And how often has the written or spoken word fanned the flame of nationality among downtrodden peoples! The story is the same from land to land and age to age. The soul of a nation in bondage is wrapped around its patriotic literature. Generation after generation of Bohemians, Finns or Poles have drunk at the national fount of poem and song. Within the peasant’s thatched home as in the city abode, the well-worn volume, pregnant with past glory, becomes the beacon of hope. It lights the darkness of oppression’s heaviest hours. For men of feeling, destiny will ever be hailed in the word that stirs. The harvest reaped by Cavour was of Dante’s sowing. In the bitter linguistic struggles waged in Europe two gratifying facts are discernible. The dominance of the majority by an intellectually gifted minority prevails in every country and age. Furthermore, the survival of oppressed minorities in the midst of oppressing majorities appears to be general. The one is the reward of competence; the other is the triumph of right over might. Both are victories of the human will. Both have been purchased by dint of hard struggle. Humanity is the better for them. Neither has conquest always been able to introduce a new language. The widening sphere of Roman influence carried the original dialect of the capital to the confines of the world. But it is unlikely that Latin was spoken in the Nubian provinces or other outlying districts to a greater degree than English is spoken in India today. It was only the language of the dominant element and the one in which official transactions were recorded. As a rule the oldest language of a country is spoken by its peasants. The tillers of the soil usually represent the oldest stratum in the population of a region. The principle holds in territories which have borne the brunt of successive invasions. It is the same in Macedonia, Poland or Transylvania. On the other hand, the land-owning class is generally recruited from among past invaders. The value of language as a national asset was shown in France during the trying days of war when the very existence of the country was at stake. Respect for the mother-tongue is deeply immured in every Frenchman’s heart. In no other country does the feeling reach the same pitch. The French educational system provides ample facilities for the early initiation of students to the beauties of their vernacular. The clear and connected thought for which French writing stands preëminent, its capacity for expressing the most subtle shades of meaning, are largely results of literary discipline.