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grammatical rules and categories had been instilled, it would probably be found that the subsequent task of learning natural languages would be facilitated and abridged. From the very start it would be possible to prevent certain common errors and confusions, that tend to become engrained in juvenile minds by the fluctuating or contradictory usage of their own language, to their great let and hindrance in the subsequent stages of language-learning. The skeleton outline of grammatical theory with concrete examples afforded by Esperanto would shield against vitiating initial mistakes, in much the same way as the use of a scientific phonetic alphabet, when a foreign language is presented for the first time to the English beginner in written form, shields him against carrying over his native mixed vowel system to languages which use the same letters as English, but give quite a different value to them. In both cases^[1] the essentials of the new instrument of learning are the same—that it be of universal application, that it be sufficiently different from the mother-tongue or alphabet to prevent confusion by association of ideas, that each of the new forms or letters convey only one idea or sound respectively, and that this idea or sound be always and only conveyed by that form or letter.

(2) From a psychological point of view Esperanto would be a rewarding subject of study for children.

The above remarks on sequence of languages show that, by placing Esperanto first in the language curriculum, justice is done to the psychological maxim: from the easier to the harder, from the regular to the exceptional. It may further be argued (a) that Esperanto is educative in the real sense of the word, i.e. suitable for drawing out and developing the reasoning powers; (b) that it would act as a stimulus, and by its ease set a higher standard of attainment in language-learning.

(a) Amidst all the discussion of "educationists" about methods, curricula, sequence of studies, and the rest, one