The Stratford Evening Post With which is Incorporated "THE EGMONT SETTLER" (Established 1890) WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 3, 1934 Useful Knowledge

Stratford Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 451, 3 January 1934, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post With which is Incorporated "THE EGMONT SETTLER" (Established 1890) WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 3, 1934 Useful Knowledge

THE importance of a knowledge of foreign languages, particularly by those engaged in international trade, was urged by Sir Francis Goodenough en his election as president of the Institute of Linguists. His attention was first called to the urgency of this question, he said, when he was chairman of ,he Committee on Education for Salesmanship. That committee felt that, in view of the increasing severity of foreign competition, alike as regarded training and technical skill, the acquisition of foreign languages had long passed the luxury or drawing room stage, and that facility in them would determine to some extent the future measure of British oversea trade and prosperity. The progressive business man on the Continent regarded this question of foreign languages as one of immediate concern from the p«oinl: of view both of his own trade; and that of :he country as a whole; and it was high time that they in Britain took an equally serious view of its importance. There were two serious difficulties standing in the way of a movement for more and better study of fcreign languages. One was the difficulty of interesting employers in the subject and getting them to recognise the importance of offering facilities and financial reward to those in their service who were willing to take up .hestudy of languages. J hero was the second difficulty of interesting parents in the subject, though he was glad to recognise that more parents than ever were now rending their children abroad to complete their education by studying French, German and Spanish.