“All nations have their message from on high,
Each the messiah of some central thought,
For the fulfilment and delight of Man:
One has to teach that Labour is divine;
Another Freedom and another Mind;
And all, that God is open-eyed and just,
The happy centre and calm heart of all.”
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

We cannot have a perfect knowledge even of our own language without some acquaintance with more than one other, either classical or modern. This is especially true of English because it has drawn its strength and wealth from so many sources, and absorbed them into itself. But this value is usually taken indirectly, by the way, and the understanding of it only comes to us after years as an appreciable good. It is, however, recognized that no education corresponding to the needs of our own time can be perfected or even adequately completed in one language alone. Not only do the actual conditions of life make it imperative to have more than one tongue at our command from the rapid extension of facilities for travelling, and increased intercourse with other nations; but in proportion to the cooling down of our extreme ardour for experimental science in the school-room we are returning to recognize in language a means of education more adapted to prepare children for life, by fitting them for intercourse with their fellow-creatures and giving them some appreciative understanding of the works of man’s mind. Thus languages, and especially modern languages, are assuming more and more importance in the education of children, not only with us, but in most other countries of Europe. In some of them the methods are distinctly in advance of ours.

Much has been written of late years in the course of educational discussions as to the value of classical studies in education. As the best authorities are not yet in agreement among themselves it would be obviously out of place to add anything here on the subject. But the controversy principally belongs to classics in boys’ schools; as to the study of Latin by girls, and in particular to its position in Catholic schools, there is perhaps something yet to be said.

In non-Catholic schools for girls Latin has not, even now, a great hold. It is studied for certain examinations, but except for the few students whose life takes a professional turn it scarcely outlives the school-room. Girl students at universities cannot compete on equal terms with men in a classical course, and the fact is very generally acknowledged by their choosing another. Except in the rarest instances let us not be afraid to own it our Latin is that of amateurs, brilliant amateurs perhaps, but unmistakable. Latin, for girls, is a source of delight, a beautiful enrichment of their mental life, most precious in itself and in its influence, but it is not a living power, nor a familiar instrument, nor a great discipline; it is deficient in hardness and closeness of grain, so that it cannot take polish; it is apt to betray by unexpected transgressions the want of that long, detailed, severe training which alone can make classical scholarship. It is usually a little tremulous, not quite sure of itself, and indeed its best adornment is generally the sobriety induced by an overshadowing sense of paternal correction and solicitude always present to check rashness and desultoriness, and make it at least “gang warily” with a finger on its lip; and their attainments in Latin are, at the best, receptively rather than actively of value.

In Catholic girls’ schools, however, the elements of Latin are almost necessity. It is wanting in courtesy, it is almost uncouth for us to grow up without any knowledge of the language of Holy Church. It is almost impossible for educated Catholics to have right taste in devotion, the “love and relish” of the most excellent things, without some knowledge of our great liturgical prayers and hymns in the original. We never can really know them if we only hear them halting and plunging and splashing through translations, wasting their strength in many words as they must unavoidably do in English, and at best only reaching an approximation to the sense. The use of them in the original is discipline and devotion in one, and it strengthens the Catholic historical hold on the past, with a sense of nearness, when we dwell with some understanding on the very words which have been sung in the Church subsisting in all ages and teaching all nations. This is our birthright, but it is not truly ours unless we can in some degree make use of what we own.

It has often been pointed out that even to the most uneducated amongst our people Latin is never a dead language to Catholics, and that the familiar prayers at Mass and public devotions make them at home in the furthest countries of the earth as soon as they are within the church doors. So far as this, it is a universal language for us, and even if it went no further than the world-wide home feeling of the poor in our churches it would make us grateful for every word of Latin that has a familiar sound to them, and this alone might make us anxious to teach Catholic children at school, for the use of prayer and devotion, as much Latin as they can learn even if they never touch a classic.

Our attitude towards the study of modern languages has had its high and low tides within the last century. We have had our submissive and our obstinate moods; at present we are rather well and affably disposed. French used to be acknowledged without a rival as the universal language; it was a necessity, and in general the older generation learned it carefully and spoke it well. At that time Italian was learned from taste and German was exceptional. Queen Victoria’s German marriage and all the close connexion that followed from it pressed the study of German to the front; the influence of Carlyle told in the same direction, and the study of Italian declined. Then in our enthusiasm for physical sciences for a time we read more German, but not German of the best quality, and in another line we were influenced by German literary criticism. Now, the balance of things has altered again. For scholarship and criticism German is in great request; in commercial education it is being outrun by Spanish; for the intercourse of ordinary life Germans are learning English much more eagerly than we are learning German. We have had a fit of let us call it shyness, but we are trying to do better. We recognize that these fits of shyness are not altogether to our credit, not wholly reasonable, and that we are not incapable of learning foreign languages well. We know the story of the little boy reprimanded by the magistrate for his folly in running away from home because he was obliged to learn French, and his haughty reply that if foreigners wished to speak to him they might learn his language. But our children have outgrown him, as to his declaration if not as to his want of diligence, and we are in general reforming our methods of teaching so much that it will soon be inexcusable not to speak one or two languages well, besides our own.

The question of pronunciation and accent has been haunted by curious prejudices. An English accent in a foreign tongue has been for some speakers a refuge for their shyness, and for others a stronghold of their patriotism. The first of these feared that they would not be truly themselves unless their personality could take shelter beneath an accent that was unmistakably from England, and the others felt that it was like hauling down the British flag to renounce the long-drawn English “A-o-o.” And, curiously, at the other extreme, the slightest tinge of an English accent is rather liked in Paris, perhaps only among those touched with Anglomania. But now we ought to be able to acquire whatever accent we choose, even when living far away from every instructor, having the gramophone to repeat to us untiringly the true Spanish “mañana” and the French “ennui.” And the study of phonetics, so much developed within the last few years, makes it unpardonable for teachers of modern languages to let the old English faults prevail.

We have had our succession of methods too. The old method of learning French, with a bonne in the nursery first, and then a severely academic governess or tutor, produced French of unsurpassed quality-But it belonged to home education, it required a great deal of leisure, it did not adapt itself to school curricula in which each child, to use the expressive American phrase, “carries” so many subjects that the hours and minutes for each have to be jealously counted out. There have been a series of methods succeeding one another which can scarcely be called more than quack methods of learning languages, claiming to be the natural method, the maternal method, the only rational method, etc. Educational advertisements of these have been magnificent in their promise, but opinions are not entirely at one as to the results.

The conclusions which suggest themselves after seeing several of these methods at work are:

1. That good teachers can make use of almost any method with excellent results but that they generally evolve one of their own.

2. That if the teachers and the children take a great deal of trouble the progress will be very remarkable, whatever method is employed, and that without this both the classical and the “natural” methods can accomplish very little.

3. That teachers with fixed ideas about children and about methods arrest development.

4. That the self-instruction courses which “work out at a penny a lesson” (the lesson lasts ten minutes and is especially recommended for use in trams), and the gramophone with the most elaborate records, still bear witness to the old doctrine that there is no royal road to the learning of languages, and that it is not cheap in the end. In proportion to the value we set upon perfect acquirement of them will be our willingness to spend much labour upon foundations. By this road we arrive again at the fundamentals of an educator’s calling, love and labour.

The value to the mind of acquiring languages is so great that all our trouble is repaid. It is not utilitarian value: what is merely for usefulness can be easily acquired, it has very little beauty. It is not for the sake of that commonplace usefulness that we should care to spend trouble upon permanent foundations in any tongue. The mind is satisfied only by the genius of the language, its choicest forms, its characteristic movement, and, most of all, the possession of its literature from within, that is to say of the spirit as it speaks to its own, and in which the language is most completely itself.

The special fitness of modern languages in a girl’s education does not appear on the surface, and it requires more than a superficial, conversational knowledge to reap the fruit of their study. The social, and at present the commercial values are obvious to every one, and of these the commercial value is growing very loud in its assertions, and appears very exacting in its demands. For this the quack methods promise the short and easy way, and perhaps they are sufficient for it. A knowledge sufficient for business correspondence is not what belongs to a liberal education; it has a very limited range, hard, plain, brief communications, supported on cast-iron frames, inelastic forms and crudest courtesies, a mere formula for each particular case, and a small vocabulary suited to the dealings of every branch of business. We know the parallel forms of correspondence in English, which give a means of communication but not properly a language. Even the social values of languages are less than they used to be, as the finer art of conversation has declined. A little goes a long way; the rush of the motor has cut it short; there is not time to exchange more than a few commonplaces, and for these a very limited number of words is enough.

But let our girls give themselves time, or let time be allowed them, to give a year or two to the real study of languages, not in the threadbare phrases of the tourist and motorist, nor to mere drawing-room small talk; not with “matriculation standard” as an object, but to read the best that has been written, and try to speak according to the best that can be said now, and to write according to the standard of what is really excellent to-day; then the study of modern languages is lifted quite on to another plane. The particular advantage of this plane is that there is a view from it, wider in proportion to the number of languages known and to the grasp that is acquired of each, and the particular educational gift to be found there is width of sympathy and understanding. Defective sympathies, national and racial prejudices thrive upon a lower level. The elect of all nations understand one another, and are strangely alike; the lower we go down in the various grades of each nation the more is the divergency accentuated between one and another. Corresponding to this is mutual understanding through language; the better we possess the language of any nation the closer touch we can acquire with all that is theirs, with their best.

A superficial knowledge of languages rather accentuates than removes limitations, multiplies mistakes and embitters them. With a half-knowledge we misunderstand each other’s ideals, we lose the point of the best things that are said, we fail to catch the aroma of the spices and the spirit of the living word; in fact, we are mere tourists in each other’s mental world, and what word could better express the attitude of mind of one who is a stranger, but not a pilgrim, a tramp of a rather more civilized kind, having neither ties nor sympathies nor obligations, nothing to give, and more inclined to take than to receive. To create ties, sympathies, and obligations in the mental life, is a grace belonging to the study of languages, and makes it possible to give and receive hospitality on the best terms with the minds of those of other nations than our own. This is particularly a gift for the education of girls, since all graces of hospitality ought to be peculiarly theirs. To lift them above prejudices, to make them love other beauties than those of their own mental kindred, to afford them a wider possibility of giving happiness to others, and of making themselves at home in many countries, is to give them a power over the conditions of life which reaches very far into their own mental well-being and that of others, and makes them in the best meaning of the word cosmopolitan.

The choice of languages to be learnt must depend upon many considerations, but the widest good for English girls, though not the most easy to attain, is to give them perfect French. German is easier to learn from its kinship with our own language, but its grammar is of less educational value than French, and it does not help as French does to the acquirement of the most attractive of other European languages.

As a second language, however, and for a great deal that is not otherwise attainable, German is in general the best that can be chosen. Italian and Spanish have their special claims, but at present in England their appeal is not to the many. German gives the feeling of kindred minds near to us, ourselves yet not ourselves; with primitive Teutonic strength and directness, with a sweet freshness of spring in its more delicate poetry, and both of these elements blended at times in an atmosphere as of German forests in June. In some writers the flicker of French brilliancy illumines the depth of these Teutonic woods, producing a German which, in spite of the condemnation of the Emperor, we should like to write ourselves if the choice were offered to us.

But, notwithstanding the depth and strength of German, it is generally agreed that as an instrument of thought French prose in a master-hand is unrivalled, by its subtlety and precision, and its epigrammatic force. Every one knows and laments the decadent style which is eating into it; and every one knows that the deplorable tone of much of its contemporary literature makes discernment in French reading a matter not only of education but of conscience and sanity; but this does not make the danger to be inherent in the French language; obliging translators are ready to furnish us, in our own language and according to taste, with the very worst taken, from everywhere. And these faults do not affect the beauty of the instrument, nor its marvellous aptitude for training the mind to precision of expression. The logical bent of the French mind, its love of rule, the elaborateness of its conventions in literature, its ceremonial observances dating from by-gone times, the custom of giving account of everything, of letting no nuance pass unchallenged or uncommented, have given it a power of expression and definiteness which holds together as a complete code of written and unwritten laws, and makes a perfect instrument of its kind. But the very completeness of it has seemed to some writers a fetter, and when they revolt against and break through it, their extravagance passes beyond all ordinary bounds. French represents the two extremes, unheard-of goodness, unequalled perfection, or indescribable badness and unrestraint. Unfortunately the unrestraint is making its way, and as with ourselves in England, the magazine literature in France grows more and more undesirable.

Yet there is unlimited room for reading, and for Catholics a great choice of what is excellent. The modern manner of writing the lives of the Saints has been very successfully cultivated of late years in France, making them living human beings “interesting as fiction,” to use an accepted standard of measurement, more appealingly credible and more imitable than those older works in which they walked remote from the life of to-day, angelic rather than human. There are studies in criticism, too, and essays in practical psychology and social science, which bring within the scope of ordinary readers a great deal which with us can only be reached over rough roads and by-ways. No doubt each method has its advantages; the laboriously acquired knowledge becomes more completely a part of ourselves, but along the metalled way it is obvious that we cover more ground.

The comparison of these values leads to the practical question of translations. The Italian saying which identifies the translator with the traitor ought to give way to a more grateful and hopeful modern recognition of the services done by conscientious translations. We have undoubtedly suffered in England in the past by well-meaning but incompetent translators, especially of spiritual books, who have given us such impressions as to mislead us about the minds of the writers or even turned us against them altogether, to our own great loss. But at present more care is exercised, and conscientious critical exactitude in translating important spiritual works has given us English versions that are not unworthy of their originals.

There is good service to be done to the Church in England by this work of translation, and it is one in which grown-up girls, if they have been sufficiently trained, might give valuable help. It must be borne in mind that not every book which is beautiful or useful in its own language, is desirable to translate. Some depend so much upon the genius of the language and the mentality of their native country that they simply evaporate in translation; others appeal so markedly to national points of view that they seem anomalous in other languages, as a good deal of our present-day English writing would appear in French. It has also to be impressed on translators that their responsibility is great; that it takes laborious persistence to make a really good translation, doing justice to both sides, giving the spirit of the author as well as his literal meaning, and not straining the language of the translation into unnatural forms to make it carry a sense that it does not easily bear.

The beauty of a translator’s work is in the perfect accord of conscience and freedom, and this is not attained without unwearied search for the right word, the only right word which will give the true meaning and the true expression of any idea. To believe that this right word exists is one of the delights of translating; to be a lover of choice and beautiful words is an attraction in itself, leading to the love of things more beautiful still, the love of truth, and fitness, and transparency; the exercise of thought, and discrimination, and balance, and especially of a quality most rare and precious in women mental patience. It is said that we excel in moral patience, but that when we approach anything intellectual this enduring virtue disappears, and we must “reach the goal in a bound or never arrive there at all.” The sustained search for the perfect word would do much to correct this impatience, and if the search is aided by a knowledge of several modern languages so that comparative meanings and uses may be balanced against one another, it will be found not only to open rich veins of thought, but to give an ever-increasing power of working the mines and extracting the gold.