FOREIGN TONGUES
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I was almost stunned by the unsurpassable insularity of which your correspondent, Mr. G. S. Cockin, made such a pitiable display in his letter to The Spectator of May Ord.
What makes it yet more depressing is that he is a member of that State-supported organization, the Church, who are still in a position to influence very deeply the developing minds of our childhood and yoUth, even though the intelligent adult population has long ago ceased to hearken to their teaching or to accept- unquestioningly, their precepts.
Most members of the Anglican Church have had far-better opportunities than the ordinary man to educate themselves by reading and by traVel, and a • great many have much leisure in the course of their working lives for thought and culture. If Mr. Cockin has had these opportunities, it must then be an index of the obtuseness of his mind that he dares at such a time to criticize the publication of articles in the two finest continental languages in a reputable English journal.
Never has the need of a good knowledge of these two languages in particular been- so great as today, and never fortunately has the realization of this need been so sincere amongst the teaching afraternities and the young people of the country. - Those of us who have travelled abroad and have made an effort to acquire some fluency in French and German know how greatly our enjoyment and profit has been enhanced therebA and how through such a study we have been made conscious of the merits and the deficiencies of our own language.
I fervently hope that Mr. Coekin's Bishop is a reader of The Spectator, and, if he is, that he will write you, Sir, a letter condemning: he views • of his colleague and re-estab- lishing our good opinion of the mental integrity of the English clergy. In the meanwhile, ,I beg of you, in company no doubt with the majority of your readers, not to allow these attractive weekly articles to lapse.—Yours faithfully, , M.. BURTENSHAW, The Pathology Department, The University, Birmingham.
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