This danger must not be under-estimated. It is just this peril, so threatening to our civilization, that moves me to show my colours frankly here. I am not a supporter of bookworm drudgery in schools, but I feel myself impelled to use every effort in speech and writing to combat the anti-humanists whose password, "For _our_ language," at root signifies "Enemies of Science!" We must put no weapons into their hands, and the only means to avoid this is, in my opinion, to state our creed emphatically and openly after the manner of almost all our classical writers. This creed, both as regards language and substance, is to be understood as being based on the efficacy of the old classical languages. It is the luminous centre of the life and work of the men who caused Bulwer to proclaim our country the country of poets and thinkers. The superabundance of these is so excessive that it is scarcely fair to mention only a few names such as Goethe, Lessing, Schiller, Wieland, Kant, and Schopenhauer. Our literature would be of a provincial standard and not a world possession if this creed had not asserted its sway at all times. If the question is raised as to where our youth is to find time for learning ancient languages under the present conditions of crowded subjects, the answer is to be furnished by improved methods of instruction. My personal point of view is that even the older methods were not so bad. Goethe found himself in no wise embarrassed through lack of time in acquiring all sorts of knowledge and mental equipment, although even as a boy of eight years he could write in Latin in a way which, compared with the bungling efforts of the modern sixth-form boy, seems Ciceronian. Montaigne could express himself earlier in Latin than in French, and if he had not had this "Latin poison" injected into his blood he would never have become Montaigne. It seems to me by no means impossible that the cultured world will one day in the distant future return to the once self-evident view of classical languages, and indeed just for reasons of economy of time, unless the universal language so ardently desired by Hebbel--not to be confused with the artificial patchwork called Esperanto--should become a reality. But even this language, at present Utopian, but one which will help to link together the nations, will disclose the model of the ancient languages in its structure. Scientific language of the present day shows where the route lies; and this route will be made passable in spite of all the efforts of Teutonic language saints and assassins of humanism to block it.