all peo- ples shall speak and read. multiplicity