USEFUL KNOWLEDGE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 723, 26 December 1933, Page 4

USEFUL KNOWLEDGE

' — The importance of a knowledge of foreign languages, partic-ular-ly by those engaged in mternational trade, was m-ged W Sir Francis Goodenough on Ms election as president of the Imtitute of Linguists. His attentiln was first called to the urgency of this question, he said, when '1® was chairman of the Committ^ on Education for Salesmaiship. That committee felt that • in view of the increasing sewrity of foreign competition, alilfe as regarded training and techrfciil skill, the acquisition of fortign languages had long passed Ithe

luxury or drawing room stsge, and that facility in them wdhld determine to some extent tie future measure of British o/rsea trade and prosperity. ' The progressive business man on tle Continent regarded this questim of foreign1 languages as one* ® immediate cohcern ' from tH point of view both pf his owi trade and that of the country as a whole; and it was high timo that they in Britain took anj equally serious View of its importance. There were two serious difficulties standing in the way of a movement for more and better study of foreign languages. One was the difiiculty of interesting employers in the subject and getting them to recognise 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 difiiculty of interesting parents in the sub ject, though he was glad to r.ecognise that more parents than ever were now sending their children abroad to complete their education by studying French, German and Spanish.