Bad or erroneous translations and faulty abstracts are very harmful; it would be better in such cases that no translation should exist, as then the original would have to be consulted. These difficulties, many more of which could be mentioned, are well known to all scientific men, since each has suffered more or less from them.
The question then is, What remedy can we apply? One proposal is to introduce into secondary schools the teaching of modern instead of classical languages, in order to render the students, after matriculation at the universities, capable of taking part in international scientific intercourse. This proposal has arisen from the view that the learning of modern added to that of the classical languages would overburden the secondary schools, whilst the learning of modern languages at the universities would cause equal or greater difficulties.
Few young people possess, during their years at the university, sufficient keenness and moral courage to subject themselves to the ordeal of linguistic studies, from which they have joyfully escaped on their entrance into the university. Few possess at that age a full conception of the usefulness and necessity of a knowledge of languages. And it is just those young people who wish to devote themselves to the professions of literature or science who ought to devote their whole time and full powers to their professional work, and not be obliged to break up their time with linguistic studies.
The proposal to exclude the classical languages from the secondary schools has encountered, however, from many quarters very weighty objections, the force of which cannot be denied, even by the opposite side. We shall, however, not enter into this much-debated question, contenting ourselves with the remark that at the present day insuperable obstacles stand in the way of a complete or partial substitution of modern for classical languages. Experience shows also that the teaching of modern languages in schools seldom leads to a practical result, although it must be conceded that nowadays, with newer methods, much better results are obtained than formerly, when the grammar, but not the practical use, was taught. If, therefore, the teaching of modern languages cannot well be carried out either at the universities or in the schools, there remains only the time before school studies. It is, in fact, possible (as is done in many well-to-do families), by means of a French or German governess, to teach a child, besides its mother tongue, one of these languages, in so far as its mental development permits. It is probably inadvisable to teach more than one new language in this way, in order to avoid injury to the child's own mother tongue. Such a knowledge, however, is quite insufficient for the needs of the young scientific man, and so the acquaintance with a language gained in this way requires constant extension and development.
But even assuming that the young man continues the study of the language that he has learnt as a child, or even indeed learns another during his school days, he will possess at best that approximate knowledge of the three chief languages which we have characterised above as being neither qualitatively nor quantitatively sufficient, because it does not suffice for oral intercourse, and because other languages must be taken into account.
The proposal has, therefore, been made to choose, by international agreement, one of the national languages as a universal intermediary language. If everybody learnt this language, then the difficulty would be surmounted.
This proposal is, however, still-born. Every attempt to realise it is bound to be shipwrecked on the rock of national jealousy, as has been often shown before, for it is evident that the nation whose language was chosen would receive a very great advantage. The widely spoken English language possesses, it is true, a very simple grammar, but it would be very unsuitable for this purpose on account of its extremely difficult pronunciation.
Just as science has succeeded in giving to the world a uniform system of weights and measures by choosing instead of a national unit of length one common to all nations, namely, the length of an earth quadrant, so only that language could find general acceptance which was based on the common possession of those peoples for whom it was intended. By that we mean the stock of words common to the three great families of languages, the Germanic, Romance, and Slavonic.
Against this the objection will be raised: "An artificial language; in other words, a Utopia! How could one think of artificially creating a language, which, after all, is a living and spontaneously developing organism? One might as well think of artificially creating a live horse!"