On some defects in general education : being the Hunterian oration of the Royal College of Surgeons for 1869 / by Richard Quain.

Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On some defects in general education : being the Hunterian oration of the Royal College of Surgeons for 1869 / by Richard Quain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    ment:— We [the French people, that is], with our comparative ignorance of foreign languages and contemporary history, are only accustomed to look to our home and our immediate neigh- bours ; we scarcely give a glance or a thought to the rest of the world. But if we look over the chart of the whole globe . . . you will see that two rival powers, who are, however, but one in race, in tongue, in customs, and in laws —England and the United States of America —taken together, dominate (Europe excepted) the rest of this planet; or, to speak more correctly, they only exist there. The United States will rule all the western continent; England has India, Australia, New Zealand. At this very day, a book written in English is read by an infinitely larger number of human beings than if written in our tongue, and it is in English that the seaman is spoken with in almost every navigable part of the globe. ^ If this be so, does not the duty rest some- where to take good care that the language so widely spread over the earth should be taught and learnt, spoken and written, with some purity } Is that to be the care of the pioneers of civi- lization in new and distant lands, or does it not 1 La nouvelle France, par Prevost-Paradol, p. 397. Paris, i860. E7iglish- speaking people.
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