PREFACE xvii
If the educational time at our disposition were sufficient,
theve ave one or two things I would add to those I have
just now called the essentials ; and perhaps you will be
surprised to hear, though I hope you will not, that I should
add, not more science, but one, or, if possible, two languages.
The knowledge of some other language than one's own is,
in fact, of singular intellectual value. Many of the faults
and mistakes of the ancient philosophers are traceable to
the fact that they knew 'no language but their own, and
were often led into confusing the symbol with the thought
which it embodied. I think it is Locke who says that onehalf
 of the mistakes of philosophers have arisen Jrom
questions about words ; and one of the safest ways of delivering
 yourself from the bondage of words is, to know
how ideas look in words to which you are not accustomed,
That is one reason for the study of language ; another
reason is, that it opens mew fields in art and in science.
Another is the practical value of such knowledge ; and yet
another is this, that if your languages are properly chosen,
from the time of learning the additional languages you
will know your own language better than you ever did,
So, I say, if the time given to education permits, add Latin
and German, Latin, because it is the key to nearly one-half
of English and to all the Romance languages ; and German,
because it is the key to almost all the vemainder of English,
and helps you to understand a vace from which most of us
have sprung, and who have a character and a literature dg a
fateful force in the history of the world, suck as probably
kas been allotted to those of no other peaple, except the Jews,
the Greeks, and ourselves. . Beyond these, the essential and
the eminently desirable elements of all education, let each
man take up his special line—the historian devote himself
to history, the man of science to his science, the man of letters
to his culture of that kind, and the artist to his special
pursuit.—THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY, “On Science and
Art in Relation to Education.” 1882,