taken up by a professor at Paris, societies
were formed for its propagation, journals and hundreds of books were
published in it; its adherents were estimated at a million. But its
success, though brilliant, was short-lived. In 1889, when the third
Volapuek Congress was held, it was at the height of its success, but
thereafter dissension arose, and its reputation suddenly collapsed. No
one now speaks Volapuek; it is regarded as a hideous monstrosity, even by
those who have the most lively faith in artificial languages. Its
inventor has outlived his language, and, like it, has been forgotten by
the world, though his achievement was a real step towards the solution
of the problem.

The collapse of Volapuek discouraged thoughtful persons from expecting
any solution of the problem in an artificial language. It seemed
extremely improbable that any invented language, least of all the
unaided product of a single mind, could ever be generally accepted, or
be worthy of general acceptance, as an international mode of
communication. Such a language failed to carry the prestige necessary to
overcome the immense inertia which any attempt to adopt it would meet
with. Invented languages, the visionary schemes of idealists, apparently
received no support from practical men of affairs. It seemed to be among
actual languages, living or dead, that we might most reasonably expect
to find a medium of communication likely to receive wide support. The
difficulty then lay in deciding which language should be selected.

Russian had sometimes been advocated as the universal language for
international purposes, and it is possible to point to the enormous
territory of Russia, its growing power and the fact that Russian is the
real or official language of a larger number of people than any other
language except English. But Russian is so unlike the Latin and Teutonic
tongues, used by the majority of European peoples; it is so complicated,
so difficult to acquire, and, moreover, so lacking in concision that it
has never had many enthusiastic advocates.

The virtues and defects of Spanish, which has found many enthusiastic
supporters, are of an opposite character. It is an admirably vigorous
and euphonious language, on a sound phonetic basis, every letter always
standing for a definite sound; the grammar is simple and exceptionally
free from irregularities, and it is the key to a great literature.
Billroth, the distinguished Austrian surgeon, advo