Probably no one regards the teaching of foreign languages in the public schools as at all satisfactory at present, and the chief reason is that far too much is attempted, with far too little consideration of what will be achieved. Most boys are either simultaneously learning, or have at one time simultaneously tried to learn, three foreign languages, Latin, Greek, and French, or Latin, French, and German. The burden is too heavy for them to bear. Only the minority have any real gift for foreign languages, and for the rest the aim should be one foreign language only. Little will be accomplished in any subject unless there is a real ambition to learn, and there can be no such ambition unless a definite goal is in sight. The goal here is real knowledge in a foreign language, for half or quarter-knowledge of a foreign language is a most unsatisfying accomplishment. The obvious language is French. Even so, many will not learn to write it correctly, and as for speaking it, that is an accomplishment so much more conveniently acquired elsewhere that we offer no opinion as to how far it is worth attempting at school.[1] But fluent reading of French is a thing within the reach of practically any boy, and even the stupid boy, if he concentrates upon this, to the exclusion of other and more difficult linguistic tasks, will make such unmistakable progress that his ambitions may well be roused. And the accomplishment is one that can quickly be made useful. For instance, probably the best general history of Europe is still Guizot's book, and its French is about the easiest ever written. But we would go further. We remember once a boy being birched for circulating a copy of _La Vie Parisienne_. Does not this suggest that every house should take a French daily newspaper, and also an illustrated weekly, other than that above mentioned?