LANGUAGES

Hokitika Guardian, 27 December 1933, Page 2

LANGUAGES

VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE !

The importance of a, knowledge of foreign languages, particularly by those engaged in international trade, was urged by Sir Francis Goode no ugh on his election as president of the Institue of Linguists. His attention was first called to the urgency of this question, lie said, when he was chairman of the Comittee on Education for Salesmanship. That committee felt, that, in view of the increasing severity of foreign competition, alike as regarded training anci technical' skill, the acquisition of foreign languages had long passed the luxury or drawing room stage, and that facility in them would determine to some extent the future measure of British oversea trade and prosperity.

The progressive business man on the Continent regarded this question of foreign languages as one cf immediate concern from the point of view both or his own trade and that if the country as a whole ; and it was high time that they in Britain took an equally serious view of its importance. There were two. serious difficulties standing in the way of a movement for more and bettor study of foreign languages. One was the difficulty of interesting employers in the subject and getting them to ] ecognise the importance of offering facilities and financial reward to those

in their ■ service who were willing to take up the study of languages. There was the second difficulty of interesting parents in the subject, though he was glad to recognise that more parents than ever were now sending their children abroad to complete their education by studing French, German, and Spanish. There was no difficulty in interesting educationists in the subject*, hut it was very important that the universities should not think only in terms of philology and literature, archaic as well as modern, but should realise that in the matter of modern languages what was wanted was instruction which included, primarily, instruction in the modern literature and in the living, speech of a living people. It was essential that an effective oral test should accompany all examinations in modern languages.