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 have a right to ask that no one shall henceforth come before the public as the inventor of a new language till he has made himself acquainted with those branches of the science of language which form the natural foundation for such a work.

The first step in constructing an artificial language is to settle what sounds it is to contain. The answer, of course, is: the easiest. To the man in the street the only easy sounds are those of his own language. The question, which sounds are easiest in themselves, can only be settled by means of general practical phonetics, which often leads to conclusions directly contradicting popular prejudices. Then comes the question, how these sounds are to be written. It would be an easy matter to re-write Esperanto in the alphabet, say, of the International Phonetic Association, instead of its present antiquated and unpractical orthography; but the mere fact that the author of Esperanto did not take the trouble to make himself acquainted with the principles of phonetics and sound-representation before attacking so stupendous a problem makes us sceptical of his competence for the rest of his task.

The grammar of the new language must not be a mere imitation of that of Latin or an ordinary modern European language: it must be based on first principles. The inventor, after carefully considering the grammatical structure of languages of different types, must not only pick out what is best in each, but must consider whether he cannot do still better.

As regards the vocabulary, we are told that the inventor of Esperanto in his first attempts to construct a new language began with forming his roots by arbitrary combinations of letters, but failed to arrive at any satisfactory result in this way. It is, in fact, impossible to construct words arbitrarily: the attempt to do so inevitably results in distorted reminiscences of words already familiar to the experimenter. There are only two ways in which it is possible to construct an a-priori vocabulary: the schematic and the symbolic. The systems of Dalgarno and Wilkins belong to the former class. Wilkins's vocabulary is founded on a classification of all ideas under 40 categories, each expressed by the combination of a consonant and a vowel in a certain arbitrary (partly alphabetic) order. Thus de signifies “element,” from which is formed the first subdivision deb, “fire,” from which, again, is formed the further subdivision deba, “flame.” The objections to this method are that there is no direct connection between the words and their meanings, and that it involves not only knowing by heart the endless categories, and subdivisions of these, on which it is founded, but also their order and number—a task beyond any human memory. Even if it were not, no one would care to learn a classification which the advance of knowledge might render obsolete in a few years—together with the language itself.

The symbolic method, on the other hand, aims at establishing a direct association between the word and the idea it expresses, as is already the case, to some extent, in existing languages. Thus we have imitative words such as cuckoo, interjectional words, such as hush, and specially symbolic or gesture-words, such as thou, me, mother.

The difficulty in carrying out the symbolic principle is that the associations are few and often vague. But the material is sufficient, if handled in a practical spirit. However far removed from theoretical perfection the result might be, it would have at least two advantages:—(1) There would be none of that waste of material which is common to all natural languages and those artificial ones which are founded on them. (2) This would result in a brevity far exceeding that of the opposite type of language.

A well constructed a-priori language would, indeed, have many uses far transcending those of a rough-and-ready language of the Esperanto type. It would be more than a mere auxiliary language. It would be useful not only as a means of international communication, but as a means of expression superior in most respects to the native language: as an aid, not a hindrance, to accurate thought and scientific exactitude. It would repel by its unfamiliarity. It would have to be learnt;

and it would not be learnt without effort, for its use would imply accurate thought and emancipation from the associations of the native language. But the difficulties would be impartially distributed: the new language would not necessarily be more difficult for the speakers of one language than for those of another.

The obstacles to the construction and adoption of an a-priori language are many; and meanwhile the need is pressing. So it is possible that the problem may be partially solved in the near future by the provisional adoption of an adapted language. Although such a language would not be very acceptable to non-European nations, it would still be easier to them than any European language. But whatever language may be adopted, it must be imposed by a competent tribunal, which, as in all analogous cases, will refuse to consider any scheme which has not been worked out by experts that is, by scientific linguists. (H. Sw.)  UNIVERSITIES The medieval Latin term universitas (from which the English word “university” is derived) was originally employed to denote any community or corporation regarded under its collective aspect. When used in its modern sense, as denoting a body devoted to learning and education, it required the addition of other words in order to complete the definition—the most frequent form of expression being “universitas magistrorum et scholarium” (or “discipulorum”). In the course of time, probably towards the latter part of the 14th century, the term began to be used by itself, with the exclusive meaning of a community of teachers and scholars whose corporate existence had been recognized and sanctioned by civil or ecclesiastical authority or by both. But the more ancient and customary designation of such communities in medieval times (regarded as places of instruction) was “studium” (and subsequently “studium generale”), a term implying a centre of instruction for all. The expressions “universitas studii” and “universitatis collegium” are also occasionally to be met with in official documents.

It is necessary, however, to bear in mind, on the one hand, that a university often had a vigorous virtual existence long before it obtained that legal recognition which entitled it, technically, to take rank as a “studium generale,” and, on the other hand, that hostels, halls and colleges, together with complete courses in all the recognized branches of learning, were by no means necessarily involved in the earliest conception of a university. The university, in its earliest stage of development, appears to have been simply a scholastic gild—a spontaneous combination, that is to say, of teachers or scholars, or of both combined, and formed probably on the analogy of the trades gilds, and the gilds of aliens in foreign cities, which, in the course of the 13th and 14th centuries, are to be found springing up in most of the great European centres. The design of these organizations, in the first instance, was little more than that of securing mutual protection—for the craftsman, in the pursuit of his special calling; for the alien, as lacking the rights and privileges inherited by the citizen. And so the university, composed as it was to a great extent of students from foreign countries, was a combination formed for the protection of its members from the extortion of the townsmen and the other annoyances incident in medieval times to residence in a foreign state. It was a first stage of development in connexion with these primary organizations, when the chancellor of the cathedral, or some other authority, began, as we shall shortly see, to accord to other masters permission to open other schools than the cathedral school in the neighbourhood of his church; a further stage was reached when a licence to teach—granted only after a formal examination—empowered a master to carry on his vocation at any similar centre that either already existed or might afterwards be formed throughout Europe—“facultas