The question of modern languages is one which is not altogether easy. In childhood it is possible to learn to speak a modern language perfectly, which can never be achieved in later years; there are therefore strong grounds for teaching languages at an early age, if at all. Some people seem to fear that knowledge of one’s own language suffers if others are learnt too soon. I do not believe this. Tolstoy and Turgenev were quite competent in Russian, though they learnt English, French and German in infancy. Gibbon could write in French as easily as in English, but this did not spoil his English style. All through the eighteenth century, all English aristocrats learnt French in early youth as a matter of course, and many also learnt Italian; yet their English was vastly better than that of their modern descendants. A child’s dramatic instinct prevents it from confusing one language with another, provided it speaks them to different people. I learnt German at the same time as English, and spoke it to nurses and governesses up to the age of ten; then I learnt French, and spoke it to governesses and tutors. Neither language ever confused itself with English, because it had different personal associations. I think that if a modern language is to be taught, it should be taught by a person whose native language it is, not only because it will be better taught, but because children feel less artificiality in talking a foreign language to a foreigner than in talking it to a person whose natural language is the same as their own. I think, therefore, that every school for children ought to have a French mistress, and if possible a German mistress too, who should not formally instruct the children in her language, except quite at first, but should play games with them and talk to them, and make the success of the games depend upon their understanding and answering. She could start with _Frère Jacques_ and _Sur le pont d’Avignon_, and go on gradually to more complicated games. In this way the language could be acquired without any mental fatigue, and with all the pleasure of play-acting. And it can be acquired then far more perfectly and with less waste of valuable educational time than at any subsequent period.