Page:Algeria from Within.pdf/156
ALGERIA FROM WITHIN
with all the vices of the Europeans with whom they have come in contact. What does strike an Englishman is the enormous proportion of Arabs who talk fluent French. In India it is the officer and the official who have to learn Urdu to make themselves understood among the natives; in Algeria it is the native who must learn French. This is carried to such an extent that in some of the communes mixtes of the north the little Arab boys are not learning their own language as a channel of conversation.
The south is different, as only a few nomads can say a word of French, but in time the language of the conqueror will impose itself into the farthest recesses of the Sahara. It is another example of the results. obtained by an administration which at first sight seems a contradiction to all sense, and which yet produces wonderful results.
132