Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/100

92 of this fact. The "Cologne Gazette," for instance, used to publish the periodical advertisement of a German who undoubtedly prided himself on his English. Desiring to obtain some English boarders, he wound up with this remark, "The diet is notorious and unlimited." What he really meant was that he set a good table, and there was plenty to eat. It is this kind of modern language which some writers evidently mean when they speak of the facility with which translations from modern languages can be made. Let us suppose there were no prejudice against the modern languages, and none in favor of Greek, what would happen? The medical faculties would, no doubt, advise their students to avail themselves of every opportunity to obtain a good knowledge of the three languages in which the chief results of modern civilization are recorded. But to do this with a reasonable chance of success, such students must be allowed the necessary time. They can not find this time for the modern languages as long as the college compels them to devote it to the ancient. To measure fairly the disciplinary value of such a language as English is not an easy matter. Take, for instance, the choice of synonyms. Soup and broth seem to mean the same thing, at least in poetry, and yet the poet may want to use the one in a place where he could not use the other. An English gentleman spent an evening in Venice at the theatre. The piece represented was an Italian version of "Macbeth." In the course of the play our Englishman heard the expression, "Polenta in female," which he mentally translated into "infernal soup," without being able to recall the original passage. Having returned to the hotel, his first care was to examine the English work, when he was delighted to find that the immortal bard, far from using the shocking "infernal soup," mentioned only the comparatively harmless "hell-broth."

Whoever has consulted a dictionary of synonyms in the English, German, or French language, will receive with some doubt the assertion that the ancient languages are richer in this respect than the modern. The celebrated historian, Guizot, devoted many years to a dictionary of French synonyms, which contains over eight hundred pages. The astonishing wealth of the German vocabulary is well known, and the philosophical spirit of the nation has introduced such a great number of the nicest shades of expression that a translation from the German, in order to be good, requires an extraordinary effort.

"Traduttore traditore" say the Italians. "A translator, a traitor." Not necessarily. There are translations and translations, but, after all, to translate fluently from one language into another is not the real object of language-study. Unless a student reads a foreign language as he does his own, he has not mastered it, but to gain this ability is a far more serious undertaking than is commonly believed.

Be this as it may, it is at least certain that a doctor of medicine, or a candidate for the degree, should have an ordinary knowledge of