The cost of an international language

              The Cost of an International Language.
An international language would greatly facilitate the affairs of the world. If one were agreed upon by the nations, it would be studied by all who seek a higher education or a good business position. Merchants and manufacturers would more easily find foreign markets for their wares. More people would then travel abroad, because they could talk with somebody in every community, and find in every city entertainments and a dr.ily paper in the international language. The great expositions ana international congresses would be far better attended, and thus the peace and progress of the wTorld be wronderfully promoted.
A few years ago the American Association for the Advancement of Science proposed a convention to select a national tongue for international use. But it was opposed by those favoring a new language. Volapuk could be mastered with a fourth of the labor necessary for English. But the American Philosophical Society wanted an international conference to frame a better system. So it and the Volapukists fought a duel, and killed each other's influence.
Since then the Volapuk Academy has, by correspondence, constructed Idiom Neutral, which is much more easily read tha* Esperanto. But the latter, being much older, has gained far more adherents. The Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language was started at the Paris Exposition in 1900, and is doing some useful work; but it has hampered itself by unnecessary restrictions. No History of Universal Language has yet appeared in English. But an interesting one is published in French by Hachette and Company, of Paris, for ten francs, or an abridgment of it for one franc. Many have labored long and hard. George J. Henderson, of London, has made three languages, and Elias Molee, of Tacoma, Washington, has spent forty years on Tutonish. Such heroic efforts have not been without effects.
But the language that becomes international must be so
made or selected that it will interest a great many people and
outrival all competitors.    This means a great conference.
An international congress of a thousand intelligent members could investigate the whole matter, and make or select a language that would arouse the millions. It would be greatly aided in its work by the investigations that would take place before it would meet and also by the discussion that would then be going on throughout the world. In five years it could frame a language that would be a hundred times easier than any of the old ones.    A school girl would,