Esperanto is making very rapid progress in Japan and China; for instance, I have here an excellent Esperanto paper published by a native society in Japan.
The CHAIRMAN. In what nation is it progressing most rapidly?
Prof. CHRISTEN. That is difficult to say, but seven years ago France was at the head, and Germany did not take it up for a long time. Then about five or six years ago England shot ahead of France, and then suddenly Germany took it up, and now I think Germany is ahead of all the other countries in the practical use of Esperanto. But it is making good progress everywhere--in France, in England, in Denmark, in Bulgaria, in Spain, in South America, in Germany, in India, in China, and in Japan. In Germany the authorities and scientific people have very strongly espoused Esperanto. For instance, the Government of Saxony sustains financially an Esperanto institute in Dresden, and that does a great deal of good work. The Government of Saxony is also a large contributor to an Esperanto library, which is the biggest in the world, as yet. And in many towns in Spain, in Germany, and in France, especially in France, whenever an Esperanto lecturer goes into a town he gets a stipend from the town; the town pays out of the city funds the expenses of his propaganda, or partly pays them; they contribute 50 or 100 francs, and frequently more, according to the size of the place. That is the practice in many places in other countries besides France, but especially in France. Even the Russian Government gives financial aid to Esperanto propaganda.
The CHAIRMAN. As I understand it, this is not supposed to be a universal language?
Prof. CHRISTEN. No; an international language.
The CHAIRMAN. But at the same time it is a language in which all the universe can meet upon a common plane and converse?
Prof. CHRISTEN. That is the intention, to give the whole of the civilized world one and the same secondary language.
The CHAIRMAN. In which they can all meet on a common plane?
Prof. CHRISTEN. Yes; no matter where you may go, if you know Esperanto, you shall not be a foreigner anywhere. The intention is to do away with this terrible handicap of being unable to converse with your fellow men of the various countries you may visit unless you learn all or most of those languages, a thing which, as you know, is in most cases quite impossible. It is the intention to have all the nations understand Esperanto, and by that means make it possible for all the peoples of the world to commune directly with each other. The time has come in the world's history when a common vehicle of human expression is absolutely necessary, and the barrier of Babel must fall, as mostly all other obstacles to free intercourse have already fallen, before the triumphant advance of modern science and technology. It is positively fatuous and futile to ask the modern man, be he in commerce or science or what not, to become an expert in his particular line of endeavor and a polyglot besides. It can not be done. Languages are too many and each one too complicated for our crowded curricula. The obligatory study of foreign languages belongs to a remote past when there existed no sciences and no industrial arts, when life was less crowded and when there were fewer world languages. Even less than a hundred years ago a man was an accomplished cosmopolitan if he knew French and his own mother tongue. To-day he wants and ought to be conversant with French, German, and Spanish, at the very least, besides English, and before long he will have to tackle Russian and Japanese. As a matter of fact in some of the European countries and in South America the school children actually spend from 35 to 60 per cent of the school time in acquiring that sort of an education, which is really not education at all but only a means to an end.