and of all the spacious political
possibilities that go with the wide extension of a language.
Conceivably, if in the coming years a deliberate attempt were made to
provide sound instruction in English to all who sought it, and to all
within the control of English-speaking Governments, if honour and
emolument were given to literary men instead of being left to them to
most indelicately take, and if the present sordid trade of publishing
were so lifted as to bring the whole literature, the whole science, and
all the contemporary thought of the world--not some selection of the
world's literature, not some obsolete Encyclopaedia sold meanly and
basely to choke hungry minds, but a real publication of all that has
been and is being done--within the reach of each man's need and desire
who had the franchise of the tongue, then by the year 2000 I would
prophesy that the whole functional body of human society would read, and
perhaps even write and speak, our language. And not only that, but it
might be the prevalent and everyday language of Scandinavia and Denmark
and Holland, of all Africa, all North America, of the Pacific coasts of
Asia and of India, the universal international language, and in a fair
way to be the universal language of mankind. But such an enterprise
demands a resolve and intelligence beyond all the immediate signs of the
times; it implies a veritable renascence of intellectual life among the
English-speaking peoples. The probabilities of such a renascence will
be more conveniently discussed at a later stage, when we attempt to draw
the broad outline of the struggle for world-wide ascendency that the
coming years will see. But here it is clear that upon the probability of
such a renascence depends the extension of the language, and not only
that, but the preservation of that military and naval efficiency upon
which, in this world of resolute aggression, the existence of the
English-speaking communities finally depends.

French and German will certainly be aggregating languages during the
greater portion of the coming years. Of the two I am inclined to think
French will spread further than German. There is a disposition in the
world, which the French share, to grossly undervalue the prospects of
all things French, derived, so far as I can gather, from the facts that
the French were beaten by the Germans in 1870, and that they do not
breed with the _abandon_ of rabbits or negroes. These are considerations
that