[237] The distinguished French physician, Dr. Sollier, also, in an address to the Lisbon International Medical Congress, on "La Question de la Langue Auxiliaire Internationale," in 1906, advocating the adoption of one of the existing Romance tongues, said: "Spanish is the simplest of all and the easiest, and if it were chosen for this purpose I should be the first to accept it." [238] It has even been stated by a distinguished English man of science that Latin is sometimes easier for the English to use than is their own language. "I have known Englishmen who could be trusted to write a more intelligible treatise, possibly even to make a more lucid speech, in Latin than in English," says Dr. Miers, the Principal of London University (_Lancet_, 7th October, 1911), and he adds: "Quite seriously, I think some part of the cause is to be sought in the difficulty of our language, and many educated persons get lost in its intricacies, just as they get lost in its spelling." Without questioning the fact, however, I would venture to question this explanation of it. [239] Thus in one article on the growing extension of the English language throughout the world (_Macmillan's Magazine_, March, 1892) we read: "English is practically certain to become the language of the world.... The speech of Shakespeare and Milton, of Dryden and Swift, of Byron and Wordsworth, will be, in a sense in which no other language has been, the speech of the whole world." We do not nowadays meet with these wild statements. [240] The stumbling-stones for the foreigner presented by English words in "ough" have often been referred to, and are clearly set forth in the verses in which Mr. C.B. Loomis has sought to represent a French learner's experiences--and the same time to show the criminal impulses which these irregularities arouse in the pupil. "I'm taught p-l-o-u-g-h Shall be pronounced 'plow,' 'Zat's easy when you know,' I say, 'Mon Anglais I'll get through.' "My teacher say zat in zat case O-u-g-h is 'oo,' And zen I laugh and say to him 'Zees Anglais make me cough.' "He say, 'Not coo, but in zat word O-u-g-h is "off,"' Oh, _sacre bleu_! such varied sounds Of words make me hiccough! "He say, 'Again, mon friend ees wrong! O-u-g-h is "up," In hiccough,' Zen I cry, 'No more, You make my throat feel rough,' "'Non! non!' he cry, 'you are not right-- O-u-g-h is "uff."' I say, 'I try to speak your words, I can't prononz zem though,' "'In time you'll learn, but now you're wrong, O-u-g-h is "owe."' 'I'll try no more. I sall go mad, I'll drown me in ze lough!' "'But ere you drown yourself,' said he, 'O-u-g-h is "ock."' He taught no more! I held him fast, And killed him wiz a rough!"