COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION,
Tuesday, March 17, 1914

The committee this day met, Hon. Dudley M. Hughes (chairman) presiding.

STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD BARTHOLDT,
A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI.

Mr. BARTHOLDT. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I do not wish to occupy your
time, for the reason that I can be here almost any time, while Prof.
Christen has made a special trip from New York for this purpose, and I
should like to give him all the time you can afford to devote to this
bill.

I merely wish to say, in explanation, that I have not, as you will
notice, introduced this bill by request; I have assumed responsibility
for it personally because I thoroughly believe in it. I first introduced
the bill in the shape of a request to the Committee on Education
to investigate the subject; that is, as to the practicability and
advisability of introducing Esperanto as an auxiliary language in the
public schools. That resolution was referred to the Committee on Rules
and, of course, I could not get any action in that committee, and for
that reason I introduced the bill in its present form, which merely
provides that Esperanto be taught as a part of the course of study in
the schools of Washington, this being the only jurisdiction we have in
the matter of education.

We Americans are known the world over as being deficient in the
knowledge of languages. I think we might as well admit that. While
every other nation is teaching two or three languages in its schools we
have failed to do so, and yet the requirements of international trade
and commerce make it absolutely essential that our young men should be
taught at least one language or two languages besides their own. Now,
this being the case and Esperanto now being taken up by nearly all the
civilized countries as an auxiliary language, how easy it would be for
us, instead of compelling our children in the schools to learn Spanish,
French, and German, to simply take one lesson a week in Esperanto and
thereby enable this nation to correspond and communicate in a common
language with all the other nations of the world.

The CHAIRMAN. Your idea would be that the various nations would
understand Esperanto, and that whenever they would use that language all
would understand and comprehend it? Is that your idea?

Mr. BARTHOLDT. Yes. I want to say that there is a movement on foot in
nearly ev