Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/125

 response. "For one thing, our industrial is also our professional training, to which even in your period, a certain amount of time must have been devoted. Our children, besides, have many advantages over those of the nineteenth century. By the aid of a rational alphabet, though they do not learn to read in one week, yet they do acquire the power of spelling any word as pronounced in our language. Not being obliged to fritter away our energies on the study of other tongues, we are able to devote the more time and care to the mastery of our own."

"I can easily conceive," said I, "that the study of what, in my time, were called the classical tongues, has passed away since their influence on thought and expression must have become extensively diluted by subsequent influences. But do you not study other languages contemporaneous with your own?"

"How can there be more than one living language?" he exclaimed with some surprise. Then, recollecting himself, he added, "I ought to have remembered the state of matters in your day. For us, however, it is as difficult to conceive of civilized man differing so widely in language, measures, and similar matters, as for you to realize the state of things when every district was inhabited by hostile tribes, differing in almost every respect."

"What an enormous economy of time and mental energy!" I exclaimed. thinking with regret of the years of effort spent on language alone. "But do none study any language but their mother-tongue?"

"Only those that do so for special purposes. Your father, for example, was well acquainted with the ancient