The telegraph and telephone have made of the
world a whispering gallery. Steam and electric traction have annihilated space. The scattered human,
race yet remains a strangely misunderstood family.
Within one hour the report of a momentous event
may be shot through 500 languages and as many
more dialects; but convene a thousand representative
dissimilar one-speech people and all becomes Babel
if not Pandemonium. Impossible, indeed, for each to
learn the language of the thousand ; but how small a
matter for all to learn a common second language if
such a language can be produced.
And it has been produced: Esperanto has been born — a composite of the pith of all language; precise, learnable at sight and almost grammarless.
This Esperanto Classic, “Robinsono Kruso,” is somewhat of an achievement for American enterprise as it is the first of its size and kind yet published here. It has been undertaken with zeal and wrought out according to abilitv. The original translation was
