or that, transliterated books are
essential.

Now these may seem small details in the learning of languages, mere
schoolmasters' gossip, but the consequences are on the continental
scale. The want of these national text-books and readers is a great gulf
between Russia and her Allies; _it is a greater gulf than the
profoundest political misunderstanding could be_. We cannot get at them
to talk plainly to them, and they cannot get at us to talk plainly to
us. A narrow bridge of interpreters is our only link with the Russian
mind. And many of those interpreters are of a race which is for very
good reasons hostile to Russia. An abundant cheap supply, firstly, of
English and French books, _in_ English and French, but in the Russian
character, by means of which Russians may rapidly learn French and
English--for it is quite a fable that these languages are known and used
in Russia below the level of the court and aristocracy--and, secondly,
of Russian books in the Latin (or some easy phonetic development of the
Latin) type, will do more to facilitate interchange and intercourse
between Russia and France, America and Britain, and so consolidate the
present alliance than almost any other single thing. But that supply
will not be a paying thing to provide; if it is left to publishers or
private language teachers or any form of private enterprise it will
never be provided. It is a necessary public undertaking.

But because a thing is necessary it does not follow that it will be
achieved. Bread may be necessary to a starving man, but there is always
the alternative that he will starve. France, which is most accessible to
creative ideas, is least interested in this particular matter. Great
Britain is still heavily conservative. It is idle to ignore the forces
still entrenched in the established church, in the universities and the
great schools, that stand for an irrational resistance to all new
things. American universities are comparatively youthful and sometimes
quite surprisingly innovating, and America is the country of the
adventurous millionaire. There has been evidence in several American
papers that have reached me recently of a disposition to get ahead with
Russia and cut out the Germans (and incidentally the British). Amidst
the cross-currents and overlappings of this extraordinary time, it seems
to me highly probable that America may lead in this vitally important
effort to promote international understanding.

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