literature. In most respects it is the best favoured child of Latin; it commends itself to all who speak Romance languages, and, as Alphonse de Candolle has remarked, a Spaniard and an Italian know three-quarters of French beforehand, and every one who has learnt Latin knows half of French already. It is more admirably adapted for speaking purposes than perhaps any other language which has any claim to be used for international purposes, as we should expect of the tongue spoken by a people who have excelled in oratory, who possess such widely diffused dramatic ability, and who have carried the arts of social intercourse to the highest point.
Paris remains for most people the intellectual capital of Europe; French is still very generally used for purposes of intercommunication throughout Europe, while the difficulty experienced by all but Germans and Russians in learning English is well known. Li Hung Chang is reported to have said that, while for commercial reasons English is far more widely used in China than French, the Chinese find French a much easier language to learn to speak, and the preferences of the Chinese may one day count for a good deal—in one direction or another—in the world's progress. One frequently hears that the use of French for international purposes is decaying; this is a delusion probably due to the relatively slow growth of the French-speaking races and to various temporary political causes. It is only necessary to look at the large International Medical Congresses. Thus at one such Congress at Rome, at which I was present, over six thousand members came from forty-two countries of the globe, and over two thousand of them took part in the proceedings. Four languages (Italian, French, German and English) were used at this Congress. Going over the seven large volumes of Transactions, I find that fifty-nine communications were presented in English, one hundred and seventy-one in German, three hundred and one in French, the rest in Italian. The proportion of English communications to German is thus a