Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1899 — Any Language but Her Own. [ARTICLE]

Any Language but Her Own.

A writer on one of the newspapers published in an Eastern city lately overheard a conversation between two high-school girls. This, acording to his report, is what they were saying to each other: “What do you think I done to-day, Clara?” “Well, what did you do?” asked the other. “I translated four pages of French exercises. Wasn’t that fine?” “Fine? I should say so. I wish I had done as good as that. I only translated two.” It is unnecessary to comment on such a revelation of the English spoken by promising young students of French, except to say that it must be some one’s duty to teach them less French and more English. Sometimes we learn our own language the better for acquiring a knowedge of a foreign one, but that peculiar sort of philogical enlightenment comes only after we have acquired at least a fair speaking knowledge of our own tongue.