You are here

قراءة كتاب Esperanto: Hearings before the Committee on Education

تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"

‏اللغة: English
Esperanto: Hearings before the Committee on Education

Esperanto: Hearings before the Committee on Education

تقييمك:
0
No votes yet
المؤلف:
دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 3

trade entirely in Esperanto. The town of Antwerp publishes an illustrated guide of the town in Esperanto. Here is a very big Anglo-American firm of medical supplies, Burroughs, Wellcome & Co., and they use Esperanto in many of their circulars. The Government of Brazil three years ago sent a man to lecture in Europe as to the attractions of Brazil. That man lectured in Paris to an audience of 3,000 people entirely in Esperanto, and the Government published his lecture in that language. Here is a curious document. This was issued by the anti-alcohol congress in Italy last year, and you will notice that Esperanto

is used, and that it is recommended as the only remedy against the language trouble which entirely hampered the deliberations of this congress, as it does all international conventions of every kind. I will hand this to Mrs. Crafts, because she will be able to tell you more about it, since she was there.

That is the commercial side of it, and these are only a very few samples of the actual and practical use being made of Esperanto in this one alone. I could produce, no doubt, a great many more such examples, but I can not carry them all about with me. Here are some 60 to 70 guide leaflets published by so many different towns in France, in Italy, in Austria, in Germany, in England, and in several other countries—leaflets printed in Esperanto for the use of foreigners and tourists. They give them information in Esperanto about the various things they might first need to know on arriving at those cities. For instance, here is Milan, Italy, and Poitiers, France, and Insbruck. Austria, and Tavia, Italy, and Davos, Switzerland, and so on. In the same line here are 20 more elaborate guidebooks to various towns in Europe, published entirely in Esperanto by the local authorities. Of course, you will not have the time to look at all these things just now, but I will leave them with you. Then, again, I think I can safely say that there are over 100 periodicals published in Esperanto in different countries.

Esperanto is making very rapid progress in Japan and China; for instance, I have here an excellent Esperanto paper published by a native society in Japan.

The Chairman. In what nation is it progressing most rapidly?

Prof. Christen. That is difficult to say, but seven years ago France was at the head, and Germany did not take it up for a long time. Then about five or six years ago England shot ahead of France, and then suddenly Germany took it up, and now I think Germany is ahead of all the other countries in the practical use of Esperanto. But it is making good progress everywhere—in France, in England, in Denmark, in Bulgaria, in Spain, in South America, in Germany, in India, in China, and in Japan. In Germany the authorities and scientific people have very strongly espoused Esperanto. For instance, the Government of Saxony sustains financially an Esperanto institute in Dresden, and that does a great deal of good work. The Government of Saxony is also a large contributor to an Esperanto library, which is the biggest in the world, as yet. And in many towns in Spain, in Germany, and in France, especially in France, whenever an Esperanto lecturer goes into a town he gets a stipend from the town; the town pays out of the city funds the expenses of his propaganda, or partly pays them; they contribute 50 or 100 francs, and frequently more, according to the size of the place. That is the practice in many places in other countries besides France, but especially in France. Even the Russian Government gives financial aid to Esperanto propaganda.

The Chairman. As I understand it, this is not supposed to be a universal language?

Prof. Christen. No; an international language.

The Chairman. But at the same time it is a language in which all the universe can meet upon a common plane and converse?

Prof. Christen. That is the intention, to give the whole of the civilized world one and the same secondary language.

The Chairman. In which they can all meet on a common plane?

Prof. Christen. Yes; no matter where you may go, if you know Esperanto, you shall not be a foreigner anywhere. The intention is to do away with this terrible handicap of being unable to converse with your fellow men of the various countries you may visit unless you learn all or most of those languages, a thing which, as you know, is in most cases quite impossible. It is the intention to have all the nations understand Esperanto, and by that means make it possible for all the peoples of the world to commune directly with each other. The time has come in the world's history when a common vehicle of human expression is absolutely necessary, and the barrier of Babel must fall, as mostly all other obstacles to free intercourse have already fallen, before the triumphant advance of modern science and technology. It is positively fatuous and futile to ask the modern man, be he in commerce or science or what not, to become an expert in his particular line of endeavor and a polyglot besides. It can not be done. Languages are too many and each one too complicated for our crowded curricula. The obligatory study of foreign languages belongs to a remote past when there existed no sciences and no industrial arts, when life was less crowded and when there were fewer world languages. Even less than a hundred years ago a man was an accomplished cosmopolitan if he knew French and his own mother tongue. To-day he wants and ought to be conversant with French, German, and Spanish, at the very least, besides English, and before long he will have to tackle Russian and Japanese. As a matter of fact in some of the European countries and in South America the school children actually spend from 35 to 60 per cent of the school time in acquiring that sort of an education, which is really not education at all but only a means to an end.

The Chairman. What progress has Esperanto made in the United States?

Prof. Christen. In this matter the United States is behind all other progressive countries. There have been many sporadic efforts made and there are Esperanto groups in different places from New York and Boston to Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Tacoma, etc., but as a national movement it is not what it should be, and the difficulty is, to far as I can make it out, the enormous size of the country. It is difficult for a society, without very large funds, to carry on an effective propaganda all over the country.

Then another difficulty is that Americans are not generally very much given to what I should call ethical ideas of this kind, that offer no immediate and sudden cash returns, until they really become a craze or until a certain class, perhaps, takes them up. (4) Let us not forget also that the American people are not so much in touch with the language difficulty as are other countries, and they do not yet appreciate the enormous use that Esperanto will be to them, for, in my opinion, no white people will benefit more from Esperanto than will the American people, chiefly because like all English-speaking nations they are very poor linguists. Then it is becoming more and more acknowledged among educational people that the English language is the only language that can not be taught. It is well known that if you put educated people from different countries together the Anglo-Saxon will invariably be the one who understands his own language least. That is due to the peculiar construction of the English language.

However, Esperanto would not be difficult for the American people because it is so scientific, so

Pages