Baker Arthur (ed.) The American Esperanto Book: a Compendium of the International Language Esperanto

Girard: 1907. — 321 p.The purpose of Esperanto is to be a second language for those persons who have relations with people whose native languages they do not know. This great need of humanity Esperanto supplies. By a few weeks of study, even without the aid of a teacher, one can qualify himself for conversation and correspondence with all the other Esperantists of the world, whatever their nationality. Their number is increasing by hundreds of thousands each year. These facts being established beyond doubt, it would be conferring an undeserved dignity upon those who oppose the language to reply to their arguments. It has an artificial sound" - so has the voice in the telephone. "It is not artistic" - neither is a steam locomotive. The usefulness of Esperanto is so thoroughly established that the discussion of its artistic merits may well be dismissed, with perhaps the observation that the language is frequently mistaken by the uninitiated for Italian or Spanish, popularly supposed to be the most musical of languages.