To lift them above prejudices, to make them love
other beauties than those of their own mental kindred, to afford them a
wider possibility of giving happiness to others, and of making
themselves at home in many countries, is to give them a power over the
conditions of life which reaches very far into their own mental
well-being and that of others, and makes them in the best meaning of the
word cosmopolitan.
The choice of languages to be learnt must depend upon many
considerations, but the widest good for English girls, though not the
most easy to attain, is to give them perfect French. German is easier to
learn from its kinship with our own language, but its grammar is of less
educational value than French, and it does not help as French does to
the acquirement of the most attractive of other European languages.
As a second language, however, and for a great deal that is not
otherwise attainable, German is in general the best that can be chosen.
Italian and Spanish have their special claims, but at present in England
their appeal is not to the many. German gives the feeling of kindred
minds near to us, ourselves yet not ourselves; with primitive Teutonic
strength and directness, with a sweet freshness of spring in its more
delicate poetry, and both of these elements blended at times in an
atmosphere as of German forests in June.
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