years there still hangs over us that old provincial back-woods
bogie, "English is good enough for me." We have only to recall
what England does for those of her colonial servants who want
seriously to study the language of some portion of her subjects to
have something very like the blush of shame creep up the back of
our necks. Child's task as is the learning of a foreign language,
provincial old Uncle Sam just flat-foots along in the same old
way, expecting to govern and judge and lead along the path of
civilization his foreign colonies by bellowing at them in his own
nasal drawl and treating their tongue as if it were some purely
animal sound. He is well personified by Corporal----, late of the
Z. P. The Corporal had served three years in the Philippines and
five on the Zone, and could not ask for bread in the Spanish
tongue. "Why don't you learn it?" some one asked one day.

"Awe," drawled the Corporal, "what's the use o' goin' t' all that
trouble? If you have t' have any interpretin' done all you got t'
do is t' call in a nigger."

Uncle Sam not merely lends his servants no assistance to learn the
tongues of his colonies, but should one of his subjects appear
bearing that extraordinary accomplishment he gives him no
preference whatever, no better position, not a copper cent more
salary; and if things get to a pass where a linguist must be hired
he gives the job to the first citizen that comes along who can
make a noise that is evidently not English, or more likely still
to some foreigner who talks English like a mouthful of Hungarian
goulash. It is not the least of the reasons why foreign nations do
not take us as seriously as they ought, why our colonials do not
love us and, what is of far greater importance, do not advance