Esperanto: Hearings before the Committee on Education | Page 5

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 logical, and entirely free of all
irregularities. Prof. Mayer, of the University of Oxford, learned
Esperanto in his seventy-ninth year. I heard him make a speech in the
language about