Abstract
THE Imperial Institute has taken a most important step towards the organization of higher commercial education in London, by effecting an arrangement between University and King's Colleges for the establishment of a new School for Oriental Studies. The close connection between the mercantile interests of this country and of India, Turkey, China, South Africa, and other lands, renders it very desirable that travellers and traders should have full facilities for acquiring, not only a knowledge of the languages of those countries, but also some acquaintance with the habits and customs of the inhabitants. In France and Germany, we find that the wants of this class of students have been fully recognized by the State. The French School of Oriental Languages has been in existence over 100 years, and has recently been reconstructed at an annual expense, for maintenance alone, of £6000; and in 1887 a new school was opened in Berlin, as a special department of the University, which receives a subvention from the Government of over £3000 a year. In England, the economy to the nation of adequately supporting institutions for higher education is not yet understood, and consequently private effort has to step in and relieve the State of a duty which in other countries is discharged in no niggard spirit. The new School of Criental Studies promises to supply a distinct want. Instruction will be given in the principal Indian languages, in Persian, Burmese, Malay, Arabic, Turkish, Russian, Modern Greek, Chinese, Japanese, and Swaheli. The students will be taught not only to read and write, but also, as far as is possible, to speak those languages; and to this end the Committee contemplate the appointment of native readers and teachers of conversation. It has already been arranged that some of the Professors will preface their courses of linguistic teaching by lectures on the history, the physical and commercial geography, and the economic condition of the countries in which the various languages are spoken. It is hoped that by such means our mercantile and official classes may have the opportunity of acquainting themselves with the life and thought of the different Eastern peoples with whom they may be brought into communication.
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A New School of Oriental Studies. Nature 40, 251–252 (1889). https://doi.org/10.1038/040251a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/040251a0