I write of these things from the point of view of the keen learner.  Some Russian teachers will be found to agree with me; others will not.  It is a paradox in the psychology of the teacher that few teachers are willing to adopt “slick” methods of teaching; they hate cutting corners far more than they hate obstacles, because their interest is in the teaching and not in the “getting there.”  But what we learners want is not an exquisite, rare knowledge of particulars, we do not want to spend an hour upon Russian needlessly; we want to get there as quickly and effectively as possible.  And for that, transliterated books are essential.

Now these may seem small details in the learning of languages, mere schoolmasters’ gossip, but the consequences are on the continental scale.  The want of these national text-books and readers is a great gulf between Russia and her Allies; it is a greater gulf than the profoundest political misunderstanding could be.  We cannot get at them to talk plainly to them, and they cannot get at us to talk plainly to us.  A narrow bridge of interpreters is our only link with the Russian mind.  And many of those interpreters are of a race which is for very good reasons hostile to Russia.  An abundant cheap supply, firstly, of English and French books, in English and French, but in the Russian character, by means of which Russians may rapidly learn French and English—­for it is quite a fable that these languages are known and used in Russia below the level of the court and aristocracy—­and, secondly, of Russian books in the Latin (or some easy phonetic development of the Latin) type, will do more to facilitate interchange and intercourse between Russia and France, America and Britain, and so consolidate the present alliance than almost any other single thing.  But that supply will not be a paying thing to provide; if it is left to publishers or private language teachers or any form of private enterprise it will never be provided.  It is a necessary public undertaking.

But because a thing is necessary it does not follow that it will be achieved.  Bread may be necessary to a starving man, but there is always the alternative that he will starve.  France, which is most accessible to creative ideas, is least interested in this particular matter.  Great Britain is still heavily conservative.  It is idle to ignore the forces still entrenched in the established church, in the universities and the great schools, that stand for an irrational resistance to all new things.  American universities are comparatively youthful and sometimes quite surprisingly innovating, and America is the country of the adventurous millionaire.  There has been evidence in several American papers that have reached me recently of a disposition to get ahead with Russia and cut out the Germans (and incidentally the British).  Amidst the cross-currents and overlappings of this extraordinary time, it seems to me highly probable that America may lead in this vitally important effort to promote international understanding.