Page:International Language.djvu/40

might then be valid. At present it is not. To have an easy language that will carry you anywhere and enable you to read anything, it is sufficient to wish for it. Only, as we Britons are being taught to "think imperially," so must the nations learn in this matter to wish internationally.

The main work of educating the public to "wish internationally," the necessary precedent to official action, has naturally in the past been done by the adherents of the various language-schemes themselves. An outline of the most important of these movements is given in the second part of this book.

But apart from these there is now an international organisation that is working for the adoption of an international auxiliary language, and a brief account of it may be given here.

During the Paris Exhibition of 1900 a number of international congresses and learned societies, which were holding meetings there, appointed delegates for the consideration of the international language question. These delegates met on January 17, 1901, and founded a "Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language." They drew up the following declaration, which has been approved by all subsequently elected delegates:

The undersigned, deputed by various Congresses and Societies to study the question of an international auxiliary language, have agreed on the following points: