AN GAOḊAL.
247
That the cultivation and preservation of the lan¬
guage of a nation is the most patriotic cause in
which its people could engage is admitted by all.
It is the fountain, from which spring the thoughts
and associations of infancy. With it are entwined
sentiments which cannot be eradicated from the
mind. The most lukewarm nationalist admit the
singularly peculiar anomaly of a nation permitting
its language to perish. The Irish people en mass
would gladly practice and revive the language
were it not for the trouble of learning it. Now,
the trouble is not so much. About two years' of
ordinary application would enable any one to ob¬
tain a fair knowledge of it. If every Irishman and
woman resolved to give a little assistance to the
work, and set the wheel in active motion, in a short
time sensible progress would be made. The most
effective mode of spreading the movement for the
revival of the language is to multiply Gaelic liter¬
ature. There are hundreds of thousands who
would not go to the trouble of procuring dear
books from which to acquire a knowledge of the
language that would be very glad to know some¬
thing about it if they got the material from which
to learn within reasonable reach. It is then the
duty of all to see that this material is at hand, and
the support of Gaelic publications will supply it.
The fourth Biennal Convention of the Catholic
Knights of America held in St. Louis during the
month of May was a grand success. The election
resulted as follows:
Supreme Spiritual Director, Rt. Rev. J. L.
Spaulding, of Peori, Ill.
Supreme President, Hon. W. E. Russell, of Le¬
banon, Ky.
Supreme vice-president, R.A. Davis of B'klyn
N.Y.
Supreme Sect., John J. Thompson of St. Louis,
Mo.
Supreme Treas., M. J. O'Brien, of Chattanooga,
Tenn.
Supreme Medical Examiner, Dr. E. Miles Wil¬
lett, of Memphis, Tenn.
Supreme Trustees, J.J. Duffey, of Memphis,
Tenn.; P.J. O'Rourke, of Ft. Wayne, Ind.; B.H.
Ereslage, of Cincin. Ohio,
It was decided to hold the next Supreme Con¬
vention in N.Y. in 1885.
Officers' Salaries.
Supreme President $600.00
Supreme Treasurer 800.00
Supreme Secretary 2000.00
This closed one more convention of importance.
We trust that in the next convention, in 1885, the
name of C. K. of A. will be a household word in
every house in America.
Whatever befalls a woman she will use her ton¬
gue! How different from the nature of woman
must be the majority of Irishmen!
The old versus The Modern Letter.
Considerable discussion has been carried on for
some time relative to the employment of the mod-
ern Roman letter in Gaelic composition. We do
not believe the modern letter will ever be exten¬
sively employed because it looks so cumbrous
when the h is used to denote aspiration. We have
been reading Irish since we were able to read any¬
thing, yet we must pause considerably in reading
the language in the modern letter. Mr. Gigan¬
non, ex-prest of the P.C.S. learned to read Irish
in the modern letter — when he joined the society
he strongly favored its adoption, but after some
weeks, when he came in on the old letter, he
would not have the modern at all, and so it would
be with all. But, as Father Bourke observes, let
those who want the Roman letter have it; anything
to extend the movement.
If any of our correspondents write to us in the
modern letter, and desire its insertion therein, pro¬
vided it did not occupy too much space, we would
be very far from ignoring it. Some of our Gaelic
students have declared that they would rather not
see Gaelic printed at all than to see it badly done;
others might say that they would sooner be with¬
out it than to see it in the modern Roman letter.
Now, although we are unalterably attached to the
old letter, yet, we differ with both — we shall pub¬
lish all efforts at composition — practice will im¬
prove and and in both letters, because we believe
that all interested in the promotion of the move¬
ment should be conciliated, and we hope and trust
that all who are sincerely desirous of popularizing
the movement will put their foot on those dogma¬
is criticisers who air themselves as the solons of
Irish literature. If no person wrote Irish until
he became a perfect master of it, Gaelic corres¬
pondence would be very rare indeed. As this
journal has been founded for the purpose of ex¬
tending a knowledge of the language, it invites
all efforts to that end. We would sooner see a
communication in it from a pupil than from a
professor. Practice will obtain perfection.
PROF. HUTCHINSON, in one of his lectures, men¬
tioned a very interesting fact ascertained in Ber¬
lin. Among Roman Catholics who prohibit mar¬
riages between near relations, the proportion of
deaf mutes is one in 3,000; among Protestants
who took upon such marriages as permissible the
proportion is one in 2,000: while among Jews,
who encourage inter-marriage with blood relations
the deaf mutes are as one in 400.
Please when sending postage stamps to send one,
two or three cent ones, as larger ones are incon¬
vement, being seldom used and the post-office offi¬
cials not inclined to change them.
P.T. Neb. The office of Rossa's paper, the Uni¬
ted Irishman is 12 Chambers st. N.Y. It is a dy¬
namite journal,
