German. The
burden is too heavy for them to bear. Only the minority have any real
gift for foreign languages, and for the rest the aim should be one
foreign language only. Little will be accomplished in any subject
unless there is a real ambition to learn, and there can be no such
ambition unless a definite goal is in sight. The goal here is real
knowledge in a foreign language, for half or quarter-knowledge of a
foreign language is a most unsatisfying accomplishment. The obvious
language is French. Even so, many will not learn to write it
correctly, and as for speaking it, that is an accomplishment so much
more conveniently acquired elsewhere that we offer no opinion as to how
far it is worth attempting at school.[1] But fluent reading of French
is a thing within the reach of practically any boy, and even the stupid
boy, if he concentrates upon this, to the exclusion of other and more
difficult linguistic tasks, will make such unmistakable progress that
his ambitions may well be roused. And the accomplishment is one that
can quickly be made useful. For instance, probably the best general
history of Europe is still Guizot's book, and its French is about the
easiest ever written. But we would go further. We remember once a boy
being birched for circulating a copy of _La Vie Parisienne_. Does not
this suggest that every house should take a French daily newspaper, and
also an illustrated weekly, other than that above mentioned?

But while advocating the single language for the ordinary boy, we are
pulled up short by the claims of Latin; and here we feel a difficulty.
A good deal of what is said in favour of Latin we regard as pure
superstition. It is not true that boys can only learn to write their
own language correctly by means of Latin prose. Nor is it true that
Latin prose supplies the ideal mental discipline. That is only true
for the minority of boys who reach the stage at which real Latin prose
is written. Most flounder about all their time in the stage of
artificial Latin prose, wherein is nothing more than the meticulous
application of a set of laboriously acquired grammatical rules--a
tolerable training in conscientious application, such as any subject
can supply, but nothing more. Yet it may well be true--on this point
we feel uncertain--that an elementary knowledge of Latin supplies such
a foundation for the understanding both of English and French, that it
is worth making some sacrifices to r