A ■>< 
 
 ■ V, 
 
 \] '•\i\ 

 
 SOUTHERN BRANCH, 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 LIBRARY, 
 
 i-OS AN: : ' - CALIF,
 
 Seatij's ^PtBasogical tLiiji-atg — XT 
 
 METHODS 
 
 OF 
 
 TEACHING MODERN LANGUAGES 
 
 PAPERS ON THE VALUE AND ON METHODS 
 
 OF MODERN LANGUAGE 
 
 INSTRUCTION. 
 
 New Edition. 
 
 A. Marshall Elliott, Calvin Thomas, E. S. Joynes, W. T. Hewett 
 
 F. C. DE SUMICHRAST, A. LODEMAN, W. B. SNOW, W. R. PrICE, 
 
 E. H. Babbitt, C. H. Grandgent, H. C. G. von Jage- 
 
 MANN, E. SPANHOOFD. 
 
 D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 
 
 BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
 
 CoFTBIffHT, 1893, 
 
 Bt D. C. Heath & Ca 
 2C2
 
 i-fA 
 
 PUBLISHERS' NOTICE. 
 
 In all departments of education teachers to-day, more than 
 ever before, are reading the literature of their profession ; and 
 it is hoped that modern language instructors may find in the 
 following papers stimulus and suggestion in a branch of 
 education that is now recognized as exceedingly important in 
 f^ any scheme of liberal training. 
 
 "^^ Teachers of the modern languages have repeatedly inquired 
 for copies of papers or addresses dealing with their profession, 
 and it was suggested to us that it would be very acceptable 
 >A and helpful if we should publish a collection of some of the 
 Hi best thoughts on the value and methods of Modern Language 
 ^ Teaching. We have therefore compiled this book of ad- 
 dresses and articles that have come to our notice or have been 
 mentioned to us by prominent friends of modern language 
 v^. instruction. By kindly consenting to their publication in 
 sj. this form, the authors have co-operated with us in presenting 
 ^ pedagogical opinions of interest to the thoughtful considera- 
 tion of scholars and teachers. 
 
 The order of these papers is due partly to their respective 
 dates, and partly to the order in which they were suggested 
 or presented to us. 
 
 D. C. Heath & Co. 
 Mabch, 1893. 
 
 Note. — In the edition of 1915, the preliminary Report of the Com- 
 mittee of the National Education Association, made in July, 1914, has 
 been included, and three recent papers substituted for some of those in 
 earlier editions.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Modern Languages as a College Discipline .... 1 
 By Professor A. Marshall Elliott of Johna Hopkins University. 
 
 Observations upon Method in the Teaching of Modern 
 
 Languages 11 
 
 By Professor Calvin Thomas of Columbia University. 
 
 Reading in Modern Language Study 29 
 
 By Professor E0w4.R0 S. JoifNES of the University of South Carolina. 
 
 The Natural Method 45 
 
 By Professor W. T. Hewett of Cornell University. 
 
 Notes on the Teaching of French 50 
 
 By Professor F. C. de Sumichrast of Harvard University. 
 
 Practical and Psychological Tests op Modern Language 
 
 Study 90 
 
 By Professor A. Lodeman of Michigan State Normal School. 
 
 Modern Language Study in American Public Schools. 
 
 What next? 109 
 
 By WiLLLAM B. Snow, English High School, Boston. 
 
 Aims and Methods in Modern Language Instruction . 124 
 By William R. Price, New York State Department of Education. 
 
 The Teaching op French and German in our Public High 
 
 Schools 138 
 
 By Profbsbob C. H. Gbakdqent of Harvard University.
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Statement of Chairman of the Committee on Modern Lan- 
 guages, National Education Association .... 144 
 
 On the Use of the Foreign Language in the Class-room 171 
 
 By Professor H. C. G. ton Jageuann of Harvard University. 
 
 Common Sense in Teaching Modern Languages . . 186 
 
 By E. H. Babbitt, Instructor in Columbia University. 
 
 Translation into English . 207 
 
 By E. SPANBOoro. St. Paul's School, Concord, N. H.
 
 METHODS OF TEACHING MODERN 
 LANGUAGES. 
 
 MODERN LANGUAGES AS A COLLEGE DISCIPLINE.* 
 
 BY PROFESSOR A. M. ELLIOTT, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. 
 
 There is one aspect of the Greek-Modern Language ques- 
 tion on which there has been no special stress laid, so far as 
 I have seen, in the various discussions of it that Mr. Adams's 
 paper has called out ; viz., the importance of modern lan- 
 guage study as a special disciplinary factor of our higher 
 education. In truth, the few references to the subject outside 
 of the favorable view held in the Phi-Beta-Kappa oration 
 would seem to imply a denial of the existence of such an ele- 
 ment altogether in the modern idioms as compared with the 
 classic tongues. The eminent president of Yale College as- 
 serts that they " are distinctly recognized as essential condi- 
 tions of professional and business success, or accomplishments 
 of gentlemanly culture." Professor Josiah P. Cooke of 
 Harvard assures us that, in his opinion, " to compare German 
 literature with the Greek, or, what is worse, French literature 
 with the Latin, as a means of culture, implies a forgetfulness 
 of the true spirit of literary culture." And a leading con- 
 temporary journal, after qualifying all controversy of this 
 sort as an " inexcusable display of ignorance," adds with a 
 
 1 Read before the Modern Language Association of America, 1887, and reprinted 
 with the permission of the author.
 
 2 MODERN LANGUAGES 
 
 sort of oracular sanctity, " And for philology, there practically 
 is no foundation except Latin and Greek, — and Greek rather 
 than Latin." Such expressions as these show most clearly the 
 dogmatic spirit in which this whole subject is approached by 
 many advocates of the exclusive classical idea when the ques- 
 tion of training comes up. As zealous holders of the only 
 true faith, they would fain exclude the converts to modernism 
 from all the distinctive elevating influences of their creed, 
 and would relegate them to the domain of purely utilitarian 
 interests, or to the changing caprices of society ; and this 
 subordinate position is granted them more from the necessi- 
 ties of the age in which we live than from any special feeling 
 of their worth as members of the great corporate body of 
 scholars. For the scholar in truth it is even hinted, in some 
 cases, that their field is useless, and for the educator in par- 
 ticular the subjects that occupy them are regarded as a species 
 of cumbersome, worthless lumber that litters up the mental 
 workshop, and that must be gotten rid of as soon as possible, 
 if the range of the active powers of the mind is to be widened. 
 In other words, it is set down as a tenet of axiomatic wisdom 
 that modern languages have no place whatever among the 
 formative elements which help to develop the mental faculties. 
 This doctrine, however extreme it may seem, when thus 
 plainly stated, is held by a large majority of those who repre- 
 sent, at present, the guiding force in matters of education 
 throughout our country ; but I apprehend that it is for the 
 most part the result of traditional beliefs, or of the unhappy 
 failure of methods, or of sheer prejudice in a few cases, 
 rather than of actual experience in such matters. It may 
 be doubted, in fact, whether this important branch of learn- 
 ing has been represented by rigid scientific methods in our 
 educational system sufficient to test even the most elemen- 
 tary worth of its subjects as factors of a living power 
 suited to intellectual growth. Until this shall be done, 
 it is difficult to understand the fairness of any comparison
 
 AS A COLLEGE DISCIPLINE. 3 
 
 between them and another set of kindred subjects that has 
 long received special cultivation by the most eminent scholars, 
 and has held a prominent place in the training of our youth. 
 In the controversy now before the country with reference to 
 the merits of the study of Greek in our higher institutions, as 
 compared with that of science and modern languages, I fail 
 to see the appropriateness of disparaging remarks on the edu- 
 cating qualities of the latter, especially as to that part of the 
 question that touches upon the modern idioms. Science has 
 had the chance to cast off her swaddling clothes, and it is now 
 only a question of time as to the position she will eventually 
 occupy in the list of studies that are to constitute the building- 
 elements of the mind. With the modern languages it is 
 wholly different. They have but just started upon the road 
 of a true scientific development, and will naturally require 
 some opportunity to show their value as educating elements. 
 But, on general principles, such comparisons as these are more 
 or less odious in all circumstances, and they become especially 
 so when there is an evident intention to multiply the claims 
 to superiority of a given department of learning over others 
 that are allowed few or more of the privileges that attach to 
 the would-be favorite. The inconsistency of comparing the 
 potential forces of any two systems of educational training 
 without first according to both of them similar opportunities 
 of cultivation, and like circumstances of growth, is obvious to 
 every one who has not the drag-chain of some creed about his 
 neck. 
 
 The reproach flung at the modern languages by the par- 
 tisans of the exclusive order of classical studies, that they do 
 not show brilliant results of scholarship in this country, is but 
 a covert way of begging the question in a discussion of their 
 relative standing in any grade of culture. Up to now no 
 chance has been given to show whether favorable results may 
 be obtained from them, since other linguistic learning has held 
 the sway, to the driving out of all serious modern language
 
 4 MODEKN LANGUAGES 
 
 study. The time for pursuing them is often cut down to a 
 minimum ; far less teaching force, proportionately, is allowed 
 to them than to other departments ; no fixed standard of 
 requirement is set for them, as an academic discipline ; in fine, 
 they are practically crowded out of many college schedules, 
 and then mercilessly inveighed against because those who fol- 
 low them do not present, with all these disadvantages, as high 
 a standard of critical linguistic acquirement as if they had 
 spent years of careful preparation in them. Until they shall 
 have had a fair trial in the hands of well-trained, competent 
 teachers ; until the study of them shall have been given all 
 the favor in time and position which are accorded to the clas- 
 sics in our colleges, it is difficult to see the justness of any 
 demand that they shall make the same showing of general 
 training or of special scholarly attainments. 
 
 If we inquire into the depreciatory feeling with which the 
 modern languages are regarded by scholars generally, we 
 shall find, I think, that the responsibility for a great part of 
 it, at least, rests upon the shoulders of those who have the 
 chief power of appointment to positions in our higher in- 
 stitutions. The fatal college nepotism that has pervaded 
 this whole system in many places has practically ren- 
 dered it a sort of closed corporation to all who are educated 
 outside the pale of their own individual sanctuaries. The 
 natural consequence has been that young, inexperienced, and, 
 only too often, poorly prepared assistants have been called to 
 office, and through them the departments have had to suffer 
 not alone for a lack of efficient instruction, but also in the 
 general appreciation both of the student and of an intelligent 
 public. This misfortune has fallen more frequently upon the 
 modern languages, perhaps, than upon any other depart- 
 ments, from the simple fact that the idea is so generally prev- 
 alent that anybody can teach them. 
 
 We have only to examine a considerable number of cata- 
 logues of our colleges to see that this unfortunate state of
 
 AS A COLLEGE DISCIPLINE. 6 
 
 affairs is much more extensive than is generally supposed. 
 A boy who has spent one academic year of two hours per 
 week, for example, on his French, is then called to teach it ; 
 or, again, a gentleman who knows nothing of either French or 
 German receives an appointment in them, and goes abroad for 
 two months in the summer to prepare himself for the impor- 
 tant position ; such are but too common illustrations of the 
 kind of hands into which these branches often fall. What 
 wonder, then, in such circumstances, that the pupil should lose 
 all respect for his subject, and grow conceited with reference 
 to his own acquirements in it, while as yet he has not an 
 inkling of decent knowledge. This procedure is a downright 
 disgrace to any system of instruction, and should be forced 
 aside by the timely action of the leading institutions of this 
 country, by placing all language study upon an equal footing 
 with the same rights and privileges, and by demanding like 
 results of discipline from both the classical and modern 
 idioms. The time would then soon come in which the latter 
 would no longer be regarded as fit tools simply for the busi- 
 ness man, or as only pleasing accomplishments of the society 
 dilettanti. 
 
 The importance of having specially trained teachers in this 
 work would seem manifest from the very nature of the subject, 
 and yet no such necessity has been generally recognized by us 
 up to the present time. That intelligent young men become 
 in consequence simple information machines, stuffed with 
 systems of facts that they have no chance to digest, and that 
 they come to play mere parrot roles, learning their task-work 
 without any stimulus to awaken their powers of observation 
 or shape their judgment, is unfortunately a sad fact in much 
 of our modern language study. A further consequence of 
 this state of things is a degradation of the subject, a stifling 
 of all spontaneous interest, and a deadening apathy on the 
 part of the student. No incentive is placed before him to 
 awaken curiosity for learning, to strengthen the perceptive
 
 b MODERN LANGUAGES 
 
 faculties, and to cultivate the power of concentrated mental 
 effort. It is to this end that I would urge here an intelligent 
 historical, disciplinary study of these subjects, as peculiarly 
 adapted to a wide range and variety of minds. In recognizing 
 this cardinal fact, German educators have given them an im- 
 portant place in their schools and gymnasia, and for the last 
 two decades have been thereby rewarded with most gratifying 
 results in the general linguistic training of their youth. No- 
 where else as there has stress been laid upon the philological 
 study of these idioms, and the natural consequence has fol- 
 lowed that faulty methods have been rooted out, the standard 
 of their appreciation everywhere raised, and rich fruits gar- 
 nered in their advance in academic discipline. It was this 
 religious regard for the spirit rather than the letter of lan- 
 guage that lifted Germany out of the Slough of Despond in 
 which all linguistic study was sunk three-quarters of a century 
 ago, and gave her such vantage ground over all other nations 
 that they will probably never be able to overtake her in this 
 work. Here, too, just in proportion as methods have been 
 bettered and the true spirit of linguistic training developed, 
 the modern languages have risen higher and higher in the 
 scale of potent agencies for mind-culture, and, in some parts 
 of the empire, have for years stood beside the classics and 
 shared with them all their rights and privileges. The begin- 
 nings of a similiar change, too, have been noted in our own 
 country, where, in proportion as the worth of these studies 
 has become known, they have universally taken a higher 
 stand among the disciplince for special education. The wealth 
 of material they offer for philological training and historical 
 investigation is becoming more appreciated every day, and it 
 is now only a bold spirit and rigidly scientific method that are 
 generally needed to raise them, in the estimation of scholars, 
 above the plane of simple "polite accomplishments." The 
 principles and scope of their scientific study have never been 
 stated clearly and sharply enough in our plans of college edu-
 
 AS A COLLEGE DISCIPLINE. 7 
 
 cation, and the result has been that they are only too often 
 regarded as fit subjects for those who work little, and there- 
 fore as necessarily constituting a part of the "soft electives," 
 that " Serbonian bog " where all intellectual virtues are swal- 
 lowed up. 
 
 The defective methods according to which they are some- 
 times taught, and the summary manner in which they are fre- 
 quently shoved aside when they clash with other studies, 
 cannot but discredit them in the mind of the serious student. 
 It cannot be doubted, too, that it is a grave mistake for edu- 
 cators to depreciate their value so long as they occupy a place 
 in our scheme of instruction, since it is absurd to suppose 
 they do not exert a detrimental influence on the habits of dis- 
 cipline in other departments when they are thus disparagingly 
 treated. No one set of disciplinary elements can be specially 
 neglected, as a part of any given system, without producing 
 baneful effects upon others connected with it, however remote 
 they may be in subject-matter, or different in mode of presen- 
 tation. But we are obliged to confess that this attitude of 
 college authorities toward the modern language branches is in 
 part, at least, the fault of the department itself. The shift- 
 less, slip-shod instruction that boasts of teaching any language 
 with two hours per week, during a single academic year, must 
 naturally tend to make a slouch of the otherwise honest, en- 
 thusiastic student, and turn into a conceited charlatan the 
 pupil who, for lack of previous sound training, is disposed to 
 skim over his subjects. To earnest and experienced educators 
 such a procedure must seem sheer nonsense, and it is to be ex- 
 pected, therefore, that they will have as little of it as possible. 
 The fact of the matter is, that our whole system of modern 
 language instruction needs overhauling in this respect before 
 it can hope to command the consideration that it ought to 
 have, both from scholars in other departments, and from the 
 public at large. It is useless to plead for favor on the one 
 hand, and blame those who underrate its value on the
 
 8 MODERN LANGUAGES 
 
 other, unless we recast our methods, and show by convincing 
 results that there is abundant material for our work. The 
 subject-matter is surely not at fault with reference to the pres- 
 ent abnormal position this branch of learning holds in the 
 estimation of scholars. Obloquy has been thrown upon it be- 
 cause of unjust prejudices in certain cases ; in others be- 
 cause the new-comer does not tread the accustomed ruts of a 
 traditional creed. It is, therefore, viewed with suspicion ; 
 but until its powers shall have been tested by the same dis- 
 cipline of years required for other departments, and it shall 
 have failed to meet the demands made of it, we can hardly es- 
 teem it fair to condemn it to the exclusive and not flattering 
 regime of society circles and of business interests. No means, 
 in my opinion, could at present be more efficient in raising this 
 subject to a higher level of development than the introduction 
 of a thorough historical basis for all college work. It is stating 
 a trite fact when we assert that every intelligent pupil is in- 
 terested in understanding the whys and wherefores of phe- 
 nomena that he has learned to use mechanically. How much 
 greater interest, then, must a subject arouse in him from the 
 beginning, if, instead of playing a parrot-like part, he is led 
 to exercise his ingenuity and test his powers in the discovery 
 of relations before hidden to him ; and this he will readily do 
 if the history is steadily kept before him of the growth of 
 form and expression, with their resemblances to modes of 
 thought already familiar to him, and to the natural develop- 
 ment of the varying phenomena of speech in general. Lan- 
 guage thus ceases to be a sort of " Fifteen Puzzle " to him, 
 since he sees philosophy enough in it to lubricate the other- 
 wise dry machinery of grammar. He learns with zest any 
 new series of facts connected with it because they serve, in 
 their turn, to further illustrate the principles that have become 
 fundamental notions, so to speak, in his mind. And no ex- 
 perienced educator, I think, will maintain that the learner 
 can acquire these habits of comparison and reflection more
 
 AS A COLLEGE DISCIPLINE. 9 
 
 readily in a vehicle or system of thought the farther separated 
 it is from his own. The real training that belongs to all lan- 
 guage-study must come more rapidly in proportion as we can 
 eliminate differences of idioms during the primary stages of 
 it, and carry the pupil back to a few principal sources of 
 growth, which have their raison d'etre in a common origin. 
 The modern idioms will suggest themselves, here, as most 
 valuable adjuncts to this rational mode of language-study, 
 since their processes of creation and development lie within 
 the range of strict historical proof, and their life-history may 
 be followed up step by step through all the stages of their 
 complex growth. If it is the object to get the learner as far 
 away as possible from his natural intellectual bent, as some 
 writers on this subject would seem to suggest, why not ply 
 him with Chinese or Arabic formula, which would require ex- 
 traordinary mental gymnastics ? Why not force him, from 
 the start, to spend time in casting his thoughts in the artifi- 
 cial mould of Sanskrit or some other complex system, as foreign 
 as possible to his natural analytic routine ? It is precisely to 
 avoid this squandering of time and energy that a study of the 
 modern European languages is so useful before proceeding to 
 that of the older tongues. The student in them becomes ac- 
 quainted with forms of thought-expression closely allied to 
 his own ; his mind can suit itself to the new clothing with less 
 waste of time than by the reverse process ; and thus by a reg- 
 ular progression from the better-known types of his own 
 tongue to the less familiar word-building and phrase-setting of 
 the new idiom, he attains the objects of his labors. I hold, in 
 truth, that the rational way to learn language is the same as 
 for other things ; that is, to move from the known to the un- 
 known, to pass from the native tongue to the next-lying liv- 
 ing system, where this is possible, and thence to that form of 
 speech in which the so-called dead language is locked up. To 
 study Latin, therefore, I would begin with French and work 
 on to a tolerable mastery of Italian, after which the mother-
 
 10 MODERN LANGUAGES. 
 
 idiom would come almost of itself, and all three languages 
 would be learned more understandingly than the ancient 
 tongue alone can possibly be according to the present system ; 
 and the time required for all three, I think, would be found 
 little more than what we now spend on Latin. However un- 
 orthodox this doctrine may seem, I have seen it tried in a few 
 cases with such marked success that I am sure, if for Mr. 
 Adams some such bridge as this could have been thrown 
 across the chasm between his native English and the domain 
 of Greek roots, we should never have known "A College 
 Fetich." But, on the other hand, even if we accept the cur- 
 rent theory, and place the older idioms first in the line of lin- 
 guistic topics to be presented to the mind, irrespective of any 
 natural relation, it seems to me self-evident that our order of 
 progression would be incomplete if we should allow any break 
 to exist between the training-period of youth and the future 
 practical activity of the man. Between college and life there 
 ought to be no gap. The ending of every system of instruc- 
 tion, whatever it may be, should naturally lap on to the sphere 
 of those broader and more varied duties that crowd upon the 
 man in the fierce battle of his after-life. And I cannot but 
 feel, therefore, that Schleiermacher is wholly correct when he 
 remarks in his Erziehungslehre, *' If the natural passage 
 from the school into life is not reached, then we have either 
 been upon a false route, or we did not begin right." Have we in 
 America struck this bridge in language-study ? Does the 
 present position of modern languages in our higher institu- 
 tions, as connecting-link between the old and the new, between 
 classicism and modern life, fully represent that stage of care- 
 ful transition discipline which our age demands ?
 
 OBSERVATIONS UPON METHOD IN THE TEACH- 
 ING OF MODERN LANGUAGES.^ 
 
 BY PROFESSOR CALVIN THOMAS, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. 
 
 It is a very common practice in professional discussions 
 to begin with some remarks upon the importance of one's 
 subject. I, however, will venture upon a different kind of 
 exordium by expressing the opinion that my subject is not 
 of much importance ; or, at any rate, that it is not half so 
 momentous as a great many people suppose it to be. I have 
 a conviction which has been strengthening for some time, that 
 the subject of method in teaching receives in general more 
 attention than it deserves. I think it probable, nay to my 
 mind it is certain, that a good deal of the teaching that goes 
 on in this country is suffering severely because of laying too 
 much stress upon matters of method. Quite a large portion of 
 the teaching fraternity are making of method, if not a fetish 
 to worship, at least a hobby to ride, and that to the detriment 
 of the country's highest pedagogical interests. If I can trust 
 my own observation, a person's reverence for what is com- 
 monly called method usually varies inversely with his own 
 intellectual breadth. 
 
 Let these remarks of mine not be misunderstood. There is 
 a sense in which a teacher's method is the most important 
 thing about him, is, in fact, the essential source of his power 
 and his influence. His method in this sense is nothing less 
 than his entire character displaying itself in his work. It 
 designates not so much a mode of procedure for accomplishing 
 
 1 Bead at the flrit meeting of the Michigan Schoolmatteri' Club, 1886.
 
 12 OBSERVATIONS UPON METHOD IN THE 
 
 a particular piece of work, as rather the spirit which informs 
 and directs all his work. In other words, it is the working 
 expression of his personality, his general way of imparting 
 his own intellectual life to his pupil. But the word method 
 is much more commonly used as synonymous with routine. 
 It has reference to the details of procedure, and is a name, not 
 for the incommunicable secret of personality, but for the easily 
 divulged secret of machinery. Now, it is method in this latter 
 sense that I think receives more respect and more attention 
 than it deserves. I am aware, of course, that it is not easy 
 always to keep these two senses rigidly apart in one's mind, 
 and to respect method in the former sense while thinking but 
 indifferently of it in the latter. One's routine may be inti- 
 mately bound up with his personality, but it need not be so, and 
 usually it is not so. Nor do I say that matters of routine are 
 never of any moment. There may be circumstances in which 
 it is highly important to decide between the comparative 
 merits of two or more processes for accomplishing a given 
 result. What I deprecate is the wide-spread tendency I ob- 
 serve to treat routine as if that were the thing of chief impor- 
 tance ; as if it were the real key to a teacher's power and 
 usefulness. For that it certainly is not. There are always 
 two other questions upon which more depends than upon this 
 questions of. How ? These are the questions. What ? and 
 Why ? Let the teacher put to himself the inquiries : What 
 knowledge or capacity is it that I am seeking to impart ? and 
 to what end ? Let him settle these clearly in his own mind, 
 and then the question. How best to teach ? will usually take 
 care of itself. At any rate, it will no longer seem a difficult 
 or bewildering problem. 
 
 Having now defined my position with regard to method in 
 general, I turn to the subject of modern languages for the 
 purpose of illustrating, amplifying, and perhaps here and 
 there qualifying, the views already set forth. 
 
 In recent years the public has heard a great deal about a so-
 
 TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES. 13 
 
 called natural method in the teaching of languages. This 
 method is really nothing new in the history of the world ; it 
 has been known and used for centuries. But it has acquired 
 great notoriety in this country of late on account of the vigor- 
 ous crusade its votaries have been carrying on against the tradi- 
 tional practice of the schools. What this traditional practice 
 is, is of course well enough known. A pupil who is to study, 
 let us say German, is first required to commit to memory the 
 grammatical inflections of the language. For the purpose of 
 aiding his memory in the retention of the grammatical forms, 
 and also for the purpose of giving him the beginnings of 
 a vocabulary, he reads as he goes along a certain number 
 of easy German exercises, and likewise translates a number of 
 easy English exercises into German. All of this study is es- 
 sentially grammatical. The learner then takes up some Ger- 
 man reader, with which he works for a few weeks or months, 
 as the case may be, the aim being to fix thoroughly in his 
 mind the elementary principles of the language he has been 
 studying. After this he takes up the study of literature, and 
 his goal is henceforth simply to learn to read German as 
 readily and as intelligently as possible. 
 
 Now, a few years ago we began to hear from certain quarters 
 that all this is wrong ; that a pupil should learn a foreign 
 tongue just as he learned his mother tongue in his infancy ; 
 that is, by at once beginning to hear it spoken and to imitate 
 what he hears. We are told that the initial study of grammar 
 is unnatural, since the child hears nothing of the grammar of 
 his own language until after he has learned to speak said lan- 
 guage, and to speak it, mayhap, with commendable correct- 
 ness. From this the corollary naturally follows that the 
 teacher's chief effort should be to see to it that his pupil shall 
 of all things learn to speak the language he is studying. The 
 originators of this agitation were in the main very excellent 
 teachers, who would have succeeded with any method. As it 
 was, having secured good results of a certain kind, they began
 
 14 OBSERVATIONS UPON METHOD IN THE 
 
 to think the magic was in the method rather than in them- 
 selves. They were able to secure striking testimonials from 
 distinguished persons as to their success in teaching pupils to 
 speak, and so they started an agitation. And the agitation 
 has grown. Its promoters have multiplied and spread abroad 
 through the land. They are busily writing articles, essays, 
 prefaces, in praise of their doctrine. To a certain extent they 
 have got the ear of the public, which is usually ready to listen 
 to any one that comes talking majestically about "modern 
 ways " of doing things, and winking his eye and biting his 
 thumb at the expense of the old fogies. Many of these ener- 
 getic reformers use very positive language. They tell us in 
 effect that a notable educational conflict has been going on, 
 which has now, however, been decided in their favor. They 
 claim to have carried through a great reform, and do not hesi- 
 tate to assure the public that any one who in these days con- 
 tinues to teach a modern language in the old way is behind the 
 age. Out of much literature in this vein which is continually 
 falling under my eye I will quote only the following, from the 
 preface to a lately published German Reader : — 
 
 " It is now conceded by most teachers," says this writer, 
 " that, in learning any modern language, little is gained by 
 beginning with the study of the grammar, and that the most 
 successful method is the natural one, by which a child learns 
 to speak its own language ; i. e., by constant practice in conver- 
 sation. A mass of grammatical rules and forms at the outset 
 renders the subject dry and uninteresting, and the time so 
 spent can be much more profitably employed in colloquial ex- 
 ercises, which are absolutely necessary in acquiring fluency of 
 speech, no matter how thoroughly the rules of grammar have 
 been mastered." 
 
 Surely it is trifling with serious matters to say of such a 
 statement as this that it is important if true. If true, it is, 
 in the light of what is now actually going on in the great 
 majority of American schools and colleges, enough to take 
 one's breath away.
 
 TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES. 15 
 
 What, then, are the merits of this position ? What are the 
 general merits of this controversy so far as there is any con- 
 troversy ? (The quarrel is after all a very one-sided one.) 
 This is a question which, as I surmise, must be of especial in- 
 terest to persons who may have found it necessary or conven- 
 ient to undertake to teach a modern language before having 
 attained to a very wide or deep scholarship in the language, 
 and before they have formed through personal experience an 
 independent judgment with regard to the matter under con- 
 sideration. Such persons may well wish to know how a 
 conservative teacher can go on his way and live and labor una- 
 bashed in the face of all these breezy proclamations like the 
 one quoted. 
 
 Well, I have something to say on that subject ; but, before 
 proceeding to say it, I desire to remark incidentally that the 
 statement quoted is very far from being true. What the 
 writer says is : " It is notv conceded by most teachers, that in 
 learning any modern language, little is gained by beginning 
 with the study of the grammar." To be true, the statement 
 should run : " It is now conceded, and for that matter always 
 has been conceded by most teachers, that with pupils of a 
 certain kind, and for the attainment of certain results, little is 
 gained by beginning with the study of the grammar." Or to 
 speak more explicitly ; all teachers are agreed that if you 
 wish to teach any one to speak a language, the learner must 
 be given practice in speaking. The sooner you begin, and the 
 more practice you offer, the better. But this is not an admis- 
 sion wrung but yesterday from the teaching profession by the 
 successes of the natural method. Nobody, so far as I know, 
 ever held or advocated any other opinion. 
 
 Then, as to that other observation that a " mass of gram- 
 matical rules and forms at the outset renders the subject dry 
 and uninteresting," when shall we hear the end of such non- 
 sense ? When shall we see the end of this wretched desire to 
 make all things soft and sweet for the youths and maidens of
 
 16 OBSERVATIONS UPON METHOD IN THE 
 
 this generation ? Grammar deals with the facts and the laws 
 of language, and language is the most important of all human 
 institutions. Whatever interest, whatever charm, attaches to 
 the study of any historical science ought to attach to the study 
 of language. The facts of grammar are as interesting as any 
 other facts, and the laws of grammar are as interesting as 
 other laws. It was doubtless unfortunate to subordinate 
 sense, poetry, philosophy, history, — everything to grammar, 
 as was done by a good many teachers, especially of the Greek 
 and Latin, a few years ago. There are better uses for the 
 masterpieces of literature than to be made so many vehicles 
 for teaching grammar. But, on the other hand, it is equally 
 pernicious to speak of grammar and to treat it as if it were 
 some miasma from which the dear boys and girls must be ten- 
 derly shielded just as far as possible. Let them learn the 
 grammar and learn it well. It will be good for them. If the 
 teacher has the instincts of a scholar himself, the facts of lan- 
 guage will not seem dull or uninteresting to him ; and if they 
 do not seem so to him, he will usually contrive that they shall 
 not seem so to his pupil. But suppose that they do seem so ? 
 Or rather, suppose the learner occasionally has a sensation 
 that he is working ? What of it ? There are worse things in 
 the world than that. He is supposed to be preparing in 
 school for life, and when he gets out of school the Genius of 
 Life will admonish him at every turn that valuable acquisi- 
 tions have to be worked for. He may as well learn early to 
 face this simple doctrine and to make the best of it. It is no 
 part of the teacher's business to make things easy at the ex- 
 pense of thoroughness. It is a mistake if he thinks that the 
 real and lasting regard of his pupil can be won in that way. 
 Healthy boys and girls, and young men and young women in 
 school and college, do not want an easy time. They wish for 
 work to do, and they enjoy work. It is not their desire to 
 float down the stream with a soft-hearted pedagogue to keep 
 them clear of all the difficulties and asperities of navigation.
 
 TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES. 17 
 
 They prefer to paddle, and if the course lies up the stream, 
 against a tolerably swift current, they like it all the better. 
 In the high school they may talk freely about the sweets of 
 idleness, and may at times seem to be rather fertile in precau- 
 tions against over-exertion. So the college student will often 
 profess to have a lively affinity for what he calls a "soft 
 snap." But this is simply a conventional student dialect, — 
 a surface indication, which belies what is underneath. The 
 truth is that the vast majority of students in both school and 
 college prefer to be kept busy, and they have, both in the long 
 run and in the short run, the greatest respect for the teacher 
 who gives them work to do, insists upon their doing it, 
 and does not seem over anxious to make things easy. Res 
 severa verum gaudium is the true student motto the world 
 over. 
 
 I am of course not saying that of two ways for accomplish- 
 ing a given end the more difficult and laborious is to be chosen 
 on the ground that students after all like to work, and that 
 work is good for them. By no means. There are always 
 subjects enough to learn which will tax one's strength all 
 that it ought to be taxed. It is therefore always a proper and 
 wise economy to select the easiest way of attaining any given 
 result. What I am arguing is, that when a line of work has 
 once proved its usefulness, it is not to be discarded and spoken 
 ill of simply because the learner finds it difficult or " dry." 
 The road which he thinks dry and difficult may be precisely 
 the best road for him to travel. 
 
 I come now to the application of the thought expressed 
 some time ago, which was, in effect, that any controversy con- 
 cerning method in teaching will usually be found to have un- 
 derlying it a more important question as to what should be 
 taught. This is certainly true in the case before us. The issue 
 between the advocates of the natural method and those who 
 use the other method does not turn upon the comparative 
 merits of two ways for accomplishing the same purpose ; it
 
 18 OBSERVATIONS UPON METHOD IN THE 
 
 turns upon the comparative merits of two different purposes 
 to be accomplished. 
 
 The alternative is simply this : Is it best in teaching a 
 modern language to make it our chief aim that the learner 
 shall acquire some ability to speak the language, or shall we 
 make it our chief business to teach him to read the language 
 with some scientific understanding of it ? If one accepts the 
 former as the true ideal of school and college instruction, then 
 it is very certain that the natural method, or any modification 
 of it which affords the utmost possible practice in speaking, 
 is the best method. If, on the other hand, one accepts the lat- 
 ter as the true ideal, then it is equally certain that the other 
 method is the better. 
 
 What, then, is the true ideal ? What ought we to aim at 
 in the teaching of a modern language ? Or rather, what ought 
 we to aim at in the teaching of a modern language in school 
 and college ? This limitation of the question is of importance, 
 since the circumstances under which we are compelled to 
 work in school and college may very possibly exercise a de- 
 termining influence upon us when we are attempting to decide 
 the questions what to aim at and how to go to work. For 
 example : I might, and very certainly I should, proceed in one 
 way with a large class of university students whom I ex- 
 pected to meet four times a week, and in quite another way 
 with a child who was to live with me for several years in my 
 own family ; and in still another way with a class of three or 
 four whom I expected to be with me for several hours each 
 day. We must look at this question with reference to the 
 circumstances that are, and forever must be, imposed upon us 
 in school and college. German, for example, is not begun by 
 our pupils in their early childhood, nor can the study be kept 
 up for ten or twelve years. In the present crowded state of 
 our school and collegiate courses such a thing is out of the 
 question, and it must forever remain out of the question unless 
 it can be shown that some great, some very great advantage
 
 TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES. 19 
 
 would result from it. In my opinion no such showing will 
 ever be made. I admit, of course, that if all persons who 
 studied German in our schools were to begin the study in 
 childhood, and to begin it with the expectation of keeping it 
 up through a long succession of years, then certain questions 
 might arise with regard to the teaching of the language which 
 are not now living questions at all. I, however, am very far 
 from thinking that such an innovation would be desirable. 
 So that I can claim to be discussing this subject here not 
 simply from the standpoint of what is and what is likely to 
 continue to be, but also from the standpoint of what ought 
 to be. 
 
 Upon hearing this inquiry, What should be our aim in the 
 teaching of German ? many persons, particularly those who are 
 themselves unschooled, will be inclined to answer at once : 
 Why. it should be your aim to impart to your pupil a com- 
 plete mastery of the language, so that he can read, write, and 
 spes^k it; can even think in it, or crack jokes and write verses 
 in t. But those who have done some work upon a foreign 
 language, and especially those who have tried to teach one, 
 will understand at once that a programme of this sort would be 
 simply what Mr. Tilden called a " barren ideality." It is of 
 no use to hitch our wagon to a star in that fashion. To learn 
 to speak any language in any decent manner demands long 
 and assiduous practice in speaking. To learn to speak it at all 
 well demands long association with those who speak it as 
 their native tongue. And this requires time. To learn to 
 read a language, again, requires long practice in reading. One 
 must have read a large number of books from different periods 
 of the language. He must have acquired some first-hand 
 familiarity with its literature. And this, again, requires time. 
 We have here two different disciplines. Now, if in our school 
 work one of these disciplines is accented, the other must be 
 neglected. There is simply no other way, without involving 
 a very much greater expenditure of time than we now make. 
 Which, then, shall we accent ?
 
 20 OBSEEVATIONS TTPON METHOD IN THE 
 
 Among the great unschooled public the ability, real or 
 apparent, to speak a foreign language undoubtedly counts as 
 a great thing. They look upon such ability as the natural 
 and necessary outcome of linguistic study. Parents covet the 
 accomplishment for their children. For a long time a little 
 French was a necessary item in the intellectual outfit of a 
 fashionable young lady. All over the country multitudes of 
 boys and girls are trying to learn to speak German, and that 
 without reference to any particular use they expect to make 
 of the acquisition, but from the general impression that it's a 
 good thing to do. Very intelligent people are now and then 
 found crying out that it is a disgrace that students should 
 pursue the study of German four or five years, and then not 
 be able to speak it. As if that, and that only, were the true 
 criterion by which to decide whether the student has got any 
 good from the study. 
 
 Well, now let us inquire what is the precise value, for 
 average graduates of our schools and colleges, of the ability 
 to speak a foreign language ? I say average graduates, since 
 it is obviously with reference to them that we must shape our 
 courses of study and our methods of teaching. We cannot 
 shape these with reference to the occasional student who 
 might wish to prepare for a residence in Germany or for a 
 position as German clerk in a business house. 
 
 Whatever value the ability to speak a foreign language may 
 have for average graduates ought to be found, I should say, 
 along one of two lines. Its value ought to be either practical 
 or educational. I am aware of no other lines of importance 
 along which its value ought reasonably to be sought. The 
 word "practical" I use here in the manner of the world's 
 people as synonymous with commercial. That is, to be sure, 
 a very vicious use of the word. I would not for a moment 
 admit that, even if a much better case could be made out than 
 can be for the commercial value of the ability to speak a for- 
 eign language, that therefore we should make the imparting
 
 TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES. 21 
 
 of such ability the chief aim of our teaching in the schools. 
 We cannot throw too often or too hard in the face of the 
 public the fact that our business is educational. Our work is 
 the building up and the leading out of minds, and not the 
 teaching of crafts, trades, tricks, and techniques to get a liv- 
 ing with. Whatever has a high educational value has a high 
 practical value, since nothing is of more practical moment 
 than the training of minds. But using the dialect of the 
 age, what is to be said of the practical, i, e., commercial, value 
 of the ability to speak a foreign tongue ? This is a matter 
 about which I imagine that a good deal of loose thinking and 
 talking prevails, which have given rise to misapprehension. 
 
 It is of course true that the command of two languages has, 
 for one who is seeking a position in a community where 
 there is a large foreign population, a real commercial value. 
 To deny this would be absurd. Professional and business 
 men are continually saying in our hearing, " I'd give a thou- 
 sand dollars if I could speak German." The boy or the girl who 
 desires employment in a city like this, or like Detroit, undoubt- 
 edly has an advantage if able to speak German. But what kind 
 of ability is it that is meant in such cases ? A smattering of 
 the language will not suffice. It is not enough that the appli- 
 cant should be able to say. Good-morning ! and How do 
 you do ? and What time is it ? It will not suffice if he even 
 have at his tongue's end the whole wisdom of Ollendorf, and 
 be able to say ever so glibly that the wife of the butcher is 
 more handsome than the nephew of the baker. But he must 
 be able to speak German; not as school-children use that 
 phrase, not as it is used by the professors in summer schools 
 of languages, but as men of business and of the world under- 
 stand it. He must have, at least for all the purposes of the 
 position that he seeks, a fluent and ready command of the 
 language. 
 
 But cannot this superior grade of ability be imparted in 
 the schools ? Practically it cannot. It is indeed true that
 
 22 OBSERVATIONS UPON METHOD IN THE 
 
 if any competent teacher were to take a very small class of 
 boys, all of whom wished to become German clerks in a dry- 
 goods store, and if he were to meet them every day for an 
 hour and talk nothing but dry-goods store to them for a mat- 
 ter of two or three years, he might thus contrive to give them 
 an indifferent preparation for entrance upon the duties of Ger- 
 man clerk in a dry-goods store. But their preparation would 
 be none of the best. They could get a much better one, and 
 that too in less time, by means of an apprenticeship, or by 
 living in a German family. And then the time has not come 
 for managing our educational institutions on that principle. 
 
 But perhaps it may be asked whether it is not possible, by 
 means of general conversational instruction and practice in the 
 schools, to impart such command of the German language for 
 all purposes, that the learner upon leaving school can fill any 
 position where a knowledge of German is required? In 
 answer to that question it must be said emphatically that it 
 is not possible. The conditions of the school forbid. The 
 teacher meets his pupils in classes (and these classes are 
 often large), five hours or less each week of the school year. 
 Each pupil has a few minutes' practice on certain days of the 
 week in speaking German. All the rest of the time, with his 
 teacher, his schoolmates, his parents at home, he speaks Eng- 
 lish. Now, no one can learn to speak a foreign language in 
 that way. To do that requires months or even years of con- 
 stant practice, through association with those who speak the 
 language as their mother tongue. You can no more teach a 
 person to speak a foreign language by means of class instruc- 
 tion given at stated intervals, than you can teach him to swim 
 by giving courses of illustrated lectures in a 7 X 9 bath-room. 
 The thing never has been done, never will be done by the 
 natural method or by any other method ; and any one who 
 professes to be able to do it may be safely set down as a 
 quack. I know very well that some rather striking results 
 can be achieved in this direction. I have experimented with
 
 TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES. 23 
 
 the matter myself, and am familiar with the reports of those 
 who have done much more and much better than I can claim 
 to have done. It is possible by sedulous attention to the sub- 
 ject, continued through a considerable period of time, to teach 
 a class to speak German in the class-room with tolerable flu- 
 ency and correctness. Any one not an expert listening to 
 such a class easily gets the impression that they can really 
 handle the German language, — can actually " speak German" 
 in some proper sense of the term. But alas, it is only the 
 class-room dialect that they speak. Their discourse moves in 
 a very narrow range. They do but say over certain phrases and 
 sentences and idioms that they have heard and learned. Out- 
 side of this beaten round of expression, which they never hear 
 or need to use outside of the class-room, they are perfectly 
 helpless. On the street, at the store, in society, their German 
 " conversation " leaves them in the lurch at once when they 
 attempt to operate it. And so they take to using their 
 costly acquisition of foreign speech simply for purposes of 
 diversion. They say, '' Wie befinden Sie sich,'' or " Comment 
 vous portez-vous ? " where they might just as well say, " How 
 are you ? " and make no further use of their accomplishment. 
 The simple truth is that the attainable results in this direc- 
 tion of teaching students in the class-room to speak a foreign 
 language are so insignificant as to be utterly devoid of any 
 practical value whatever, out in the world. And so there is 
 no use in aiming at these results with reference to their com- 
 mercial value, even if we were to admit the propriety of teach- 
 ing subjects in school and college out of purely commercial 
 considerations. 
 
 But what of the educational value of this acquisition ? This 
 is for us the really important question. I have spoken of its 
 supposed commercial value only for the purpose of correcting 
 what I deem a common misapprehension. I have tried to show 
 that the smattering of conversational ability which the schools 
 can impart is worthless on the market, and, conversely, that
 
 24 OBSERVATIONS UPON METHOD IN THE 
 
 the kind of ability which has a market value is beyond the 
 reach of school training to impart. If we should attempt to 
 impart it by quadrupling the time given to the study, and by 
 devoting all our energies to teaching conversation, we should 
 even then be coming into hopeless competition with other 
 easier and more expeditious methods of acquiring the same 
 thing. One who especially desired to learn to speak German 
 could learn it so much better by living a few months in a 
 German family. Furthermore, in this country, wherever a 
 foreign population is numerous enough to make a knowledge 
 of two languages commercially valuable, there are always 
 a multitude of boys and girls growing up who are bilingual 
 from childhood. They are usually numerous enough to fill all 
 positions where their particular capacity is specially required. 
 Who would pass by them to take up with the imperfect, un- 
 satisfactory product of the schools ? 
 
 We must, therefore, it seems to me, admit that if the ability 
 to speak a foreign language has any value that is within the 
 reach of the schools, that value must be educational. How is 
 it, then, with regard to this ? There is a wide-spread impres- 
 sion that the ability to speak a foreign language is in itself 
 an important evidence of culture. It would appear as if this 
 impression ought to correct itself when one sees how very 
 many people there are in the world who can speak two or 
 more languages with some fluenc}^, and who are nevertheless 
 without anything that can properly be called education. But 
 the impression does not correct itself. People go on assuming 
 that any person who can speak another tongue than his native 
 one must have passed through a course of intellectual disci- 
 pline proportionate in value to his fluency in speaking. In 
 the minds of many, — and even of many who ought to know 
 better, — fluency of speech is the only criterion by which to 
 judge whether a course of study in a modern language has 
 been profitable. 
 
 Now, all this is very erroneous. The ability to speak a for-
 
 TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES. 25 
 
 eign language is a matter of practice, not of intellectual disci- 
 pline. Proficiency in the accomplishment depends simply 
 upon the opportunity one has had, and the use one has made 
 of his opportunity, for practice. It is a trick, a craft, a tech- 
 nique, quite comparable with the ability to telegraph, or to 
 write short-hand. It has in itself only a very slight and a 
 very low educational value. Suppose that an English-speaking 
 boy some day learns at school that the German for '' All men 
 are mortal " is " Alle Menschen sind sterblichJ' What has he 
 added to his intellectual outfit ? Nothing at all. He has 
 simply got hold of a new set of symbols by which to commu- 
 nicate, if necessary, an idea that was already in his mind. 
 From an educational point of view his acquisition is of the 
 same order as if he had learned to tick off the English words 
 on a telegraph instrument, to write them in short-hand, or to 
 set them in type in a printing-office. But education deals 
 with the getting of new ideas, with the enlargement of the 
 mental horizon. The thought that I am here seeking to pre- 
 sent finds a good illustration in the ease with which very 
 young children learn to talk in a foreign language. If a mem- 
 ber of this club, ignorant of German, were to go to Germany 
 for a year's residence, and to take with him his three-year-old 
 son ; and if then he were to engage a teacher for himself, and 
 work hard for a year, making use of all the expedients which 
 are usually resorted to for the purpose of learning to speak 
 German, meanwhile letting his son play at liberty about the 
 house and street, he would find at the end of the year that he 
 himself would be able to speak German in a halting, imper- 
 fect, unidiomatic, humiliating sort of way, which would betray 
 his foreign extraction at every word. The little four-year-old, 
 on the other hand, would use the language, so far as he needed 
 to use language at all, just like a native. The reverse of this 
 depressing picture is that upon returning home the child 
 would, at the end of a second year, completely have lost his 
 acquisition, while the father's would have suffered but little.
 
 26 OBSERVATIONS UPON METHOD IN THE 
 
 This furnishes us with the real argument against sending oui 
 children abroad, or putting them in the charge of foreign gov- 
 ernesses, in order that they may learn to speak German and 
 French in childhood. The accomplishment acquired with such 
 ease by the little ones goes just as easily as it came when the 
 opportunity for constant practice is withdrawn. The plan is 
 a good one where the circumstances are such that one will 
 have through life constant need and occasion to make use of 
 the accomplishment acquired thus in infancy. Such circum- 
 stances exist in numerous European countries. For the grad- 
 uates of our schools and colleges, however, circumstances of 
 that kind do not exist. Even if we could in the schools 
 accomplish far more than we really can in the way of impart- 
 ing conversational ability, it would still not be worth while 
 to make that our chief aim, since we should be perfectly sure 
 that in a few years after leaving school our graduates would 
 lose through lack of practice the accomplishment so labori- 
 ously acquired. It is, of course, no objection to a study that 
 the learner is going to forget it, provided that the study has 
 in itself an educational value, or lays a foundation upon which 
 the learner can build further all through his after-life. If he 
 fails to build, that is his own fault, and not that of his teacher 
 or of his schooling. If he forgets what he knew after having 
 once got an educational value out of it, what of it ? Let him 
 forget it. His forgetting is no sign that his former study was 
 thrown away. There is a good deal of nonsense talked and 
 written on that subject. But if the thing learned is without 
 educational value in itself, is an accomplishment, a technique 
 of the fingers or of the vocal organs, then it is obviously a 
 very grave objection to the teaching of it, if we know that the 
 learner will soon forget it through lack of practice. Who 
 would think it good policy to go to the trouble and expense of 
 teaching our students telegraphy or type-setting if it were 
 certain that nine-tenths of them would soon forget the acqui- 
 sition through lack of practice ?
 
 TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES. 27 
 
 I conclude, then, that the educational value of learning to 
 speak a foreign language is of itself very small. There can, 
 however, be no doubt that language-study is one of the most 
 potent educational instruments we know anything about. 
 How is this ? Where does this value lie, if not in learning to 
 speak the language ? Why, it lies in learning to read it. It 
 lies in the deepening and broadening of the mind that come 
 from the introduction to a new literature. It lies in the grad- 
 ual working of one's way into the intellectual life of another 
 people. It lies in the gradual taking up into one's own being 
 of what has been thought and felt by the greatest of other 
 lands and of other days. Or, along another line, it lies in the 
 scientific study of the language itself, in the consequent train- 
 ing of the reason, of the powers of observation, comparison, 
 and synthesis ; in short, in the up-building and strengthening 
 of the scientific intellect. There are hundreds of thousands 
 of people in the world to-day who cannot converse at all in 
 German, in French, in Latin, or in Greek, but whose intellect- 
 ual debt to one or all of these languages is nevertheless simply 
 inestimable. For myself, I can say with perfect sincerity 
 that I look upon my own ability to speak German simply as 
 an accomplishment to which I attach no great importance. If 
 such a thing were possible I would sell it for money, and use 
 the money to buy German books with ; and it would not take 
 an exorbitant price to buy it either. But, on the other hand, 
 what I have got from my ability to read German, that is, my 
 debt to the German genius through the German language, I 
 would no more part with than I would part with my memories 
 of the past, my hopes for the future, or any other integral 
 portion of my soul. 
 
 Such being my views with regard to language-study and the 
 source of its value, my views as to methods of teaching a lan- 
 guage will follow of themselves. The teaching of a modern 
 or of an ancient language in school or college should be 
 thorough and scientific. It should have as its aim to acquaint
 
 28 TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES. 
 
 the learner with and fix in his mind the fundamental facts of 
 the language and to introduce him to its literature. In this 
 way a foundation will be laid for an acquirement which the 
 learner can go on perfecting and making more and more use- 
 ful to himself through all his after-life. He can be perfecting 
 it not simply when he has a foreigner to talk with and to bore, 
 but by himself in the privacy of home, wherever and when- 
 ever he can get a book to read. In the laying of this founda- 
 tion a certain amount of colloquial practice is desirable. There 
 are some things about a language that are needful to learn 
 which can really be learned better and faster in this way than 
 in any other. It is well to give some time to the memorizing 
 of phrases, sentences, and idiomatic peculiarities, and to afford 
 oral practice in the proper use of these. In no other way is a 
 true feeling for the language, a proper Sprachgefuhl, to be ac- 
 quired. But this work should not be a mere empirical imita- 
 tion of the teacher or of the book. It should appeal to the 
 learner's intellect, as well as store his memory and discipline 
 his vocal organs. Especially should it be treated not as itself 
 the end of study but as a means to an end, that end being 
 liaguistic and literary scholarship.
 
 READING IN MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. » 
 
 BT PROFESSOR EDWARD S. JOYNES, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH 
 
 CAROLINA. 
 
 It is with extreme diflSdence that I offer to read a paper 
 before this Association. My own teaching is done under con- 
 ditions of such disadvantage, with students so poorly pre- 
 pared and with results so unsatisfactory, that I cannot but 
 feel how presumptuous it would be in me to attempt here to 
 teach those who themselves teach under so much happier con- 
 ditions and to so much better purpose than I can do. My sole 
 apology might be an experience which, covering now three 
 decades of language-teaching, has passed through many 
 phases, both of our professional activity at large and of my 
 own individual work. But these phases, for myself person- 
 ally, have been rather renewals of effort and of disappoint- 
 ment than landmarks of progress or of triumph ; and this 
 experience, if I could recount it, might serve rather as a warn- 
 ing than as an example. So that it is as a seeker rather than 
 as a giver that I come, to share my counsel with my more fa- 
 vored brethren ; in order that by the confession of my own 
 shortcomings, and especially by the criticism and discussion 
 which this paper may elicit, I may be helped, and so per- 
 chance may help others, to find " the better way." 
 
 I am conscious, too, that my argument is addressed not so 
 much to the members of this Association, who surely need no 
 advice from me, as to a wider circle of humbler teachers who 
 
 > Read before the Modern Language AMOoiation of America, 1889, and reprioted 
 with the permiisioD of the anthor.
 
 aU READING IN MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 
 
 may be reached and perchance helped through this agency ; 
 as from the mountain-tops may be flashed beacon-lights to 
 those who are laboring in the valleys below. I therefore rec- 
 ognize the fitness of the reference of this paper to the Peda- 
 gogical Section, which I hope may more and more engage 
 hereafter the attention and sympathy of the Association. 
 
 In the stormier days of a controversy now happily abated, 
 we have often heard the reproach made — some of us perhaps 
 in our "fighting moods" have made it ourselves — against our 
 brethren, the classical teachers, that the great majority of 
 graduates wholly forget their Greek and Latin in after-life. 
 Now, it might be answered that so ungracious a charge carries 
 with it its own refutation. What a man has not learned he 
 cannot unlearn, nor can he forget what he has never got. 
 And if, under any old-time method of classical teaching, stu- 
 dents did not learn Greek and Latin, but only learned about 
 them, it is not strange that they should not know, or use, or 
 love, these languages in later life. Yet, after all, and at the 
 worst, this charge, if true, would not prove that the methods 
 of even such classical study had failed to confer discipline 
 and culture of life-long benefit, even when the Latin inflec- 
 tions, or the Greek alphabet itself, had been entirely forgot- 
 ten. A far more serious matter it would be, however, if such 
 a charge could be established against our modern languages. 
 For, apart from all questions of method or of relative value 
 in education, the modern languages, it seems, should at least 
 be more vital — I mean in closer relation to our actual life ; 
 at least comparatively more for use, and less for discipline 
 only ; for the creation of new instruments of active power 
 rather than for the mere training of faculty ; for the mani- 
 fold needs of a living present rather than for even the high- 
 est communion with the past. And if, under all these 
 advantages, a like charge could be sustained against our 
 department, it would be a far more serious imputation upon 
 the value of our work, or at least upon the methods of our 
 teaching.
 
 READING IN MODERN LANGFAGE STUDY. 31 
 
 Now it is precisely this charge which I find myself com- 
 pelled to make, against myself at least, if not against others. 
 I am fully aware of the disadvantages of my own teaching, 
 and of the shortcomings of my own effort and performance ; 
 yet I cannot believe my experience to be wholly exceptional. 
 Let me ask you to do as I have done again and again, to my 
 sorrow. Try your graduates of five, ten, fifteen years ago. 
 Ask them, as you meet them at commencement or elsewhere, 
 how many, outside of professional scholars, "keep up" their 
 French and German ? How many still read these languages ? 
 How many love to read them, or would not prefer even a poor 
 translation ? How many use them as instruments of research 
 or information ? Into how many lives have they entered as 
 an abiding presence of sweetness and light, the perpetual 
 heritage of a new birth of intellectual liberty and power ? 
 Or, by how many have they been disused, laid aside, forgot- 
 ten ; or used only to read a chance quotation, and remembered 
 only as associated with college tasks and the fading " dream 
 of things that were " ? 
 
 This is a hard question — here perhaps an ungracious, and 
 for me, it may be, an impertinent one. But I have been ask- 
 ing it for many years, and without gratifying answer. I want 
 my colleagues to ask it, — if not of their graduates, at least to 
 themselves ; and to all who can answer " Not guilty," the ar- 
 gument of this paper does not apply. Yet, I regret to say, I 
 fear that the great majority of all our graduates lay aside and 
 forget their modern languages, after graduation, to a degree 
 only less complete because these are perhaps less easy to for- 
 get, than do classical students lay aside and forget their 
 Greek and Latin. 
 
 Now if this is true, even in any large degree, why is it 
 true ? The answer I believe is the same in both cases : 
 because, instead of teaching modern languages, we spend so 
 much of the limited time allowed us in teaching only about 
 them, or in the unprofitable pursuit of false objects by false
 
 32 READING IN MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 
 
 methods; and thus, like the dog in the stream, snatching at 
 the shadow, we lose the substance and the shadow too. 
 
 Whatever diverse views may be maintained as to the varied 
 benefits of classical study, it will surely be admitted that the 
 chief object of the study, say of French and German, is to 
 know French and German ; and that, for the vast majority of 
 all our students, the chief object of knowing them is to read 
 them. 
 
 I do not here include private instruction for special pur- 
 poses or under special circumstances, but only such instruc- 
 tion as, seeking " the greatest good of the greatest number,'' 
 should be regularly offered in the organized classes of our 
 higher institutions of learning. And of this, too, I speak 
 only within what may be called strictly collegiate limits, 
 meaning thereby, in a word, such study as is general for 
 large classes within definite courses, and not including the 
 higher special — or more strictly university — study, whose 
 highest law is liberty. 
 
 Now, it seems scarcely to need argument, that for this 
 •' greatest number " of all our modern language students, in 
 school or college, the " greatest good " that our teaching can 
 confer is the power to read, with — so far as possible — the 
 love of reading. I think this is sufficiently indicated in the 
 definition adopted by this Association, of the " primary aims" 
 of such instruction : first, " literary culture ; " and then, 
 " philological scholarship and linguistic discipline." My con- 
 tention is, that that which is here placed first is not only first, 
 but is by far the most important, and should have far more at- 
 tention, relatively, than I believe it now usually receives. 
 
 What is the kind of reading which this " literary culture " 
 implies ? In the first place, it must be accurate reading; for 
 without accuracy there can be no thorough intelligence and, 
 of course, no genuine literary culture. And this accuracy 
 implies sound grammatical knowledge, and precise, often mi- 
 nute, grammatical criticism. But beyond that, and far beyond
 
 READING m MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 38 
 
 that, it must be reading which by practice has grown to be 
 not only intelligent, accurate, appreciative, but easy and pleas- 
 urable : it must be " Reading without Tears." That litera- 
 ture which must be spelled out with grammar and dictionary 
 is, for the nonce, not literature at all ; and will surely not be 
 read, after graduation, outside of professional circles. My 
 point is, we do not read enough : it is not quality, but quan- 
 tity ; not depth, but range ; not knowledge only, but the ease 
 of practised habit, that is left lacking in our results. Speak- 
 ing not from my own unsatisfactory experience only, but 
 judging so far as I can from the courses outlined in many of 
 our foremost institutions, we do not read enough, not nearly 
 enough, to secure that easy command of the foreign idiom and 
 vocabulary, that comfortable at-homeness in the foreign at- 
 mosphere, which is necessary for the appreciation of style, 
 for the enjoyment of literature, or for the free and glad use 
 of these languages as instruments of research, of culture, or 
 of power in after life. Hence it follows that in the mod- 
 ern languages, as in Greek and Latin, yet with far more lam- 
 entable loss, reading is, after graduation, for the most part 
 abandoned and forgotten ; and French and German, begun in 
 school and continued in college as tasks, are remembered and 
 avoided as tasks in after-life. That reading, I repeat, which 
 must be done as a task, or with any distinct consciousness of 
 the difficulty of a foreign idiom, will not be done at all, out- 
 side of professional objects. And so it is that the French and 
 German literatures, with all their wealth, all their " prom- 
 ise and potency " of culture, of delight, of inspiration, of 
 power, remain a dead letter in the lives of the vast major- 
 ity of all our college graduates. If this is not true, I fain 
 would be corrected ; but I fear it is only too true. 
 
 If, then, this is true, the remedy is that we must read more, 
 and give more prominence to reading, relatively, in our courses 
 of study. And if this be recognized as the supremely impor- 
 tant object to which all others are secondary, we must, per-
 
 34 READING IN MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 
 
 force, within our limited time, subordinate other objects to 
 which large proportions of time and attention, though of 
 course in varying degrees, are now habitually devoted. 
 Among them I will briefly mention : — 
 
 I. THE FORMAL STUDY OF GRAMMAR. 
 
 This cannot, of course, be wholly eliminated, but it should 
 be reduced to a minimum. The grammar should be for the 
 reading, not the reading for the grammar. Reading outside 
 of grammar should be begun at the earliest possible day, with 
 all needful helps ; and the further accretion of grammatical 
 knowledge should be made to crystallize gradually around easy, 
 interesting, and pleasurable reading. The formal learning of 
 paradigms and rules may thus, I believe, be wholly omitted, 
 except in largest outlines. Nothing vitalizes language study 
 like reading, even the simplest, outside of grammar rules. I 
 remember a boy who, after a year of grammatical study of 
 Latin on the old plan in school, came during vacation under 
 the teaching of his sister, a bright Virginia girl, who knew 
 nothing of the scholastic method : before the end of the first 
 week he exclaimed, '' Golly, sister ! I believe this means some- 
 thing " — a commentary only too true upon much of our gram- 
 mar grinding. If I might add a word of personal experience, 
 it would be that year by year, though yet far from attaining 
 my ideal, I am more and more impressed with the importance 
 of minimizing formal grammar study. One month of indis- 
 pensable introduction I believe to be quite sufficient. After 
 that, so far as possible, the grammar, like the dictionary, 
 should be used as a book of reference rather than of formal 
 study. (I might add, that the best grammars for this kind of 
 work remain yet to be written.) The reading, thus early 
 begun, should be pushed more and more ; the formal gram- 
 mar, more and more subordinated. I should not need to add 
 that at this stage all points of technical learning, — etymol- 
 ogy, language-history, etc., except for occasional help, should
 
 READING IN MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 35 
 
 be wholly omitted. Yet right here lies our temptation. It 
 is so easy to waste time in displaying our own erudition ; so 
 pleasant to astonish or amuse our pupils ; so hard to forget 
 ourselves for their sake : so easy, in a word, to be a scholar, 
 so hard to be a teacher ! 
 
 II. EXEBCISES IN SPEAKING. 
 
 On this point I shall say but little. I fear I shall in some 
 quarters be deemed guilty of high treason if I express my 
 conviction of the utter worthlessness of such exercises in our 
 ordinary college work. Of course, along with the tongue, the 
 ear must be trained to an accurate pronunciation, and to the 
 appreciation of the beauty and rhythm of the original ; for 
 without this there is no language, much less literature. It 
 is important, also, to be able to understand what may be 
 added, for illustration or explanation, in the original tongue. 
 But as for learning to speak in the college class-room, the idea 
 is futile, and all the time devoted thereto is almost utterly 
 wasted. Given a class, say of twenty-five to thirty members, 
 with three or four hours a week, — that is five or ten minutes 
 for each individual, — and all, meanwhile, reading, writing, 
 speaking, thinking, dreaming English for all the remaining 
 hours of day or night, and their power of intelligent speech 
 in French or German would be trivial and futile, less than 
 "a younger brother's revenue," even if every moment of 
 time throughout the college course could be devoted to such 
 exercises, to the exclusion of all other instruction. The result 
 would be to leave the student, in the language of Professor 
 Hewitt, " the proud possessor of a few sentences, but without 
 any literary knowledge ; " or, as I have myself elsewhere said, 
 "with one phrase on almost every subject, and hardly two on 
 any." Whatever may be said for the so-called " natural 
 method " with individual pupils, or in private classes taught 
 under special conditions for special objects (and here its 
 merits may be great), yet for collegiate or even school work
 
 36 READING IN MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 
 
 proper it is " a delusion and a snare." Who among us has 
 not witnessed the helplessness of pupils trained by this 
 method for all literary or higher linguistic work ? The condi- 
 tions necessary for its usefulness are simply not practicable 
 in the ordinary classes of the school or college. 
 
 III. WRITTEN COMPOSITION. 
 
 Here the weight of prescription and of authority would seem 
 to be so overwhelming as to render criticism at once impotent 
 if not impertinent. Yet we should not forget that this pre- 
 scription comes to us through the Latin, and from an age when 
 the writing of Latin was the necessary accomplishment of 
 every educated person ; nor that it is now less than a genera- 
 tion since the like prescription in England still insisted upon 
 the writing of Latin verse : so hard it is to lay aside the 
 leading-strings of a past culture, even after we have outgrown 
 its infancy. I would not question the indispensableness of 
 writing to the mastery, or indeed even to the accurate criti- 
 cism, of language ; still less would I claim that the highest 
 scholarship in French or German could be attained without 
 the ability to write, or even to speak, these languages. Yet 
 for how many of us does this " highest scholarship " come 
 within the remotest horizon of our teaching ? How many of 
 all our pupils do we expect to learn, by our exercises, to write 
 French and German with any true command of language, 
 much less of style ; or, indeed, with anything beyond the most 
 barren grammatical correctness ? But even within this limit, 
 and far short of any real power of expression, all must admit 
 the value of writing to confirm the knowledge and use of the 
 grammatical forms ; to teach the force of words, the value of 
 position, structure, emphasis, etc. : so that, even for thorough 
 grammatical training, exercise in writing — I will not say 
 composition — may fairly be claimed to be indispensable. 
 This I do not deny ; my protest is against the abuse, not the 
 use, of this exercise.
 
 READING IN MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 37 
 
 I insist, first, that it is begun too early. To set a pupil to 
 writing Latin or German who knows nothing of reading is as 
 vinnatural and cruel as it is unprofitable. It reverses the 
 natural order of acquisition, and makes the beginner's path, 
 which should be lightened by every helpful device, literally 
 a pathway of tears. Such exercise should be reserved until 
 by actual use the student has acquired some considerable 
 knowledge of word-form, structure, and idiom ; or, at the 
 very least, until a review, after the first study of the 
 grammar. Then, as my boy said above, it may "mean 
 something," and so become really intelligent and helpful. 
 
 Secondly, I contend that it is often made unduly diflBcult and 
 burdensome, not only by being too early begun, but by being 
 exaggerated beyond its proper importance, as though it were 
 an end unto itself, instead of being regarded — what it really 
 should be — as a help to easier and more accurate reading.^ 
 At present I think I do not exaggerate when I say that this 
 exercise is generally made to occupy from one-third to one- 
 half, often even more, of the time given to the study of 
 language, ancient or modern ; and that by unreasonable 
 methods of instruction and of correction it is made also, to 
 both pupil and teacher, by far the most painful and discour- 
 aging as well as unprofitable part of the work. It would be a 
 great gain for progress, as well as for peace and comfort, if 
 this exercise could be restricted within narrower limits of 
 time, and placed in its due subordination to the higher objects 
 of reading and criticism. To a very large extent, indeed, its 
 purposes can be better accomplished, with less loss of time, by 
 writing from oral dictation — which gives, besides, the need- 
 ful training of the ear, as of the attention, for the understand. 
 
 1 I beg leave here to refer to the excellent essay of Professor Hale of the Univer- 
 sity of Chicago, on "The Art of Reading Latin" (Ginn & Co.), which, though 
 intended for classical teachers only, may be almost equally helpful in the teaching 
 of modern languages. I make this reference the more freely because I cannot fully 
 claim the weight of this high authority in favor of all the points of the present 
 parofrapb. ^ 
 
 5(ji54
 
 38 READING IN MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 
 
 ing of the spoken language. The time that may here be 
 saved, in my opinion without loss, should also be devoted to 
 the supreme object of more and better reading. Indeed, I will 
 go further, and venture to add that, in courses which are neces- 
 sarily elementary in scope, it would be a wise economy to 
 omit composition altogether. 
 
 IV. SUBJECTS OF HIGHER OR SPECIAL STUDY. 
 
 The foregoing remarks include subjects and methods appro- 
 priate mainly to the school and the lower classes of the col- 
 lege. What I shall now briefly add concerns rather the 
 higher or university study. I refer to those subjects which I 
 suppose to be included by this Association in its definition, — 
 "philological scholarship and linguistic discipline," in addi- 
 tion to " literary culture." Under these heads may perhaps 
 be roughly enumerated: scientific grammar, phonetics, ety- 
 mology, special and comparative, language-history, with study 
 of older forms and kindred dialects, textual criticism, the 
 details of literary history, and so forth. Let no one suppose 
 that I undervalue the importance of these things, however 
 much I may regret my own shortcomings in the learning or 
 teaching of them. They are the crown of our discipline, giv- 
 ing to it the dignity of a many-sided and ample science, and 
 touching at many points the highest intellectual and moral 
 interests of man. My only contention is, that these should 
 be mainly reserved for that higher study which should be 
 made rather the privilege of the few than the task of the 
 many ; for the higher classes only, in our collegiate work ; 
 more properly and more largely for post-graduate or university 
 students : best of all, for that seminary work so admirably 
 outlined by Professor White of Cornell at Philadelphia in 
 1887, yet which I do not believe to be practicable, or even 
 desirable, within ordinary collegiate limits. The scope of the 
 subjects here included is so large and so important that they 
 press with overwhelming weight upon lower classes, not yet
 
 READING IN MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 39 
 
 fully prepared for such study ; and for this very reason there 
 is danger lest they should prematurely usurp the lion's share 
 of that limited and precious time now available for our 
 courses. Such topics — of more distinctly scientific import, 
 linguistic or philological — should, therefore, be mainly re- 
 served for later study, or introduced into the earlier by 
 glimpses only ; for illumination and inspiration, rather than as 
 an added burden of work. I make this plea, as I think, in 
 the interest alike of the higher and of the lower study ; to 
 leave the latter free for the pursuit of its immediate and 
 more important object, and to secure for the former the 
 groundwork of an adequate preparation. The premature or 
 excessive introduction of these topics into early study is one 
 of the most dangerous temptations of our scholarship, and is, 
 in my opinion, the chief reason why so many of our students 
 leave college not only unable to read French and German with 
 any intelligent appreciation or pleasure, but already wearied 
 and alienated by such a mistaken study not of, but about them.^ 
 Such students are little likely to return to these languages 
 with any zest in later life. 
 
 I claim, then, that far more largely than is now usually the 
 case, the chief work of our school and college courses in mod- 
 ern languages should be reading, — large, intelligent, pleasur- 
 able, sympathetic reading (which must, of course, also be 
 
 1 It is certainly true, as urged by the Nationin its review of President Lowell's ad- 
 dress before this Association, that literature and language are equally worthy 
 objects of study, and indeed, in their highest conception, are one. But this does 
 not touch the argument of the present paper, which concerns only the relative 
 weight that should be assigned to each in the (purely preparatory) work of the great 
 body of our students. It is also true, as stated in another column of the same issue of 
 the Nation, that the great mass of college graduates do not keep up the reading even of 
 good English literature, — as, indeed, they do not keep up any branch of college study. 
 But this is because they do not choose to do so, not because they cannot; they at 
 least use English books for all needed purposes of help or information. I contend that 
 they do not as a rule, even to this extent, use French or German, — and because they 
 cannot — at least except as a difficult and disagreeable task. The question here is, 
 moreover, something more than one of degree only.
 
 4tO BEADING IN MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 
 
 caxeful and accurate reading) ; and that our chief object should 
 be, for this main body of our students, to endow them with 
 the power so to read these languages that they shall love to 
 read them, not as a task but as a privilege, and with the 
 delight of literary insight and sympathy, for all the uses of 
 culture and of service, as they would read their mother tongue. 
 And in order to impart this power, and, when possible, to 
 kindle this love, I contend that, just so far as may be neces- 
 sary, all other objects or methods should be subordinated. 
 How far such subordination may be necessary is, of course, a 
 question of circumstances and conditions, for which I should 
 be the last to propose any unvarying rule. Such questions of 
 practical pedagogy, like all other questions of intellectual or 
 moral duty, are at last personal questions, which every man 
 must decide for himself. 
 
 Finally, as to the method of this reading, believing that in 
 details each man must make his own methods, I will only 
 remark that it should be, first, for translation. It is vain to 
 decry this exercise, which is one of the most valuable in the 
 whole range of education. Translation, clear, accurate, sim- 
 ple, adequate yet idiomatic, is not only the best test of the 
 knowledge of both idioms, but it is a work of art as well as 
 of science (and, as our President has said, of conscience too), 
 disciplining the highest powers of insight, skill, and taste, 
 both in thought and in expression. As a training in the 
 mother tongue, it is superior to all the devices of rhetoric. 
 President Eliot has somewhere said, though in other and bet- 
 ter words, that the power rightly to understand and to use 
 the mother tongue is the consummate flower of all education. 
 So we should not debar our study of modern languages from 
 this high ministry, for which it is so conspicuously fitted. 
 There is no other discipline incident to language-study so 
 valuable as translation rightly conceived ; yet there is noth- 
 ing more harmful than those miserable verbal paraphrases 
 which, under the utterly false name of "literal translation,"
 
 READING IN MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 41 
 
 are so often not only allowed but required.^ Such method is 
 false alike to the foreign and to the native language. Only 
 idiom can translate idiom, or style translate style. And if it 
 be urged that no translation can be fully adequate, I answer 
 that no otherwise can this truth be so sharply taught, or so 
 deeply felt, as by the eifort to reproduce the perfect forms of 
 a foreign literature in our own language : — it is only by doing 
 0U1- best that we can truly conceive the ideal and the unattain- 
 able. We must insist, also, that for this American people 
 there is only one mother tongue, to which all other languages 
 are alike foreign, and to be studied as such, by its norms, and 
 largely, too, for its sake. It were better that our students 
 should never know other languages than use them to debauch 
 their English. I insist, then, upon the prime necessity and 
 value of good translation, within appropriate limits. 
 
 But, secondly, it is equally clear that our students should, 
 finally, learn to read without translation. No one has ever 
 truly read any foreign literature who has read it only through 
 a translation — his own or any other. At best such reading 
 is only at second hand, and, in the work of our students, is 
 usually very imperfect. Translation is essential at first, as 
 is the scaffolding to the building of a house ; but no house is 
 finished or sightly until the scaffolding is removed. So, no 
 reading is adequate until it can be understood at first hand, 
 and in the form of the original. In other words, the student 
 must learn to think and to feel, if not productively, at least 
 receptively, in and through the foreign language. Then 
 only can he truly know or feel its literature. How this trans- 
 formation shall be accomplished, at what stage begun, by 
 
 * Since the above was written, I have seen an amusing description of an old-time 
 teacher who, in the lines of Horace, Epod. II., 31 : — 
 
 " Aut trndlt acres hinc et hinc multa cane 
 Apros in obstantes plagas," 
 
 Insisted that multa cane should be rendered (literally !) ioith m%teh dog. Some of mjr 
 eolleagues in the Association maybe surprised to learn that this ityla ia by no meant 
 f«t oonlined to the *' rural distriets."
 
 42 READING IN MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 
 
 what methods promoted, is one of the most important ques- 
 tions of our pedagogy. 1 Sufi&ce it to say, that it implies a 
 new birth of intellectual power, and that without it the best 
 results of language-study are impossible. 
 
 JVhat to read was twenty to thirty years ago a question of 
 supply. Now, thanks to the intelligent zeal of our publishers, 
 it is a question of selection. Such selection might, however, 
 be much aided, for remote and less-experienced teachers, if 
 the publishers' catalogues gave generally, as is already done 
 in some cases, a careful description of the kind of each edition ; 
 whether for primary, intermediate, or advanced work. Besides 
 this there is only one remark of so general application as to 
 justify mention here. This is, that beyond books intended 
 for the very earliest use, editions with vocabularies, except 
 such as are special or technological, are not to be commended. 
 These vocabularies, unless very elaborate, and then expensive, 
 are apt to be incomplete, or at least limited in scope. But 
 even the best is only a poor substitute for a good dictionary, 
 the essential feature being, usually, that the student is helped 
 to the required meaning, instead of having to select it for 
 himself. Such spoon-diet is proper only as " milk for babes." 
 Beyond babyhood, the student should be trained to the right 
 use of the dictionary, as well as of the grammar and other 
 sources of information. This remark has seemed to be justi- 
 fied here by the increasing number of such labor-saving editions 
 " with vocabulary." 
 
 And now, having detained you already too long, I ask to be 
 indulged in a few words more. During more than twenty 
 years of active work as a teacher of modern languages, I have 
 seen our profession pass through many phases. At first we 
 were fighting for a bare recognition in the scheme of liberal 
 study. This victory won, we had then to witness the war of 
 
 > Again I take the liberty of referring to Professor Hale's " Essay on the Art of 
 ]Keading Latin," which I most gladly commend to all teachers of modem taneuag*.
 
 READING IN MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 43 
 
 " methods," until we are now, I trust, happily past that stage 
 of our progress. As I review the scene of so much discussion 
 and experiment, and look forward to the bright promise of the 
 new day, which I have lived to welcome, if not to enjoy, there 
 seem to me to be two tendencies — two remaining perils — on 
 which I may be permitted to add a word of experience and of 
 warning. The first is the bread-and-butter theory. This, I 
 hope, may be here briefly dismissed. Bread is indispensable, 
 and butter, however thin, is to most of us a very acceptable 
 addition. But these are not recognized by this Association, 
 and should not be recognized by ourselves professionally, as 
 among the primary and direct objects of our work. However 
 the learning of modern languages may be made to serve this 
 necessary and worthy purpose in private classes, in summer 
 schools, or under other arrangements for special objects, we 
 must see to it that such views shall not usurp a leading place 
 in our institutions of higher learning. In the purview of our 
 teaching, the life must be more than meat, and the body more 
 than raiment. On this point, I am sure, it is not necessary 
 here to insist. 
 
 The danger which I more fear, just now, comes from the 
 opposite direction — from the excess of what I cannot better 
 describe than as erudition in the school room. I refer to the 
 tendency — I fear, the growing tendency — to obtrude the meth- 
 ods and requirements of erudite or special study into our ele- 
 mentary teaching and text-books. This may be at present 
 only a wholesome reaction from former more trivial methods 
 — the lustiness of a giant only lately liberated from chains; 
 but it indicates a peril which, if not arrested by sound reason, 
 will be hurtful alike to the thoroughness and to the modesty of 
 true scholarship. The field of this danger lies less within the 
 scope of this Association than in the lower schools ; but the 
 warning, if at all justified, is not the less appropriate here, 
 because to the members of this Association the humbler teach- 
 ers will naturally look for the standards as well as the instru-
 
 44 READING IN MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 
 
 ments of their work. The time was, and not very long ago, 
 when we made this reproach against the classicists. Yet now, 
 by strange reaction, we see them seeking, more and more, 
 better and more reasonable methods, and producing easier and 
 more teachable text-books ; while we, on our part, seem to be 
 hastening to occupy the cloudy eminence which they are wisely 
 trying to vacate. In this tendency I see a real danger to 
 modern language study. In the pride of a triumphant scholar- 
 ship we forget the requirements of a reasonable pedagogy ; 
 or, from the standpoint of another native tongue, we forget or 
 ignore the needs of the English pupil ; — or we fail clearly to 
 draw the line between the critical work of the advanced student 
 and the wants of the untrained beginner. I see these indica- 
 tions in some of our modern books ; and I must infer that 
 they exist also in many of our class-rooms. I do not by any 
 means despise erudition, or critical scholarship, or critical 
 teaching ; but they have their place, as they have their value. 
 We must draw the line clearly and broadly, in our editing as 
 well as in our teaching, between advanced and elementary 
 work ; or we shall soon have no good school books, and no 
 good schools. If by the premature and injudicious obtrusion 
 of learned methods or results we make the beginnings of 
 modern language study harsh and repulsive, we shall under- 
 mine the foundations of our discipline, and shall then vainly 
 attempt to build any worthy superstructure. Let us resist the 
 temptations of intellectual pride. Let us remember that in 
 teaching, if anywhere, ars est celare artem ; — that the highest 
 triumph of erudition, in the school book or in the school room, 
 is in the most masterful helpfulness ; and that he who would 
 lead the children of knowledge, as of faith, must himself 
 become as a little child. 
 
 II
 
 THE NATURAL METHOD.^ 
 
 PROFESSOR W. T. HEWETT, CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 
 
 The advocates of the "natural" method of teaching mod- 
 ern languages have apparently captured the citadel of the 
 argument by the name which they have chosen for their sys- 
 tem, and the question arises, — What is the natural method of 
 teaching or acquiring language ? 
 
 The answer is : " Learn a language as a child learns its 
 mother tongue." If this statement embodies the essence of 
 this mode of instruction, we must ask what is the process by 
 which a child learns to speak? It is surrounded by the 
 speech of its country. There is no blurring or obscuring of 
 impressions : one sound and only one is associated with every 
 object or action. The child assigns a certain meaning to a 
 tone of the voice before it knows a single word. By the appli- 
 cation of certain sounds to particular things it learns the 
 names of persons and of objects. By repetition memory fixes 
 the sound as the representative of an idea. Words of de- 
 scription introduce the notion of quality, of good and bad, of 
 color, heat, and size. Verbs of incomplete predication, and 
 picture-words, give the idea of actions, and the relations of 
 substance and quality. The conception of time follows, and 
 adverbs indicate the mode of verbal action. Nouns as the 
 objects of verbs and prepositions follow. The child passes 
 from the generic to the specific, from applying a single term 
 to all animals, to discriminating the characteristics of each. 
 
 ' Repriated from the Academy, Dec. 1886, with the permiision of the publisher.
 
 46 THE NATURAL METHOD. 
 
 Terms descriptive of physical objects are broadened in mean- 
 ing to have a secondary and spiritual signification. Many 
 expressions in the vocabulary of both the child and the man 
 have been learned without even truly analyzing them. Stere- 
 otyped, hereditary forms are adopted without any conscious 
 mental action. This is, in brief, the process of the child's de- 
 velopment in language in its own home and country. But 
 the condition of pupils who begin the study of a foreign lan- 
 guage in this country is different. They already possess a 
 vocabulary fixed in the memory ; every word suggests at once 
 an object or action or quality. The mind is full of the images 
 of things. The steps of the child's development cannot be 
 repeated exactly in later study. The process must be differ- 
 ent, — new names must be associated with familiar things ; 
 terms in part arbitrary and in part natural must be acquired, 
 so that they come at command at the sight of the object ; or 
 kindred words in a changed form must be learned. The child 
 must at the same time retain and constantly use all its former 
 store of words. It cannot be transported into a foreign world 
 for more than an hour or two a day, or a few hours a week. 
 The years through which a child grows into the life and 
 spirit of its mother tongue, attaining even then but a limited 
 vocabulary, cannot be repeated. More rapid results are pos- 
 sible, and methods corresponding to the awakened powers of 
 the child must be employed. 
 
 The " natural " method, strictly followed, would require 
 that all instruction should be oral, by objects and by forms 
 presented to the eye. But in advanced instruction we can- 
 not stop here ; other methods must be employed to keep pace 
 with the mind's expansion and its developed powers. We 
 should ignore most important methods of training in use in 
 the acquisition of other branches of knowledge, if we stopped 
 with the oral, or " natural " method. That method is alone 
 natural which takes cognizance of a pupil's surroundings, his 
 purposes in life, his object in acquiring the language, and his
 
 THE NATURAL METHOD. 47 
 
 intellectual capabilities in learning. The mind generalizes; 
 the principles of language admit of condensed statement ; the 
 facts must be grouped in rules which enunciate the usages 
 of the language, if they are to be retained. Systematic gram- 
 mar is necessary, and language must be studied as the em- 
 bodiment of thought, the philosophy of expression, in order 
 to secure the highest culture. The mode in which a thought 
 is conceived, the subtle influence of particles, prefixes, and 
 suffixes, must form a part of the training in language. Lan- 
 guage thus studied affords a valuable discipline, and indirectly 
 prepares the way for the study of logic and philosophy. 
 
 What is natural at one period of life is not natural, in the 
 sense of being adapted, to all periods of study. The scholar 
 of disciplined mind who seeks to master a language by the 
 natural method alone, would make limited progress. The 
 gift of generalization, of comparison of forms, and of insight 
 into kindred words, would be sacrificed by adopting the 
 method of the child. The scientific method of teaching 
 language requires that all the powers should be enlisted in 
 the work. Hence any exclusive system will fail to accomplish 
 the highest results, and will overlook essential facts of intel- 
 lectual growth. That method which evokes all the powers of 
 the pupil's mind is the best ; the ear, the voice, and the eye 
 must alike be taught, and this triple object must be kept in 
 view throughout the course. Analogy is a suggestive and 
 ever-active principle in the acquisition of language ; and a 
 knowledge of related words, inflections, and principles in one 
 language facilitates the mastery of every other. A knowledge 
 of Latin is a key to the attainment of all the Romance lan- 
 guages ; but only a clear and comprehensive knowledge of its 
 Vvords and forms will facilitate an acquaintance with the 
 derivative tongues. A superficial, speaking knowledge of 
 German does not contribute to the knowledge of Anglo-Saxon 
 and of English speech, while a scientific knowledge is a most 
 valuable aid. A defect of the so-'«alled "natural" method is
 
 48 THE NATUKAL METHOD. 
 
 that it appeals to the memory exclusively, and, unless supple- 
 mented by other methods, leaves the student with a bare 
 knowledge of the idioms taught, but destitute of the principles 
 and analogies of the language, beyond those imparted by oral 
 practice. Students so taught are often deficient in a systematic 
 knowledge of the inflections, and their subsequent progress is 
 less thorough than that of pupils who have been trained by 
 established methods. 
 
 The culture of the memory alone never made a great scholar : 
 a knowledge of several languages learned familiarly where 
 they are spoken, fails in itself to give intellectual culture. 
 The knowledge of German possessed by the children of Ger- 
 man parents, born in this country, is often an obstacle to the 
 thorough study of their native tongue. A facility in phrases 
 is often accompanied by a real failure to discriminate properly 
 the meaning of words in English. Those delicate distinctions 
 in thought existing in a language are often lost in the case 
 of students to whom both languages are alike. One language 
 seems to displace the other, as Hamerton holds, and to make 
 the possessor insensible to subtle shades of meaning. Even 
 in the case of great scholars who seem to know equally the 
 language and literature of two nations, the idioms of one 
 language are often transferred unconsciously to the other. 
 If we examine the results achieved by American students 
 who have resided abroad, we are confirmed in our view of the 
 limited value of the acquisition of a language mainly by in- 
 tercourse, without thorough systematic study. Many who 
 have taken a degree at a foreign university, and mingled 
 intimately with the people, but who have devoted themselves 
 to pursuits other than the language itself, have acquired only 
 an uncertain facility in speaking and writing. If this is the 
 case with students who have resided abroad, being daily in a 
 foreign atmosphere, hearing in lectures and conversation only 
 the language of the country, it is true by a stronger reasoning 
 of pupils in this country who enjoy but an hour or two of
 
 THE NATURAL METHOD. 49 
 
 instruction per day in a foreign language, and speak and write 
 and think the remainder of the time in English. Students 
 study the modern languages mainly for an acquaintance with 
 the literature ; the time which can be devoted to it is limited. 
 If all the available time were consumed in studying by the 
 oral method, a knowledge of the literature, and the discipline 
 which comes from thorough study of the language, would be 
 lost. A teacher who employed exclusively the oral method 
 would fail to call into exercise some of the highest powers of 
 the pupil, and the results would be meagre and unsatisfying. 
 The oral method should be assigned to its true place. It is 
 an important and valuable aid in training the ear to under- 
 stand the spoken language, and the organs of speech to pro- 
 nounce correctly. Translation at hearing is an admirable 
 accompaniment of linguistic instruction, and should be prac- 
 tised constantly in the study of language. If familiar expla- 
 nations and lectures in the language itself are given, it will 
 form a useful auxiliary to any course. 
 
 It is fallacious to hope to impart to all students the ability 
 to speak a foreign language fluently. Few would have occa- 
 sion to use the language if acquired. It is therefore unwise 
 to insist upon a speaking knowledge as the end of the study. 
 It is a valuable aid in the mastery of grammatical forms, and 
 a key to a facile acquaintance with the literature. Indeed, a 
 true appreciation of poetry, as well as its expression, is im- 
 possible without the feeling which comes from an inner knowl- 
 edge of the spirit as well as of the sounds of the language. 
 
 The manifest merit of the natural method should not be 
 obscured by the exclusive claim that it is a substitute for, 
 and should displace other recognized and approved systems 
 of instruction. As an accompaniment of higher study, it 
 will perform a useful and possibly indispensable office.
 
 These notes are simply what they are called, — notes of the writer's experi- 
 ence in teaching French. The methods suggested for the various 
 parts of the work may not be the best; they can certainly be im- 
 proved on ; but they have proved fruitful of good results, and have 
 been adopted by some other teachers with equal success. 
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 
 
 BY PROFESSOR F. C. DE SUMICHRAST, HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 
 IN general; THE TEACHER; PRONUNCIATION; GROUND-WORK; 
 
 sight-reading; composition; memorizing; dictation; speak- 
 ing FRENCH; CONVERSATION CLASSES; CLASSIC WRITERS. 
 
 IN GENERAL. 
 
 Few changes in education are more striking than the growth 
 and development of the study of modern languages. The time 
 has long since gone by when Latin was practically the only 
 medium of intercommunication between learned men in differ- 
 ent branches of knowledge ; when philosophers, theologians, 
 and scientists made use of the language of Cicero to commu- 
 nicate to each other their discoveries or their opinions. A 
 common language does not at present exist ; whether it ever 
 will do so is a question which may be left out of consideration 
 for the moment. It is plain that, with the strong patriotic 
 feeling exhibited by the great nations of the world, neither 
 English, German, nor French will be universally accepted as 
 the language of general intercourse. A student of the present 
 day who desires to be thoroughly equipped, must therefore 
 possess more than an elementary knowledge ; he must have a 
 good command of those foreign languages in which so many 
 and so valuable works have been and are being produced. 
 
 This alone, to say nothing of the splendor of French litera- 
 ture in past centuries, must compel attention to the importance 
 
 Copyright, 1892, F. C. de Sumichrast.
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 51 
 
 of the methods employed in teaching the language. The old 
 system of spending a very long time in picking out, word by 
 word, the sense of a short passage, selected generally from a 
 somewhat tedious and uninteresting work, — tedious and un- 
 interesting precisely because it was not studied or treated in 
 the way that its merits demanded, — could not possibly induce 
 men to pursue their studies with anything like the enthusiasm 
 that must be excited if rapid and satisfactory progress is to 
 be made. 
 
 To know French, — and in these notes it is French simply 
 that will be treated of, — to know French is not simply to be 
 acquainted with the elements of the grammar, and to have 
 read, with more or less trouble and difficulty, one or two texts 
 selected from the many treasures which the literature of France 
 possesses ; but it is to have a real acquaintance with the genius 
 and forms of the language ; to penetrate into the spirit of the 
 literature ; to become familiar with the modes of thought and 
 the manner of expressing them ; to feel, in a word, that instead 
 of a hesitating progress, such as that of a child tottering in 
 his walk, one's onward march is firm and decided as that of 
 the grown man who presses forward to a distinct, clearly 
 defined goal. 
 
 There are, broadly speaking, two ways in which the study 
 of the French language may be conducted. The one which 
 has just been alluded to consists in minute and over-careful 
 attention to every detail from the very outset, demanding an 
 accurate comprehension of every point as it comes up. This 
 method assumes that in the acquisition of the French lan- 
 guage the intellect is capable of doing what it absolutely 
 refuses to do in any other branch of knowledge. In none 
 would it find it possible to grasp at once, fully and com- 
 pletely, and to retain permanently, every detail as it presents 
 itself. 
 
 The other method is intended to lead the student to an ac- 
 quaintance with the language, such as that of the child when
 
 52 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 
 
 it first begins to learn words, to distinguish things, and to give 
 them names. The idea which underlies this theory is a cap- 
 tivating one. Its very simplicity attracts sympathy and ap- 
 proval, and at first sight it seems as though it were the 
 one right and proper mode of imparting a knowledge of the 
 French tongue in a manner which will be at once agreeable 
 and effectual. It is not, however, capable of fulfilling all that 
 is claimed for or expected of it. The child learning to lisp 
 its own mother tongue is a different being intellectually from 
 the student whose mind has been more or less thoroughly 
 trained, and who is capable of very much greater effort ; who 
 understands the value of time ; who is anxious to progress ; 
 who wishes to become master of the language in as short a 
 time as possible. 
 
 Any system which aims at thorough teaching of French, 
 which seeks to combine simplicity of method with accuracy 
 of knowledge and rapidity of grasp, cannot leave out of sight 
 the facts that the grammar bears a most important relation 
 to the language ; that the literature, is, after all, the one great 
 treasure-house which must be opened to the student ; that the 
 best teachers will be the great writers, classical and modern; 
 that the student's vocabulary will be most usefully and most 
 rapidly enlarged by the perusal of numerous works by the 
 best authors. 
 
 Another point is, that precisely the same course cannot 
 be followed in its entirety with every learner. Purposes are 
 different. Some may wish to acquire simply reading knowl- 
 edge ; others to add to this some slight conversational facility, 
 to be developed subsequently by residence in France, or inter- 
 course with French people. Others, again, are anxious to 
 make a thorough study of the language, and to become fully 
 acquainted with its resources and riches. 
 
 Taking, then, the grammar as the basis of the work, the 
 question arises, How should that grammar be taught ? The 
 1186 of a text-book becomes a necessity, and of tezt-bookj
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 53 
 
 there is, of course, no end. Admirable grammars in the 
 French language are to be had quite easily. Very good 
 grammars written in English, Methods or Courses of greater 
 or less excellence, to say nothing of the very numerous books 
 which are mere collections of clippings from other works — 
 are ready to the hand ; and it would seem as though every 
 possible system had been tried by which an acquisition of the 
 elements of the language might be facilitated. And yet, 
 while recognizing the value of many books which have become 
 standard in educational institutions, teachers and students 
 alike are forced to recognize the fact that of all the gram- 
 mars or' methods published, there is not yet one the author 
 of which has grasped the principle which must underlie any 
 grammatical text-book intended to be used by Americans or 
 Englishmen in the study of French. The general plan of the 
 grammars, properly so called, is simply that on which gram- 
 mars written for French pupils are constructed. Chapters on 
 the article, the substantive, the adjective, the pronoun, the verb, 
 the adverb, the preposition, the conjunction, and the interjec- 
 tion, follow each other in regular procession, as a preface to 
 that body of rules which, with its not infrequent exceptions, 
 forms the French syntax. The Methods do not, as a rule, 
 conform strictly to this arrangement, although they also begin 
 with that old friend, the article, which, from being placed in 
 the very fore front of the instruction, assumes an importance 
 which certainly should never have belonged to it ; a fact 
 so well recognized by students in general, that they very 
 speedily forget all they learned about the combinations of the 
 article and the preposition, and even when far advanced in 
 their studies continue to translate literally "of the" and "to 
 the " by de le, a le, de les and a les. A further fault of 
 Methods, probably inseparable from the plan, is that a certain 
 difl&culty is experienced in referring to particular rules re- 
 quired to elucidate difficulties which must constantly present 
 themselves to an English-speaking student.
 
 54 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 
 
 The fact that it is English-speaking people who are to be 
 taught the French language, gives the key to the true method 
 of teaching. 
 
 This will be better understood, perhaps, by an illustration 
 taken from actual practice in teaching. 
 
 A constant stumbling-block to English-speaking students is 
 the agreement of the article and adjective with the substan- 
 tive in French. Theoretically, the rule is alike in both lan- 
 guages ; practically, there is nothing in English to show the 
 agreement. In other words, the substantive in French has 
 a visible effect upon article and adjective; it has none in 
 English. This is an important difference, which must be 
 taught at the outset ; and the plan adopted by the writer is as 
 follows : — 
 
 On the blackboard are written two English substantives : — 
 Boy. Girl. 
 
 and the class informs the teacher that the first is masculine 
 singular, and the second feminine singular. 
 
 Below each is then written the French word : — 
 
 Oar<}on. Mile. 
 
 and the class is then asked to supply a definite article for 
 each noun : — 
 
 The hoy. The girl. 
 
 Attention is at once drawn to the fact that the form of the 
 article is identical in each case ; then the French comes : — 
 
 Theboy, The girl, 
 
 Le garQon. La fille. 
 
 A difference in form; impossible to mistake one for the 
 other. Add an adjective, say " good : " — 
 
 The good boy. The good girl.
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 55 
 
 No difference in the form of the adjective, any more than in 
 that of the article ; but note the French : — 
 
 The good boy, The good girl, 
 
 Le bon garQon. La bonne fille. 
 
 Here again the adjective changes its form and clearly indi- 
 cates the gender. 
 
 Now comes number. The rule in both languages is alike : 
 add s for the plural (exceptions disregarded at the outset) ; 
 
 so : — 
 
 Boys, Girls, 
 
 Garqons. Filles. 
 
 Add first the article and next the adjective, and the English 
 shows no change whatever in these words, although they are 
 plural ; but the French plainly indicates difference in gender 
 and number : — 
 
 The good boys, The good girls, 
 
 Les bons gar^ons. Les bonnes filles. 
 
 The fact can now be, is now impressed upon the student 
 that the agreement of the article and the adjective with the 
 substantive means something visible in French, — an operation 
 to be performed ; a change to be effected. And the lesson is 
 repeated with the possessive adjective, the demonstrative, the 
 interrogative, and, again, with the pronoun, whether personal, 
 possessive, demonstrative, or relative ; and the idea sinks into 
 the mind and stays there. 
 
 This is not a grammar, or a method either, else it would be 
 proper to show how many points can thus be made clear and 
 striking. Besides, they will readily occur to any one familiar 
 with both tongues and teaching them. The supposedly ter- 
 rible French " irregular " verb can be stripped of its terrors 
 even more emphatically. 
 
 The grammar of the language must be learned in conjunction 
 with as large a number as possible of words in common use, in
 
 66 
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 
 
 order to form a vocabulary by means of which the student will 
 in a comparatively short space of time be enabled not merely 
 to read ordinary French with facility but to translate English 
 into French, and, at no distant time, to express directly in 
 French the thoughts which he wishes to utter. The two lan- 
 guages, English and French, are not only dissimilar in their 
 origin ; they are essentially distinct in their genius and modes 
 of expression. What is important in the one is less so in the 
 other. The English-speaking student employs, naturally, the 
 modes of thought and of expression which he has learned 
 from childhood, and these differ so greatly from the French 
 that, unless the fact is borne in mind constantly in the course 
 of teaching, it is not French that will be given, but a bastard 
 dialect which has nothing whatever to recommend it save an 
 occasional quaint turn or absurd mistranslation. 
 
 To teach French as it should be taught necessarily involves 
 on the part of the teacher a thorough knowledge of both tongues. 
 How else is he to seize the characteristic points of each, and 
 to present them clearly and definitely, so that they may be 
 readily grasped by the intelligence of his students ? The 
 object, then, is to dwell less upon those points of grammar 
 which are alike in the two languages, than to impress strongly 
 the differences, so that the characteristic features of the lan- 
 guage will be thoroughly learned, and become part and parcel 
 of the intellectual stock-in-trade of the student, which he can 
 call upon readily at any time without fear of becoming obscure 
 or unintelligible. This is the very basis of successful teaching 
 which aims at bringing on a pupil rapidly, while grounding 
 him thoroughly. Every part of the work may be turned to 
 advantage in this respect ; not merely those grammatical exer- 
 cises which are necessary to impress upon the mind the 
 particular points they illustrate, but such spoken sentences, 
 such ordinary expressions, as may, and indeed should, be used 
 from the outset to accustom the ear and the understanding 
 alike to the different language which it is seeking to acquire.
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OP FRENCH. 57 
 
 And also the reading of French itself, which should never be 
 made an unpleasant, ungrateful task, involving an amount of 
 labor which simply destroys any possible interest in the work 
 itself, — not that French, any more than anything else, can be 
 acquired without labor and difficulty ; but what is meant is 
 that mere labor for labor's sake should not be allowed to pre- 
 vail in the system pursued ; that it should be definitely kept 
 in view that the work is to bring results encouraging to the 
 student ; for no matter how excellent the teacher, how thor- 
 oughly equipped, how interesting in his illustrations, how 
 clear and precise in his expressions, it is not he who is to 
 acquire the language, it is not he who can put it into the 
 mind of the learner, but it is that learner who must by his 
 own work make himself the possessor of the stores of knowl- 
 edge presented to him. 
 
 THE TEACHER. 
 
 It has been said above that " to teach French as it should 
 be taught necessarily involves on the part of the teacher a 
 thorough knowledge of both tongues." This point is worth 
 considering a little more fully. 
 
 Macaulay says, in effect, that no man can ever acquire a 
 foreign language perfectly ; experience proves the contrary. 
 It is possible to know two languages thoroughly, and, given a 
 good "ear," to pronounce in both accurately. But perfect 
 pronunciation of the language to be taught is a necessity ; one 
 may sin in English, but not in French. Here is a difficulty 
 in the way of American teachers ; a serious one. Here is now 
 a difficulty in the way of foreign born teachers, — imperfect 
 knowledge of English, and consequent confusion in explana- 
 tions given in that tongue. 
 
 Which is the better, then, the American or the French born 
 teacher ? The odds are now, and always will be, in favor of 
 the latter, provided he knows English well, so as to under- 
 itand the spirit of the language, and to make plain^ quite plain,
 
 58 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 
 
 his meaning when, perforce, his explanations must be given in 
 English. But if an American has really mastered French, 
 and by a residence abroad has succeeded in speaking it fluently 
 and pronouncing it correctly, he is the equal of the Frenchman 
 for all that part of the work which does not include literature. 
 The spirit of the literature is not to be so easily appropriated. 
 
 Too strong a warning can scarcely be given to Frenchmen 
 who, because they know, as the saying is, their mother tongue, 
 imagine they can teach it, and readily seek and obtain positions 
 in which they at least have a chance of learning English, if 
 they do not teach much French. An intelligent knowledge 
 7 of Euglish is a requisite. 
 
 But, on the other hand, the fact that a man is an American 
 gives him absolutely no advantage over the foreigner, so far as 
 handling a class goes, or in the placing himself en rapport with 
 the students. These gifts do not pertain to any one national- 
 ity, and an American may prove a flat failure as well as a 
 foreigner. The only advantage he has, if it be one, is that he 
 can talk English easily ; and when troubled with his acquired 
 French can take refuge in that ; but the student suffers more 
 retardation in his progress from good English than from good 
 French, and the foreigner can at least talk that. 
 
 In brief, the question of nationality has absolutely no 
 business in this matter ; personal fitness alone should be the 
 test. 
 --, The business of the teacher is strictly that of helper, espe- 
 cially in the beginnings of the study. He can only make plain, 
 but that he must do, whatever presents any difficulty ; he can 
 only intelligently discuss whatever points present themselves 
 to his mind or that of the pupils ; he can only show how best 
 to attack and solve a particular problem, indicate why certain 
 turns, certain forms, are used in preference to others ; he must 
 remove from the minds of the students that very absurd but 
 deep-rooted belief that every foreign language should in all 
 respects conform to the structure of English, and that where 
 
 11
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 69 
 
 differences occur, as occur of course they must, there is some- 
 thing radically wrong about that foreign language. Whatever 
 is essentially different between the two must be dwelt upon 
 and made absolutely clear. In a word, the teacher must strive 
 from the outset to make the learners understand the genius 
 of the language, and induce them, by every means in his power, 
 to become as familiar as may be with it. This method, if 
 conscientiously, carefully, and diligently pursued, will, in every 
 case, result not only in a rapidity of progress fairly astonish- 
 ing to adherents of the older methods, but in a much more 
 intimate acquaintance with, and a greater grasp of, the forms 
 peculiar to French than is possible in any other way. This 
 grammatical teaching must be done, as has been observed, not / 
 only by intelligent explanation, — repeated as often as is neces-"" 
 sary, and that will always be oftener than most teachers think 
 it necessary, — but by careful reading and writing of exercises 
 by the pupils. There is nothing which so firmly impresses a 
 point on the mind as a written exercise upon it, and nothing 
 which will enable the pupil to make satisfactory progress more 
 than attention on the part of the teacher to the correctness of 
 that written work. This, no doubt, involves on his part an 
 amount of labor which, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, 
 will be considered useless drudgery ; but it is not : it is a ne- 
 cessary part of the business, which must be done as faithfully 
 as another. It is not showy, it is not interesting perhaps ; but 
 it is of the utmost importance that the student should not be 
 permitted to carry away uncorrected work, if by any means 
 within the power of the teacher that work can be made per- 
 fect. Besides, every instructor of experience will agree that 
 the mistakes of the students are the helps of the teacher. 
 
 A man most thoroughly at home in two or more languages, 
 and such men are by no means rare, may not always recognize 
 at the first glance the peculiar difficulties which a learner has 
 to contend with ; what to him is exceedingly simple and plain, 
 maj be, and very likely is, exceedingly obscure and difficult to
 
 60 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 
 
 another; and it is only by constant study of the errors com- 
 mitted by students that the teacher can perfect himself in the 
 work he has undertaken. If, therefore, he avoids the study of 
 those mistakes, whether made in recitation or in written exer- 
 cises, he voluntarily casts away a most important means of 
 promoting his own success. 
 
 PRONUNCIATION. 
 
 Reading must, or should, be taken up almost at the begin- 
 ning, and here, of course, a very grave difficulty presents itself, 
 that of pronunciation. Most grammars and Methods prepared 
 for use in American or British colleges and schools contain a 
 prefatory chapter purporting to give, approximately at al) 
 events, the pronunciation of French sounds. No doubt a 
 demand has arisen for some such help to those who are unable 
 to obtain the pronunciation from some one well qualified, but 
 a moment's reflection will show the hopelessness of attempting 
 to learn or teach pronunciation by such means. If all persons 
 were equally trained to speak their own language, English, for 
 instance, correctly and properly, and if, in addition, they all 
 possessed the power of distinguishing differences of sound, 
 which are as marked to the trained ear as difference of notes 
 in music ; and if, further, combinations of English letters could 
 always be relied on to give exactly the same sound, then pro- 
 nunciation could be taught by such means ; or if Bell's " Visible 
 Speech " were universally employed in all schools and colleges 
 as an available and additional aid to the teaching of languages, 
 it would be easy to print directions which, carefully followed, 
 would enable the student to pronounce French correctly ; but 
 facts are all the other way. Of the thousands of students who 
 annually begin the study of a foreign language, a very large 
 proportion pronounce their mother tongue in a most peculiar 
 manner. The ear has to be trained, and the learner has to be 
 ^d of another idea commonly implanted in his brain, — that 
 oecause a language is foreign it must be, necessarily, intricate
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 61 
 
 in its pronunciation. Practically, unless the vocal organs or 
 the " ear " of an individual are defective, there should be no 
 difficulty in any one pronouncing correctly any ordinary modern 
 language, leaving out of the question that characteristic tone 
 which we call the accent, and which betrays so quickly the 
 mother-tongue of the speaker. 
 
 Pronunciation, therefore, must be taught at present orally^ 
 if it is to approximate to the correct sound ; and it is well 
 worth while spending some little time on this point, in order 
 to encourage the learner to make use of sounds with which he 
 is somewhat unfamiliar, and to break down that wide-spread 
 objection to hearing one's self make mistakes. Still, for those 
 who merely desire a reading knowledge, as well as for those 
 who wish to speak the language, there is no necessity for 
 dwelling at too great length at the outset upon the obtaining 
 of a correct pronunciation ; that is only a matter of time : it is 
 little by little that the new sounds will be acquired and pro- 
 nounced fluently. Much reading aloud is desirable, but still 
 more desirable is a great deal of reading, of that reading which 
 will furnish the student with a varied and useful vocabulary, 
 and make him acquainted with turns of expression, with forms 
 of phrase, with syntactical constructions, and idiomatic com- 
 binations. Eeading not carried on in microscopic fashion by 
 carefully turning up every word in the dictionary, but based 
 upon the fact that there are many words identical, or nearly 
 so, in form and meaning in both languages, thanks to that 
 long intercourse between England and France which brought 
 about, in the language of the former country, the use of many 
 French words, or of words derived from the Latin through the 
 French. 
 
 SIGHT-READING. — COMPOSITION. 
 
 Sight-reading, in short, is what must be aimed at quite early. 
 Even if the instructor has to explain many a locution and 
 many a word, he must first and foremost interest his students ;
 
 62 NOTES ON TBlc. TEACHING OF FRENCH. 
 
 he must create in them a desire to know more ; and for that 
 purpose he must not keep them dwelling upon any one point 
 so long that their attention lags through fatigue. There exist 
 in French works enough of the character particularly suited 
 to this plan of study, works which can be put into the hands 
 of young people with the utmost safety, and which they will 
 enjoy, because to the interest of the story itself is added the 
 charm of that artistic style for which French writers are 
 noted above all others, and which makes itself felt even by 
 those who cannot fully appreciate the beauties of the work 
 they are studying. 
 
 This is no mere hypothesis, no mere theory, but the result 
 of experience. Students do begin the study of French with- 
 out knowing a word of the language, without having the faint- 
 est notion of its genius or construction, who, in the brief space 
 of four months, are able to translate at sight a piece of or- 
 dinary French ; are able to follow intelligently the reading, 
 by an instructor, of a French book which they have not pre- 
 viously opened ; and who, before their first year of study has 
 elapsed, can of themselves enjoy the perusal of many charm- 
 ing stories which, under the old plan of carefully digging 
 out and polishing every word, with thp assistance of that 
 frequently misleading authority, the dictionary, would have 
 remained closed to them for many years ; would, indeed, have 
 never been sought by them, because long before they could 
 have acquired any facility in reading, they would have been 
 disgusted and driven from the study by the numerous obstacles 
 and difficulties that presented themselves. Let it be remem- 
 bered, also, that with the acquisition of a vocabulary of French 
 words, with the familiarity thus gained with French idioms 
 and constructions, comes naturally the power of constructing 
 in good French what one has to say. The translation of 
 English into French, or French composition as it is usually 
 called, should also be carried on on similar principles, though 
 here, of course, the effort required will be a harder one, and
 
 KOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 63 
 
 the progress cannot be expected to be quite as rapid ; for there 
 is great difficulty in persuading students to abandon the use 
 of those forms to which they are wedded from childhood for 
 those which are new to them, and the vigor and force of which 
 they neither grasp nor appreciate readily. But after a time 
 it will be found, if the system of carefully explaining on every 
 occasion the essential differences between the two languages 
 is followed, that it is possible to do in French composition 
 what has been done already in French reading ; namely, to 
 take an English work and translate it at sight into good 
 French. Such a result should be attained with college 
 students of ordinary intelligence, willing to give up a suffi- 
 cient amount of time to the preparation of their work, in the 
 course of a couple of years. By this time their reading of 
 French books should have made them familiar with a large 
 number of the simpler works of good authors, and they should 
 be prepared to enter upon the study of the literature as a lit- 
 erature with just as much interest as they would take in the 
 literature of their own language ; feeling themselves capable 
 of understanding intelligently a lecture delivered in French, 
 or of following readily the reading of a play, an oration, or a 
 discourse, and of perceiving the beauties which the classic age 
 of French literature, the philosophical period of the eighteenth 
 century, and the splendid cycle of the nineteenth, present. 
 
 GROUNDWORK. 
 
 Qui trop embrasse, mal etreint. If a student is to learn 
 French, let not the whole grammar, accidence, and syntax, all 
 the idioms of the language, all the difficulties of pronunciation 
 be poured into him at once. The fault of many grammars, 
 methods, introductions, and teachers, is a desire to be erudite 
 and to show how much the author or instructor knows. There 
 are even some of the latter who would feel unhappy if they 
 were inhibited from exhibiting their scholarship. 
 
 Enough is enough, and too much should never be expected
 
 64 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 
 
 or asked of a pupil, young or old. If in the course of two 
 years in a preparatory school, or of one year in 'college (stu- 
 dents more mature and capable of being driven harder), a solid 
 groundwork has been laid, success has been attained. The 
 knowledge of broad outlines, the main points of the gram- 
 matical structure of the language, a moderate but well-acquired 
 vocabulary, the power to understand easy spoken French, the 
 ability to compose in simplest French, these are the points to 
 be sought after, the ends to be attained. In succeeding years 
 it is easy to build up on such a foundation ; to add, progres- 
 sively, needed details ; to fill in the outline, and to make the 
 pupil knoiv French, that is, use it easily. 
 — -.^ It is desirable to avoid excess of detail at first, and yet it 
 is this excess of detail that is most noticeable in text-books. 
 It is of very little practical importance to place before the 
 beginner all the varieties of use of the preposition de, for 
 instance; or all the exceptions to the general rule for the 
 formation of the plural of substantives ; or long lists of 
 adjectives, the feminine of which is irregular ; or, finally, 
 pages of verbs, most of which he will not come across more 
 than once or twice, if at all, during his first year or two of 
 study. It simply bothers and torments a student to have a 
 number of forms and rules set before him which he can neither 
 understand, digest, nor remember. Elementary work should 
 be elementary ; free from all trace of erudition ; free from all 
 that is not absolutely necessary. 
 
 To illustrate : A beginner in French is in the same condi- 
 tion as a stranger dropped by train or steamer in one of our 
 large cities. He starts out from his hotel for a walk, goes 
 through a number of streets, notices only a few, a very few, of 
 the principal buildings and monuments, and usually cannot 
 quite tell how he got from one point to another. The second 
 day he marks some points near his hotel, gets a better idea of 
 the lay of the city ; in the course of a week he knows the 
 main thoroughfares, and probably does not board too often the
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH, 65 
 
 wrong street-car. But if he becomes a resident, it takes him 
 still a good deal of time before he is quite familiar with the 
 highways and byways of the place, before he learns the short 
 cuts, and gets to know the best stores. He acquires his knowl- 
 edge progressively, and would be very much amused were he 
 furnished with a map and directory, and told to get up all the 
 streets and most of the addresses before venturing out ; or 
 even were he told it was necessary for him to know the names 
 of all the residents in the street he inhabits. 
 
 Few rules, therefore, should be given a learner at the outset.^ 
 Text-books crammed full of information are favored by insuf- - 
 ficiently prepared or indifferent and lazy teachers. They rely 
 on the book ; they cram the book down the pupil's throat ; 
 they close his mouth with it when he asks a question — the 
 book is everything. Well, that is quite wrong ! No book can 
 teach like a living man or woman ; no printed page can explain 
 as pleasantly and interestingly as a well-posted, earnest teacher. 
 The book is dead matter — the living being is preferable when 
 living beings are to be instructed. The teacher himself must 
 be the text-book ; he, not the printed pages, must be the spring 
 of knowledge for the students. Text-books are very useful, 
 very necessary, but not indispensable for beginners. A good 
 teacher with a small class could wholly dispense with a printed 
 grammar or method, and give all the instruction, rules and , 
 exercises to boot, himself. A. text-book is an aid, and a sec- / 
 ondary one, and should, therefore, never usurp the first 
 place. 
 
 Even with few rules, the simple, needed ones, much repeti- 
 tion must be resorted to. It cannot be helped ; it is not 
 exhilarating to the teacher, but it is indispensable for the 
 pupil. And when the teacher feels the least inclination to 
 impatience, because a rule, a remark already many times re- 
 peated, has been apparently forgotten, just let him remember, 
 or, if he cannot remember, let him be absolutely sure that he, 
 when learning, forgot just as readily the very same things, and
 
 66 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 
 
 many more perhaps. Then quietly, pleasantly, gladly, give 
 the needed information. 
 
 It takes no more time to repeat information than to get 
 mad because it has been forgotten. And it is pleasanter all 
 round. 
 
 Teachers — and men in general — are apt not to observe 
 themselves closely enough, and, therefore, to ascribe stupidity, 
 carelessness, laziness, to pupils when they themselves are 
 really in fault. There are, of course, and always will be, 
 stupid, careless, and lazy boys and girls, young men and 
 maidens, men and women; but the proportion of these is by 
 no means so large as some instructors would maintain. What 
 is apparently stupidity in many a pupil, is, in reality, lack of 
 clearness in the teaching. If difficulties are not clearly and 
 intelligently explained, the student cannot master them, and 
 the fault is not his at all. This is very much more frequently 
 the case than many imagine. The writer has seen a great 
 deal of teaching, not of French only, and has been amazed 
 at the numerous imperfections of teachers visited upon the 
 heads of pupils. Carelessness in pupils often arises from 
 carelessness in the teacher ; and laziness visible in a class 
 may be traced not too seldom to the fountain-head. 
 
 A teacher of French must not spare himself. It is not 
 easy for an American or an Englishman to learn a foreign 
 language. All the help that can be given should be given. 
 It is a mistake to suppose that by refusing the help asked for 
 the student is compelled to do better work. He does not do 
 better ; he does worse. The sole purpose of a teacher's 
 existence in that blessed state is to help. Assistance properly 
 and promptly given, explanations cheerfully vouchsafed and 
 gladly repeated over and over and over again, will bring on 
 pupils much faster and much more surely than a policy of 
 " find out for yourself — explained it before — so simple any 
 fool would know it." 
 
 Again, in all elementary work, which involves a serious
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 67 
 
 amount of drudgery on the part of the pupil, — no matter 
 how much aided by his instructor, — it is of prime importance 
 to keep up the interest. A class must be always wide awake. 
 If the teacher is sleepy, the pupils will snore ; if he is bright 
 and alive, the pupils will be the same. The teacher makes 
 the class what it is. He has no one to blame but himself if 
 it turns out poor with the average material furnished him. 
 He must work, if the students are to work ; and he must 
 work harder than they, whether they know it or not. He must 
 lead ; always stimulate, encourage. And he must take great 
 care to avoid monotony — it is fatal to success. No one exer- iy 
 cise should last too long. Students will do a great deal of 
 work if it is skilfully varied for them. They may not under- 
 stand this ; it is not necessary they should : but the teacher 
 must understand and practise it. 
 
 The teacher may tire himself ; if he is good he will : he 
 must avoid tiring his pupils. He is not a preacher who has 
 the right to be dull and wearisome ; he is an instructor whose 
 first business is to keep his pupils constantly awake, constantly 
 interested, constantly learning and progressing. 
 
 Therefore he will vary the study ; some grammar, not over 
 much at a time ; some written exercises, as a basis for future 
 composition ; some reading and translation ; much speaking of 
 French ; plenty of explanations. 
 
 SIGHT-READING. 
 
 Sight-reading may be begun the first week. 
 
 Because sight-reading is not only very interesting to students, 
 who derive from it a real sense of progress, but because there 
 is a French element in English ; and words alike or nearly alike 
 in both languages are sufficiently numerous to make a short 
 exercise in sight-reading possible and profitable. Needless 
 to say that in the course of the first few lessons in sight- 
 reading, frequent translation of words and phrases even will 
 be required ; but very soon the necessity for this will diminish.
 
 68 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 
 
 and before many weeks are over the class will be able to 
 follow the reading without much translation. 
 
 In sight-reading the object is at once to give a vocabulary 
 to students, and to enable them to read French without neces- 
 sarily translating it into English. They are to be told ex- 
 pressly that they are not expected to understand every word, 
 but to grasp the sense of the passage being read. This is 
 doing in French what nearly everybody does in English. 
 Very few persons, probably, if the test were applied, could 
 give the exact meaning of every English word they read ; one 
 need only glance at much of the writing published nowadays 
 to be sure of that point, and also that writers themselves 
 do not always understand the meaning of the words they 
 use. 
 
 Sight-reading is a sure means of interesting students. In- 
 stead of wearying them by the dry and repellent old-time method 
 of painfully digging out the meaning of each separate word in ten 
 lines of Fenelon's " Telemaque " or Voltaire's " Charles XII.," 
 it enables them to read, understand, and enjoy complete books. 
 First year students in Harvard, for instance, read through 
 Halevy's " L'Abbe Constantin," Erckmann-Chatrian's " Ma- 
 dame Therese," Labiche's " La Poudre aux Yeux " and " Le 
 Voyage de M. Perrichon," George Sand's " La Mare au Diable," 
 besides Merimee's " L' Enlevement de la Redoute," and ex- 
 tracts from Souvestre and other writers. In short, students 
 being interested willingly do an amount of work which, under 
 the old method, could never have been got out of them. 
 
 Translation goes hand in hand with sight-reading, but it 
 must be translation, not transliteration. The plan of giving 
 the exact dictionary meaning of each successive word is bar- 
 barous and productive of all manner of evil results. What a 
 student must be taught to do is to avoid literal translation, 
 and to give instead an equivalent in good English of the 
 French original. A single example will suffice to illustrate 
 the difference ; and be it noted that the literal translation is
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 69 
 
 by no means exaggerated ; it is just the kind of thing that 
 teachers have heard over and over again : — 
 
 "Non, voyez-vous, Monsieur 1' Abbe, vous avez tort de prendre les 
 choses au tragique. . . . Tenez, regardez ma petite jument, comme elle 
 trotte ! comme elle leve les pattes ! Vous ne la connaissiez pas. Savez- 
 vous ce que je I'ai payee ? Quatre cents francs. Je I'ai denichee, il y a 
 quinze jours, dans les brancards d'une charette de maraicher. Une 
 fois que c'est bien dans son train, 9a vous fait quatre lieues a I'heure, et 
 on en a plein les mains, tout le temps." 
 
 Here is the literal translation, such as the student is likely 
 to give it with the help of the dictionary : — 
 
 " No, see you, Mr. Abbe, you are wrong to take things tragically. 
 Hold, look at my little mare, how she trots! how she raises the paws, 
 hoofs ! You did not know it. Do you know that which I have paid ? 
 Four hundred francs ! I found it out, there are fifteen days, in the shafts 
 of a cart of a market-gardener. One time that it is well in its train it 
 makes you four leagues to the hour, and one has the hands full of it, all 
 the time." 
 
 Now, the student who is trained to sight-reading and to trans- 
 late the sense of the passage and not the mere words, irrespec- 
 tive of their idiomatic meaning, will more nearly approximate 
 this : — 
 
 " Now, look here, sir ; you should not look at the dark side of things. 
 . . . Why, look at that little mare of mine, how she steps out! Didn't 
 know I had her, did you ? Guess what I paid for her ? Four hundred 
 francs. Picked her up a fortnight ago from a market-gardener. Once 
 she gets into her gait she does her twelve miles an hour, and it is all you 
 can do to hold her too." 
 
 All allusions met with in the course of the reading should 
 be explained, whether they refer to customs, manners, books, 
 men, or history — and they should be explained slowly in 
 French, repeating words or sentences if necessary; using 
 simple language ; speaking distinctly, and pitching the voice 
 so that it will reach every part of the room. It may be ad- 
 visable occasionally, but only occasionally, to briefly recapitu- 
 late in English what has been said in French ; but this should
 
 70 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 
 
 not often be done ; much better stimulate the curiosity of the 
 students. If they have not understood once, they will be 
 anxious to understand the next time. 
 
 The test of sight-reading and good translation is not ex- 
 amination on a book already read in class, but on passages 
 wholly new to the pupils. That test should be applied pretty 
 frequently. It is a mistake to take it for granted that the 
 students are progressing because they appear to work hard 
 and the system employed by the instructor is good. The in- 
 structor must know that progress is being made ; he must, 
 therefore, use frequent tests to ascertain the exact standing 
 of each pupil. 
 
 COMPOSITION. 
 
 The term "French composition" is often misunderstood in 
 practice to mean transliteration from English into French. 
 It is scarcely possible to commit a worse error, or one fraught 
 with more disastrous consequences to students. 
 
 To turn a passage in English into French words is neither 
 translation nor composition. It may approach the former ; it 
 is wide of the latter. 
 
 Composition means writing good French, and in the French 
 way, with the French stamp. 
 
 This is not what is usually done. Instead, the dictionary 
 is called upon, and about the first word found is accepted as 
 sufficient and put down. The work thus done is invariably 
 bad — no exception whatever obtains to this rule. 
 
 The first thing to be done when a passage in English is set 
 for transposition into French, is to make sure that the pupils 
 understand the meaning of the English. It is presumed the 
 teacher does ; it is certain that ninety-eight per cent of the 
 pupils seldom or never take the trouble to assure themselves 
 that they thoroughly grasp the sense of the passage. 
 
 This is the main obstacle to good work. 
 
 It must be impressed upon teachers and pupils alike that the 
 
 I
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 71 
 
 object to be attained is the reproduction, in another language, 
 of the sense of the passage, of the ideas contained in it, as 
 clearly, as plainly as possible. 
 
 That is the first and most important point. 
 
 The next, which is secondary, is to follow, as closely as the 
 first point will permit, the form and style of the original. 
 
 Literal translation must be condemned. It is destructive 
 of all truth and fidelity. It proceeds on the principle that the 
 same words arranged in the same order give the same meaning 
 in both languages. This is so utterly false that one cannot help 
 wondering that any teacher should tolerate literal translation 
 for a moment. 
 
 Generally speaking the use of elision is more frequent in 
 English than in French. The tendency of the pupil is, natur- 
 ally, to follow the English fashion. The teacher must not 
 be surprised if it takes a long time to eradicate that habit — 
 it has grown up with the student ; it is part and parcel of his 
 mode of thought. 
 
 French is richer in forms than English. That point has 
 already been referred to with regard to the noun, article, and 
 adjective. It is true, likewise, of the pronoun and the verb. 
 Compare, for instance : — 
 
 Masc. sing. 
 
 mine 
 
 le mien 
 
 Fem. " 
 
 mine 
 
 la mienne 
 
 Masc. plur. 
 
 ours 
 
 le notre, les notres 
 
 Fem. " 
 
 ours 
 
 la notre, les notres 
 
 in the verb : — 
 
 
 
 I had 
 
 
 j'avais 
 
 Thou hadst 
 
 
 tu avais 
 
 He had 
 
 
 il avait 
 
 We had 
 
 
 nous avions 
 
 You had 
 
 
 vous aviez 
 
 They had 
 
 
 ils avaient 
 
 The tendency of the pupil is to use one form only, or two or 
 three at most, as in English. This also must be checked ; and
 
 72 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 
 
 while the training will begin during the year of elementary 
 work, it will be found that it takes time to accustom the pupil 
 to the difference between the two tongues. 
 
 The varied meanings of an English word are another source 
 of trouble, complicated by unintelligent use of the dictionary. 
 Here is one instance out of very many : " A stout German 
 who leans on the railing," was actually translated : " Un gros 
 Allemand qui s'appuie sur la medisance." 
 
 The words may and might and could are constantly mis- 
 apprehended and no distinction recognized in their use as 
 independent or auxiliary verbs. 
 
 Idioms are troublesome, but mainly because teachers are apt 
 to yield to the silly request to know " what it means liter- 
 ally.''^ An idiom never has any literal meaning, and the at- 
 tempt to reproduce it literally is an exercise only fit for idiots. 
 What possible good is done by translating literally — Qu^est- 
 ce que c'est que cela ? when What is that ? is the real meaning 
 of the longer phrase. Or, II se tordait les cotes de rire — He 
 twisted his ribs with laughing, which does not convey at all 
 exactly the sense of the original, while. He split his sides laugh- 
 ing, does. 
 
 One can only give equivalents of idioms, and for this pur- 
 pose, among others, it is requisite that the teacher should have 
 a thorough knowledge of both tongues. 
 
 In composition, as in every other part of the work, explana- 
 tion should be given freely and fully, all questions answered, 
 all doubts cleared up. It is an applied, a practical way of 
 teaching grammar, and can be made very useful if the teacher 
 does not spare himself. Repetition will be needed, and a good 
 deal of it ; but it is fruitful in good results, and, besides, an 
 instructor must never weary of restating a rule. 
 
 It is very important that the transcribed exercises should 
 be read over by the instructor himself, even if he does not 
 actually correct them, so that he may see exactly the nature 
 and number of mistakes made. This will enable him to ex-
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 73 
 
 plain corrections in future lessons and to lay stress upon the 
 particular points in which he finds the average of his pupils 
 weak. 
 
 Particularly weak pupils should be taken in hand separately 
 and shown exactly what their mistakes are, how to correct 
 and, above all, how to avoid them. Many pupils fail from 
 not knowing how to set about their work ; they start wrong, 
 and all the explanations given in class are Greek to them be- 
 cause they cannot see the object of them. A very little 
 private work with such students is certain to bring them up 
 to the level of their class and to transform them from appar- 
 ently dull into intelligently receptive individuals. 
 
 It will generally be found that they do not understand the 
 use of the dictionary ; that they are not well grounded in the 
 elements of grammar, or that, being fairly well grounded, 
 they do not know how to apply what they have learned ; and, 
 finally, that they are totally ignorant of construction, a serious 
 drawback in the study of a language in which clearness of 
 expression is the prime requisite. 
 
 Few persons, among those whose mother-tongue is English, 
 have any idea of how very loose and inaccurate is much of 
 the so-called good English met with in books. The great free- 
 dom which the vigor and richness of the language allow of 
 in its use, the frequency of ellipsis, the boldness of inversion, 
 the large employment of figures and similes, are very apt to 
 induce considerable carelessness in the expression of the 
 meaning sought to be conveyed, resulting frequently in sheer 
 obscurity. Now, this is utterly foreign to the spirit of the 
 French language. A French writer knows and feels that he 
 must be clear, and no piece of prose or verse which lacks this 
 quality has any chance of being rated good. 
 
 Hence the instructor must take special pains to make cer- 
 tain that his students understand the meaning of the passage 
 they are called upon to reproduce in French, and this is little 
 attended to as a rule. There is apt to be a blind belief that
 
 74 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 
 
 because an extract is taken from the works of a celebrated 
 writer, the English is all right. It ought to be ; it generally 
 is, but not always ; and even if it is, it by no means follows 
 that the student understands it. Ignorance is very willing to 
 let things go, and if a pupil does not care to take the trouble 
 to grasp the sense of the extract, he simply makes a trans- 
 literation of it — a hideous abomination. 
 
 Here, by way of illustration, is an extract from " Pictures of 
 Places," by Henry James, Jr. It reads very well at the first 
 glance, but on examination, for the purpose of reproduction 
 in French, the involved nature of some of the sentences and 
 the very curious figures used become strikingly apparent : — 
 
 " The standpoint you are likely to choose first is that on the Canada 
 Cliff, a little way above the suspension bridge. The great fall faces you, 
 enshrined in its own surging incense. Already you see the world-famous 
 green, baffling painters, baffling poets, shining on the lip of the precipice; 
 the more so, of course, for the clouds of silver and snow into which it 
 speedily resolves itself. The whole picture before you is admirably sim- 
 ple. The Horseshoe glares and boils and smokes from the centre to the 
 right, drumming itself into powder and thunder; in the centre the dark 
 pedestal of Goat Island divides the double flood; to the left booms in 
 vaporous dimness the minor battery of the American Fall; while on a 
 level with the eye, above the still crest of either cataract, appear the 
 white faces of the hithermost rapids. The circle of weltering froth at 
 the base of the Horseshoe, emerging from the dead-white vapors — abso- 
 lutely white, as moonless midnight is absolutely black — which muffle 
 impenetrably the crash of the river upon the lower bed, melts slowly 
 into the darker shades of green. " 
 
 Two very brief extracts from James Russell Lowell's 
 "Essays" will make quite clear the necessity of understand- 
 ing the author's meaning before attempting to reproduce it : — 
 
 " His ' French Revolution ' is a series of lurid pictures, unmatched for 
 vehement power, in which the figures of such sons of earth as Mirabeau 
 and Danton loom gigantic and terrible, as in the glare of an eruption, 
 their shadow? waying far and wide grotesquely awful. But all is painted 
 by eruption-flashes in violent light and shade. There are no half-tints, 
 no gradations, and one finds it impossible to account for the continuance 
 
 I
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OP FRENCH. 75 
 
 in power of less Titanic actors in the tragedy, like Robespierre, on any 
 theory whether of human nature or of individual character supplied by 
 Mr. Carlyle. Of his success, however, in accomplishing what he aimed 
 at, which was to haunt the mind with memories of a horrible political 
 nightmare, there can be no doubt." 
 
 Translate any part of this literally, and the result is incom- 
 prehensible nonsense. " Eruption-flashes," for instance. 
 Or this, which, at first sight, appears quite easy : — 
 
 Burke and Johnson were both of them sincere men, both of them men 
 of character as well as of intellectual force; and I cite their opinions of 
 Rousseau with the respect due to an honest conviction which has appar- 
 ent grounds for its adoption, whether we agree with it or no. 
 
 Burke et Johnson etaient tons les deux hommes sinc^res, tons les 
 deux hommes de caract^re aussi bien que deforce intellectuelle; et je cite 
 leurs opinions de Rousseau avec le respect du k une honnete conviction 
 qui a des raisons apparentes pour son adoption, soit que nous nous 
 accordions avec ou non — 
 
 which is very easy to do indeed, but is no more French than 
 it is Chinese. 
 
 From the very outset pupils must be taught to use the sim- 
 plest construction possible ; to avoid lengthy sentences, abrupt 
 inversions, obscure figures or similes. The art of composing 
 in any language is not easily acquired, and to attempt to rival 
 masters of language and style in the earlier stages of study is 
 a piece of folly. These masters will furnish useful models, 
 gradually improving the taste ; but the main object of the 
 teacher must be to enable his students to express themselves 
 clearly and readily. For it must not be forgotten that trans- 
 lation of extracts is not the ultimate end to be attained. It 
 is only a means to it, the end itself being the power, on the 
 part of the student, to express himself at once in written 
 French without first putting down his thoughts in English. 
 Then, and then only, does he compose ; but if he is constantly 
 kept to English models, he will always want English to lean 
 on — in other words, he will never master French. 
 
 Therefore students — and this applies to pupils in secondary
 
 76 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH 
 
 schools equally as much as to students in colleges — must be 
 early set simple exercises in original composition. These may 
 be a few lines only in length ; consist of detached sentences 
 even, but they must be written without the interposition of 
 English. With the gradual progress made, the exercises in- 
 crease in length and difficulty. The class hears read a short 
 story, and writes a summary of it. Later still, a book having 
 been finished, — say " La Mare au Diable " — the pupils are asked 
 to write down either a scene from it, or a description of one of 
 the characters, or a sketch of the plot. Again, after a vaca- 
 tion, they can be called upon for a short letter, telling how 
 they spent their time. The results will often be crude, so 
 crude, perhaps, as to discourage the teacher. He must not be 
 discouraged. That anything has been produced is of itself a 
 satisfactory result, and a guaranty that the students are 
 capable, with careful instruction and inexhaustible patience, 
 of doing better work. 
 
 By way of illustrating what is actually obtained from stu- 
 dents, here are a couple of notes written, the one on Decem- 
 ber 20, the other on December 23, by two students who entered 
 the elementary class in French at the beginning of October, 
 neither of them having ever learned a word of the language 
 at that time : — 
 
 I. " Avec cette meme malle, je vous envoie cinq livres bleus des exer- 
 cises f ran9ais. Fid61ement, mon coeur est plus l^ger depuis ils sont partis. 
 J'fepere que vous chercherez en vain des erreurs, mais j'ai pressentment 
 de mal." 
 
 II. "J'ai regu votre lettre ce matin, et je serai tr6s heureux accepter 
 votre invitation obligeante, sur le soir de Noel, le 25 Decembre, quoique 
 je suis chagrin que mes amis Japons sont occup^s ce soir li." 
 
 The first of these was written by an American, the second 
 by a Japanese. 
 
 The more pains an instructor takes, the better the results 
 will be ; consequently, as pupils advance in composition work.
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 77 
 
 it is advisable to adopt something like the seminar plan. The 
 asking of questions must be encouraged to the utmost, for even 
 the cleverest and most experienced teacher can never remem- 
 ber all the difficulties. 
 
 When the work thus corrected viva voce in class has been 
 transcribed, the instructor should, before proceeding to a new 
 piece of work, re-read the correct form and again give expla- 
 nations, if called upon — which he will be if the class is good. 
 The reason of changes should always be explained ; a pupil 
 should know why a certain expression or term is right and 
 another wrong. 
 
 In more advanced work where themes or summaries are 
 written by the students, the corrections will be made cut of 
 class, as it would manifestly be impossible to correct each 
 theme with the whole class and retain their attention ; but 
 arrangements should be made to meet a certain small, very 
 small, number of the students separately at another hour, and 
 there and then explain carefully the why and wherefore of 
 each correction or substitution. Merely to correct in red ink 
 is to assume a knowledge of grammar and style on the part of 
 the student which he evidently does not possess, or he would 
 not have needed corrections on his work. 
 
 Composition thus taught, in conjunction with much reading 
 of French texts and with constant hearing of spoken French, 
 will result in such marked progress that the student will 
 gladly do any amount of work, do it well, and become really 
 proficient in French. 
 
 MEMORIZING. 
 
 Memorizing passages of verse or prose is an exercise little 
 relished, usually, by students, but it is a very useful one in 
 three respects. 
 
 First, it increases the vocabulary of the pupil, and this is of 
 great importance. All words are not retained, of course, but
 
 78 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 
 
 those recurring frequently are well fixed in the memory, and 
 it is these very words which are most needed by the learner. 
 
 Secondly, forms and locutions are acquired with comparative 
 facility, and the more they are unlike those of the pupil's 
 mother tongue, the more readily will they strike him and 
 stimulate the desire to learn their exact force. 
 
 Thirdly, if the passages are recited aloud to an instructor, 
 an excellent opportunity is afforded to correct and improve 
 the pronunciation, always a difficult task, and one which must 
 be constantly attended to. 
 
 The passages may usually be left to the choice of pupils 
 themselves, controlled by the teacher's advice that such ex- 
 tracts should be preferred as are from good writers and usually 
 referred to in books or conversation. 
 
 To make memorizing compulsory is probably unwise. Some 
 people lack the peculiar power of memory which enables one 
 to learn extracts by hearx, ; it is wasting time and trouble to 
 compel such individuals to memorize even a short fable of La 
 Fontaine. They will stumble over the lines, mispronounce 
 the words, lose the connection, make a mess of the sense, and 
 irritate the instructor possibly, themselves certainly. In this, 
 as in all other methods employed, due attention must be paid 
 to the individual peculiarities of the pupil. Machine work, 
 routine system, are quite inadmissible if success is to be 
 obtained. 
 
 DICTATION. 
 
 This exercise is not open to the reservation made in the 
 case of memorizing. It is good for all classes of pupils, and 
 may profitably be employed even in the most advanced classes. 
 Its primary use lies in accustoming beginners to recognize 
 sounds and translate them into orthography. Beginners al- 
 ways mispronounce French when called upon to read aloud ; 
 they mispronounce it infinitely more when reading to them- 
 selves : what they go by is the look of the printed or written
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 79 
 
 word ; what they recognize is the combination of characters, 
 a familiar termination : they do not readily or correctly appre- 
 hend the words when spoken. Reading aloud by the instructor 
 is an excellent means of helping pupils to connect the written 
 or printed word with the sound of it when spoken ; but it has 
 one drawback in this respect : the student seeks to gather 
 and follow the sense of the passage rather than to catch the 
 sound of the words. Particularly is this the case when the 
 class has the text to look at ; then there is very little real 
 work done in the way of connecting sound and print. 
 
 In dictation, on the other hand, the main object, at first, 
 is to accustom the pupil to note carefully the sound of the 
 spoken words and to write these sounds correctly. The sense 
 of the passage is relatively unimportant in earlier exercises 
 of this nature ; it has to be taken into consideration, that goes 
 without saying, but if it is not grasped no harm is done. All 
 dictations in the early part of a course in French should be 
 directed to one end, — recognizing printed or written words 
 by the sounds. It is the training of the ear, not of the eye. 
 
 This training is a necessary adjunct to the teaching of pro- 
 nunciation. The pupil cannot imitate what he does not hear ; 
 therefore he must be taught to hear, to distinguish one sound 
 from the other, so that he may reproduce it correctly. A 
 large amount of patience is needed here by both instructor 
 and learner. The latter must apply himself attentively to 
 catch the sounds actually emitted by the instructor, and he 
 must beware of anticipating the sound ; that is, taking it for 
 granted that a particular combination of letters is pronounced 
 in the way he has adopted for himself. As long as he does 
 that he is sure to err ; he will hear, not the pronunciation 
 given by the instructor, but the pronunciation he has fixed 
 upon in his own mind. It is like the jangling of bells — they 
 ring whatever refrain happens to be trotting in one's head. 
 
 The instructor must be patient, particularly in repeating as 
 frequently as necessary the words dictated, and in pronoun-
 
 80 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 
 
 cing them distinctly. And here he must not forget that there 
 are two ways of uttering words, and that he must use both if 
 the pupil is to be properly helped along. There is the ordi- 
 nary utterance, that used in conversation, in reading, where 
 many syllables are slurred ; and there is the syllabic, in 
 which each member of the word is pronounced separately. 
 
 C^est un enfant extravagant pronounced in both fashions 
 will illustrate the point. Pronounced currently, the pupil 
 will hear the phrase as in conversation ; pronounced in sylla- 
 bles, he will have a better idea of the component members 
 of each word, — but the instructor must always end by pro- 
 nouncing the words conversationally, since that is the way in 
 which they will usually be heard by the student. 
 
 Elementary dictations should bear upon those sounds which 
 are alike in French and in English ; there are, strictly speak- 
 ing, no sounds exactly alike, but in practice many sufficiently 
 resemble each other. Next, words in which similar or nearly 
 similar combinations of letters occur in both languages should 
 be practised on, e. g. : nation, nation ; historien, historian ; ca- 
 nal, canal ; science, science ; etc. Then sounds wholly French, 
 comprising the whole range of nasals, the liquid I, the y in 
 the middle of a word, and so on. After this, distinction 
 between similar terminations in French, bon, vont, aiment, 
 souvent. 
 
 With the progress of the pupil the dictations must assume 
 a different character ; rapidity of enunciation must be grad- 
 ually introduced and the understanding of the sense of the 
 passage insisted upon. Here, too, help must be given. When 
 entering upon this part of the work the substance of the pas- 
 sage to be dictated may be explained briefly in English ; the 
 subject indicated at least. Then the whole passage should 
 be read slowly and distinctly in French, to give the class an 
 opportunity of understanding it, as far as possible ; next the 
 dictation proper, not many words at once ; these repeated three 
 or four times over, and the punctuation indicated, care having 
 
 I
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FKBNCH. 81 
 
 been taken to inscribe on the blackboard the signs of punctua- 
 tion, with their names in French. Finally, the passage should 
 be re-read throughout. All this means trouble, but without 
 trouble and painstaking no teacher can succeed. He needs 
 to take both, and intelligently. 
 
 Correction of the dictation may be done in many ways. A 
 very bad way, preferred by lazy instructors, is to have the 
 work passed on to the next pupil, a general interchange thus 
 taking place, and the pupils themselves being told to correct 
 from the text if they have it. This plan invariably results 
 in numerous mistakes being left uncorrected and in many 
 miscorrections. The proper corrector is the instructor. He 
 should make a point of looking at every separate exercise, so 
 as to see for himself not merely the number, but, what is in- 
 finitely more important, the nature of the mistakes. It is an 
 excellent lesson for him ; a mode of obtaining very valuable 
 information. 
 
 Once he has ascertained in this way what are the individual 
 faults, which are the sounds most generally misapprehended, 
 he can proceed to correct in class, using the blackboard largely 
 to supplement his viva voce spelling. In thus correcting — it 
 is understood that each pupil has had his exercise returned 
 to him — ' the instructor must lay stress upon the more com- 
 mon mistakes he has noticed and illustrate by pronunciation 
 and writing the difference between the right and the wrong 
 way. 
 
 Dictations should never be very long ; if they are they 
 become tiresome to the pupil and do harm instead of good. 
 Teachers who give long dictations do not correct them. 
 
 SPEAKING FRENCH. 
 
 There are many teachers, and very good ones among them 
 too, who believe that in teaching a foreign language English 
 should be used for all explanations.
 
 82 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 
 
 The writer believes that on the very first day a beginner 
 should hear the sound of the language he desires to learn, and 
 that he should be taught in that language as far as possible, 
 
 Not that English need be proscribed ; it cannot be in large 
 classes if progress is to be made, but it should be entirely 
 secondary ; used as little as possible, and only when repeated 
 attempts to make intelligible an explanation in French have 
 failed. 
 
 Pupils will quickly pick up the ordinary phrases used in 
 the work of the class-room ; more difficult expressions, longer 
 explanations, they will understand pretty readily if the black- 
 board is used as it should be, and especially if the teacher is 
 patient and has sense enough to remember that Rome was 
 not built in a day. 
 
 Reading at sight will greatly aid students in understanding 
 spoken French, but the best means of making them do so is, 
 after all, to speak it. If the teacher takes pains to speak 
 slowly and distinctly at first, choosing easy words, using sim- 
 ple expressions and the simplest possible constructions, it is 
 quite astonishing how rapidly a large class will learn to 
 understand him. 
 
 Students should be encouraged to ask their questions in 
 French ; they will bungle very often, and some strange sounds 
 will be heard, impossible, perhaps, to understand. In that 
 case, let the teacher ask that the question be put in English, 
 and then repeat it himself in French, drawing attention to 
 the words used and to their pronunciation. The next time 
 the student speaks, an improvement will be noticed. 
 
 If teachers only knew it — those who do not believe in 
 speaking French — they could interest their class very greatly 
 by talking about a point of grammar in French, or explaining 
 an allusion, a word even. One of the pleasantest sights is to 
 see some hundred and odd students listening "with all their 
 ears " to a ten or twelve minutes' talk in French ; students 
 who, three or four months before, had never heard a word of 
 the language.
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 88 
 
 But it may be objected that the understanding is only 
 apparent, and that in reality the pupils thus addressed have 
 not a ghost of an idea of what is being said. Very good ; 
 only when pupils do not understand, they do one of two 
 things, sometimes both ; they cease to listen, or they speak 
 right out in meeting, and say they do not comprehend. The 
 American student is not bashful, as a rule. 
 
 But foolish indeed is the teacher who neglects to test his 
 pupils. The exercise of speaking to the class can be easily 
 proved useful ; in this way : talk for five, ten, fifteen minutes 
 in French ; then straightway make every pupil write down 
 in English the substance of what has been said. This test 
 has been applied over and over again with invariably good 
 results, the percentage of failures being rarely more than 
 two or three per cent. The summaries are of course collected 
 at once. 
 
 A class so taught will prefer to be talked to in French, and 
 every member of it feels that he has made distinct progress. 
 He becomes more and more interested, and the teacher can be 
 sure that all the work he wants done will be done. 
 
 Further, pupils thus prepared in their first year will be 
 capable of acquiring a speaking knowledge of French much 
 more quickly, and they will soon learn to follow and under- 
 stand not only readings, but lectures in French. The language 
 is then a living one to them. It is a language, a tool, a help 
 in reality. 
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 A college student who learns Latin or Greek may be satis- 
 fied to read and write it with facility ; but if he studies a 
 modern language he ought also to be able to speak it. No 
 training in modern languages is complete which does not 
 include these three points, — facility in reading, writing, 
 speaking. 
 
 Unfortunately, speaking cannot be taught in classes as
 
 84 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 
 
 numerous as are those in most colleges, and especially in 
 some of the larger institutions. Hence the failure of these 
 institutions to turn out as many completely fitted men as 
 they should. 
 
 The success of the language schools, so-called, arises from 
 the classes being restricted in numbers. The idea is not origi- 
 nal with them, but they have had the sense to apply it ; and 
 they deserve, consequently, all the patronage they get, even 
 if they do not always succeed in carrying pupils very far. 
 
 When it comes to trying to teach more than a dozen per- 
 sons at a time to speak in a foreign language, the task is so 
 much beyond the powers of even very good instructors, that 
 they tire themselves out without any corresponding good 
 results. 
 
 Students can be taught to speak a foreign language, even if 
 they have not the opportunity of going abroad ; but it can 
 only be done by capable instructors handling a restricted num- 
 ber of pupils, and meeting their class frequently during the 
 week. 
 
 No class should exceed twelve in number : eight is quite 
 enough; but a smart, competent teacher, with plenty of 
 "snap," capable of making the lesson bright, lively, and in- 
 teresting, can handle ten or twelve without too much over- 
 expenditure of nervous force. 
 
 The first difficulty the teacher has to contend with in pupils 
 is shyness. The sound of his own voice uttering foreign 
 words is usually sufficient to " rattle " the most self-possessed 
 student; and it is very difficult to make learners get over 
 that feeling. It is worse in a large class ; it amounts, in 
 practice, to frequent stoppage of effort on the part of pupils. 
 A small class is therefore likely to do better : for one reason, 
 each member of it gets to know the teacher more quickly, 
 therefore better, and is more apt to acquire courage to speak 
 out. 
 
 The more tact a teacher has the better in this kind of 
 
 II
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 85 
 
 work. There must be no laughing at the student ; on the 
 contrary, a visible and real interest in his progress, and a 
 constant readiness, nay, eagerness, to assist, aid, correct. 
 There is scarcely anything more trying to a student than the 
 attempt to express himself in a foreign language in the pres- 
 ence of others. Even if by a determined effort the feeling of 
 shyness is overcome, there remains the difficulty of finding 
 words to express the thought, of co-ordinating them, when 
 found, in a properly constructed sentence, and of pronouncing 
 the whole sentence in a way to make it partially intelligible. 
 It is very important that the teacher should remember that 
 these difficulties and obstacles present themselves each time 
 that the student endeavors to speak ; and he must from this 
 fact learn to be very patient indeed and helpful to the utmost. 
 It is well, also, to explain to the class that these difficulties 
 exist, and must be met and overcome. When students see 
 that their instructor knows thoroughly, and appreciates fully, 
 the troubles they suffer from, they are at once encouraged. 
 Encouragement, assistance, is what the teacher must give. 
 
 The instruction in conversation classes is best given in 
 French exclusively. The object must be to counteract the 
 tendency of the pupils to fall back upon English; a tendency 
 so strong that no pains must be spared to check it. This is 
 one of the reasons why conversation classes are so peculiarly 
 exhausting : there is a strain put upon the instructor greater 
 perhaps than in any other part of his work. Another reason 
 is the necessity of bearing in mind the vocabulary already 
 taught the students, so that a regular progression may be 
 maintained and new words introduced just when needed. In 
 this branch of the teaching of French, system is indispensable. 
 It will not do to get up at haphazard conversations on all 
 subjects under the sun. That plan answers very well with 
 advanced classes, the members of which have acquired a suf- 
 ficient vocabulary, fluency of speech, and, consequently, self- 
 reliance. In the earlier stages of the work the ground must
 
 86 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 
 
 be carefully prepared, and the pupil brought along from one 
 point to another with the feeling that he is capable of advan- 
 cing. This necessitates not only system and memory on the 
 part of the teacher, but very frequent repetition at first, until 
 the fundamental groups of words and sentences are thoroughly 
 mastered. Tedious, this, if not varied, but it is for the teacher 
 to be constantly bright, quick, alive ; if he is, the class will 
 be. If he be dull, the class will go to sleep. 
 
 Recourse should not be had to plays and novels. The 
 temptation to the teacher to simply read the scenes or pas- 
 sages which he enjoys is very great, and the exercise is 
 suddenly transformed from one in conversation to one in 
 understanding reading. The better the teacher reads, the 
 more he should avoid doing it. The pupils hear conversation 
 read out; they are not themselves speaking. 
 
 Indeed, it cannot be too often impressed upon a teacher 
 that his business in a conversation class, is not to talk him- 
 self, but to make the students talk. The former is easy, the 
 latter is difficult; but it is the duty to be performed, and stu- 
 dents should complain if the instructor indulges in mono- 
 logues. It is not often that they will do it openly : they do 
 it privately, among themselves, even when they have, for 
 reasons of personal amusement or laziness, induced the mono- 
 logue. Make the students talk — that is what the instructor 
 of a conversation class must constantly repeat to himself. 
 
 CLASSIC WRITERS. 
 
 La Fontaine, Corneille, Moliere, Racine, are read to a small 
 extent in most elementary classes — meaning by elementary, 
 first, second, and third year work in secondary schools, and 
 first and second in colleges. It would be better for the pupils, 
 and certainly for the authors, if neither fables nor plays were 
 included in the curricalum of those years. Seventeenth cen- 
 tury French comes under the denomination of modern French, 
 of course, but only by contrast with Old French. A person 
 
 I
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 87 
 
 who can read nineteenth century French with ease will have 
 little or no trouble in reading the classics of the golden age ; 
 but the case is different with those who are practically be- 
 ginners. They cannot thoroughly appreciate the beauties of 
 these writers because they are having a constant struggle with 
 words whose meaning has changed, with forms and construc- 
 tions which are obsolete. Their yet shaky knowledge of 
 modern syntax is constantly being troubled by forms which 
 they have been told they must not use, and which, neverthe- 
 less, are declared right when employed by masters of litera- 
 ture. 
 
 They are apt to be interested in Moliere's comedies : " Le Bour- 
 geois Gentilhomme " and " L'Avare " may always be depended 
 upon to amuse a class, especially if read rapidly enough to 
 enable the pupils to follow the fun : " Le Cid," in a minor degree, 
 will captivate a portion at least ; but Corneille's other master- 
 pieces or Racine's superb works are dull and prosy to them. 
 These splendid works of art should not be lowered to the base 
 use of mere reading-exercises, but kept for that time in the 
 study of the language when the pupils having acquired suffi- 
 cient familiarity with it, no longer stumble along, but read 
 with facility without the necessity for translation. Then the 
 great writers may profitably be taken up and genuine enjoy- 
 ment derived by students and teacher from intelligent study 
 of comedy, tragedy, or fable. 
 
 Of the four, La Fontaine is least fitted for elementary work 
 spite of the fact that in France it is a recognized child's book. 
 Nothing can be more di-eary for the pupils, more painful for 
 the teacher, than the translating of even the first book of the 
 Fables as usually done. It is a grievous, wicked sacrifice of 
 exquisitely beautiful work, resulting in no good to anybody, 
 and generally inspiring the pupil with as profound a detesta- 
 tion of La Fontaine as was formerly inspired for Fenelon by 
 the misuse of his admirable prose poem. La Fontaine is es- 
 sentially a writer for appreciative readers ; besides which his
 
 88' NOTES ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH. 
 
 frequent use of archaisms and patois makes his fables partic- 
 ularly difficult of understanding to beginners. 
 
 If, however, La Fontaine, Corneille, Moliere, and Racine 
 are to be read, let them be read in such a way as will diminish 
 as much as possible the objections raised above. 
 
 To begin with the fabulist. Instead of simply starting on 
 reading and translating " La Cigale et la Fourmi," explaining 
 painfully what bise means ; that cicalas do not eat worms ; that 
 out is spelt aout, and so on, let the hint given by the poet 
 himself be taken, and the collection of fables be presented to 
 the pupil as une ample comedie a cent actes divers. 
 
 If the class is sufficiently advanced to understand spoken 
 French, let the teacher, using that tongue, tell his pupils 
 about the France of Louis the Fourteenth, its splendor and 
 misery, its division into provinces almost as much separated 
 the one from the other as if they were foreign countries, its 
 magnificent court of Versailles, its nobility, its clergy, its 
 bourgeoisie and its peasantry. Let him picture the times and 
 the men ; let him make La Fontaine, the bonhomme, live again 
 before the class ; show him wandering in woods, and by river 
 and brook, or silent and observant in society, or bright and witty 
 with the friends ; and then, taking each fable, make plain each 
 different act, show the alternate farce and drama, comedy and 
 tragedy ; the home scenes, the episodes of peasant life, the 
 hits at king and courtier, the portraits of man, the mirror held 
 up to nature. At once the class will brighten, and instead of 
 voting La Fontaine a bore, follow with real interest and ever- 
 renewed pleasure each successive scene. Let not the transla- 
 tion be a desperately dull transliteration, but a vivacious, racy, 
 idiomatic reproduction of the original, retaining as much of 
 the bloom, of the beauty, of the esprit, subtle and keen, as 
 may suffer transposition into another tongue. 
 
 So with the dramatists. A vivid representation of the 
 times, a clear exposition of the conditions under which they 
 worked, a brief summary of the plot if desired, and a reading
 
 NOTES ON THE TEACHING OP FRENCH. 89 
 
 of the text from which monotony is carefully excluded. One 
 can do serious and thorough work without preternatural 
 gravity and excessive boring of pupils. Lighten the tragedy 
 as much as possible — there is not one piece which will not bear 
 this treatment; bring out strongly the fine passages, the 
 striking scenes ; summarize the duller and less important ; 
 read well when reading to the class ; possess your soul in 
 patience when the class reads to you. As for the comedy, it 
 will always take care of itself.
 
 PRACTICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS OF 
 MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 
 
 BY PROFESSOR A, LODEMAN, MICHIGAN STATE NORMAL SCHOOL. 
 
 The student of educational affairs who has devoted any 
 attention to the recent history of modern language study, 
 must have been impressed with its progress and development 
 during the last few decades in all civilized countries. The 
 activity in this field has been such that it may well be com- 
 pared with the revival of classical study in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury ; more than one striking parallel might be drawn between 
 that period and the present, and, as is so frequently the case, 
 our less biased view of past conditions might make it easier 
 for us to see things of immediate concern in their true light. 
 
 The question what effect such an event is likely to have 
 upon education in general, what relation it bears to the civil- 
 ization of the age, is one in which all thoughtful people 
 will easily be interested. In the minds of those who take 
 an active part in educational affairs, this question naturally 
 assumes a somewhat more definite and restricted form. 
 We ask : Why do we teach modern languages ? and it is 
 this question I will endeavor to answer. It seems advis- 
 able, however, for the present purpose, to limit the term 
 " modern languages " so as to exclude the vernacular ; not, in- 
 deed, because the English does not deserve the first and most 
 earnest consideration in any discussion of the subject of living 
 languages, but because, for that very reason, and for others as 
 well, it is more appropriately treated by itself. My remarks 
 will also, for obvious reasons, have reference mainly to French 
 and German onlv. 
 
 I
 
 OF MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 91 
 
 The first answer to our question may be given in the 
 words of another : ^' We teach modern languages, "essentially 
 because they are so supremely useful." Let no one, not even 
 the votary of the sublimest idealism, for a moment be shocked 
 by this confession ! We say we teach modern languages be- 
 cause they are useful ; who will advocate the teaching of use- 
 less things ? We do not say, however, that we teach French 
 and German because they can under all circumstances be put 
 to immediate use in any special industry or trade ; that is im- 
 possible, as will appear farther on. 
 
 What we do claim is, first, that the modern languages are 
 extremely useful as a means to literary culture and to a liberal 
 education. "We believe," Macaulay wrote in 1837, "that 
 the books which have been written in the languages of Western 
 Europe during the last two hundred and fifty years are of 
 greater value than all the books which at the beginning of 
 that period were extant in the world." * If this statement 
 might possibly have seemed too strong at the time when made, 
 it certainly cannot be considered so now, with the immense 
 additional literature of the last half century thrown into one 
 scale of the balance. The languages which furnish the key 
 to a large portion of this treasure ar'^ indeed useful ; and John 
 Stuart Blackie, late professor of Greek in Edinburgh Uni- 
 versity, may well say that "the languages which claim most 
 loudly the regard of an English-speaking gentleman of the 
 present day, whether on the east or the west side of the 
 Atlantic, are French and German." Next to the French and 
 German he names the Latin, Greek, and Italian.'' 
 
 The claims of modern literature, with reference to its 
 aesthetic value and moral effect, and as a means of a more gen- 
 eral diffusion of correct taste, have been discussed by able 
 writers, who assign to it the first place in the intellectual cul- 
 ture of our time.® Lowell has pointed out how much the 
 great English writers are indebted for their style to other 
 
 » Sasay on Lord Bacon. i N.Y. Independent, Not. 26, 1891.
 
 9Ji' PRACTICAL ANU i'SYCHOLOGiCAL tESTS 
 
 moderns: "Did not Spenser , . . form himself on French 
 models ? " he asks. " Did not Chaucer and Gower, the shapers 
 of our tongue, draw from the same sources ? ... Is not the 
 verse of 'Paradise Lost' moulded on that of the 'Divina 
 Comedia ' ? Did not Dry den's prose and Pope's verse profit 
 by Parisian example ? Nay, in our time is it not whis- 
 pered that more than one of our masters of style in English, 
 and they, too, among the chief apostles of classic culture, owe 
 more of this mastery to Paris than to Athens and Rome ?"'' 
 And as to ideas, the same great writer exclaims: "And 
 shall we say that the literature of the last three centuries is 
 incompetent to put a healthy strain upon the more strenuous 
 faculties of the mind ? That it does not appeal to or satisfy 
 the mind's loftier desires ? That Dante, Machiavelli, Mon- 
 taigne, Bacon, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Pascal, Calderon, Les- 
 sing, and he of Weimar, in whom Carlyle and so many 
 others have found their University, — that none of these set 
 our thinking gear in motion to as good purpose as any an- 
 cient of them all ? Is it less instructive to study the growth 
 of modern ideas than of ancient ? "'' I will dismiss this point 
 with the words of President Cox, of the University of Cincin- 
 nati, " I believe that whilst we could not afford to lose the 
 old culture, we cannot afford to neglect the new." (" iv., 3.) 
 
 It is further claimed that the modern languages are useful, 
 nay, indispensable aids in the pursuit of other branches of 
 knowledge. First of all, I mention the study of English. 
 " Disguise it as we may," wrote Professor Hunt of Princeton, 
 ten years ago, "it is not the most consoling reflection of the 
 patriotic Englishman or American, that as yet the ablest 
 researches into our vernacular are the product of Continental, 
 if not of German, scholarship. . . . English grammar, most 
 especially, has been studied in Germany from the scientific 
 standpoint, with constant reference to primitive principles 
 and forms." ^ Not quite ten years later another high author- 
 
 > Princeton Review, 1881, pp. 227, 231. 
 
 I
 
 OF MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 93 
 
 ity could make the statement that it was no longer necessary 
 for the American student of English to go abroad to be 
 taught the earlier forms of his mother tongue ; that Anglo- 
 Saxon and other Teutonic languages were taught in all the 
 centres of learning in this country. And the number of 
 institutions which have in recent years extended their courses 
 in English is indeed very great. On the other hand, a large 
 proportion of the leading works on the English language and 
 literature are still written in foreign languages, and the same 
 is true of articles in periodicals. A glance at recent numbers 
 of Englische Studien and Anglia shows that all contributions 
 to the latter, and sixteen out of seventeen to the former, are 
 in German. Aside from this use of foreign languages in the 
 pursuit of advanced scholarship in English, the study of for- 
 eign languages is itself one of the best means of learning one's 
 own. " We have learned," says one of the greatest American 
 scholars, "that the round-about course, through other tongues, 
 to the comprehension and mastery of our own, is the shortest." '° 
 
 The advanced student of the ancient classics, of philology, 
 and of archaeology, can no more pursue his study without 
 French and German, than an ocean steamer can run from 
 New York to San Francisco by the overland route. 
 
 In Mathematics we have it from good authority that ten 
 valuable works in either French or German are published to 
 one in English, so that it is impossible to make up a good 
 mathematical library of English works alone. 
 
 Books in the Physical and Natural Sciences are perhaps 
 translated more frequently than those in other departments, 
 but here, too, much that is of the highest value to the special- 
 ist can be found only in some foreign language. There is a 
 recent statement of Dr. S. Sheldon to the effect that Wie- 
 dermann's Annalen der Physik, and the Jahresherichte of the 
 German Chemical Society, " contain more original matter each 
 month than is published in America during a whole year." ^ 
 
 > Pedagogical Seminary, III., p. 486.
 
 y? PRACTICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS 
 
 Until recently the Science of Education might almost have 
 been considered a German science. Within the last twenty 
 years, however, the contributions in English, French, and other 
 languages to pedagogical literature have been numerous and 
 important. Still, an examination of the monthly bulletins 
 of publications in this field, or of educational bibliographies, 
 shows a preponderance of German works ; and the references in 
 English treatises on the science of education are mostly to 
 German authorities. 
 
 In an historical and critical work on Aryan Philology, 
 published some twelve years ago by an Italian,^ about four- 
 fifths of the books cited are German. 
 
 In short, to use the words of President Eliot of Harvard, 
 " the philologists, archaeologists, metaphysicians, physicians, 
 physicists, naturalists, chemists, economists, engineers, archi- 
 tects, artists, and musicians all agree that a knowledge of these 
 languages is indispensable to the intelligent pursuit of any one 
 of their respective subjects beyond its elements." '^ Or, to 
 quote the president of another great university, " A liberal edu- 
 cation absolutely requires that every English-speaking person 
 should have a knowledge of French and German also; for it is 
 from the French and Germans that in these days we receive 
 the most important contributions to literary and physical 
 science." ^^ 
 
 I now pass to my second answer to the question " Why do 
 we teach modern languages," which is, — O71 account of their 
 disciplinary value. Here I must first of all guard against a 
 misunderstanding. Mental discipline cannot be understood as 
 something separate or separable from mental activity — every 
 kind of mental activity, and hence the acquisition of any kind 
 of useful knowledge, yields discipline. " The connection and 
 interdependence of the two," says Professor W. D. Whitney^ 
 " are complete. No discipline without valuable knowledge ; 
 
 1 Pezzi : "Aryan Philology."
 
 OF MODERN LANGUAGE STtJDY. 95 
 
 all valuable knowledge available for discipline ; the discipline 
 in proportion to the amount and value of the knowledge 
 acquired : these are fundamental truths in the theory of 
 education, ... To ask what knowledge is disciplinary is the 
 question of ignorance. The true question to ask is, What 
 kind of discipline does any given knowledge afford, to what 
 does it conduct ? " ^^ Discipline, as we shall see farther on, 
 depends rather upon method than upon subject-matter; for 
 even if we follow Professor Laurie and distinguish between 
 discipline and training, and say that the mind is disciplined 
 by fixing it on the formal or abstract, and trained by occu- 
 pation with the real or concrete, it will be found that each 
 branch of study has its formal and its real side, and it is 
 a question of method which side is to be emphasized. Lan- 
 guage, for example, may be taught *'as a concrete subject; 
 that is to say, with special reference to the substance of 
 thought," in which case the pupil's mind is carried through 
 processes of thinking, and is thereby trained ; or it may be 
 studied with reference to " the relations of the word-vestment," 
 in which case the mind deals with the formal, the abstract, 
 the grammatical, and thereby is disciplined. Q^ Lectures II. 
 and IV.) It goes without saying that the true method has to 
 provide for both. 
 
 I need not dwell upon the disciplinary value of language- 
 study in general ; it is self-evident, since language is the 
 instrument which renders all mental power effective, " the me- 
 dium by which our thinking processes are carried on." The 
 subject of my discussion calls only for a brief presentation of 
 the relative disciplinary value of living foreign languages. 
 
 Mental discipline, in any higher sense, implies continued 
 effort and use of the judgment. Therefore, a special disci- 
 plinary power has been claimed for the ancient languages be- 
 cause they are so difficult. But this superior difficulty is by 
 no means conceded by those who, having acquired a thorough 
 and tolerably complete knowledge of both ancient and modern
 
 96 PRACTICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS 
 
 languages, have investigated the question of their relative 
 difficulty. The distinguished classical scholar Madwig has 
 recently been quoted by a committee of the Norwegian Diet 
 as an authority for the superior pedagogical value of Latin and 
 Greek ; and to what better authority could one appeal ? Yet 
 Madwig does not claim for these languages a greater intrinsic 
 disciplinary value or logical structure, but he attributes their 
 special educational value to the circumstance that they are 
 more foreign to us and cannot be acquired from others by 
 mere practice.^^ The same point had been made earlier by 
 Beneke. In other words, the ancient languages, when studied 
 thoroughly, yield better intellectual results than living lan- 
 guages taught superficially. 
 
 According to Beneke, a profound thinker and one of the 
 ablest defenders of ancient classical studies, Greek and Latin 
 are decidedly more difficult than French and English ; ** but 
 it is only too evident that his conception of the aims and 
 methods of the study of French, as compared with those 
 of Latin and Greek, is very low. So much has been written 
 on the comparative pedagogical value of the ancient and the 
 modern languages, that a bibliography of the literature would 
 fill a small volume. (See, e.g., ^^ p. 375, and «<> p. 506.) But 
 as far as my knowledge of the literature goes, it is only in 
 recent times that men have renounced the unnecessary task 
 of proving that little French, poorly taught, is not equal to 
 much Latin, well taught. Beneke does not believe that the 
 "outward elements" of Greek and Latin possess much or any 
 educational power ; yet it is these elements that are often so 
 highly praised as means of mental gymnastics ! As to an- 
 cient literature, it is, in his judgment, superior to modern in 
 grand simplicity and beauty of form, but far inferior in rich- 
 ness and sublimity of thought. It is especially adapted to 
 the young. " The educated man," he says, " will, as a rule, 
 derive richer and more vigorous food from German and English 
 authors ; . . . but this richer and more vigorous food is not
 
 OF MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 97 
 
 yet suitable for the young." (^^ II,, p. 122.) A similar 
 thought has been expressed by an American scholar of our own 
 day, who says, " The study of modern life and the language in 
 which it is crystallized, is not milk for babes, but meat for 
 strong men." ' 
 
 Professor Bernhard Schmitz, in his Encyclojiddie des philo- 
 logischen Studiums der modernen Sprachen, admits the greater 
 difficulty of Latin and Greek grammar, but does not con- 
 sider the study of grammar the principal difficulty in learn- 
 ing a language, but rather the wealth of the language it- 
 self, especially the phraseology ; and with respect to this 
 he claims all languages are equally difficult.^^ Others who 
 have made comparisons in the same direction do not even 
 concede greater grammatical difficulties to the ancient lan- 
 guages. And it would, indeed, be no easy matter to show why 
 to comprehend the delicate shades in the use of tenses and 
 moods in French " does not demand as severe and high an ex- 
 ercise of the discriminating faculty as to comprehend the 
 same in Latin, or even in Greek ; " " or why the correct use 
 of the German prepositions does not call for as strict atten- 
 tion as that of the Latin and Greek prepositions ; or why, in 
 translating, " the powers of analysis and synthesis are not as 
 much needed, and as much cultivated, by a thorough mastery 
 of the German as of the Greek." ^® Does not a language like 
 the French, which requires for an exhaustive, though brief 
 treatment of the definite article twenty-six pages and forty- 
 two different heads, and the conjugation of which contains 
 forty-five more forms than the Latin, ^'' offer sufficient oppor- 
 tunity for mental discipline ? Dr. Wilhelm Schrader, Pro- 
 fessor of Pedagogy in the University of Halle, justly ascribes 
 eminent disciplinary value, both formal and real, to the study 
 of French, if properly pursued. ('^ pp. 509-512.) 
 
 Professor Babbitt, of Columbia College, who has had 
 experience in teaching ancient and modern languages, has 
 examined in detail the advantages to be derived from the
 
 98 PRACTICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS 
 
 pursuit of either, and comes to the conclusion that the disci- 
 pline in both cases is equally valuable : he introduces, how- 
 ever, the question of pace^ and believes that the opportunities 
 for discipline lie at a more advanced stage in the modern 
 languages than in the ancient; so that a modern language 
 student, to gain the same amount of discipline, must go over 
 more ground than the student of Latin and Greek ; and for 
 this the course of study and the method must provide.' 
 
 We find that in every case where the disciplinary value of 
 modern language study is depreciated, the reason is to be 
 found in an unfair comparison in which the method is lost 
 sight of : '' Just in proportion as methods have been bettered 
 and the true spirit of linguistic training developed, the 
 modern languages have risen higher in the scale of potent 
 agencies for mind-culture." " 
 
 While feeling entirely free from any desire to detract from 
 the merits of ancient language study as a means of higher 
 education, we cannot but recognize the fact that our age is 
 fast outgrowing the belief in any miraculous power of disci- 
 pline peculiar to Latin and Greek. This change of opinion is 
 going on in all civilized countries. ^* 
 
 Before leaving this question, it may be well to enter a 
 general protest against the false assumption that the more 
 difficult study always yields the greater mental discipline. If 
 such were the case, other languages would be far ahead of 
 any we have been considering; as, for example, the Nahuatl 
 of old Mexico, the verb of which has eight hundred and sixty- 
 five regularly derived forms, or the Otchipwe, in which every 
 verb is capable of eight million variations.^* And since the 
 difficulty for the learner increases as the teacher deviates from 
 the processes suggested by psychological laws, it would follow 
 that, the poorer the teaching, the greater the discipline. But 
 the truth is, there is scarcely anything hard for the average 
 pupil, if the ideas are properly presented.' 
 
 The opinion may be held by some that, while the modern
 
 OF MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 99 
 
 languages are valuable for general mental discipline, they 
 cannot furnish that special philological training resulting 
 from the advanced study of Latin and Greek. But the least 
 acquaintance with the history of the growth of such lan- 
 guages as the English, German, and French, and with the 
 literature and methods of modern philology, must convince 
 any one that such a view is untenable. " The wealth of 
 material they [the modern languages] offer for philological 
 training and historical investigation is becoming more appre- 
 ciated every day." " " Had we nothing else with j^et stronger 
 recommendations to apply to," says Professor W. D. Whitney, 
 " the German and French, especially the former, would answer 
 to us all the essential disciplinary purposes of philological 
 study ; as, indeed, to many they are and must be made to 
 answer those purposes. As the case stands, they are among 
 the indispensable parts of a disciplinary education." ^° 
 
 If we apply to the study of living languages the test of 
 systematic psychology, it appears that there is not a single 
 mental activity which is not called into play and stimulated 
 in the pursuit of this study, if properly taught, beginning at 
 the foot of the scale, with sensation, up to the highest uses of 
 the reasoning power and the judgment. But such inquiry 
 into the influence of modern language study upon special 
 mental activities involves necessarily the question of methods, 
 upon which it depends. I will therefore pass to the second 
 question : — 
 
 HOW SHOULD WE TEACH THE MODERN LANGUAGES ? 
 
 The number of possible methods of teaching languages is 
 infinite. The text-books may be counted by thousands : a 
 bibliography, doubtless incomplete, of French grammars alone, 
 published between the years 1500 and 1800, includes six 
 hundred and fifty titles.^* A large proportion of such works 
 bears the sub-title "A New Method." And if we take 
 into account the various uses made of the same text-book by
 
 100 PRACTICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS 
 
 different teachers, the actual number of different methods of 
 teaching, it would seem, must be legion. Many of the 
 methods advocated or practised by eminent educators in the 
 past have more than an historical interest to the teacher of 
 to-day : the views of men like Erasmus, Melanchthon, Ratich, 
 Comenius, Locke, the Jesuit teachers, of Jacotot, Hamilton, 
 Marcel, Prendergast, Heness, Sauveur, and others, are suggest- 
 ive and stimulating, and the history of their methods is in- 
 structive. But in all the literature of this class we do not 
 find the true answer to our question " How should we teach 
 the modern languages ? " We must give it from our own 
 standpoint, in the light of the knowledge and experience of 
 the present age, being guided in the main by two considera- 
 tions : The method, that is, the " way,^^ must lead to the end in 
 vieio, and it must be in harmony with the laws of mini-growth. 
 The ultimate test of every method must be the psychological. 
 Without it we are liable to commit the gravest errors and 
 not be aware of them ; mere practical results cannot be con- 
 sidered as decisive : the question how the results were obtained 
 is of the utmost importance. 
 
 The task of learning a language consists in the acquisition 
 of the material (vocabulary, phraseology, idioms) and the 
 mastery of the principles or rules which govern the use of 
 the material (inflections, syntax). If we attack the material 
 first, i.e., the living language itself, we follow the analytical 
 method ; we begin, for instance, with a printed page or sen- 
 tence, or a spoken sentence, and by analysis study the parts 
 and their relations. If, on the other hand, we attack first the 
 principles governing the use of the various parts of speech 
 and their combinations, we proceed synthetically, construct- 
 ing the language, i.e., the sentence, representing the unit of 
 language, out of its elements, according to certain rules. The 
 former method may also be called the practical, and the latter 
 the theoretical, or grammar method. Then we may begin 
 with either one of these two methods, and soon pass to the
 
 OF MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 101 
 
 other, and combine the two, so that we have, in addition, the 
 analytico-synthetic and the synthetico-analytic methods. (It 
 should be remarked that the terms analytic and synthetic 
 may also be applied to the language-material, instead of to the 
 process ; in that case the meanings of the terms synthetic 
 method and analytic method are reversed, the former denot- 
 ing the method dealing with language in its synthetic form, 
 the latter the method dealing with language in its analyzed, 
 decomposed form. Thus Henry Sweet speaks of "the syn- 
 thetic methods of the Middle Ages, by which sentences were 
 grasped as wholes, not analyzed and^wi together like pieces of 
 mosaic work.") " 
 
 I have set down as the principal aim in the teaching of 
 modern languages, their use as a means of literary culture and 
 of information in various departments of knowledge. Such 
 use presupposes first of all the ability to read the languages. 
 
 Psychology teaches that the mind proceeds from a knowl- 
 edge of " wholes " to that of their parts (analysis), and from 
 the concrete to the abstract. We are, then, forcibly pointed 
 to the analytical and analytico-synthetic methods ; simple read- 
 ing, not systematic grammar, forms the first step. An ele- 
 mentary grammar method, with plenty of illustrations in the 
 foreign language, is not, however, to be condemned, since it 
 lends itself to the analytical way of procedure. Though we 
 care at the start more for the printed than for the spoken 
 \Q.Vi^\xQ.gQ, pronunciation is not to be neglected (as some methods 
 demand), because the beginner will attach some sound-image 
 (Gehdrsvorstelluny) to the printed word, whether we wish it 
 or not ; and the only safe way of preventing/a^se sound-images 
 from fixing themselves in his mind is to teach him the correct 
 sounds. Thus, the knowledge of language begins, where all 
 knowledge begins, with sensation : audible and visible signs, 
 acquired through the senses of hearing and of sight, form 
 the basis of cleax percepts. It should be noted that, in the 
 study of foreign languages, the foreign word, phrase, or sen-
 
 102 PRACTICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS 
 
 tence, as the case may be, becomes the object of sense-per- 
 ception ; the contents of these, as well as their names in the 
 mother tongue, are supposed to be known, at least approxi- 
 mately ; the foreign sign, or form of expression, for a familiar 
 idea becomes a new object of perception. 
 
 The student desirous of learning to read a foreign language 
 for the sake of an accurate understanding of the subject-mat- 
 ter (and this is what our purpose necessarily implies), must 
 translate into his own vernacular until he learns to understand 
 the foreign without translation. 
 
 Psychology teaches that the mind advances to new knowl- 
 edge on the basis of what it already knows. 
 
 Hence, the foreign language is to be studied by comparison 
 with the mother tongue ; translation into English, therefore, 
 is to be begun at the very outset, not to be avoided, as some 
 methods demand. 
 
 From perception, i.e., knowing what is present (to sight or 
 hearing), the mind passes to conception, i.e., knowing what is 
 not present to the senses : words and phrases must be in the 
 pupil's mind. Hence, such parts of the lesson as the pupils 
 are expected to retain in memory must be given by them for 
 their English equivalents : Translation into the foreign lan- 
 guage is necessary from the beginning ; it will at first be con- 
 fined to the rendering of phrases and sentences, but will have 
 to be extended to the translation of entire paragraphs in ad- 
 vanced classes, in order to afford opportunity for the applica- 
 tion of general principles. 
 
 Mental discipline — one of our aims in teaching living lan- 
 guages — is impossible without the exercise of the higher 
 activities of the mind, of the reasoning power and of the 
 judgment. Again, no accurate and reliable knowledge of a 
 language, such as its use for the purposes of culture and infor- 
 mation demands, can be gained without as tudy of the princi- 
 ples and laws governing its use. The study of grammar, 
 therefore, is indispensable. We now proceed, in accordance
 
 OF MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 103 
 
 with the laws of miud-growth, from simple concepts to general 
 concepts, to classes with certain general characteristics, from 
 the concrete to the abstract. " We must base all generaliza- 
 tion on the particular and concrete, which alone gives the 
 general and abstract any meaning. Rules of syntax are gen- 
 eralizations, and they are to be constructed out of the ini- 
 tiatory reading-lesson by the pupil, with the help of the 
 master." " Or, at least, all general rules are to be studied 
 in close connection with concrete examples, and the reading- 
 lesson should furnish these. This calls for reasoning and 
 judgment. 
 
 The reasoning out the meaning of words from the con- 
 text constitutes another valuable means of mental discipline. 
 " This is not blind guessing ; it is legitimate reasoning from the 
 known to the unknown." Q^ vi., 60,61 ; v., 10,11.) Methods 
 like Hamilton's and Jacotot's, founded upon the use of inter- 
 linear or lateral translations, are in general not to be recom- 
 mended. The dictionary should be used, but not abused. 
 Sight-reading in the class-room should receive due attention. 
 
 Translation requires the abstraction of the thought from 
 the concrete form in which it is expressed, in order to vest it 
 with a new form. Discrimination, both between different 
 forms of expression and between various shades of meaning 
 and thought, is constantly needed, and no other method of 
 studying the mother tongue is, in this respect, equal to this prac- 
 tice of translating from a foreign language. But any method 
 which discards the use of the mother tongue, as, for example, 
 the so-called "Natural Method," is of inferior educational 
 value. 
 
 Our aim in teaching modern languages implies a ready use 
 of them ; this means, the pupil must form the habit of apply- 
 ing his knowledge. The laws of habit (psycho-physiological) 
 show that repeated action and essentially uniform method 
 of action are necessary to form habitual action. ^^ " Every 
 acquisition in the shape of words or generalizations, accord-
 
 10^ PRACTICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS 
 
 ingly, must be turned to use, /rom the beginning. ^^ The most 
 important words, phrases, and rules must be used freqve7itly; 
 rare words and expressions will have to be passed over 
 more rapidly. Every work read for the purpose of language- 
 study ought to furnish a number (say from fifty to a hundred) 
 of useful phrases and idioms to be firmly fixed in the mind. 
 This should largely be done by oral exercises. Oral exercises 
 provide the best means of acquiring promptness in the use of 
 the linguistic material and in the application of rules. This 
 practice is also due those members of a class who wish 
 to converse in the foreign language; and experience teaches 
 that a considerable degree of fluency in speaking may be 
 attained by this method, if teacher and pupil follow it con- 
 scientiously through the course. The general method pre- 
 cludes, however, the teaching of conversation for special busi- 
 ness purposes, or for foreign travel, which would involve the 
 learning of special vocabularies and technical phraseologies. 
 
 Copious reading is another means of rendering the pupil, 
 through practice, familiar with the common material of the 
 language, and with the laws governing its use. It is equivalent 
 to a constant review of what is of most frequent occurrence in 
 the language. Besides, it has been well caid, in the study of 
 modern languages the student should use the Will " in keep- 
 ing up the pace, rather than struggling with difficulties that 
 are beyond his powers." (' p. 54.) 
 
 Correct use of the language is always to be insisted upon. 
 This, especially in the oral exercises, makes concentration 
 imperative and serves in an eminent degree as a discipline of 
 the Will. At the same time, the Will is stimulated by the 
 attractiveness of the exercise. A superficial conversation- 
 method which relies upon imitation alone, and neglects the 
 application of general laws to special cases, does not strengthen 
 the will-power. 
 
 Practice in the use of the foreign language cultivates the 
 Imagination. The imagination is active in reproducing what
 
 OF MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 105 
 
 has been acquired ; it " selects, modifies, arranges, combines." 
 A pure reading-method, like Marcel's, is less effective in 
 this respect. The reading and translating of foreign authors 
 is of the highest value to the development of the imaginative 
 faculty, and conversation helps to lend vividness to the pic- 
 tures in the mind. 
 
 I have not mentioned the cultivation of the Meynory. It 
 is evident from the foregoing considerations that the study 
 of modern languages offers wide opportunity, not only for 
 the exercise of verbal memory, but especially for the rational 
 use of this important power, by means of association, com- 
 parison, discrimination. Even in the acquisition of the vo- 
 cabulary of the foreign language, all these aids may be made 
 use of by observing the formation and derivation of words 
 from common roots, etc. ; and there is a still wider use for 
 them in the study of idioms and phrases, where the reasoning 
 power should always be appealed to. 
 
 Further, in the study of authors, the imagination may be 
 made a powerful aid to memory ; as, for example, when, with 
 the situation and the characters, their expressions and conver- 
 sations are recalled. And while the introduction of philologi- 
 cal matter in elementary classes is, on the whole, to be 
 avoided, it affords not unfrequently a valuable help to mem, 
 cry. In like manner, the principles of the historical develop- 
 ment of language may be legitimately used to assist the 
 memory and the understanding. Thus, Paul's "Principles of 
 the History of Language," is full of suggestions to the teacher. 
 
 Methods which, like Prendergast's, or its more modern 
 representative, the Meisterschaft System, reduce the study of 
 a language for many weeks and months to the memorizing of 
 one hundred words, and to ringing the changes on sentences 
 formed with this limited vocabulary, leave little room for a 
 rational cultivation of memory. There need be very little 
 mechanical memorizing when the method I have outlined is 
 followed.
 
 106 PRACTICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS 
 
 Since literary culture is one of the ends we have in view, 
 the method of teaching must make ample provision for the 
 cultivation of literary taste. The literature read must not 
 merely be treated as a means of learning the language, but it 
 must also be studied from the cesthetic standpoint, and open 
 to the student occasional glimpses into the field of comparative 
 literature. 
 
 The study of the best literary productions in a foreign lan- 
 guage ought also to lead to certain ethical results. " The 
 literature of a people reflects its character, its manners and 
 morals, its history ; to study the same means, in a certain sense, 
 to share in the intellectual, moral, and political life of the 
 nation, which we esteem the more, the better we know it." *' 
 The study of modern languages ought, therefore, to have 
 an " eminently conciliatory " influence. No student of the 
 literature and life of various nations can fail to see how 
 generally these misunderstand and misjudge each other, and 
 how true is the judgment of an eminent writer with which I 
 will close : " The relation of the various peoples of the earth to 
 the supreme interests of life, to God, virtue, and immortality, 
 may be investigated up to a certain point, but they can never 
 be compared to one another with absolute strictness and cer- 
 tainty. The more plainly in these matters our evidence seems 
 to speak, the moi-e carefully must we refrain from unqualified 
 assumptions and rash generalizations. This remark is espe- 
 cially true with regard to our judgment on questions of moral- 
 ity. It may be possible to indicate many contrasts and shades 
 of difference among different nations, but to strike the bal- 
 ance of the whole is not given to human insight. The ul- 
 timate truth with respect to character, the conscience, and 
 the guilt of a people, remains forever a secret ; if only for the 
 reason that its defects have another side, where they reappear 
 as peculiarities or even as virtues." *
 
 OF MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY. 107 
 
 REFERENCES. 
 
 1. W. T. Hewitt, The Aims and Methods of Collegiate Instruction 
 in Modern Languages. (Publications of the Modern Language Associa- 
 tion of America, vol. i., p. 25, ff.) 
 
 2. F. V. N. Painter, A Modem Classical Course. (Publ. M. L. A., 
 i.,112.) 
 
 3. J. GoBBBL, German Classics as a Means of Education. (Publ. M. L. 
 A., i., 156.) 
 
 4. H. C. G. VON Jagemann, On the Use of English in Teaching 
 Foreign Languages. (Publ. M. L. A., i., 216.) 
 
 5. Franklin Carter, The Study of Modern Languages in our 
 Higher Institutions. (Publ. M. L. A., ii., 1.) 
 
 6. James MacAllister, The Study of Modern Literature in the Edu- 
 cation of our Time. (Publ. M. L. A,, iii., 8.) 
 
 7. James Russell Lowell, Address before the M. L. A. (Publ. 
 M. L. A., v., 5.) 
 
 8. E. S. JoYNES, Reading in Modern Language Study. (Publ. M. L. 
 A., v., 33.) 
 
 9. E. H. Babbitt, How to Use Modern Languages as a Means of 
 Mental Discipline. (Publ. M. L. A., vi., 52.) 
 
 10. W. D. Whitney, Language and Education. (North Amer. Rev,, 
 October, 1871.) 
 
 11. A. M. Elliott, Modern Languages as a College Discipline, (Edu- 
 cation, September-October, 1884.) 
 
 12. S, S, Laurie, Lectures on Language and Linguistic Method. 
 (Cambridge, 1890.) 
 
 13. C, CoLBECK, On the Teaching of Modern Languages in Theory 
 and Practice. (Cambridge, 1887, ) 
 
 14. A, F. Chamberlain, Modern Languages and Classics in America 
 and Europe since 1880, (Toronto, 1891.) 
 
 15. Charles W, Eliot, What is a Liberal Education ? (Century, 
 June, 1884,) 
 
 16. James King Newton, A Plea for a Liberal Education, (Bal- 
 timore.) 
 
 17. Charles E. Fay, The Preparatory Schools and the Modern Lan- 
 guage Equivalent for Greek, (Baltimore.) 
 
 18. E, S. Joynes, Position of the Modern Languages in the Higher 
 Education, (Baltimore,) 
 
 19. Geo, F. Comfort, Modern Languages in Education, (Syracuse, 
 N,Y., 1886.) 
 
 > Borkbardt, " The Renaisiance'in Italy." ii., p. 211.
 
 108 PRACTICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS. 
 
 20. Language Methods, Interchange. (Academy, Syracuse, November 
 and December, 1886.) 
 
 2L Bernhard Schmitz, Encyclopaedie des philologischen Studioms 
 der neueren Sprachen, vi., 108 flf. (Leipzig, 1876.) 
 
 22. Beneke, Erziehungs- und Unterrichtslehre, ii., 114 £f. (Berlin, 
 1864.) 
 
 23. Das humanistische Gymnasium, Heft, 3 u. 4. (Heidelberg, 1891.) 
 
 24. Literaturblatt f iir germanische und romanische Philologie. (Jan- 
 uar, 1892.) 
 
 25. Publications of the Modern Language Ass'n of America, vols, i.-vi, 
 
 26. Modern Language Notes, vols, i.-vi. 
 
 27. Henry Sweet, The Practical Study of Language (in 13th Ad- 
 dress of the President of the English Philological Society, 1884.) 
 
 28. Dr. Wilhelm Schrader, Erziehungs- und Unterrichtslehre fiir 
 Gymnasien und Realschulen, 5 Aufl. (Berlin, 1889.) 
 
 29. K. V. Stoy, Encyclopadie, Methodologie und Literatur der Pada- 
 gogik. (Leipzig, 1878.) 
 
 30. Dr. Herman Schiller, Handbuch der praktischen Padagogik. 
 (Leipzig, 1890.) 
 
 31. Dr. Paul Radestock, Die Gewohnung und ihre Wichtigkeit 
 fiir die Erziehung. (Berlin, 1884.) 
 
 32. D. C. GiLMAN, The Idea of a Liberal Education. (Educational 
 Review, February, 1892.) 
 
 33. Paul Donau, L'Enseignement des Langues modemes. (Bruges, 
 1874.) 
 
 34. C. H. Grandgent, The Teaching of French and German in our 
 Public High Schools. (School and College, March, 1892.) 
 
 35. O. B. Super, The Aim and Scope of the Study of Modern Lan- 
 guages and Methods of Teaching them. (University Magazine, April, 
 1892.) 
 
 36. Calvin Thomas, Observations on Teaching Modern Languages. 
 (Michigan School Moderator, No. 218.) 
 
 37. Dr. Curt Schaefer, Der formale Bildungswert des Franzo- 
 aischen. (Braunschweig, 1890.)
 
 MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY IN AMERICAN 
 PUBLIC SCHOOLS. WHAT NEXT?' 
 
 BY WILLIAM B. SNOW, ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOL, BOSTON. 
 
 The Reform Movement in modern language teaching, which 
 may be regarded as first acquiring prominence in 1882 with 
 Victor's famous pamphlet, Der Sprachunterricht 7nuss iimkehren, 
 had made such progress in Germany during the following 
 decade that in 1892, at the Neuphilologen-Sammlung in Berlin, 
 Professor Watzoldt exclaimed, " Die Hauptsache von dem, was 
 wir lange gehofft haben, ist jetzt erreicht ! im Unterrichte ein 
 Ausgehen vom Laut, eine Sicherung der Aussprache zunachst 
 als erstes Ziel, die Lektiire tiberall im Mittelpunkt als das 
 Fruchtbare, die Grammatik die Dienerin der Lekttlre, ein 
 Zuriicktreten der schriftlichen Ubungen, die Forderung dass 
 keine Stunde ohne Sprechtibung sich vollziehe, eine vielseitige 
 Bewegung des Lekttire-Stoffs durch den Lehrer, und zwar in 
 franzbsischer bezw. englischer Sprache." 
 
 During that decade not a word seems to have been published 
 on this side of the Atlantic concerning the new movement, 
 and Sweet and Widgery are the only English authors whose 
 names appear in Breymann's Neusprachliche Reforin- Liter atur 
 von 1876-1893. In November, 1893, two articles appeared, 
 one by Victor, in the Educational Revieio, entitled " A New 
 Method of Modern Language Teaching," and the other by 
 Rambeau, in Modern Language Notes, on " Phonetics and the 
 Reform Method." In 1898 Mary Brebner's " The IMethod of 
 
 1 Paper read at the meeting of the Association of Colleges and Preparatory 
 Schools of the Middle States and Maryland, at Philadelphia, Pa., Nov. 30, 
 1912, and reprinted from the Uducational Review, 
 
 109
 
 110 MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY 
 
 Teaching Modern Languages in Germany " was brought out by 
 The Macmillan Company, in London and New York. Still, it 
 is probable that, previous to the Report of the Committee of 
 Twelve of the Modern Language Association of America, not 
 one per cent of the teachers of French and German in Amer- 
 ican public schools had ever heard of the movement. This 
 report was published by the National Education Association 
 in 1899, was printed by the United States Commissioner of 
 Education as a chapter of his annual report, and was published 
 in convenient form and at a nominal price by D. C. Heath and 
 Company. The sections on methods were drafted by Professor 
 Charles H. Grandgent, and doubtless no better critical review 
 of language methods has ever been printed in an equal number 
 of pages. Modern language teachers, and superintendents 
 with a yearning to improve the teaching of French and 
 German, should read these sections often and attentively 
 before undertaking radical reforms. 
 
 Since 1900 the terms " reform," " phonetic," " direct," 
 " natural," " Heness-Sauveur," " Berlitz," " Gouin," " psycho- 
 logical," etc., have hovered over every modern language con- 
 ference, sometimes with a context that has led us to suspect 
 glibness and superficiality rather than scholarship and accuracy 
 in those using them. Associations like your own, and the New 
 England Modern Language Association, with its annual meet- 
 ing and the frequent reunions of its local groups, have done 
 faithful and fruitful work. 
 
 "What has been the result of these activities? What real 
 progress has been made ? To what should our immediate 
 efforts be directed ? As the head of the French department 
 in a large school, from a wide and intimate acquaintance with 
 teachers, and most of all from the saddening knowledge of 
 how unsatisfactory are the achievements of pupils in my own 
 classes, I am sometimes ready to cry out, " Could anything be 
 worse! Was the teaching of modern languages ever less 
 effective ! " And when these melancholy impressions are con-
 
 IN AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. WHAT NEXT? Ill 
 
 trasted with the roseate descriptions of what some one is doing 
 elsewhere with a new and wonderful method that we are all 
 urged to study and imitate, the burden seems almost intoler- 
 able. One thing has kept me from being utterly crushed and 
 discouraged; it is the occasional opportunity of testing the 
 products of some much vaunted "system," and finding out 
 how inferior they commonly are to what we ourselves have 
 thought so bad. I see the illegible, misspelled theme of some 
 son of French parents, whose ability to speak and understand 
 has led me to put him into a third-year class ; or my ears are 
 afflicted by the voluble utterance of an ill-trained youth whose 
 freedom from grammatical and phonetic prejudices wins the 
 admiration of those who do not know the proper way to ex- 
 press what he is trying to say; or I learn how densely 
 ignorant of first principles are some who surprise me by the 
 number of pages of difficult French they assert they have read 
 in a course of one or two years. So, after nearly thirty years of 
 alternating depression and relief, I have come to believe with 
 Horace, "Nil admirari prope res sola est" ; to be unperturbed 
 by what Professor Grandgenthas called "the pedagogic Grape- 
 Nuts and Sunny Jims " ; to realize that prodigies will bob up 
 under any system, and can generally attend to their own 
 development, while for the rank and file of our pupils so little 
 can really be well done, in the time at our disposal, that the 
 greatest wisdom appears in resolutely refusing to chase after 
 the unattainable, and in limiting our aims to what is possible 
 and most essential. I should define these aims somewhat as 
 follows : 
 
 1. The habit of careful, accurate observation and definite, 
 connected thinking. 
 
 2. Ability to pronounce correctly a French word or ex- 
 pression. 
 
 3. Ability to get the exact thought of a French writer. 
 
 4. Ability to understand simple French distinctly spoken. 
 
 5. Improvement in English.
 
 112 MODERN LANGTJAGB STTJDY 
 
 6. A knowledge of French sounds and how to make them, 
 a vocabulary of common French expressions closely associated 
 with the corresponding thought, and a feeling for French 
 word-order, all of which together constitute the necessary and 
 sufficient foundation for speaking and writing French when 
 the occasion arises. 
 
 Have our high school teachers generally reached similar 
 conclusions ? It is hard to make any very positive statements 
 from the data at our disposal, but I think that all over the 
 country the discussions of the last ten or twelve years have 
 aroused our teachers to a new understanding of what learning 
 a modern language ought to mean, have wonderfully extended 
 and strengthened the demand for attention to the oral side of 
 the instruction, and have inspired a fervent desire to use the 
 right method, although the definitions of the right method 
 present an almost infinite variety. The publishers have done a 
 mighty work in supplying texts to fit all these definitions, and 
 their agents have preached pedagogic gospel even more widely 
 than the teachers' associations. In a general way I should 
 estimate that a third of our schools are still teaching French 
 or German as those subjects were usually taught thirty years 
 ago : a dose of grammar administered for a period of from six 
 months to a year without other distraction than the Ollen- 
 dorfian sentences of themes and exercises, pronunciation to 
 suit individual preferences; next, a combination of grammar 
 continued and French text unread or badly read, but done into 
 translation-English, the text showing a rapid transition from 
 classic anecdote through moral tale or fairy story to literary 
 masterpiece; lastly an oversetting of Corneille, Racine, or 
 Moliere. 
 
 Another third, perhaps, are varying this by giving the text 
 more prominence, making a better choice of text and grammar 
 than would have been possible thirty years ago, doing better 
 work than formerly in pronunciation, and making enthusiastic 
 but ineffectual efforts at conversation. The remaining third
 
 IN AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. WHAT NEXT? 118 
 
 are doing vigorous work with many varieties of " reading," 
 " reform," " natural," or " psychologic " methods. 
 
 Taken "by and large," considering time allowed, the train- 
 ing and interests of our pupils, and the language attainments 
 most needed by our graduates, I am inclined to believe that 
 this third are getting as good results as can be shown any- 
 where by as large a number of teachers teaching any subject 
 by any method. The results attained by a Walter, a Sauveur, 
 or a Betis, under favorable conditions, are quite different from 
 the results to be expected from an average American teacher 
 working by the same method with an ordinary high school 
 class. Much as is said about method, I hold that of the three 
 elements : pupil, teacher, method, the last is the least im- 
 portant, and that a scholarly, vigorous teacher, with a bright 
 pupil, will do more by any method he is likely to follow, than 
 can be attained by an indifferent teacher with a dull pupil and 
 the best of methods. If achievement in modern languages 
 suffers more reproach and ridicule than achievement in other 
 subjects, it is because no other subject of the curriculum faces 
 such exacting demands. The attainment of our boys is com- 
 pared directly with the power of a man who for a lifetime has 
 been depending on French or German to express his thought 
 and answer every query. Imagine our Latinist suddenly con- 
 fronted by Caesar or Virgil with a request to be directed to the 
 railway station, or suppose Xenophon should demand of our 
 prize Greek scholar information concerning American Realien ! 
 Are the critics of high school English — learned by many years 
 of both direct method and objective study — much less severe 
 than the critics of high school French ? And what does the 
 business man say of our young people's arithmetic ? The fact 
 is that every mature specialist demands more of a boy than 
 the ordinary boy ever has possessed or ever will until he has 
 himself become a specialist. And the public school ought not 
 to be a professional school or a trade school. The wise father 
 does not wish his son Ijo specialize before the age of eighteea.
 
 114 MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY 
 
 This does not mean that we are satisfied with present con- 
 ditions; it does mean that much of the abuse heaped upon 
 modern language instruction is unintelligent and undeserved; 
 that very many of our modern language teachers to-day are 
 the peers of the best of their colleagues and are doing effective, 
 intelligent work, although their methods vary widely. A clear 
 understanding of this fact is the first essential of any real 
 progress. Improvement can never come by radical action on 
 the part of men who know as little about modern languages 
 and how they should be taught as the majority of our critics, 
 our school boards, and our superintendents. It must and can 
 come only through careful analysis of the situation, an analysis 
 made by experts with an intimate knowledge of conditions, 
 and a wide, accurate knowledge of what has been done — as 
 distinguished from what has been claimed — elsewhere. 
 Change must be evolutionary and not revolutionary ; it must 
 conserve much that is good in our present work ; it must let 
 most of the teachers we now have continue to work in the way 
 and with the tools that for them are most effective. Goliath 
 would never have been slain, had Saul compelled David at 
 once to take the king's sword and leave his own sling and 
 stone in the camp; although in later years, with further 
 development, David himself, no doubt, came to prefer the 
 sword and to wield it effectively. No method that has grown 
 up and succeeded in other lands, under totally different con- 
 ditions, is likely to be as good here, if suddenly imposed upon 
 us, as the practice that the best of our own teachers have 
 developed under local conditions. Those conditions must 
 change before any great changes in method can fairly expect 
 to succeed. No intelligent discussion of method can fail to 
 consider our possibilities and our greatest needs, and more im- 
 portant than any general discussion of method, is the concrete 
 question how to extend our possibilities and then more effect- 
 ively meet our own chief needs. 
 
 Compared with conditions in Germany, we are tremendously
 
 IN AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. WHAT NEXT? 115 
 
 handicapped by time limitations. Even disregarding the one- 
 year course, that is generally condemned as an abomination, 
 and the two-year courses that are chiefly confined to the minor 
 language in fitting schools, the time at our disposal does not 
 exceed five hours a week for four years, and must usually 
 be restricted to four or five hours a week for three years. 
 With these limits, few of our best teachers think it wise to 
 try to accomplish more than has been already specified, and 
 but few undertake to do anything worthy of the name of con- 
 versation, free composition, or literary criticism. 
 
 Sweet points out the great difference between power of 
 recognition and power of reproduction, and the relatively 
 long time required to develop the latter. Whether it is wise 
 to give a large share of our time thereto, must depend on the 
 relative value of the acquisition. In an excellent article in 
 the October number of the Educational Review, William 
 Raleigh Price gives relative values assigned by the New 
 York State Examination Board as : — 
 
 Ability to read and understand the language in print . 47 per cent 
 
 Ability to use the language in writing 36 per cent 
 
 Ability to understand the spoken language 9 per cent 
 
 Ability to speak 8 per cent 
 
 For examination purposes, 36 per cent may not be too much 
 to allow for ability to write, but in estimating the usefulness 
 of language power to American high school graduates, I should 
 deduct more than one-half of this and add it to the ability to 
 read, making the percentages about 70, 13, 9, and 8. Plainly, 
 an ideal American method must not waste, in a vain attempt to 
 secure the 30 per cent utilities, time which is necessary and in 
 large measure sufficient to attain the 70 per cent desideratum. 
 Such a method must also consider the pupil's general training, 
 and do something for his education in such correlated subjects 
 as English, history, geography, economics, art, science, and 
 ethics. Oral demands must always be emphasized, and as yet
 
 116^ MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY 
 
 they have been rather too modest than too obtrusive, but they 
 must not be regarded as synonymous with feeble attempts at 
 inane conversation, and they must not be allowed to over- 
 shadow more important objects. 
 
 Varying types of schools will require varying emphasis on 
 different phases of the work. In a Latin school, a pupil may 
 get excellent instruction, highly effective, because in harmony 
 with other training, from a class conducted in large measure 
 by a grammatical method ; in a high school of commerce, or a 
 mechanic arts high school, a very different method would 
 probably be preferable. A direct method, teaching largely 
 from objects and pictures, would be effective with beginners 
 in the sixth grade ; a similar method would be wasteful and 
 tedious with older pupils. The teacher's ability to do certain 
 things well, and his inability to do others successfully, must 
 likewise receive careful attention in deciding what method he 
 shall use. It therefore seems unwise to prescribe one course 
 which all shall follow. Progress will lie less in insisting on 
 any particular method than in making teachers familiar with 
 the advantages claimed for various methods, in having them 
 know as well as possible the language they teach, in deter- 
 mining just what it is possible to do well in a given time with 
 a particular class. Having made this decision, let each 
 teacher strive to attain the desired results by whatever method 
 or combination of methods appears most likely to secure the 
 ends in view. In all cases, however, the plan should be such 
 that nothing learned, no habit formed, should stand in the 
 way of future progress. If pronunciation is attempted, only 
 a good pronunciation should be tolerated; if conversation is 
 tried, it should be based on models that will keep the pupil 
 from inventing and remembering incorrect expressions and 
 constructions ; if translation into English is allowed, the Eng- 
 lish should be acceptable to the English department. 
 
 Avoiding in this way the Scylla of despotic interference 
 with the individuality of class and teacher, we may shun the
 
 IN AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. WHAT NEXT? 117 
 
 Charybdis of too lax requirements by insisting that certain 
 things should be done in every course fit to be offered at all in 
 a high school; and a considerable majority of our best teachers 
 are probably seeking to accomplish them about as Watzoldt 
 puts it in the sentence already quoted. Their method may be 
 outlined somewhat as follows : — 
 
 Start with the sound; an accurate pronunciation must be 
 the first aim, for the pupil cannot avoid associating some 
 sound with the printed forms, and if these associations are 
 wrong at first, it is almost impossible to correct them later. 
 This accuracy may be obtained with or without the help of a 
 phonetic text; it may begin with letters in a triangle, with 
 syllables on a blackboard or chart, with short words introduced 
 by objects or by a simple text. Most teachers are agreed that 
 it is wise to let the pupil hear the sound a considerable num- 
 ber of times before he tries to make it himself ; that his care- 
 ful attention should be directed to the position of the speech 
 organs and the physiological relations of different sounds ; 
 that he should hear and speak the sound repeatedly before 
 he sees a normal spelling, which, for a long time, will have a 
 tendency to mislead him because of English sounds associated 
 with the letter ; that the pupil will make a sound more con- 
 fidently and certainly if he tries it first in unison with other 
 pupils ; that complete word groups should be given very early ; 
 and that, from the time words are introduced, sound and 
 thought should be closely associated. For many months, no 
 text should be assigned for home study until it has been at 
 least read aloud by the teacher and repeated by the class, with 
 continual drill upon the more troublesome sounds and word 
 groups. 
 
 Everywhere the reading should be made the centre of the 
 instruction. This is the fruitful source of every kind of 
 profitable exercise ; pronunciation, memorizing, dictation, copy- 
 ing, paraphrasing, reproduction, conversation, language exer- 
 cises of every kind radiate from it; to it we may look for
 
 118 MODERN LAKGUAOE STUDY 
 
 whatever knowledge and culture language study can give us. 
 How far the many-sided treatment of the material is to go, 
 how much of the hour can be given to oral exercises based on 
 the text, whether this shall be translated or read aloud and 
 discussed in the foreign language by class and teacher, what 
 text should be read and what phase of it emphasized, are ques- 
 tions to be answered by each teacher in the light of his own 
 judgment and his knowledge of particular conditions; but the 
 text should never be left until its thought is clear, and this 
 thought should be associated directly and as permanently as 
 possible with the expressions of the text. 
 
 The grammar should be the handmaid of the reading. Gram- 
 mar must be a means and not an end ; it must be subordinate 
 and not dominant; it should be brought forward only as its 
 need is felt ; its function is to explain the phenomena of the 
 text and to give our own expressions a form that shall make 
 them clear and pleasing to others. 
 
 Whether among us the written exercises of which the German 
 reformers complained are excessive is doubtful. It does not 
 seem to me that, in most of the schools I know, they are too 
 frequent, too long, or too difficult. It is true that several 
 sentences can be spoken in the time required for writing one ; 
 and I am of the opinion that the material of the written exer- 
 cise should be thoroughly worked over orally before the pupil 
 tries to write it, so that written errors should be reduced to a 
 minimum. When this is done, writing is a most valuable exer- 
 cise, as nothing else so effectively fixes expressions exactly and 
 permanently in the mind. 
 
 To this outline of method, I would add a word on the subject 
 of promptness and speed in the conduct of the class. Probably 
 this would never occur to a German, who expects his pupil to 
 go to the board on a dog-trot, and could not conceive the daw- 
 dling waste of time permitted in many American class-rooms. 
 Questions should be fair, clear, and definite ; the pupil who can- 
 not answer such a question promptly and well should quickly
 
 IN AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. WHAT NEXT? 119 
 
 make way for one who can, and not be allowed to kill the 
 recitation and rob his fellows of valuable opportunity. 
 
 Assuming some such agreement on what it is wise to attempt 
 under present conditions, we come to the practical question of 
 how to extend the possibilities open to us and how to secure a 
 more complete training for students of French and German. 
 The "next things" for the immediate future comprise the 
 following suggestions : — 
 
 By eliminating futile attempts to do the impossible, we can 
 concentrate effort on essentials and better employ the time we 
 now have. 
 
 By continued activity on the part of teachers' associations, 
 we can endeavor to bring all schools up to the standard already 
 attained by the best. 
 
 We can insist that the colleges do more toward giving us 
 competent teachers. They can do more than they are do- 
 ing, both in intensive teaching of what a modern language 
 man ought to know of his subject, and in providing courses in 
 the methods of teaching foreign languages. It is true that they 
 cannot compel students to take these courses after they have 
 offered them, but as the demand for better teachers makes itself 
 felt, more students will feel that such courses are worth taking. 
 And I am going to suggest one thing more that ought to be 
 feasible and of great value. Very many of our young men and 
 women who take up teaching cannot afford a professional 
 course in addition to the regular college course, and in the 
 four years after leaving the high school they must get whatever 
 training they can hope to secure before beginning to teach. 
 Whenever, in the interest of such students, we ask for more 
 attention to the oral side of language work in colleges, we are 
 told that the only place to get a really effective possession of 
 a foreign language is among the people who speak it ; that in 
 this respect the best possible college courses cannot take the 
 place of residence abroad. And this is true. Why not, then, 
 }et a student who plans to teach French or German offer,
 
 120 MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY 
 
 instead of four years in residence, three years in residence and 
 a year spent in France or Germany following courses approved 
 by the college ? American colleges will generally allow credit 
 for work done in another American institution of good stand- 
 ing, and in Germany very many students spend one or more 
 semesters in universities other than that from which they take 
 their degree. 
 
 To this proposition it will be objected that American college 
 boys are at an age when they need the oversight and counsel 
 of competent college authorities, and that it would be inadvis- 
 able to turn them loose to work out their own salvation in Paris 
 or Berlin. This is also true, but why should not some of our 
 colleges combine to establish in each of these cities a professor- 
 ship, the incumbent of which should be a man familiar with 
 the city and its educational opportunities, wise in dealing with 
 young men, competent to act as their adviser and guardian, 
 vested with the authority of the college over students who are 
 sent to him ? Five hundred dollars a year from each of ten 
 American colleges would maintain such a professorship, and 
 the work which a foundation of this kind could accomplish in 
 ten years for the training of teachers of French and German 
 w^ould be inestimable. In addition to his supervising and ad- 
 visory functions, such a man might give a course on methods 
 of teaching foreign languages, and could probably get per- 
 mission for his students to see something of the teaching of 
 foreign languages in French and German class-rooms. It might 
 even be possible for them to do some of the work now open to 
 lectors and exchange teachers, thus getting into close touch 
 with schools abroad. 
 
 Our large cities, especially those with wide commercial 
 relations, ought to do more than they have yet done to secure 
 the best teaching of languages, and to give opportunities for 
 some pupils to begin serious study of a foreign language in 
 the grades, under competent instruction. From time to time 
 this has been tried, and it has failed. The reasons for the
 
 IN AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. WHAT NEXT ? 121 
 
 failure are not far to seek. They are to be found in admin- 
 istrative incompetence and timidity. Some twenty years ago, 
 Professor Grandgent, then Director of Modern Languages in 
 Boston, undertook such an experiment, and if he had been 
 retained and given a free hand, he would undoubtedly have 
 made a success of this as of all his other undertakings. But 
 when Harvard College won him away from Boston, the posi- 
 tion of Director of Modern Languages was abolished, the work 
 begun lapsed, and no foreign language study in the grades has 
 since been tried there. Many similar undertakings have had 
 a similar end ; and the reform, which every modern expert 
 regards as most important and certain to come in time, will 
 never succeed until some school board has the courage and 
 intelligence to see that such an undertaking demands a super- 
 vising expert who knows what to try and how to try it, what 
 to avoid as well as what to attempt. Such a man must be 
 elected for a term of years long enough to enable him to carry 
 through deliberately and carefully a course of instruction, the 
 full results of which cannot appear for some seven years. 
 He must have sufficient money at his disposal to secure 
 capable teachers, and power enough to put them where he 
 wants them and keep them there. 
 
 Once let a city do this for ten or twelve years, and it will 
 find in the young people it has trained an unfailing supply of 
 the sort of teachers whom it is now almost impossible to find, 
 and the lack of whom is the chief factor in making the first 
 steps in this direction so slow, difficult, and costly. 
 
 Our cities must realize, too, the unusual preparation of a 
 well-equipped teacher of modern languages, and how rare 
 these teachers are, even in our high schools. When they get 
 such a teacher, they must recognize her value, must appreciate 
 the expense, as well as the importance, of study abroad, must 
 consider the nervous and vocal strain inseparable from success- 
 ful teaching by a direct method, and cheerfully grant sabbat- 
 ical years, on half-pay, for periodic rest and study. Nor
 
 122 MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY 
 
 must they require a greater number of teaching periods per 
 week than it is possible to give without exhausting demands 
 upon voice and energy. 
 
 One of the most hopeful signs of the times is a perception 
 that one language thoroughly studied is worth more, from 
 both an educational and a business standpoint, than two lan- 
 guages smattered. The Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
 nology now follows this principle in the courses arranged for 
 its undergraduates ; and Harvard College, in its new plan of 
 admission, makes it possible for a man who has done intensive 
 work in one or two languages to enter college as easily as the 
 man who has divided the same time among three or four. 
 
 My conclusions are that the case of modern languages is 
 not as bad as some would have us think ; that no subject in 
 the curriculum has of late been getting more earnest consider- 
 ation from its teachers ; that our best teachers are now using 
 intelligent methods and getting results commensurate with 
 the time employed and the success of other subjects in the 
 same schools. On the other hand, in comparison with what is 
 done elsewhere and ought to be done here, the achievement is 
 insignificant. We must increase our efforts to get good teach- 
 ing in all, instead of in a few schools; we must have the 
 active help of the colleges in getting teachers properly pre- 
 pared ; we must try to get language study begun aright in the 
 grades by a portion of the pupils there; we must convince 
 school authorities that it is absolutely necessary for teachers 
 of a modern language to be well prepared, well paid, and not 
 overworked. 
 
 The method of our best teachers is comparable with that 
 suggested twenty years ago for the German schools and now 
 pretty generally adopted in Europe ; but lack of time, and the 
 little actual demand here for power to write, to speak, and to 
 understand the spoken language, has rightly caused reading 
 power to be emphasized, but wrongly led to undue neglect of 
 the oral side of the instruction. Of late there has been a
 
 IN AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. WHAT NEXT? 123 
 
 vigorous effort to correct this ; and as courses are made longer, 
 more well-prepared teachers are to be had, and the public 
 demands better things, I have no doubt that the American 
 schools will give the public all that the latter is willing to 
 pay for.
 
 AIMS AND METHODS IN MODERN LANGUAGE 
 INSTRUCTION.^ 
 
 BY WILLIAM R. PRICE, INSPECTOR IN MODERN LANGUAGES, 
 NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION. 
 
 It has frequently been pointed out that there are three 
 great questions which every teacher must ask and answer 
 for himself, unless his thinking is done for him by his supe- 
 riors. They are : What ? Why ? How ? — or, as Professor 
 Hanus quotes them : What are you doing ? Why are you 
 doing it ? Why do you do it like that ? ^ 
 
 In view of recent changes in the Syllabus of modern lan- 
 guages for the State of New York, it may be wise to ask and 
 answer again these three questions. It is good business 
 policy and consequently (at present !) good educational policy, 
 to "take stock" ever so often. Goethe used to take an 
 intellectual inventory about every five years. So we teachers 
 ought to keep pretty close track of our intellectual assets and 
 liabilities and productive and non-productive investments, in 
 order not to wake up some morning to find ourselves pro- 
 fessionally bankrupt. 
 
 What are we trying to accomplish in our modern language 
 instruction in the secondary schools? What knowledge or 
 capacity are we seeking to impart ? 
 
 There was a time when we thought that this, the first 
 of our three questions, had been decided by the Report of 
 
 1 Reprinted, with some omissions, from the Educational Review. 
 
 2 Cf . " Observations upon Method in the Teaching of Modern Languages," 
 by Professor Calvin Thomas (one of the sanest articles that have ever 
 appeared, but rather in regard to ultimate aims than to details of method). 
 See also Education (January, 1911) : " The Training of College-bred Teachers," 
 by Professor Paul H. Hanus. 
 
 124
 
 AIMS AND METHODS. 125 
 
 the Committee of Twelve,^ if not absolutely, as an academic 
 question, at least relatively, for American schools, with a 
 ■well-defined ultimate aim : the culture and discipline attained 
 through the acquisition of a reading knowledge. It would 
 seem, however, as if that time had passed beyond recall, 
 if we are to accept at its face value the dictum of the super- 
 intendent of schools of the largest city in the United States,* 
 that "any teaching of a modern language which does not 
 result in the power to speak the language is obviously 
 misdirected teaching." 
 
 In the same Report, Dr. Maxwell protested that the so-called 
 regents' examinations, by their emphasis upon translation, 
 grammar, and composition, led to the neglect of teaching to 
 speak the modern foreign languages and were, therefore, an 
 injurious use of the examination power. As a direct or 
 indirect result of this Report, a scheme has been inaugurated 
 by the State Education Department to remedy this defect, 
 if defect it be, by giving credit in the final examinations for 
 work in speaking. 
 
 From this it would seem that we are to attempt, in the future, 
 to teach our pupils to speak the foreign language. We have 
 not done that in the past, at least in the public high schools, 
 first, because we thought the aim impossible of attainment, 
 and second, because we thought that it would be an unwise 
 thing to do, even if we could do it, as it seemed to demand 
 the sacrifice of much worthier aims. The relative values of 
 a speaking and a reading knowledge have never been more 
 forcibly contrasted than in the following paragraph, by one 
 of our foremost American scholars : " For myself, I can say 
 with perfect sincerity that I look upon my own ability to 
 speak German simply as an accomplishment to which I attach 
 no great importance. If such a thing were possible, I would 
 
 1 Boston : D. C. Heath & Co., Revised edition, 1914. 
 
 2 Cf . Tenth Annual Report of the City Superintendent of Schools, New York 
 City, 1908, p. 93>
 
 \ 
 
 126 AIMS AND METHODS 
 
 sell it for money, and use the money to buy German books 
 •with ; and it would not take an exorbitant price to buy it 
 either. But, on the other hand, what I have got from my 
 ability to read German, that is, my debt to the German genius 
 through the German language, I would no more part with 
 than I would part with my memories of the past, my hopes 
 for the future, or any other integral portion of my soul." ^ 
 
 Is it possible that these stirring words are no longer true ? 
 Has the one-time crushing defeat of the Sprachmeister been 
 turned into a glorious victory ? That can best be determined 
 from a tabular analysis of the Report adopted by the State 
 Examinations Board, referred to on the previous page, show- 
 ing the amount of credit assigned to the three or four 
 "abilities" in modern language instruction. 
 
 The following are the average relative values placed upon 
 the aims of modern language instruction : — 
 
 I. Ability to read and understand the language in print . 46f per cent 
 
 II. Ability to understand the spoken language 9^ per cent 
 
 m. Ability to use the language orally (i.e., to speak it) . . 8J per cent 
 
 IV. Ability to use the language in writing 35f per cent 
 
 From this summary it is evident that the main emphasis 
 remains where it always has been, namely, on the ability 
 to read and understand the written language. The shifting 
 of part of the emphasis from translation into English to 
 a discussion of the content in the foreign language is not 
 a real departure from the recommendations of the Com- 
 mittee of Twelve. If one really understands a passage in 
 the foreign language, and is given time to think and to 
 choose his words, he can translate it into English if required 
 to do so in an examination. The main thing is that he 
 understand what he is reading, not that he translate it. 
 
 A word of explanation might be made about the seemingly 
 low percentage of credit for the ability to understand the 
 
 1 See page 27,
 
 IN MODERN LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION. 127 
 
 spoken language and the ability to use the language. It 
 should be obvious to any one that these two abilities can 
 never keep pace with the acquisition of linguistic facts and 
 the power to read, understand, and enjoy the written lan- 
 guage ; it is quite similar to one's ability to read and enjoy 
 poetry of the highest type, without possessing the ability to 
 write original poetry. It is the difference between receptivity 
 and activity, in part, and between reflection, comparison, 
 deduction, as contrasted with the instantaneous impression 
 which the spoken words must make. 
 
 The victory of the Radicals, then, in so far as the " What ? " 
 and the " Why ? " are essentially concerned, is hardly worthy 
 of being called a victory. No one, least of all the authors 
 of the Report of the Committee of Twelve, could have any fault 
 to find with this relative valuation of ultimate aims ; on the 
 contrary, if I have read their Report aright, they welcome 
 any scheme of examination which will insure better teaching 
 of pronunciation and greater familiarity with the language. 
 
 On no subject of the curriculum has so much been written 
 about method, as on the subject of modern language instruc- 
 tion. Neglecting what may be called devices and keeping 
 strictly to the question of method, I should say that the main 
 struggle is between the use of the deductive, or traditional 
 Latin method, and the inductive or " Reform " method, " made 
 in Germany." That is evident from the sub-title of Victor's 
 famous pamphlet {Der Sprachunterricht muss umkehren), and 
 from one of the common names of the " reform " or " direct " 
 method (analytisch-synthetisch). This method really implies a 
 knowledge of the language before it is studied, and has re- 
 markable similarities with the old "natural" method. The 
 vital question, then, is : Shall this method be adopted in our 
 schools, in whole or in part ? 
 
 It seems to me that the answer to this question depends 
 absolutely upon an identity or similarity of aims, needs, and
 
 128 AIMS AND METHODS 
 
 conditions in America and in the Fatherland. To argue other- 
 wise would be analogous to arguing for the introduction of uni- 
 versal military service in the United States, because, forsooth, 
 Germany possesses it. 
 
 But even in Germany and in continental Europe the new 
 method is not yet firmly established on its throne. Three 
 recent utterances, representing a similar or identical feeling, 
 in three great nations, concerning the educational values of 
 the ancient languages as taught and the modern languages as 
 taught are worthy of careful consideration. 
 
 The first of these utterances is the testimony of the French 
 Minister of Education to the inestimable, indispensable, and 
 incomparable value of Latin to all that constitutes French 
 genius — in its lucidity, scope, and elegance.' 
 
 The second is the voicing, by Mr. William Learned, of an 
 opinion frequently heard in Germany, and familiar to all read- 
 ers of the Zeitschrift fiir franzosischen und englischen Unterricht 
 (that wholesome corrective to Die neueren Sjyrachen), namely : 
 " It is still a matter of frequent and vigorous discussion whether 
 the Oherrealschule, with its basis of modern languages taught 
 after this fashion, is, after all, a reasonable substitute for the 
 Gymnasium, with its more pronounced analytical ^ courses in 
 Latin and Greek, and a feeling is expressed among some of 
 the modern language teachers that a return to the old system 
 or a modification of it may not be far distant." ' 
 
 The third is nearer in time, place, and interest to us : it is 
 the signed statement of a very large number of professors in 
 Cornell University, from all departments of learning, that they 
 prefer students who have had the advantage of a classical edu- 
 cation (Latin and Greek) to those who have elected, in their 
 
 1 Cf . Educational Review, March, 1911: "The Educational System of 
 France," by Henry A. Perkins. Also School Review, June, 1912. 
 
 2 The term is here applied to the language material, with the same meaning 
 as synthetic or deductive when applied to method. See page 101. 
 
 8 Cf. Educational Review, April, 1911: "Account of an Exchange Profea- 
 sorship in a German Gymnasium."
 
 TN MODERN LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION. 129 
 
 preparatory school, French and German, or any other subjects, 
 in place of Latin and Greek. 
 
 Need I remind my American colleagues in secondary schools, 
 who may wish to introduce the reform method bodily, of the 
 Italian proverb : Chi va piano, va sano ? 
 
 The reform method in modern language instruction was not 
 recommended by the Committee of Twelve (although it does 
 justice to it, especially in its attention to pronunciation), be- 
 cause its use in our schools would necessitate the postponement 
 of the reading of real literature beyond the secondary period 
 and thus make impossible for ninety per cent of our pupils the 
 attainment of the fundamental aim of the instruction, leaving 
 them, as Professor Hewett expressed it,^ " The proud possessors 
 of a few sentences, but without any literary knowledge." 
 
 To answer this objection and obviate this difficulty some of 
 the American " reformers " have proposed a compression (not 
 a synthesis) of the reform method and the reading method, the 
 " speaking " to be a longer or shorter course introductory to 
 the reading.2 The attitude of the author in question and his 
 critical acumen are evident in the introductory paragraphs (or 
 should I say Sentenzen?). They are as follows : — 
 
 "Language comes from lingua (tongue), hence language is 
 primarily a form of speech." 
 
 " Sprache comes from sprechen, und eine Sprache ist da, um 
 gesprochen zu werden." 
 
 " Written language is merely an epitome of spoken language. 
 The kennen must be preceded by the Tconnen.'" 
 
 " In other words, speaking is not an end, but rather a means 
 to an end." 
 
 To these sophistical apothegms one can only reply : Danke 
 filr die Belehrung, but I can't follow you ; what form of the 
 syllogism is it ? 
 
 1 See page 35. 
 
 2 Cf. Monatshefte fiir deutsche Sprache und Pddagogik,1910,p.Z9: "What 
 promineQce is to be assigned to the work in speaking the foreign languages."
 
 130 AIMS AND METHODS 
 
 It seems, however, that the author had in mind the com- 
 pression into our short courses of the propaedeutical part of 
 the reform method and the reading of literature. Right here 
 lies, to my mind, the chief danger to the cause of modern lan- 
 guage instruction in America, as long as such instruction is 
 not begun before the secondary period. In Germany this plan 
 could be expected to work very well, because the language is 
 begun early enough and continued long enough to enable the 
 pupils to get a fair mastery of the Umgangssprache before tak- 
 ing up the study of the literature. Our courses, however, are 
 not long enough for that, and they will not be of sufficient 
 length until the foreign languages shall dip down two or three 
 years into the grades. If we, therefore, under present condi- 
 tions, try to attain these two aims, we shall be in the position 
 of the man who tries to kill two birds with one stone and 
 misses both, or of him who tries to occupy two chairs and sits 
 down hard between them. 
 
 I doubt whether many high school teachers of the State 
 really know what they are talking about in all this fuss about 
 the direct method. It has become a word to conjure with 
 — an " open sesame " to all the treasures of the foreign lan- 
 guage and literature. They speak of it with a respect verging 
 on reverence. They will tell you that they are using it in 
 their classes, perhaps that they introduced it into their school, 
 or that they were pioneers in its American exploitation. 
 They recount before their admiring fellow-teachers how they 
 teach from pictures the life of St. Hieronymus ^ or draw a 
 moral lesson from the picture of the martyrdom of St. Sebas- 
 tian, or teach the Umgangssprache by pantomime, etc., etc. In 
 one class I found a lot of overgrown boys and girls engaged, 
 under expert direction, in the highly practical and educational 
 diversion of counting their fingers in German, after having dis- 
 covered and formulated, by the inductive method, the reasons 
 
 1 This was actually proposed recently before a large body of modern lan- 
 guage teachers. 
 
 i
 
 IN MODERN LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION. 131 
 
 for their names and the laws governing their relative posi- 
 tions; and it didn't even have the justification of being a 
 Mother Goose rhyme : — 
 
 " Dies ist der Daumen, 
 Der schiittelt die Pflaumen," etc. 
 
 Granting that the direct method accomplishes all that its 
 enthusiastic advocates claim for it in continental Europe (and 
 that is not by any means proven)/ there is no real analogy be- 
 tween modern language instruction in an Oberrealschule or in 
 the Francf ort Musterschule, on the one hand, and the American 
 high school on the other, either (1) in the scholarship and ped- 
 agogic technique of the teachers, or (2) in the dimensions of 
 the courses, or (3) in the character of the pupils and their atti- 
 tude towards their work, or (4) in the actual practical and 
 educational needs of the pupils. While the burden of proof 
 would naturally rest upon those who claim the existence of 
 such analogy, I shall nevertheless give here some references 
 and arguments to refute such claims.^ 
 
 iCf. School Review, February, 1911 : " Visit to the Franctort Musterschule," 
 by Mr. Charles Goettsch. — After stressing the purely mechanical feature 
 of endless repetition necessary to produce automatic reaction in speaking the 
 language, the author states that the pupils who finish the course would be- 
 come good conversationalists " if they spent a year in France or England ! " 
 Of. also Revue universitaire, 15 mai, 1910 : "Rapport sur la troisieme colo- 
 nic francpaise de vacances en Allemagne (1909) par M. A. Pinloche, professeur 
 au Lyce'e Michelet," from which the following is quoted (p. 429) : "Mais je 
 suis bien oblige de signaler de nouveau aux families et a nos collegues franyais 
 le point faible de la plupart de nos colonistes (je ne parle ici que des jeunes 
 gens) : c'est leur preparation insuffisante en allemand, qui rend la tache de 
 leurs professeurs de vacances singuli^rement difficile et ingrate, et en meme 
 temps leur sejour moins profitable qu'il pourrait et devrait I'etre. ' Tons 
 font preuve' nous dit M. Hammelrat, 'd'un manque de siirete regrettable 
 dans les applications pratique de la grammaire allemande et d'une ignorance 
 snrprenante du vocabulaire de la vie quotidienne.' " 
 
 ^Cf. the 1911 Year-Book of the National Education Association. "Liter- 
 ary appreciation in the study of foreign languages : its opportunities and lim- 
 itations, with special reference to the study of French," by M. Albert L^on 
 Guerard, Assistant Professor of French, Leland Stanford Jr. University: 
 "We should recognize that, while America needs at least as much foreign 
 language study as any European nation, it does not need the same kind. . . .
 
 132 AIMS AND METHODS 
 
 Mr. John Franklin Brown, in his impressions of the Ger- 
 man system of training teachers/ after emphasizing the scope 
 and thoroughness of the general academic and universit}'' and 
 pedagogical training of prospective teachers, voices his con- 
 viction that scholarship is the most important single factor 
 in the excellence of German schools ; and he drives home his 
 point by illustrations taken from the equipment of the modern 
 language teacher. What analogy is there between such a 
 preparation, uniform for all teachers, and that of the three 
 score and ten odd types of modern language teachers in Amer- 
 ica, from the selbst-importierter Sprachmeister who failed in his 
 Staatsexamen in Germany, to the sweet girl graduate who 
 " specialized " in French in college ? 
 
 What analogy is there between a course of six or nine years 
 and one of two, three, or four ? 
 
 What analogy is there between the type of pupil in Ger- 
 many, for whom a Fleissfehler or a Betragensfehler is an acute 
 shame and disgrace, and the type of pupil in America, who, if 
 menaced with such a punishment, would most probably cry 
 out, "Make it fifty, Professor!" — Or between a school sys- 
 tem where all economic pressure tends to keep a boy in school, 
 where success or failure means success or failure for life, honor 
 in the Fatherland or emigration to America ! and one where 
 
 There a practical study of our neighbors' language, as it is spoken, is at the 
 same time almost indispensable and comparatively easy. One can hardly 
 move from one's native village without coming across some international 
 boundary. Any Parisian teacher, any ambitious young clerk, any small 
 business man, can easily spend a fortnight's holiday in London ; it is only a 
 matter of seven hours and five dollars. . . . On the other hand, America 
 needs the influence of European thought and culture just because she has no 
 immediate neighbor from whom she has much to learn. Thus isolated from 
 the original home of the race, America would run a great risk of becoming 
 provincial — for a province may be as large as a continent. Our duty as 
 teachers of languages and literatures is to open as direct an avenue as possi- 
 ble between European thought and the American public; and I do not believe 
 that Berlitz French is the straightest and widest avenue that could thus be 
 opened. My contention is this ... let us teach French mainly for reading 
 purposes." 
 
 iCf. School Review, 1910.
 
 IN MODERN LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION. 133 
 
 all economic pressure tends to force the boy out of school at 
 the age of fourteen or sixteen? Furthermore, the policy in 
 the Musterschule (and doubtless in other schools in Germany) 
 is to have the same modern language teacher carry a class all 
 the way through the course; compare that with our classes, 
 which shrink so every term that three or four have to be com- 
 bined into one. In a large New York City high school there 
 are about twelve hundred pupils taking German ; about eight 
 hundred of them are in the first year of instruction ! 
 
 Finally, the European boy or girl begins the study of a 
 modern foreign language much earlier than do our pupils, and 
 the method which is best suited psychologically, not to speak 
 of other reasons, to them, is not by any means best suited to 
 our pupils. For one thing, what is interesting and amusing at 
 the age of nine or ten is apt to be considered childish and 
 geisttfitend at twelve or fourteen. 
 
 If this is so, and who will deny it ? what question can there 
 be of the introduction of the direct method into our schools ? 
 In my opinion, none whatever. 
 
 What change in method, then, does the Resolution of the 
 State Examinations Board contemplate ? 
 
 The answer to this question will be evident to any one who 
 has seen much of the teaching of modern languages in the 
 schools of the State. The usual type of recitation is summed 
 up by the formula : " Jack read ; John translate ; Mary ex- 
 plain the syntax of. . . . " Very often the foreign language 
 is not even read ; and if it is, no attention is paid to vowel- 
 quantity, accentuation, intonation and expression, proper 
 grouping of words ; on the contrary, the reading is as crude 
 and painful as pulling teeth. Very frequently the teacher 
 has had but two or three courses in grammar and translation 
 in college and is utterly incompetent to do more than to eon- 
 duct a translation exercise. It is to remedy such glaring de- 
 fects that the Resolution was passed ; it is hoped that it will 
 awaken school authorities to the necessity of getting ade-
 
 134 AIMS AND METHODS 
 
 quately prepared teachers for the foreign languages and send 
 inadequately prepared teachers scurrying to summer schools 
 and to Europe to perfect themselves in the foreign languages. 
 Viewed from this standpoint, no legislation of the State De- 
 partment in recent years is so important and far-reaching in 
 potential results. 
 
 The hardest thing to get teachers to realize is this : that no 
 extra time is necessary for the kind of work contemplated by 
 the changes in the Syllabus. Most teachers look upon the 
 oral work as something on the side, something extraneous. 
 They think of the German language, for example, as composed 
 of air-tight compartments : pronunciation and reading is one ; 
 translation is another; grammar, another; conversation, an- 
 other. So they have separate days for these phases of work, 
 as though they were unrelated. They compare the oral work 
 to the laboratory work in the sciences: two periods of labo- 
 ratory work equal one period of recitation on the text-book, 
 therefore two periods of conversation should be provided by 
 lopping off from the other work. The result is that the pupil 
 fails to see the relation between grammar, reading, conversa- 
 tion, translation ; it is often as though he were studying, under 
 these names, unrelated subjects. 
 
 It is right here that the wisdom of the Report of the Com- 
 mittee of Twelve is most apparent: the reading should be the 
 centre of the instruction, it says; and this truth cannot too 
 often be driven home to teachers. Not until they look upon 
 the reading (which does not at all mean of necessity transla- 
 tion) as the hub of the modern language wheel, on which all 
 phases of linguistic work converge like the actual spokes of 
 an actual wheel, will they have the proper perspective in their 
 teaching. 
 
 I do not believe that the scope and general character of the 
 reading material should be changed, although the first reader 
 may well partake of the nature of the German reform readers. 
 I believe that we can accomplish just as much in the future
 
 IN MODERN LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION. 135 
 
 as we have in the past, and in addition to that, I believe that 
 we can make a lot of the French and German pass over from 
 the passive, receptive stage into the active stage. To accom- 
 plish this, three things should be required of pupils in the 
 preparation of every reading lesson : (1) they should read the 
 French or German aloud; (2) they should translate it into 
 English, as a home task ; (3) they should prepare the French 
 or German text so as to be able to answer in French or Ger- 
 man any questions in French or German on the content and 
 form of the assigned reading. 
 
 To make the conversation centre in and revolve about the 
 texts read has three great advantages : — 
 
 First : There is the essential element of reality about such 
 conversation, so utterly lacking when teachers and pupils try 
 to converse about pictures and topics for which they have not 
 learned an adequate vocabulary. It is true that special books 
 have been written for this purpose, but they are generally 
 either puerile or wooden or both. 
 
 Second : It does not necessitate the cutting down of the 
 amount or general character of the reading, as some teachers 
 have proposed,^ but increases the amount of possible reading, 
 because (a) it makes pupils learn the French or German in 
 addition to the translation, thus gradually doing away with a 
 lot of useless thumbing of the dictionary, and (b) by taking 
 the place of much useless class-room translation it saves time 
 for sight reading (which should not be confused with sight 
 translation). In addition it does away with the use of 
 "ponies" and interlineation of books with English word^, 
 because the pupil must show (a) by his reading, and (b) by 
 his answers in the foreign language that he understands what 
 he has prepared at home. 
 
 Third : It enables the teacher who is not " to the manner 
 born " to conduct every reading lesson in French or German, 
 for any teacher who has a good pronunciation and a good 
 1 Cf . Article by W. Betz, School Review, June, 1911.
 
 136 AIMS AND METHODS 
 
 knowledge of the grammar can formulate simple questions 
 on the form and content of the reading lesson. If need be 
 she can write them out at home and memorize them. Such 
 a teacher is likely to formulate questions-with-a-purpose, 
 rather than to use aimless conversational phrases about 
 trivial things. I have seen excellent recitations conducted 
 in this way, with a lot of lebendige Grammatik, by teachers 
 who had no real independent speaking-knowledge of the 
 language taught. 
 
 The psychological and logical reasons for a lot of oral 
 work such as is here proposed are not far to seek. Certain 
 things in a foreign language simply have to be learned 
 by heart and retained. Association from all sensory- 
 motor vantage points is more effective in this memoriz- 
 ing and retention than from one alone.^ Some sounds 
 will necessarily be associated with words; let them be, 
 therefore, the correct ones. That means very thorough drill 
 in pronunciation and practice in reading aloud, extending 
 over the entire course. 
 
 Literature, especially poetry, loses much if read silently 
 or if read aloud poorly ; there can be no real appreciation of 
 French or German poetry except through proper oral reading. 
 That is just why foreigners fail to appreciate French poetry, 
 for example. 
 
 Grammar is always more or less meaningless until it has 
 been exemplified in actual use so often that the correct usage 
 becomes automatic. This intimate relation of grammar and 
 reading cannot well be established by aimless conversation. 
 It is for that reason that I value chiefly oral work based upon 
 the reading text. 
 
 With the plan of work here proposed it will not be neces- 
 sary to sacrifice one whit of the discipline and culture which 
 
 1 Cf . School Review, 1909 : " The Phonetic Method," by Professor A. Gideon 
 (an excellent short account, showing clearly what features of this method 
 are of value in our practice, and why).
 
 IN MODERN LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION. 187 
 
 we have set up as the ultimate aim of modern language in- 
 struction ; on the contrary, I feel confident that we shall better 
 attain our aim, while, in addition, we shall be laying a founda- 
 tion in speaking on which the few, who may continue their 
 studies abroad or in our colleges, can readily build.
 
 THE TEACHING OF FRENCH AND GERMAN IN 
 OUR PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS.^ 
 
 BY PROFESSOK C. H. GRANDGENT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, WHEN 
 DIRECTOR OF MODERN LANGUAGES IN THE BOSTON SCHOOLS. 
 
 By " our " schools I mean those of Massachusetts ; and 
 when I say "high schools," I am thinking especially of insti- 
 tutions that are not engaged in preparing pupils for college 
 entrance examinations. Let us take it for granted, further, 
 that a foreign language occupies, in the average high school 
 course, some three hours a week for three years. It is obvious 
 enough that we cannot do everything in this time : we are 
 obliged to devote ourselves particularly to some one part of 
 the subject, and our choice must be determined, in the first 
 place, by our possibilities, and, next, by the purpose we have 
 in mind. My intention is to examine briefly the five chief 
 branches of modern language study, with a view to ascertain- 
 ing which of them we can teach, and which of these latter we 
 can most profitably pursue. I shall consider the five topics 
 in the following order : speaking, writing, grammar, transla- 
 tion, reading. 
 
 First comes speaking. I am often asked : " Can we teach 
 pupils to talk French and German ? " Let us see. We know 
 that the ability to use a language for the purpose of commu- 
 nicating ideas can be gained only through long-continued 
 practice. The ear, the vocal organs, the memory, the reason- 
 
 1 Read at meeting of Massachusetts Association of Classical and High School 
 Teachers, December, 1891. Reprinted from School and College, with the permiaiioa 
 of the pablithers.
 
 THE TEACHING OF FRENCH AND GERMAN. 139 
 
 ing powers, the will, must all receive a special and thorough 
 training. Hearing others speak will not do : we must speak 
 ourselves. This is a case, if there ever was one, where the 
 motto fit fabricando faber exactly hits the nail on the head. 
 Now let us suppose that a class of twenty-five pupils, neglect- 
 ing all else, spends its whole time in " conversation ; " let us 
 say that each recitation period consists of fifty minutes, and 
 that the class recites three times a week ; let us suppose, also, 
 for the sake of the argument, that the instructor talks only 
 half of the time. What is the result ? If the hours are 
 equitably divided, every pupil speaks for three minutes a 
 week, or two hours yearly, or a quarter of a day during his 
 entire public school career. When we reflect that it takes us, 
 with fully an hour's exercise per diem, ten or fifteen years to 
 master our native tongue, we can perhaps estimate the amount 
 of skill that is to be produced by six-hours' practice scattered 
 over a term of three years. It will then be unnecessary to 
 discuss the question whether or not the ability to speak 
 French or German is a desirable and proper object for a pub- 
 lic school course. By all this I do not, in the least, intend to 
 discourage the use of a foreign language in the class-room : 
 my only purpose is to show that we cannot make speaking -^ 
 our chief aim, and that we must accept this fact once for 
 all, and shape our methods accordingly. If, however, so- 
 called " conversation " ought not to be regarded as an end in 
 itself, it is certainly a most valuable auxiliary. There are at 
 least four reasons why we should cultivate it: in the first 
 place, it satisfies a frequently expressed desire on the part of 
 the public, and as the public supports the schools, its wishes 
 should be heeded ; secondly, classes do not correctly appre- 
 ciate what they read (especially if their text is either metrical 
 in form or colloquial in style) unless they know how it sounds ; 
 thirdly, the actual use of the foreign tongue invariably inter- 
 ests the pupils, giving them a sense of mastery that nothing 
 else can bring ; and, lastly, exercises of this kind stimulate
 
 140 THE TEACHING OF FRENCH AND GERMAN 
 
 the teacher to more extended study and greater mental activ- 
 ity. I should say, therefore, to those instructors who have a 
 practical command of the language they teach, " Use it as 
 much as possible in school, but do not waste time on it. If 
 you have something to tell the class, say it in the foreign 
 tongue 'whenever you think you will be understood without 
 long explanation or tiresome repetitions. Encourage the 
 scholars to express themselves in the same language as soon 
 and as often as they can. Always, and particularly at the 
 outset, insist on the best pronunciation attainable. Begin, as 
 a rule, with simple and not too numerous French or German 
 sentences containing no new words, and decrease, month by 
 month, the proportion of English spoken. You will find that 
 during the last year the greater part of your instruction can 
 be imparted in the language you are studying." Teachers 
 who cannot speak German or French I should earnestly advise 
 to learn to do so as quickly as possible, but not to experiment 
 on the class until they have acquired a fair degree of fluency 
 and correctness. 
 
 We now come to our second subject, writing. It might 
 naturally occur to us that if we devoted most of our energies 
 to composition, we could, perhaps, give our scholars a kind of 
 training admirably adapted to the development of their reas- 
 oning faculties, and, at the same time, fix in their minds the 
 most important facts of the language. Of course, however, 
 we do not wish to make writing our specialty unless we can 
 teach pupils to write well ; otherwise we shall have too little 
 to show for our three-years' labor. Now, before students can 
 learn to write properly, they must have collected the materials : 
 they should have read a large amount of French or German, 
 and they must have gained a clear and complete knowledge of 
 the necessary points of grammar. The former of these re- 
 quirements is often neglected by teachers, but it is, in my 
 opinion, the more important of the two. All our talking and 
 writing of foreign tongues, so far as it is correct, is almost
 
 JJN aUK FUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS. 141 
 
 wholly a matter of imitation: we are never sure that any 
 expression we may wish to use is right, unless we have seen 
 or heard it before ; and generally we must meet with a word 
 or phrase many times, and examine it from several points of 
 view, before we feel that we are on speaking terms with it. 
 I think it would be no exaggeration to say that if we spent 
 all our three years on translation and grammar, our best 
 pupils would, at the end of that time, be just in proper condi- 
 tion to begin serious work in composition. Writing must, 
 therefore, like speaking, be considered, in our high school 
 course, as a side issue. It is, nevertheless, an indispensable 
 Auxiliary to grammar study, and, if intelligently conducted, a 
 wonderful aid to reading and translation. 
 
 At first sight it would seem that grammar, our third topic, 
 might well be made the principal theme of our modern lan- 
 guage curriculum. If carefully pursued throughout the course, 
 with enough reading and writing to illustrate its principles, it 
 would furnish a good instrument for training the intelligence, 
 and provide a subject that ought to be thoroughly learned, by 
 diligent and fairly able scholars, in three years. " By dili- 
 gent and fairly able scholars " — alas ! this qualifying phrase 
 opens our eyes to a weakness in the argument. For it is a 
 fact, shown not by ratiocination, but by experience, that our 
 pupils, when obliged to study grammar, are neither " diligent " 
 nor "fairly able": they are, generally speaking, stupid and 
 indolent beyond all endurance. Why ? Simply because they 
 dislike it. However pleasing grammar may appear to the 
 philologist, who sees it in perspective, the schoolboy, for 
 whom it is merely a collection of paradigms, formulas, and 
 exceptions, finds it intolerably dry ; and the schoolboy cannot 
 do his best work unless he is interested. Here and there an 
 instructor may exist sufficiently enthusiastic and discriminat- 
 ing to make the subject attractive ; but I fear that most of 
 our teachers are scarcely more fond of the science, for its own 
 sake, than are the pupils themselves. Yet we must have
 
 142 THE TEACHING OF FRENCH AND GERMAN 
 
 some grammar ; else we can expect no accurate knowledge of 
 the language. There seems to be but one way out of the 
 dilemma : to teach only the essentials ; to administer this 
 necessary amount in small and well-graded doses, alternating 
 with lessons of a different character; and to emphasize its 
 utility and relieve its dulness by means of close association 
 with interesting composition work and agreeable reading 
 matter. 
 
 Translation and reading, as I use the terras, are not quite the 
 same thing. The chief objects of the former are mental disci- 
 pline and training in English; the main purpose of the latter 
 is general culture, to be attained through the intelligent peru- 
 sal of the greatest possible number of good foreign books. 
 Yet the two cannot be entirely separated : reading must begin 
 by translation ; and it is equally true that tlie thoughtful 
 translation of literary masterpieces cannot fail to refine the 
 taste. In either case we must be sure to select works that are 
 excellent in themselves, and can be readily appreciated by the 
 scholars ; we should study with the same care the differences 
 of idiom between the two languages ; and, whatever may be 
 our aim, we ought never to be satisfied with inaccurate or 
 awkward English versions. In these respects the two methods 
 are identical. It is, in fact, rather two ideals that we have to 
 distinguish. "We may, on the one hand, direct all our labors 
 toward the development of the reason ; in this case we shall 
 have a course consisting of carefully corrected translation, a 
 maximum of grammar and composition, and comparatively 
 little speaking. If, on the other hand, the end we have in 
 view is the broadening of the mind and the cultivation of the 
 taste, we shall have, perhaps, more translation and conversa- 
 tion and somewhat less writing and grammar; and we shall 
 strive to train our pupils in such a manner that they can, be- 
 fore the end of the three years, absorb thought directly through 
 the foreign medium, without the interposition of English. 
 Both of these objects — mental discipline and general culture
 
 IN OUR PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS. 143 
 
 — are so desirable that no complete course can wholly neglect 
 either of them ; and if lack of time compels us partially to 
 sacrifice one to the other, we may not find the choice easy. 
 The following considerations seem to me to be of weight. In 
 our public schools most of the work appears to be calculated 
 to fit young persons rather to meet the rude exigencies of life 
 than to enjoy its good things : this is doubtless right ; but the 
 strictly practical side of education is not the only one that 
 deserves attention. When foreigners criticise us Americans, 
 they say we are intelligent, quick, inventive, but lacking in 
 refinement and artistic taste ; and I think there is much truth 
 in their judgment. Now, refinement and taste are necessary 
 factors of civilization : we cannot afford to pass by any oppor- 
 tunity to cultivate them ; and how can they be more readily 
 developed than by the study of literature ? We already have 
 a somewhat meagre course of reading in English ; but this, 
 even if it were far more extended, could never be half so effect- 
 ive in overthrowing prejudices, suggesting ideas, opening new 
 vistas, and forming correct standards, as is the intercourse 
 with great minds of other countries. I am, therefore, inclined 
 to say that a French or German course does not fulfil its true 
 mission until it affords pupils at least an introduction to the 
 best literature of the language they are learning.
 
 STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE 
 ON MODERN LANGUAGES, NATIONAL EDUCA- 
 TION ASSOCIATION.! 
 
 ABSTRACT 
 
 Service to the pupil determines the aims of instruction. 
 Work must at all times be of value both to those who are 
 to leave the class and to those who will continue in it. The 
 aims of the first year are phonetic training, knowledge of the 
 fundamental principles of language, and interest in the foreign 
 nation whose language is studied. Pupils with neither taste 
 nor capacity for studying a foreign language should drop it 
 after the first year. Oral work and accurate pronunciation 
 should from the beginning receive the most careful attention. 
 The method used depends somewhat on the equipment of the 
 teacher, but it should train ear, eye, tongue, and hand. 
 
 The first texts should be of the simplest kind and should 
 arouse an interest in the life of the foreign people. The work 
 may include copying text, with minor variations of person, 
 number, tense, etc. ; writing from dictation ; reading aloud ; 
 translation, oral and written, both from and into the foreign 
 language; reproduction; paraphrasing; imitative and free com- 
 position. Texts should be modern in style, not too long, dis- 
 tinctively national in character, adapted to the age, sex, and 
 thought of the pupil, and they should give something worth 
 remembering. Grammar should be the handmaid of the text, 
 which should be the centre of all instruction. In translation, 
 thought should intervene between the two languages, being 
 derived from the first and expressed by the second. 
 
 1 A report made at the atiDual meeting in July, 1914. 
 U4
 
 STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN. 145 
 
 In proportion to the time allowed, modern language instruc- 
 tion in our best schools is as good as that abroad, but we need 
 more good teachers and an opportunity for selected pupils to 
 begin the study of a foreign language, under competent instruc- 
 tion, in the grades. The colleges should give especial attention 
 to preparing teachers of modern languages, and the cities should 
 grant Sabbatical years with half pay to teachers who will go 
 to the expense of study abroad. 
 
 I. AIMS. 
 
 Service to the pupil is the great object of the work of this 
 committee. In accordance therewith, valid aims are defined 
 as those which seek to meet the needs of real pupils, as we 
 actually find them, and a satisfactory method must give such 
 pupils, in proper sequence and quantity, what they need to 
 receive. We must so arrange the work that at every point it 
 may be profitable for those taking it, giving to all a general 
 appreciation of the subject, attaining for all who continue the 
 language beyond the introductory stage satisfactory power in 
 certain particulars, and securing a useful degree of skill for 
 those by whom such skill may be needed. The first work 
 should be so chosen that those who drop the subject early 
 shall retain something of value for themselves while impeding 
 as little as possible the progress of others who are laying the 
 foundation for future study, and a determining factor in 
 deciding the order of procedure should be the principle that 
 the work that makes for skill not generally needed and diffi- 
 cult of attainment should be reserved for later study and for 
 especially gifted pupils. 
 
 Certain features of modern language work may be eliminated 
 at once from the list of reasonable aims for the pupil who 
 expects to drop his language study early, either because he 
 must leave school or because his individual powers or lack of 
 power make it advantageous for him to use his time in other
 
 146 STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN 
 
 ways. Such a pupil can expect neither to read nor to speak 
 the language; a mere parrot-like knowledge that a German 
 calls " die Tlir," and a Frenchman " la porte," a thing known 
 to the pupil as " the door," is likely to be soon forgotten and 
 to have no value either " practical " or educational. He can- 
 not hope to gain either skill or power in most phases of the 
 subject, and for him we must choose work in which the field is 
 so restricted that diligent study for even a short time may 
 secure some satisfactory achievement, and in which the train- 
 ing received will extend to other interests and develop the 
 child along lines not directly connected with the language 
 itself. Yet this work must also be profitable for those who 
 expect to go farther, and must therefore be a good foundation 
 for future advanced work. 
 
 Three aims of modern language instruction seem to meet 
 perfectly these requirements, which at first appear so hard to 
 reconcile. They are : 
 
 (1) To secure a reasonable degree of phonetic accuracy and 
 lead the pupil to feel its importance. 
 
 For the child, speech has been a more or less unconscious 
 process. With the study of a foreign language he should dis- 
 cover the necessity of making sounds and their formation the 
 object of careful attention. He should gain thereby a conscious 
 control of his speech organs ; should develop his power to use 
 them as he wills; should learn to feel the significance of 
 sound distinctions, and to enunciate clearly whenever he 
 speaks. The slovenly mumbling that so often passes for 
 English speech sufficiently emphasizes the need of this. 
 
 (2) To teach precision in the use of words and to give a 
 clear understanding of grammatical relations and of the com- 
 mon terms which state them, showing why such terms are 
 necessary. 
 
 The child's own language has been so much a part of his 
 very being that it is extremely difficult for him to look upon it 
 as a proper object of study. The normal child feels competent.
 
 OF THE COMMITTEE ON MODERN LANGUAGES. 147 
 
 without any rules, to speak in a perfectly satisfactory way. 
 And ii well born and reared he ought to be. To learn to em- 
 ploy the terms of grammar seems to him a most unnecessary 
 and foolish thing. After reading or hearing that John struck 
 James, he gains no further information by being told that 
 John is the subject of the sentence ; and he cannot conceive 
 of any human being so stupid that he must be told that John 
 is the subject, before knowing which boy struck the other. 
 When he knows offhand how words go together, why should he 
 learn strange, odd-sounding terms to explain relations which to 
 him need no explanation? That is the puzzling mystery 
 which very often befogs the boy who " can't understand gram- 
 mar." He is confused by the attempt to explain to him by 
 mysterious vocables what seems perfectly clear without any 
 explanation. In the case of a foreign language, the child 
 comes easily to see the need and the use of grammar, if from 
 the beginning it is made, what it should be, the handmaid of 
 the text. 
 
 Vagueness of the thought associated with a word is even 
 more common than faulty enunciation. The study of the 
 foreign language shows the importance of knowing the exact 
 meaning of words and of using them with care. 
 
 (3) To stimulate the pupil's interest in the foreign nation, 
 leading him to perceive that the strange sounds are but new 
 ways of communicating thoughts quite like his own ; showing 
 him by the close resemblances in words and viewpoints that 
 the German and the Frenchman are his kinsmen, with in- 
 terests, ambitions, and hopes like his own ; revealing to him 
 that their tales can give him pleasure, their wisdom can en- 
 lighten him. 
 
 For every sort of pupil this work can be made profitable, 
 and in most cases entertaining. Affording an excellent founda- 
 tion for future study, it is valuable alike for the pupil who 
 drops out early in the course and for him who is to make a 
 specialty of language work. These aims, moreover, do not
 
 148 STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN 
 
 imply the completion of any definite amount of work before 
 the child can profit by what he learns, nor do they require the 
 application of any particular method. While keeping them 
 constantly in mind, we may stress the substantive with the 
 "natural" and the "picture and object" schools, or we may 
 attack the verb first with the followers of Gouin and the " psy- 
 chological " method. The same ends may be sought with a 
 class that can rapidly acquire a large vocabulary and attain a 
 considerable command of inflectional forms and with a class of 
 immature beginners whose progress must be slow. The closest 
 application to these aims is compatible with a very great 
 variety in details of method. 
 
 The end of the first year should be marked bj the elimina- 
 tion of those who are unprepared to continue modern language 
 study in a somewhat serious and determined way. The most 
 moderate achievement in learning a foreign language implies 
 persistent application to tasks not wholly pleasant, alertness of 
 mind and retentiveness of memory, the building of a unified 
 structure, each part of which must rest on previous work well 
 done. In a modern language such achievement must include 
 at least the power to read an ordinary book rapidly, intelli- 
 gently, and without too frequent recourse to the dictionary. 
 Attainment short of this is practically useless, and the pupil 
 who is not to reach this stage had better drop his French or 
 German at the end of the first year and use his time for other 
 things. In a well-rounded course, satisfactory achievement 
 should include also the ability to understand the foreign lan- 
 guage, when spoken distinctly, and the ability to express simple 
 thought orally or in writing. In general, after the preliminary 
 year, two years of further study will be needed for acceptable 
 results. 
 
 In his fourth year of study, the high school pupil is mature 
 enough and should have had experience enough in dealing with 
 abstract notions to profit by a somewhat careful consideration 
 of the fundamental principles of grammar and composition, as
 
 OF THE COMMITTEE ON MODERN LANGUAGES. 149 
 
 illustrated in both the foreign language and his own. Atten- 
 tion may be called to the literary quality of the texts read, and 
 the development of an appreciation of good literature and of 
 a taste therefor is a proper aim of general value. 
 
 The texts of the fourth year may be chosen to give particu- 
 lar power in the rapid reading of special material: commercial 
 texts and business correspondence for the pupil who expects 
 to enter commercial life ; scientific French or German for him 
 who expects to go to a technical school. In general, however, 
 the work will be merely a continuation and extension of that of 
 the preceding two years, introducing more difficult texts and 
 more rapid reading; adopting a more scholarly and critical 
 attitude toward questions of grammar and style ; making the 
 foreign language largely, perhaps almost entirely, the language 
 of the class ; demanding more initiative and a larger independ- 
 ence on the part of the pupil, yet being ever mindful of 
 Goethe's line, " Bedenkt ihr habet weiches Holz zu spalten." 
 
 In seeking to attain the special ends for which any subject 
 is peculiarly well adapted, the real teacher will ever bear in 
 mind those general aims that are indispensable in all teaching 
 that is worthy to be called education. Habits of industry, 
 concentration, accurate observation, intelligent discrimination, 
 systematic arrangement and presentation, careful memorizing, 
 independent thinking, so far outweigh the advantages gained 
 merely by knowing something about a particular topic that 
 they are perhaps too generally assumed to be universal, and, 
 like the air we breathe or the water we drink, are sometimes 
 forgotten or neglected. The personality of the teacher and 
 the manner in which he works, rather than the subject he 
 teaches or the method he uses, will make for those elements 
 which, after all, are the great objects of secondary education, 
 the business of which is indeed to impart knowledge that is 
 likely to be useful, but far more to develop in the child those 
 tastes, powers, and habits that fit for happy, efficient living.
 
 150 STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN 
 
 II, METHOD. 
 
 Only one reasonable explanation can be given for the per- 
 sistency of the conflict among different methods of teaching 
 foreign languages. It is that each method which has won any 
 considerable favor has in it elements of good, and has secured 
 results which seemed desirable to those who used the method ; 
 indeed, we may perhaps go farther and say that the worst of a 
 dozen methods, employed by a strong teacher with underlying 
 purpose well in mind, will give a more valuable training and 
 better results than any method when employed by an inferior 
 teacher. It is probable, too, that one method is better than 
 another for doing some things, but less effective in securing a 
 different end or ends, so that the aim which seems most im- 
 portant will determine the method to use in a particular case. 
 Doubtless, too, the equipment of certain teachers makes it 
 possible for them to work best with a method which a different 
 teacher would not wisely choose. Instead, then, of trying to 
 lay out in detail the " best method," we should consider various 
 methods that have been found good, endeavor to see wherein 
 their merit lies, and to decide what method seems especially 
 well suited to various conditions and to different types of 
 classes or teachers. In the Report of the Committee of Twelve 
 of the Modern Language Association of America (D. C. Heath 
 & Co.), Section III, entitled " A critical review of methods of 
 teaching," has well outlined the chief methods and their char- 
 acteristic features ; and we shall assume that the reader is 
 familiar with that report, which has been the guide and stand- 
 ard of modern language instruction in the United States. It 
 is thought, however, that improved conditions make it now 
 possible to take a somewhat more advanced position than was 
 advisable in 1898. 
 
 Methods may be classified as " direct," which seek to elim- 
 inate the mother tongue, endeavoring from the beginning to 
 associate directly the thought and the foreign expression; and
 
 OP THE COMMITTEE ON MODERN LANGUAGES. 151 
 
 " indirect," that base their work on the child's knowledge of 
 his own language and depend largely on preliminary gram- 
 matical instruction, translation, and explanation in the vernac- 
 ular. Few advocates of direct methods are now so extreme as 
 to reject all use of the mother tongue; nor would any good 
 teacher who uses in general an indirect method fail to employ 
 many devices for getting direct association of thought and the 
 foreign speech. The grammatical and the reading methods 
 may be called indirect ; the phonetic, which has grown into 
 the "new'' or "reform" (often now spoken of as "the direct " 
 method), the Gouin or psychological, and the natural, Heness- 
 Sauveur or Berlitz methods, may be called direct. A hard and 
 fast line could scarcely be drawn, however. Some teachers 
 who begin with a grammatical or a reading method use the 
 foreign language largely in their later work, while many of 
 the best exponents of the reform or of the Gouin methods do 
 not hesitate to employ the mother tongue freely at first in 
 stimulating the pupil to the thought desired. 
 
 As aims suitable for the first year, we have mentioned 
 phonetic accuracy, grammatical comprehension, and interest 
 in the foreign nation. To secure the first, a very large amount 
 of oral drill is essential. It is necessary, moreover, that this 
 drill aim at accuracy and not at the slipshod approximations 
 that make the results of some attempts to use a direct method 
 as unsatisfactory from a phonetic as from a grammatical stand- 
 point. As pupils grow older and their imitative faculties 
 become less acute, more attention must be given to the vocal 
 organs and to the theory of sound formation ; the relations of 
 sounds and the distinctions between them must be more care- 
 fully explained, and a larger amount of phonetic drill is 
 required. Neglect of this is fatal. The unfortunates who are 
 allowed to become fluent in ill-pronounced French or German 
 never recover ; their sound perceptions are blurred, instead of 
 being educated; the only compensation is that they themselves 
 are mercifully unconscious of the suffering which their vocal
 
 152 STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN 
 
 atrocities inflict upon others. The man trained by the gram- 
 matical method usually knows that he cannot pronounce, and 
 so does not attempt it ; the badly trained victim of a superficial 
 conversational method flays complacently the unhappy lan- 
 guage. A teacher who cannot pronounce well, but is, unfortu- 
 nately, compelled to teach, does less harm, therefore, by 
 omitting pronunciation as completely as possible than by 
 teaching a pronunciation that is a bad habit likely to persist. 
 Good teaching, however, implies a well-equipped teacher, and 
 a good pronunciation is fundamental. 
 
 The care with which pronunciation is taught should extend 
 to the English as well as to the French or German; the im- 
 mediate result of the work will be well-spoken French or 
 German, but the educational value in a wider sense should be 
 an appreciation of the beauty of clearly enunciated, distinct 
 speech in general, the habit of noticing sounds and inflections, 
 and a desire to speak well. 
 
 For teaching pronunciation, some prefer phonetic texts, but 
 a majority of our best teachers do not feel this to be necessary. 
 Some would use them for French, but not for German or 
 Spanish. Nothing like a course in phonetics should be at- 
 tempted in teaching a foreign language in a high school, but, 
 where mere imitation fails, a teacher with phonetic training 
 can at times give briefly helpful directions for making certain 
 sounds and for appreciating sound distinctions. There should 
 be much distinct speaking by the teacher ; repetition in unison 
 and singly by the pupils ; unwearying drill until the sounds 
 are right and the swing of the word group well imitated. 
 Most important are the vowels ; consonants are more easily 
 acquired. Separate sounds, syllables, words, and phrases must 
 all be practised. In time the foreign idiom should become the 
 usual language of the class, and even seem a natural means of 
 communication between teacher and pupil outside the class. 
 
 With the aim of accurate pronunciation always in mind, the 
 particular material treated is relatively unimportant. As
 
 OP THE COMMITTEE ON MODERN LANGUAGES. 153 
 
 speedily and completely as possible, thought and sound should 
 be directly joined, but whether the stimulus to the thought 
 should be primarily an object, a gesture, a picture, or a book, 
 is a question that may well be left to the discretion of the 
 teacher. The best practice is probably to employ, as far as 
 time allows, every available means, separately and in combina- 
 tion, to impress permanently and together thought and sound, 
 written sign and muscular movement. Ear and eye, tongue 
 and hand, should be in constant interaction with the busy 
 brain, each exciting and aiding the others. Undoubtedly a 
 normal spelling makes for a wrong pronunciation no less in the 
 foreign language than in our own, but until men adopt every- 
 where a phonetic alphabet and spelling we shall be obliged to 
 associate words as sounded with their signs as normally printed 
 or written, and it is a fair question when this association shoidd 
 begin. In teaching a foreign language, the sound should cer- 
 tainly come first ; it should be practised and repeated in con- 
 nection with the thought until it is likely to be remembered, 
 and then only is it safe to associate the word with the conven- 
 tional spelling. 
 
 Whatever be the method employed, grammatical compre- 
 hension is demanded as soon as the words are grouped so as to 
 express real thought. Fundamental concepts of action and 
 actor, subject and object of a verb, adjectival and adverbial 
 modifiers, the connectives of speech, various modes and times 
 of action, etc., must be brought out with a clearness that in a 
 child's mind is often absent, dormant, or vague in connection 
 with the mother tongue. That inflectional forms are often 
 necessary to express these varying concepts is not infrequently 
 a discovery for the pupil, and the fact should give the concepts 
 greater definiteness and importance in his mind. In the real 
 education of the boy, clarifying and classifying these concepts 
 and getting him to regard language objectively and to appre- 
 ciate to some extent its mechanism, is far more important than 
 the mere acquisition of a foreign tongue. So from the begin-
 
 154 STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN 
 
 ning, sentence structure should be so presented that the ele- 
 ments of the word group stand out in their proper relations, 
 and that the inflectional forms carry with them a comprehen- 
 sion of those relations. Whatever be the method, the word 
 groups presented should be simple enough to insure correct 
 understanding of grammatical relations (syntax), progress 
 should be sufiiciently slow for the pupil to fix one form before 
 others are introduced, and abundant swift illustrations, chiefly 
 oral, each as short as possible, should spike together correct 
 pronunciation and correct feeling for inflectional forms. Here, 
 too, effective work must at the same time build a firm founda- 
 tion for the new language and develop an appreciation of gen- 
 eral speech-truths that will make the course profitable for him 
 who drops out of the class as well as for him who continues 
 therein. In arithmetic abstruse problems have no proper place 
 with beginners ; so, in language study, simple sentences with 
 limited vocabulary and frequent repetitions should furnish the 
 material for the first year. Long, complicated sentences, like 
 puzzle problems, are an entertaining and perhaps profitable 
 exercise for those who have a taste for them ; but it is certain 
 that we rarely have to deal with such problems, and, if a pupil 
 is not naturally clever in solving them, forcing him to attempt 
 them involves a most unprofitable expenditure of time and 
 energy. 
 
 Among general truths of language, the importance of word 
 order and the great significance of the pause, with its effect on 
 what immediately precedes or follows, need to be especially 
 studied by the pupil and in some cases, perhaps, pondered long 
 and carefully by the teacher. 
 
 III. MATERIAL. 
 
 There exists a very wide difference of opinion as to the choice 
 of material to be used with beginners. Aside from classes that 
 for the first year study the grammar only — may their number 
 ever grow less — the texts used may be roughly classified as ; 
 
 I
 
 OF THE COMMITTEE ON MODERN LANGUAGES. 155 
 
 (1) Conversation manuals, based on daily life, foreign travel, 
 etc. 
 
 (2) Selections from historical or scientific readings, regarded 
 as having intrinsic value. 
 
 (3) Fiction, fairy tales, etc., regarded as having little in- 
 trinsic value, but suited to interest and attract the pupil. 
 
 (4) Texts of literary reputation, as Tdemaqiie. 
 
 However varying tastes and circumstances may influence the 
 decision among these groups, it is reasonable to assume that 
 the nation whose history, literature, or commercial importance 
 makes its language worth studying should have elements of 
 interest for every intelligent person, and that arousing this 
 interest must play an important part both in opening a field of 
 wholesome enjoyment and in stimulating a desire to continue 
 the subject gladly and diligently. Since beginners cannot be 
 expected to have enough comprehension of a new language to 
 appreciate literary style, and since high school freshmen ought 
 not to have had experiences that fit them really to feel great 
 literature, most texts of literary reputation should be absolutely 
 eliminated from first-year work. In choosing from the other 
 three groups, phonetic and grammatical ends seem to be as 
 well served by one as by another. The choice may therefore 
 depend on our third aim — arousing an interest in the foreign 
 nation. For this aim, scientific reading must be of the sim- 
 plest type, dealing with such topics as the geography or the 
 inventions of the nation ; historical selections must be equally 
 simple and should deal with the popular features of the nation's 
 history ; and with most pupils this material can be used only 
 sparingly without loss of interest. Some pupils look with 
 scorn upon the fairy tale as beneath their dignity. This atti- 
 tude is often merely a pose, and the folk tale especially has 
 qualities of human interest that, when set off by local color, 
 rarely fail to attract old as well as young readers. Fiction ex- 
 clusively, however, is apt to create an impression that the work 
 is not of a serious nature.
 
 156 STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN 
 
 There remains the field of realien, real things about the actual 
 life of the people, and it is probably wise to draw upon this 
 source for most of the material for the first year, as it combines 
 the advantages of general interest with a feeling that what is 
 read is of a real and substantial nature. An ideal text for the 
 first year might then be described as one that, constantly em- 
 ploying the simplest expressions and constructions, gives at- 
 tractive glimpses of the common life and scenes in the foreign 
 land, with bits of its history, natural features, inventions, and 
 folklore. The "guidebook" type must, however, be avoided 
 as uninteresting to the large number of our pupils who expect 
 never to travel abroad. 
 
 IV. DETAILS OF PROCEDURE. 
 
 Having agreed that our first aims should be phonetic train- 
 ing, grammatical comprehension, and interest in the foreign 
 nation, and that our text should treat largely of the life of the 
 people and be of the simplest type, we come next to the ques- 
 tion of details in the treatment of this material. Experience 
 indicates that in this respect no universal agreement can be 
 secured, but certain general principles of procedure may 
 be suggested and certain dangers of common practice may be 
 pointed out. 
 
 First, the time devoted at the beginning to learning accu- 
 rately the sounds of the new language is usually quite insuf- 
 ficient. It would be advantageous if an arrangement could be 
 made by which for several weeks no home study would be as- 
 signed in a foreign language, allowing teachers of other subjects 
 to utilize that time in exchange for class-room time. In this 
 way all work done in the new language might be done in class 
 and under the direction of the teacher. If home lessons must 
 be assigned during those first few weeks, they should be such 
 as to involve the least possible danger of fixing wrong speech 
 habits. The use of phonetic script probably makes it possible 
 to assign home work with less danger of associating wrong
 
 OF THE COMMITTEE ON MODERN LANGUAGES. 157 
 
 sounds with the normal spelling. If it is not thought wise to 
 use the phonetic script, keep the vocabulary small, repeat the 
 same words again and again with all the variety of simple, real 
 uses that the ingenuity of the teacher can discover ; let home 
 work include nothing that has not been exhaustively worked 
 over in class. Much copying of text and writing out at home 
 the most useful inflections of a very large number of words will 
 fill up the time out of class that some teachers feel obliged to 
 demand lest pupils get at first the unfortunate impression that 
 the new study is a "cinch." This copying of text, varied as 
 soon as possible by changes of person, number, tense, etc., is a 
 good introduction to the writing from dictation which should 
 be soon begun and diligently practised. 
 
 Many fierce battles have been waged over the question of 
 translation. It is probable that translation cannot possibly be 
 avoided in the earlier stages of study. A child cannot see a 
 familiar object without having the name by which he has known 
 it flash instantly into his mind. A thought is bound to seek 
 expression in the language with which similar thoughts have 
 been most closely associated, and, once formulated in this lan- 
 guage, subsequent expressions of that thought will be more or 
 less a translation. As it is always best to face facts as they 
 are and to reckon with them, no matter how displeasing they 
 may be, the wise procedure here is probably to attack transla- 
 tion early and try to teach pupils how a translation ought to 
 be made, passing from one language to thought, and from the 
 thought to its expression in the second language. Left to 
 himself, a pupil will certainly translate, and he is equally 
 certain to do it wrongly, substituting English words for those 
 of the text, and then guessing the meaning from the English 
 (?) result. The two languages are the two slices of bread in 
 a linguistic sandwich, and they should always be separated 
 by a filling of meaty thought, so that the words of each lan- 
 guage are in direct contact with the thought and not with each 
 other. This insistence on joining thought and sound should
 
 158 STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN 
 
 apply as well to all use of the mother tongue, and failure in 
 this respect accounts for many of the stupid utterances so com- 
 mon in our class-rooms. 
 
 Using a vocabulary should mean more than merely finding 
 an English substitute for the foreign word. The second and 
 most important part of the process is visualizing or otherwise 
 securing a clear and definite concept of what is meant, then as- 
 sociating permanently this concept, and not the English word 
 with the foreign word. If this association of concept and 
 foreign word can be secured as swiftly and certainly without 
 the intervention of English, the English, of course, is super- 
 fluous; but, if English is the quickest and most convenient 
 means of securing this association, there seems to be no valid 
 reason for depriving ourselves of its aid. Only, with or with- 
 out English, we must not fail to attain as our result a 
 direct and accurate association of thought and the foreign 
 word. 
 
 Here the Gouin-Betis or psychological method differs widely 
 from the extreme types of " natural " methods, which, in the 
 attempt to create an atmosphere of foreign thought, rigor- 
 ously exclude all English. In teaching pendide, for instance, 
 Betis did not show the pupils a clock, neither was he satisfied 
 with merely saying " clock," but he cleverly used English to 
 lead the class to visualize various types of clock known as 
 pendule, and left them with a clear and abiding knowledge of 
 the word. So, in a class of beginners, Walter, who has 
 adopted many of Gouin's suggestions, uses the mother tongue 
 freely in asssociating clear and correct concepts with the new 
 word he is teaching. If then we finally get the direct associa- 
 tion which we desire, we see that the question whether Eng- 
 lish is or is not excluded becomes an unessential detail of 
 procedure and is largely a matter of economy of time. When 
 the pupil's equipment fits him to understand an explanation 
 in French as well as one in English, use the French, for with 
 equal thought content an hour of French alone is better prac-
 
 I 
 
 OF THE COMMITTEE ON MODERN LANGUAGES. 159 
 
 tice in learning French than an hour half French and half 
 English. 
 
 Reference to the Gouin and the natural methods suggests 
 another wide difference between them, in which the truth lies 
 with neither extreme. For Gouin, the verb and the verb series 
 are the soul of speech ; for the natural methods, all revolves 
 about the substantive, the tangible thing, that can be seen and 
 shown in connection with the new word presented. In truth, 
 verb and noun must go hand in hand, for an actor without 
 action is as sterile as an action without an actor is unthinka- 
 ble. In any concrete example, word order and the construction 
 of the sentence will show which is the more important in the 
 mind of the speaker and which must be emphasized as the 
 better key to his meaning. 
 
 Among other processes that are commonly employed, we 
 may mention grammatical study, reading aloud, writing from 
 dictation, conversation, translation from and into the foreign 
 language (version and theme), reproduction orally or in writ- 
 ing, paraphrasing, composition based on the text, and free 
 composition. It is not intended to say what processes should 
 be used or how they should be combined by any teacher, 
 but the following suggestions are offered for making as 
 effective as possible whatever work the teacher may decide to 
 undertake. 
 
 Grammar can be regarded as an end by the philologist only. 
 For all pupils in a secondary school it must be the handmaid 
 of the text and must be regarded as existing solely in order to 
 make clearer the language which it serves. The need of a 
 rule and its application should be apparent to the pupil before 
 he is required to learn the rule ; words should be seen in use 
 with a context before they are classified and memorized ; the 
 force of an inflection should be made plain from its use in a 
 word group before the pupil is asked to inflect the paradigm ; 
 and in the unceasing repetition necessary to fix inflectional 
 forms care should be taken that they are never parrot-like
 
 160 STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN 
 
 repetitions, devoid of thought. Make the text the centre of 
 all instruction ; base upon it grammar, conversation, and com- 
 position; and the grammatical knowledge derived from the 
 text as a model will be applied intelligently in written and 
 oral expression. 
 
 Reading aloud — now too much neglected in the mother 
 tongue — should be a favorite exercise. With large classes no 
 drill is so effective in teaching pronunciation as reading in 
 unison after the teacher. In later work intelligent reading 
 aloud is helpful in fixing the foreign language in the memory ; 
 it may take the place of translation where the simple character 
 of the text and the manner of reading give sufficient evidence 
 that the meaning is clear; and the practice is enjoyable and 
 useful to those who form the habit of reading aloud in their 
 own study. 
 
 Writing from dictation has always been much employed in 
 French schools for French children learning their own lan- 
 guage, and it is much to be commended. While less difficult 
 than reproduction or paraphrasing, it is an admirable test of 
 the care with which a passage has been studied, and the dicta- 
 tion of unseen passages is an excellent criterion of the pupil's 
 ability to understand the spoken language. Dictation may 
 begin early in the course, and until the very end it will be 
 found useful both as a test and as training. 
 
 Conversation has been alternately praised and condemned. 
 Some regard it as enlivening, stimulating, and instructive — 
 the most enjoyable and profitable of all exercises. To others 
 it is futile, inane, productive of no valuable results, and terri- 
 bly wasteful of time. It seems clear that not all teachers and 
 not all classes can use conversation to good advantage in high 
 school work. The teacher must be inspiring and perfectly at 
 home in the language ; the class must be alert, responsive, and 
 homogeneous ; the work must be systematically planned and 
 followed out swiftly and directly to a definite end. Otherwise 
 tlie time can be spent better in other ways. With large
 
 I 
 
 OF THE COMMITTEE ON MODERN LANGUAGES. 161 
 
 classes the necessary conditions rarely obtain, and unfortu- 
 nately most high school classes are too large for the best work. 
 Although conversation as a formal class exercise is apt to be a 
 failure, there is no class in which a competent teacher will not 
 find many opportunities to converse easily in the foreign lan- 
 guage, now giving a simple explanation, now asking a question 
 and getting an easy answer, all so naturally that no one seems 
 aware that the foreign language is used. The more of this the 
 better. Conversation of this kind is the straight road to 
 effective possession of a language ; neither strained nor forced, 
 it is good work. 
 
 Translation, too, has its warm friends and its bitt^v enemies. 
 Reformers have worked as hard to drive it out jt the class as 
 they have done to drag conversation in ; bu''^ theme and ver- 
 sion are still neither dead nor moribund, ^^nd there is no pros- 
 pect that an exercise which has maircained itself since the 
 beginning of language study is going to vanish in the next 
 generation or two. The difficulty is that the meat in the 
 sandwich has a tendency to drrp out and leave only the bare 
 bread — voces et inter eas nihil — in other words, that transla- 
 tion comes to be a mechanicrJ substitution of the words of one 
 language for the words of ?nother, with little or no thought in 
 the process, while translation ought to mean the study of a 
 passage until its though u is clearly apprehended, and then an 
 effort to put that exaot thought into the other language with 
 all the force and beauty that our command of the second 
 language makes possible. This, of course, is translation of 
 the ideal sort, bi'.t it is the kind of translation at which all 
 translation should aim, and the only kind which will con- 
 tribute effectively to a command of the foreign language and 
 an appreciatio'i of its qualities. With the other more com- 
 mon kind of translation, the pupil never reads French and 
 German, but only the shabby English into which he has more 
 or less correctly paraphrased the original ; he never writes 
 real French cr German, but only English with a foreign
 
 162 STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN 
 
 vocabulary. Such translation is rightly condemned as vicious 
 and demoralizing, a veritable hindrance to the learner; but 
 only the most vigorous and persistent efforts will keep the 
 beginner from translating in just that way. Among helpful 
 devices for preventing it, we suggest oral translation of sen- 
 tences heard but not seen, the translation, with book closed, of 
 a sentence that the pupil has just read, or other ways for 
 avoiding the mot d, mot and securing a grasp of the word group 
 as a whole with a complete meaning. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " " So and so." " Then say that ! " 
 will sometimes get a real translation instead of the mon- 
 strosity iL?t has been first offered by the pupil. 
 
 Underlying all the discussion for and against translation is 
 the inevitable tc.it that not one student in a thousand can 
 expect to gain such control of a second language that he can 
 frame his thought in It as quickly and effectively as in his 
 own ; hence, whenever a thing is to him real and important, 
 he will think it through first in the vernacular, after which 
 any expression of the thought in a second language cannot 
 fail to be more or less consciou.sly and directly a translation. 
 The foreign correspondent must translate when he communi- 
 cates the information received from abroad ; he must translate 
 when he writes in a foreign language the instructions received 
 in English from his employer ; the eiigineer, the lawyer, the 
 physician, the scientist, the philosophei^ the author must all 
 translate when they proceed to use in their business the infor- 
 mation gleaned from foreign sources. Even the teacher must 
 translate when he tells his associates what our colleagues in 
 France or Germany say of the direct methods. The practical 
 thing, then, is to train the pupil to translate as he ought, and 
 to depend for his expression in the new language, not on dic- 
 tionary substitutes, but on the treasure of foreign words and 
 expressions which he has acquired and learned to associate 
 with their correct meaning. And the time to teach him this, 
 which is no easy thing to learn, is while he is learning the
 
 OF THE COMMITTEE ON MODERN LANGUAGES. 163 
 
 language, for practice in doing it must be long and careful if 
 it is to be successful. 
 
 In the give and take of conversation the rapidity of the 
 process often excludes translation, but there are comparatively 
 few who will ever converse enjoy ably in a foreign tongue, and 
 the long practice which is an essential condition will usually 
 bring with it the power. 
 
 To read and understand a foreign language without transla- 
 tion is much easier than to speak or write in it. Until, how- 
 ever, one can give in his own language a swift and accurate 
 rendering of what he has read, there is good reason to doubt 
 whether he has understood clearly and completely, or whether 
 he has been satisfied with the vague sort of semicomprehen- 
 sion which, if unchallenged, sometimes passes for understand- 
 ing when our pupils read the mother tongue. Inability to 
 translate rapidly and well must imply either failure to under- 
 stand clearly what has been read or else a poor command of 
 English. If the latter, the American boy or girl needs nothing 
 so much as just the kind of training in English which this 
 translation affords ; if the former, we need to try the pupil by 
 the test which most swiftly and certainly reveals the weak- 
 ness. Hence translation of the right sort, both from and into 
 the foreign language, must not be omitted from high school 
 courses. 
 
 On the other hand, the student must be trained to get 
 thought directly from the original, and instruction in the 
 foreign language is not intended primarily as instruction in 
 English. So the wise teacher will give but a portion of his 
 time to translation, and he will avoid too great use of spoken 
 English by having a considerable part of the translation which 
 he deems necessary written rather than oral. 
 
 The only safe use of a foreign language is that which imi- 
 tates the expressions of scholarly natives. Hence all work of 
 the learner must be based on good models, and the stages of 
 imitation seem to be : Exact reproduction; paraphrasing, with
 
 164 STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN 
 
 variations of persons, number, tense, etc., and substitution of 
 other suitable words for those of the text ; free reproduction 
 or composition based on the text and closely following it ; and 
 free composition. The last is the highest and most difficult 
 achievement, and it cannot wisely be attempted until the 
 learner has had ample experience with the forms of expres- 
 sion which the native uses in similar composition. Some ex- 
 cellent teachers refuse to attempt it before the fourth year of 
 the course. Premature attempts at free composition are as 
 bad for style as premature chattering is bad for good pronun- 
 ciation. Both result in fixing wrong notions and bad habits 
 which are very hard to overcome. It is better policy to make 
 haste slowly and to be sure that the proper foundation is laid 
 before we try to build upon it. 
 
 How far may we reasonably expect to go in the second and 
 third years of study ? Much will depend on how successful 
 we are in overcoming the aversion of parents and school boards 
 to the elimination of the incompetent at the end of the first 
 year, and this must be done on the ground that for those whom 
 we seek to eliminate further study of the foreign language is 
 less profitable than the same time spent studying something 
 in which they can get better results. If modern language 
 classes can thus be restricted to those who show a reasonable 
 fondness and aptitude for the study, by the end of the third 
 year the work accomplished should be about as set forth for 
 the intermediate course in the Report of the Committee of 
 Twelve. It is probable that most teachers will prefer to read 
 in class a somewhat smaller number of pages than is there 
 suggested. There is a strong belief that a small amount thor- 
 oughly prepared and carefully studied leaves a larger perma- 
 nent possession than is retained from reading hastily several 
 pages, and some would reduce the amount required to one-half 
 that specified by the committee of twelve. Others fear that 
 asking a smaller amount will mean more dawdling, less work, 
 and the same poor quality with only half the quantity. The
 
 k 
 
 OF THE COMMITTEE ON MODERN LANGUAGES. 165 
 
 solution seems to be a reasonable amount of honest work, at 
 times so concentrated as to permanently impress essentials 
 and at other times so distributed as to stimulate alertness, 
 develop the power of swift vision and rapid judgment, and 
 give opportunity for a fairly wide range of style and vocabu- 
 lary. In either ^type of lesson the teacher must have a clear 
 notion of just what he is working for, and he must devote him- 
 self to getting it. The Report of the Committee of Twelve 
 appeared about 15 years ago, and the improvement in the 
 equipment of teachers and in the methods commonly employed 
 at present should make it possible to insist more strongly upon 
 the oral side of the instruction. If this is effectively done, 
 the greater thoroughness of the treatment in class should more 
 than compensate for a reduced number of pages read. 
 
 For the fourth year we may add to our general aims such 
 special work in scientific or commercial subjects as may be 
 required by particular schools. As to the amount of work, it 
 is probable that the advanced courses outlined in the Report 
 of the Committee of Twelve are rather more than can be ex- 
 pected of even the best high schools in a four years' course. 
 
 In the fourth year the foreign language will be generally 
 used in class, and good pupils should develop considerable 
 facility of correct expression. Nevertheless, in French, for 
 instance, we, with our maximum of four years' (20 hours') 
 study, cannot hope for results equal to those attained by a 
 German oberrealschule with nine years (47 hours) or of a 
 realgymnasium, with seven years (29 hours) backed by nine 
 years of Latin. To-day the work of our best schools is at 
 least as good as the comparison of time allowances would lead 
 us to expect; and if we compare the probable utility of a 
 foreign language to the average American boy with its useful- 
 ness to his French or German cousin, his ratio of efficiency 
 would doubtless be greater than his ratio of need. That, how- 
 ever, is no answer to the demand that an American pupil who 
 wishes good instruction in a foreign language should be able to
 
 166 STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN 
 
 have as complete a course and do as good work as the French 
 or German pupil. The committee believes, however, that this 
 increased efficiency cannot come through an increased time 
 allowance in the present high school years ; nor can more be 
 expected than our best teachers are now doing with the time 
 and material at their disposal. Improvement must be sought, 
 first, from an increase in the number of well-equipped and 
 efficient teachers, and second, from an extension of the years 
 of modern language study downward to the age of 10, at 
 which time the boy abroad has begun it. 
 
 V. TEACHEKS AND TEXTS. 
 
 If the American public is about to insist on better work in 
 the field of modern languages, it must recognize that the first 
 essential is a body of well-prepared teachers, and that the 
 training of such teachers is long and expensive, including 
 foreign residence of at least a year in addition to the usual 
 equipment of an American teacher. Unless the schools will 
 pay a teacher of French or German enough more than they 
 pay a teacher of English or science or history or mathematics 
 to cover this initial expense, the colleges must so plan the 
 modern language work for those who intend to teach that the 
 youth on graduating may be as competent to teach French or 
 German as he is to teach the other subjects. Perhaps he is so 
 already ; but while neither he nor his pupils are likely to be 
 tested by the man in the street as to his knowledge of Latin 
 or physics or algebra, in this cosmopolitan age he cannot turn 
 a corner, enter a hotel or a street car without facing some well- 
 informed and pitiless critic who knows at once that his speech 
 is not that of Paris or Berlin. The critic may, indeed, be a 
 cook or a fiddler, but he hears with scorn our poor instructor's 
 attempts to speak French or German and is not reluctant to 
 express his derision. Nor will it do to hire the cook or the 
 fiddler to teach for us, for they have already shown too often 
 that they cannot meet the other requirements of our high
 
 OF THE COMMITTEE ON MODERN LANGUAGES. 167 
 
 schools. We must have a large number of American-born 
 teachers who know the foreign language too well to be ridic- 
 ulous when they attempt to speak it. As school boards are 
 likely to insist that a teacher is merely a teacher, worth so 
 many dollars a year, without reference to what he teaches or 
 what it cost to learn it, the colleges seem bound to face the 
 problem of meeting the demand for young people better fitted 
 to teach French, German, or Spanish. But just how they are 
 to do this is a problem for the colleges and not for this com- 
 mittee. 
 
 Section V of the Keport of the Committee of Twelve deals 
 with the study of modern languages in the grades below the 
 high school. We are in complete accord with the conclusions 
 of that report that the study of a foreign language in the 
 grades should be optional, restricted to those who will probably 
 continue it, and allowed only in small classes, with a daily 
 lesson, and with a competent teacher. But here we meet 
 the obstacles of precedent, which says that it has not been 
 done that way hitherto; of routine, which pleaxis that such 
 special arrangements would involve great trouble and incon- 
 venience to the schools ; and of expense, which asserts that 
 such teachers are hard to find, prefer high school service, and 
 could not be kept without a salary larger than that paid to 
 most other teachers in the same school. Possibly we might 
 add to these, administrative inability to understand the situa- 
 tion and grapple with it successfully ; for it is the task of an 
 expert, and few school boards or school superintendents are 
 modern language experts. 
 
 Here, too, we find ourselves in the vicious circle of insufii- 
 cient teachers, due to insufficient college training, due to in- 
 sufficient material, due to insufficient teachers, and so on round 
 again. The only way to break into such a circle is to break 
 into it wherever we strike it ; to demand that the cities at 
 once get some good modern language work done in the grades, 
 and pay a reasonable price for it; that the colleges at once
 
 168 STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN 
 
 give especial attention to training more competent teachers of 
 modern languages ; and that ill-equipped teachers get to work 
 in summer schools or take a Sabbatical year abroad, the cities 
 sharing this burden by granting them half pay on reasonable 
 conditions. 
 
 If many important points of modem language work are not 
 considered in this statement, it is because the Report of the 
 Committee of Twelve, made 15 years ago, was so scholarly and 
 so comprehensive that it would be a work of supererogation to 
 repeat, and evidence of presumption to attempt to improve 
 most that was said in that report. It is suflBcient to call atten- 
 tion to certain lines along which further constructive sugges- 
 tions seemed likely to be useful. 
 
 It has been stated that conditions have so changed in the 
 past 15 years that a list of desirable texts ought to be pub- 
 lished now, but the experience of the German teachers some 
 years ago in publishing a " kanon " of French and English 
 school texts showed the efficient performance of so great a 
 work to be far beyond the resources of this committee; and 
 with the many sources of information now available, it seemed 
 best to mention no specific texts. We venture only to suggest 
 that in choosing a text for any particular class, one should 
 consider : 
 
 The date of the text. For school work modern texts are 
 almost always preferable. 
 
 Its length. Long texts grow monotonous and give too little 
 variety of style and vocabulary. 
 
 Its national quality. It should be a distinctive product of 
 the race it depicts. 
 
 Its adaptation to the age, sex, and thought of the pupil. 
 
 Its informational content. "Without being dull, it should 
 give something worth remembering. 
 
 William B. Snow, Chairman. 
 English High School, 
 
 Boston, Mass.
 
 OF THE COMMITTEE ON MODERN LANGUAGES. 1G9 
 
 The other members of the committee on modern languages 
 axe as follows : 
 
 J. F. Broussard, University of Louisiana, Baton Rouge, La. 
 
 William H. Clifford, East Side High School, Denver, Colo. 
 
 Annie D. Dunster, William Penn High School, Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Charles H. Handsohin, Professor of German, Miami University, 
 Oxford, Ohio. 
 
 Joel Hathaway, High School of Commerce, Boston, Mass. 
 
 Frederick S. Hemry, Tome School, Port Deposit, Md. 
 
 Carl F. Kradse, Jamaica High School, Jamaica, N. Y. 
 
 Alexis F. Lange, Dean of the College of Faculties, University of 
 California, Berkeley, Cal. 
 
 Edward Manley, Englewood High School, Chicago, HI. 
 
 Alfred Nonnez, Walnut Hills High School, Cincinnati, Ohio. 
 
 WiLLLAH B. Fbice, State Department of Education, Albany, N. Y.
 
 ON THE USE OF THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN 
 THE CLASS-ROOM.^ . 
 
 BY PROFESSOR H. C. G. VON JAGEMANN, HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Questions connected with methods of teaching are largely 
 economic questions. Pedagogical theory may devise what 
 seems to be a thoroughly scientific method of teaching a 
 foreign language ; the teacher, however, is less concerned 
 with what, on general principles, ought to be done, than he is 
 with what he can do thoroughly well, with a given number 
 of pupils, of a given capacity, in a given time. The ideal 
 method of teaching is rarely practicable in the class-room, 
 owing to the great limitations of teaching-force and time ; 
 and he who would be a successful teacher must recognize 
 these limitations, must adapt his ideal method to the real 
 conditions, and must refrain from trying to do the things 
 which, from the nature of these conditions, cannot be done 
 satisfactorily. 
 
 The various reforms in the teaching of modern languages that 
 have been advocated time and again since Comenius, are only 
 in part applicable to the conditions ordinarily found in schools 
 and colleges. It seems, e.g., hardly necessary to point out that 
 for grown persons the " Natural Method " of learning a language, 
 i.e., the method by which children learn their mother tongue, 
 would be as unnatural as it would be for children to learn their 
 mother tongue from Webster's Dictionary ; while, on the other 
 hand, it is not at all certain that even little children might 
 not learn their mother tongue more rapidly if they received 
 
 1 A part of the material contained in this paper was printed in the Traniactioiu 
 of the Modern Language Association of America, vol. i. pp. 220 ff.
 
 172 ON THE USE OF THE 
 
 in it judicious and systematic instruction, adapted to their 
 age, instead of being left to " pick it up," with a great waste 
 of energy upon material of which they cannot yet make use. 
 But even in the improved, and hence to that extent no longer 
 " natural," form which this method has gradually taken in the 
 hands of some very skilful teachers, its most distinctive 
 features render it still unfit for use in ordinary college classes. 
 These distinctive features are : (1) all instruction is in the 
 first place oral ; and (2) the only medium of communication 
 permitted between teacher and pupil is the language to be 
 taught. 
 
 To make instruction oral to the extent which the Natural 
 Method requires is out of the question, because in college 
 classes progress depends very largely upon the amount of 
 home-study which the student can give to the subject, and 
 home-study is made very difficult when the instruction in 
 class is largely oral. To be sure, there are beginners' books 
 in the foreign idiom, but no one has as yet succeeded in writ- 
 ing a systematic text-book in a foreign language which a stu- 
 dent can use without frequently resorting to a dictionary or 
 vocabulary when the teacher is not at hand ; and that way of 
 finding out the meaning of a word is excluded by the strict 
 advocates of the Natural Method. How then is the student 
 to be employed in the two hours of home-study for each reci- 
 tation, the minimum ordinarily expected ? As long as diction- 
 aries and vocabularies are excluded, the Natural Method is 
 possible only in schools where recitations are frequent, and 
 where no work is expected of the pupil outside of the class- 
 room, excepting, perhaps, memorizing matter with which he 
 has been made thoroughly familiar in the class-room. Again, 
 purely oral work itself is very difficult, if not impossible, 
 with classes as large as are usually found in colleges. The 
 various " Schools of Languages " that have produced good 
 results with certain special varieties of the Natural Method, 
 insist upon very small classes, and do not generally burden
 
 I 
 
 FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN THE CLASS-ROOM. 173 
 
 the teacher with more than six pupils at a time. With classes 
 as small as that, oral instruction might be made more success- 
 ful in colleges and schools. 
 
 The second rule of the Natural Method, that the language 
 to be taught should be the only medium of communication 
 between teacher and pupil, deprives the student of one of the 
 most useful instruments for learning a foreign language, viz., 
 his mother tongue. Because a child, in trying to understand 
 a new word or a strange idiom, does not draw for aid upon a 
 foreign language which it does not understand at all, this is 
 not a good reason why a grown person in full possession of 
 one language should not make use of it for the purpose of 
 correctly classifying the material of any other language that 
 he may wish to acquire. It would seem distinctly unnatural 
 if he did not make use of it. In fact, it would be quite im- 
 possible. His ultimate aim, to be sure, should be to under- 
 stand and use the foreign language without the intervention 
 of his own, i.e., without translating ; but at first, and tem- 
 porarily, voluntarily or involuntarily, he will associate the 
 new word with the old, and not directly with the thing, until, 
 by continued practice, he learns, so to speak, to skip one of 
 the two mental processes, and learns to connect the new word 
 directly with 'the thing, and vice versa. The words of our 
 mother tongue are so firmly associated in our minds with the 
 things which they signify, that it requires a distinct and pro- 
 longed mental effort to displace them so much as to make room 
 for a new word. That this is natural and in accordance with 
 the laws of the human mind appears from the fact that even 
 within the territory of our native language it is difiicult for 
 us to learn a new word without associating it at first with one 
 with which we have previously been acquainted ; and even in 
 learning the name of a new thing, or of one for which we 
 have not known any special name, we are very much inclined 
 not to be satisfied with the new term, but we involuntarily 
 seek at least for a definition made up of words of our old
 
 174 ON THE USE OF THE 
 
 stock. It is doubtless well to make, from the very beginning, 
 systematic efforts to induce the student to connect the new 
 words with the things themselves, and not with the words of 
 his native language. But, on the other hand, there is no 
 economy of time or strength in persistently rejecting the 
 help which the student's native language offers, when we wish 
 to make clear to him the meaning of a new word or idiom, 
 especially as we cannot prevent the familiar native word from 
 coming up in the pupil's mind, as soon as he has caught the 
 drift of an often long and laborious, though perhaps success- 
 ful, definition in the foreign idiom. 
 
 While, therefore, we do not believe that the language to be 
 taught should form the only medium of communication be- 
 tween teacher and pupil, we are yet convinced that instruction 
 in modern languages in colleges and schools is rendered more 
 effective by making in the class-room as much use of the for- 
 eign idiom as the varying conditions of time, teaching-force, and 
 general and special advancement of the pupils will allow. In 
 order not to be misunderstood, however, we must state at once 
 that we do not regard the ability to speak the foreign language 
 as the chief object of its study in school or college. The 
 difference between two persons, both knowing German thor- 
 oughly well, but one of them speaking the language, while the 
 other does not, is simply this : the former has pronounced so 
 often the most common words of the language in their vari- 
 ous combinations with other words, that the mental process 
 of associating certain ideas with the German words, and the 
 subsequent reaction upon the speech-organs, has with him 
 become habitual and rapid, while with the latter person it is 
 unwonted and slow. Hence, the acquisition of a speaking 
 knowledge of a foreign language does not, in itself, imply any 
 increase in real knowledge or reasoning-power ; and it has, 
 therefore, no more claim to a place among serious college 
 studies than any other of the numerous practical applications 
 of scientific or artistic principles. The ground on which we
 
 FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN THE CLASS-ROOM. 175 
 
 wish to justify the use of the foreign language in the class- 
 room is not that it gives the student a speaking knowledge of 
 it, but that it leads to a more thorough general acquaintance 
 with the language, and a more intelligent appreciation of its 
 literature. 
 
 As we have stated above, the extent to which the foreign 
 idiom should be used in the class-room will depend on the 
 varying conditions of time, teaching-force, and general and 
 special advancement of the pupil. Any use of the foreign 
 idiom as a means of communication between teacher and pupil 
 requires intense mental application on both sides ; for this 
 reason, in elementary or second-year's classes, it can hardly be 
 recommended, unless the classes are smaller than they are in 
 most colleges. It is hoped that the time will come when 
 teachers of German will not be burdened with larger elemen- 
 tary classes than their colleagues in Greek now are ; then there 
 will be no longer any objection to the use of German in the 
 class-room on the ground of the size of the classes. Experience 
 shows that in beginners' classes not exceeding twenty-five, the 
 German language may to advantage be used from the very 
 start, even in teaching the elements of grammar. The meth- 
 od which we recommend is, briefly, the following : — 
 
 Teach the student, by any method you may choose, the use 
 of about fifty nouns, twenty -five adjectives, the numerals, a 
 few particles, and a few forms of the auxiliaries. A week 
 will amply suffice for this. The student will then be able to 
 understand a simple grammatical principle if stated in Ger- 
 man : — 
 
 Die deutsche Sprache hat zwei Declinationen. 
 
 Die erste Declination hat drei Klassen. 
 
 Die erste Klasse hat in der Mehrzahl keine Endung, etc. 
 
 These are sentences which the German student of a week or 
 two will understand as readily as though they were written 
 or spoken in English. Tlie statement and explanation, in
 
 176 ON THE USE OF THE 
 
 German, of grammatical principles is much easier than is 
 commonly supposed. It requires at first a little effort on the 
 part of the teacher, to couch his explanations in such plain 
 language as his students can understand. But this art may 
 soon be acquired. A calculation shows that the elements of 
 German can be taught according to any of the grammars com- 
 monly used, with the use of about eighty-five grammatical 
 terms, mostly, of course, of Latin extraction. If the German 
 language is to be used as a means of communication between 
 teacher and pupil, sixty-four of these terms, or about seventy- 
 five per cent, may be used in so slightly modified a form, that 
 the student will easily understand them the first time they 
 are used, and this without unduly resorting to Latinisms, 
 using merely the same terminology that is used in Germany 
 in all schools of a higher grade. In the case of twenty-three 
 words, or twenty-seven per cent, is the corresponding German 
 word of German origin preferable ; in only a few cases, like 
 " Ablaut " and " Umlaut," is it necessary to employ a purely 
 German word. Some teachers will find it more advantageous 
 to use as much as practicable a purely German terminology, 
 and there is no doubt a certain gain in teaching such terms as 
 " Hauptwort " and " Bindewort ; " but even in that case the 
 student will have to learn only forty-eight words which he 
 does not know, in slightly modified form, from English or 
 Latin Grammar, and most of them, like those cited above, are 
 of very transparent signification. Aside from these technical 
 terms, only the most common words which every student 
 should know, will be needed to make up an elementary Ger- 
 man grammar in German. As the time arrives for the stu- 
 dent to grapple with the more intricate laws of the language, 
 he will be able to understand the more difficult phraseology 
 needed to express them. And, we may add, if a teacher suc- 
 ceeds in couching a new grammatical principle in such lan- 
 guage as his pupils with close attention can understand, it 
 will make a greater impression upon them than an ordiuaiy 
 explanation in English.
 
 FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN THE CLASS-ROOM. 177 
 
 Little stress should at first be laid on translation from Eng- 
 lish into German. The method long used in Larousse's gram- 
 mars and lexicologies for the public schools of France is far 
 preferable ; and, besides, the place of translation into German 
 may be largely taken by the answers to grammatical and 
 lexicological questions which the pupil must give in German. 
 Nor should translation in class from German into English 
 receive as much time as it ordinarily does. Interpretation in 
 German should be largely substituted. The chief use of trans- 
 lating in class what the student has read at home, is to assure 
 the teacher that the student has understood the true meaning 
 of the text. If he can assure himself of this by way of asking 
 questions on the text in German, additional training for the 
 pupil is secured. How do teachers teach German in German 
 schools or English in English schools ? If the class read 
 such matter as at their stage of advancement they should read, 
 — and we are always inclined to give our students too diffi- 
 cult things to read, — the greater part of the text should be 
 readily understood by the student. There will be difficult 
 passages, and there should be ; but in the great majority of 
 cases the difficulty of a passage hinges upon the meaning or 
 syntactical relation of one or two words, and, with a sufficient 
 German grammatical vocabulary at his disposal, the teacher 
 can generally explain such meaning or relation without leav- 
 ing the territory of the German language. If this be done as 
 a rule, an occasional resorting to translation, if it be deemed 
 best, will do no harm. 
 
 This is, in outline, the method we should recommend. Let 
 us now turn to a consideration of the advantages it offers. 
 Everybody will agree that the ideal method of studying Ger- 
 man is to go to Germany, mingle with the people, read news- 
 papers, go to the theatre, and, last, but not least, place one's 
 self under an experienced teacher who has a thorough knowl- 
 edge of English and understands the student's difficulties and 
 can answer his questions. Under such conditions rapid prog-
 
 178 ON THE USE OF THE 
 
 ress and good results are inevitable. Now, what are the es- 
 sential features of these conditions, and to what extent may 
 they be reproduced in the class-room ? Is there anything 
 peculiar about the atmosphere of Germany that makes it easier 
 to learn German there than here ? Doubtless, to understand 
 a nation's literature, it is very desirable to see the country, 
 observe the habits, and study the character of the people, and 
 see as much as possible of their life in all its phases ; but in 
 order merely to learn the language, such direct contact with 
 country and people is of much less importance. The reason 
 why we make such rapid progress in a foreign language as 
 soon as we arrive in the country where it is spoken, is not so 
 much that we now study the language in its own home, but 
 rather that we have so many more opportunities to hear and 
 speak it. The difference between the training which we get 
 in the class-room by the ordinary methods and that which we 
 get in the foreign country is not necessarily one of kind, but 
 one of quantity. It is one of kind in so far as in the foreign 
 country we often have occasion to associate a new word or 
 idiom with some personal observation or experience, which 
 impresses it upon our minds ; but this naturally holds good 
 only of a limited part of the language-material, and, to a small 
 extent, this advantage may be secured even in ordinary class- 
 instruction. The most essential difference is, as we have said, 
 one of quantity, and this difference in quantity is enormous. 
 No method of teaching can make up for the advantages which 
 a stay in the foreign country offers ; but we contend that a 
 more extensive use of the foreign language in the class-room 
 can greatly reduce the disadvantages under which class-in- 
 struction at home ordinarily labors. 
 
 In the majority of institutions with which we are acquainted, 
 by far the greater part of the time devoted to German is given 
 to translation from German into English, and translation from 
 English into German. Neither exercise allows the student to 
 think in German for more than a few moments consecutively,
 
 FOKEIGN LANGUAGE IN THE CLASS-ROOM. 179 
 
 even if he tried, not to speak of its afEording him absolutely 
 no incentive to do so. Aside from the reading of the German 
 text, and even that is not always done, the student hears and 
 speaks nothing but English ; in other words, for about ten 
 minutes out of possible fifty, he learns German, the remaining 
 forty minutes he learns facts about German. On the other 
 hand, if, as above suggested, the instruction be carried on 
 entirely in German, the student will learn German for fifty 
 minutes. In addition to the study of the grammatical subject 
 under discussion, or of the text before him, he has all the 
 grammatical, lexicological, and literary comments in German. 
 We all know the value of a vast amount of easy reading for 
 the acquisition of a language. It seems a low estimate if we 
 consider the amount of German the student will hear in each 
 recitation over and above the text itself, equal to ten ordinary 
 pages of an easy text ; this would be equal to from one thou- 
 sand to two thousand pages a year, according to the number of 
 recitations. It seems evident that this must considerably in- 
 crease and strengthen the student's knowledge of the language. 
 As stated above, the reason of the rapid progress we make in a 
 foreign language as soon as we arrive in the country where it 
 is spoken, is simply that we continually hear the same forms, the 
 same words, the same combinations of words. If German is 
 spoken in the class-room, every sentence — whether spoken or 
 read — will be a drill in the noun and adjective declensions, 
 in the conjugation, in the government of prepositions, and in 
 the elementary rules for arrangement. We suppose, of course, 
 that the teacher is thorough, and that no faulty answer is ever 
 allowed to pass. 
 
 The difficulty about reading German at sight is not that the 
 necessary vocabulary is so large, but that the student is com- 
 monly brought face to face at once with too many of the rarer 
 words, and in his bewilderment he has no opportunity to become 
 thoroughly acquainted with the most common ones. And 
 any uncertainty as to the meaning of these common words
 
 IgO ON THE USE OF THE 
 
 which the student ought to know, and might know, will ma- 
 terially lessen his capacity for correctly guessing the meaning 
 of a rarer word occurring in the same passage. An examina- 
 tion of ten pages of Goethe's prose chosen at random shows 
 that the articles, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, auxil- 
 iaries, and the most common adverbs constitute no less than 
 fifty-eight per cent of his vocabulary. If the student has 
 these at his fingers' ends, together with a reasonable number 
 of nouns and adjectives, and the strong and most important 
 weak and irregular verbs, he will have an excellent hold on the 
 vocabulary of the language ; and certainly a method like the 
 one described will keep these fundamental terms sounding in 
 his ears until he is as familiar with them as with their English 
 equivalents. 
 
 One of the most fatal mistakes that teachers of modern 
 languages in colleges are liable to make is to hurry their 
 classes too much. The time allotted to their work is short 
 and their aims are high ; no wonder, they often give their stu- 
 dents too difl&cult work. It would be much better for the 
 student never to attempt to read a German classic in the origi- 
 nal, than to slur over the elements of German, and then spell 
 out or guess at Goethe's or Lessing's thoughts, or take frequent 
 tumbles from the noble flights of Schiller's language into the 
 regions of the adjective declension. German classics are not 
 proper reading-material for the first year. *' It is not know- 
 ing German to be able to work one's way through a foot-note 
 and just miss the point from not knowing the force of a modal 
 auxiliary." The use of German in the class-room will be 
 found a wholesome corrective of this evil. The teacher, 
 being obliged to make himself understood by his students, 
 will not present to them material for which they are as yet 
 unprepared. 
 
 Again, in this way, and only in this way, does the student 
 become acquainted with the spoken language. This is a matter 
 of no mean importance, and is well worth careful considera-
 
 FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN THE CLASS-EOOM. 181 
 
 tion ; but only a few points can be mentioned here. The lit- 
 erary language is to a certain extent a dead language ; the 
 spoken language, on the other hand, exhibits life, action, lin- 
 guistic tendencies. We believe in teaching in college the prin- 
 ciples of linguistic development, and these principles are better 
 illustrated by the spoken language than by the language of 
 literature. Moreover, a knowledge of the every-day speech of 
 a people is necessary for the intelligent appreciation of its 
 literature. The character of literary productions, of authors, 
 of schools of poetry, of entire periods of literature, is often 
 defined by their relation to the every-day speech of the people. 
 How, then, can we make students appreciate the character of 
 the works they are reading unless we give them the standard 
 of the every-day speech to measure by ? Can any one appre- 
 ciate the simple grandeur of the language of the English 
 Bible, or the loftiness of that of Milton, who does not know 
 how English-speaking people commonly express themselves ? 
 No one particular work, however perfect it may be, can ad- 
 equately reflect the character of a language or a literature ; on 
 the contrary, there is nothing more characteristic of a language 
 than the diversity of uses to which it can be put. The every- 
 day speech of the people seems to be the best starting-point 
 for the study of the various languages within a language, and 
 the most natural standard of comparison. 
 
 As we have already said, it would be impossible to use 
 German exclusively in very large first or second year 
 classes. But even in classes of forty or fifty a slight be- 
 ginning may be made. The least that may be expected 
 from the very beginning is that no sentence shall ever be 
 translated until the German has been read aloud. This 
 reading of the text, so far from delaying rapid progress, as 
 some teachers think, results ultimately in a great gain of 
 time. It is the only way students can ever be taught to com- 
 prehend the construction and meaning of a sentence at the 
 first glance, without translation into English. A compli-
 
 182 ON THE USE OF THE 
 
 cated construction often becomes clear as soon as the teacher 
 reads the sentence aloud with some expression. A great 
 amount of time is wasted in translating matter that really 
 offers no serious difficulties and might be readily understood 
 on the first careful reading of the text. Systematic efforts in 
 this direction from the very first, coupled with a careful 
 selection of sufficiently easy reading-material, will generally 
 enable the teacher to dispense with translation to some ex- 
 tent, even in classes too large to make any extensive use of 
 German for grammaticaland lexicological explanations possible. 
 Moreover, the reading aloud of German is necessary to make 
 the student familiar with the sound and rhythm of the lan- 
 guage, a familiarity that he must possess, if he would ever 
 understand lyric and dramatic poetry. All this would seem 
 to go without saying ; yet the writer knows of institutions 
 where, a few years ago, it was the custom to translate Heine's 
 poems into English, while the German text was never read. 
 Surely, students that cannot understand Heine's lyrics after 
 the simple reading of the text, and a few explanations, — either 
 in German or in English, as the teacher may deem best, — are 
 not yet ready to read Heine. 
 
 Under ordinarily favorable circumstances the student should, 
 by the beginning of the third year, have become so familiar 
 with the sound of the language and the ordinary vocabu- 
 lary, that he may begin to read the easier classics without 
 translating more than occasional passages of exceptional 
 difficulty. The time in class may then be devoted to inter- 
 pretation in German, and to the discussion of the poet's 
 life and works, likewise in German. We do not advocate 
 that the pupils should always speak German ; under ordi- 
 nary circumstances they cannot have had practice enough to 
 do this without serious loss of time. But the teacher should, 
 as a rule, speak German. Experience at Harvard and else- 
 where shows that where systematic efforts in this direction 
 are made, the results have been good. Toward the end of the
 
 FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN THE CLASS-ROOM. 183 
 
 year there will be very few things connected with an outline- 
 study of the classic writers of the eighteenth century that the 
 teacher cannot present to his students in G-erman. The advan- 
 tages are apparent. The greater part of the time that is com- 
 monly devoted to translation becomes available either for 
 additional reading, or for the discussion of things for which 
 there is usually no time, while the constant use of the lan- 
 guage in the class-room may very largely take the place of 
 special exercises in grammar and composition. Occasional 
 examinations, conducted at least partially in English, amply 
 suffice to control the progress of every member of the class 
 and enable the teacher to adapt his method of treating the 
 subject to the capacity and needs of his students. 
 
 Much has been said and written about the disciplinary 
 value of the study of modern languages, and about the neces- 
 sity of using certain methods of instruction to insure these 
 disciplinary advantages. It seems to us that here there is 
 danger of mistaking the means for the end. To regard a cer- 
 tain method of acquiring the new language rather than its 
 possession as insuring literary culture and scholarship, seems 
 to us a fundamental mistake, and one that cannot help exer- 
 cising a harmful influence on this important branch of instruc- 
 tion. To our mind, the man that knows three languages 
 thoroughly is an educated man to the extent to which the 
 study of three languages can make him such, whatever method 
 he may have pursued in their acquisition. Surely there is no 
 special virtue in learning paradigms or rules of syntax, except 
 as they help us to understand and use the language, or as a 
 means of cultivating the memory ; and for this latter purpose, 
 selections from the best prose and poetry would seem to have 
 the advantage in point of greater intrinsic value. On the 
 other hand, surely no one will deny that an accurate knowl- 
 edge of several languages, such as enables its possessor 
 to read Goethe and Victor Hugo intelligently, and to dis' 
 tinguish between the styles of different authors and the Ian*
 
 184 ON THE USE OF THE 
 
 guage of different periods, is evidence of high culture. It 
 should not be supposed that such a knowledge can ever be ac- 
 quired without the benefit of considerable mental discipline. 
 Under very favorable circumstances, as when a person has ac- 
 quired the elements of the foreign language when very young, 
 and has had constant opportunity to hear and speak it, the pro- 
 cess may have been a slow one and the discipline may not at 
 any time have been very severe, but the aggregate effect must 
 be the same ; just as a person that has always lived an active 
 out-door life is apt to have a sound and well-trained body, with- 
 out having ever gone through a regular course of "developing 
 exercises." The question which the world puts to the student 
 is not whether the method by which he learned German was 
 productive of mental discipline, but whether he knows Ger- 
 man. Nor is this way of putting the question confined to 
 those intensely practical people that have no sympathy with the 
 higher objects of liberal studies. A person that should claim 
 to be permeated with the spirit of Greek culture, but could not 
 read Homer or tell who Pericles was, would be ridiculed every- 
 where, and justly so. All discussions about lending any 
 special disciplinary value to the study of modern languages 
 by the use of certain methods of instruction seem to us sheer 
 waste of time. Let us teach the student German and French, 
 and not trouble ourselves about mental discipline ; that will 
 come of itself. If we give the student a sound, well-rounded 
 knowledge of these languages, his faculties will of necessity 
 be improved, and he will be better equipped for any profession 
 he may afterward enter. The only question for us to consider 
 is how to use the very limited time to the best advantage, so 
 that we may take the student to the farthest possible point on 
 the road toward a mastery of the tongue we profess to teach. 
 
 A word, however, should be added about the special claim 
 so commonly made that the greatest disciplinary advantages of 
 language-study are after all to be obtained from the exercise 
 of translating from one language into another, and especially
 
 FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN THE CLASS-KOOM. 185 
 
 from a foreign language into the student's vernacular. It has 
 been said that every study, whether of Greek, mathematics, 
 history, biology, or German should also be an exercise in 
 English. We are prepared to grant this, but only in one sense. 
 As far as the English language is used in the class-room, or in 
 any exercise connected with the work in hand, it should be 
 good and vigorous English. But the chief duty of the 
 teacher of German is, after all, to teach German, not English. 
 If he can incidentally contribute to the student's knowledge 
 of English, it is clearly within his function to do so; but 
 he will render English studies a greater service if he im- 
 proves his instruction in German in such a manner that 
 the student learns more in a given time and gains more 
 time for special work in English. Nor can the exercise of 
 translating from German into English be regarded as espe- 
 cially useful in the acquisition of a good English style. On 
 the contrary, for the same reasons for which we have above 
 recommended the discontinuance of translation into German 
 wherever the conditions render a better method possible, we 
 must also regard the exercise of translating from German or 
 any other foreign language into English as harmful rather 
 than useful as far as the acquisition of a good English style 
 is concerned ; harmful at least if carried to such an extent as 
 is ordinarily the case. The fact that there are so few really 
 good translations in any language is abundant proof that 
 translating is an exceedingly difficult thing, far too difficult 
 for the ordinary student — or teacher, for that matter — to 
 attempt, except in very small amounts and with very great care. 
 Frequent exercises in writing brief abstracts, in the student's 
 own language, without the book before him, would seem to 
 us much more useful in forming a good and vigorous English 
 Style, than a large amount of indifferent translating.
 
 COMMON SENSE IN TEACHING MODERN 
 LANGUAGES. 
 
 BY MR, E. H. BABBITT, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. 
 
 If I were to follow the plan of the old-time sermon-makers, 
 I should naturally speak on this subject under three heads : 
 (1) Common Sense, (2) Teaching, and (3) Modern Languages. 
 Under the first head, however, nobody can tell another person 
 anything, and under the second it is not likely that I can tell 
 you a great deal. Still, before I begin to talk on the subject 
 about which I hope I can tell you something, I wish to touch 
 upon the other two, in order to make clear my starting-point. 
 
 A few years ago I got from a man who seems to have been 
 more popular then than now, a sort of formula which has 
 been a very useful part of my mental furniture ever since, and 
 expresses as well as anything my conception of what common 
 sense means. I refer to the famous sentence, " It is a condi- 
 tion and not a theory which confronts us." In ninety-nine 
 out of a hundred of the problems of actual life, it is a condi- 
 tion and not a theory which confronts us ; and the man who 
 has common sense is the man who is very sparing of theories 
 till he is sure of all the conditions, and then applies to the 
 conditions, from all the theories he has on the subject, those 
 which rest on the most general and most nearly axiomatic 
 principles. 
 
 Every act of human effort has for its object the accomplish- 
 ment of some result by the application of certain means under 
 certain conditions. A state of things as it exists before the 
 act is to be changed into one more desirable. He is most suc- 
 
 18§
 
 TEACHING MODERN LANGUAGES. I8T 
 
 cessful who has the clearest understanding of what the exist- 
 ing state of things is, and of the state of things to be produced 
 by the change, and who has at his command all the means 
 which could be used to produce the desired result, and under- 
 stands their relations, and has common sense to apply them 
 in the right way and at the right time. 
 
 Now, as we turn to teaching, I mean as the intellectual pro- 
 cess of giving instruction, we can particularize our general 
 formula somewhat as follows : Given the sum total of the 
 pupil's knowledge already in store, his powers to perceive 
 and to do, his tendencies and habits ; required the possession 
 by the pupil of some specific additional knowledge or power ; 
 how shall we place before the mind of the pupil, in the form 
 most readily assimilated, the matter which he must add in 
 order to acquire what he wants ? 
 
 Good teaching is simply common sense applied to this prob- 
 lem. This means : Be sure you know what is in your pupil's 
 mind, and just what more you wish him to know or be able to 
 do, and then proceed step by step, in the most natural manner, 
 along the lines of least resistance, to get his mind to work to 
 acquire the desired facts or habits. 
 
 This problem, of course, varies enormously with the age 
 and intellectual advancement of the pupil. In childhood we 
 have to deal with a retentive memory and the ability to 
 acquire by unconscious imitation, without much exercise of 
 the reasoning faculty. From the eve of this period until 
 maturity the reason develops more and more, and direct mem- 
 ory and the imitative faculty go over into memory by associa- 
 tion and conscious attention to the processes of any art or 
 ability to be acquired. We have thus two fairly distinct 
 periods in which the general plan of instruction must be cor- 
 respondingly distinct. It would be absurd to attempt to make 
 the child apply reasoning powers which he possesses only in 
 a very rudimentary form, at the expense of the acquisition of 
 facts which is easy, natural, and attractive to him. On the
 
 188 COMMON SENSE IN 
 
 other hand, it is not only absurd, but highly dangerous for a 
 sound mental training, to overlook the unfolding reasoning 
 faculty, and go on cramming the mind with uncorrelated facts 
 after it is capable of seeing the relations of things. The aver- 
 age human being is none too logical as it is ; and after all it is 
 worth more to be able to reason correctly from a few facts, 
 than to know all the facts about a given matter without being 
 able to interpret them. The point cannot be too strongly 
 emphasized, that the main work of the educator who is con- 
 cerned with the adolescent mind, the educator whose province 
 is to give what is variously called a secondary, collegiate, or 
 liberal education, is to bring out the reasoning faculty, to 
 train the mind to think clearly and logically ; no other power 
 of the mind is of much use to a man without this. 
 
 This work of liberal education, or college work, which has 
 the training of the mind for its central point, as distinct on 
 the one hand from primary school work, which deals chiefly 
 in facts, and on the other hand from professional or technical 
 training, is, in this country, divided between the colleges and 
 the schools of the high school or preparatory school grade, 
 such as are represented by this Association. In speaking now 
 about modern language teaching, I wish to confine my atten- 
 tion chiefly to the work in these schools, and its relation to 
 the continuation of the subject in the college. There is a 
 great deal of modern language teaching outside of these 
 schools and colleges which is entirely legitimate and useful, 
 but needs to be discussed here only in order to call your 
 attention to some perfectly obvious distinctions which need to 
 be kept in mind if we are to use common sense in modern 
 language work. The conditions of work in modern language 
 teaching vary more than perhaps those of any other subject; 
 and there is a most exasperating ignorance of these conditions 
 on the part of the non-pedagogical public, which extends to 
 many patrons and trustees of our educational institutions, 
 sometimes even to their managers, in such a way as to throw
 
 TEACHING MODERN LANGUAGES. 189 
 
 discredit ou modern language teaching, and make it very 
 uphill work to reach the highest efficiency in it. The most 
 prevalent and pernicious error is a confusion of the different 
 purposes of modern language teaching. A modern language 
 may be used as the medium of the highest and most whole- 
 some mental discipline, or as the key to the broadest culture 
 and some of the most interesting chapters of human thought. 
 In this use it ranks with the other "humanities," — the classic 
 languages, history, and similar subjects. A modern language 
 may also be treated simply as a tool — something whose use 
 enables one to obtain information more nearly at first hand, or 
 to communicate with people who could not be reached with- 
 out it. In this use it may be compared with practical arith- 
 metic, book-keeping, or stenography. It may be studied with 
 an even less serious purpose — as a mere accomplishment, 
 like piano-playing or amateur painting. A modern language 
 may be taught with either of these ends in view to pupils of 
 any age, from the youngest child to the adult. Furthermore, 
 there are various direct results and various means of reach- 
 ing them which are of varying worth, according to the ulti- 
 mate end to be attained, and according to the age and mental 
 development of the pupil. 
 
 It is no wonder, then, that almost hopeless confusion on the 
 subject exists in the lay mind, and perhaps small wonder that 
 this confusion extends even among educators to quarters 
 where it is, to say the least, unexpected. 
 
 There are four lines of attainment to be distinguished in 
 the immediate objects of the study of a modern language, — 
 four arts, so to speak, through which must come all the ulti- 
 mate gains in the way of practical advantages or of mental 
 training which are sought. These four arts or abilities are : 
 To speak the language, to understand it when spoken, to read 
 it, and to write it. A person can acquire any one of these 
 arts without necessarily possessing the others ; though the first 
 two, which depend upon the education of the ear, and the last
 
 190 COMMON SEKSR IN 
 
 two, which depend upon that of the eye, go more or less to- 
 gether, and contrast thus in pairs according to the sense per- 
 ceptions involved. The idea of a person who speaks and 
 understands a language without being able to read or write 
 that language or any other is familiar enough ; and there are 
 very many persons who can read a language well enough for 
 all practical purposes without being able to understand the 
 simplest sentence spoken in it, or to speak or even write it 
 with any correctness. 
 
 There are probably very many more people who study a 
 modern language for the ability to speak it than for any other 
 purpose. Of these, again, the great majority have no very 
 serious purpose, but take French or German lessons as they 
 do piano lessons, to acquire what they consider a pleasing 
 accomplishment. Others have a practical end in view ; they 
 are going abroad, or they may come into business relations 
 with people who speak the language they are studying. Now, 
 speaking a language is an empirical art, quite comparable to 
 playing a musical instrument or to writing shorthand. The 
 acquisition of the art implies principally the training of cer- 
 tain sets of muscles to obey certain impulses from the brain. 
 To have the muscles trained to pronounce and use the words 
 of more than one language is quite parallel to being able to 
 play the same tune on more than one instrument, or to write 
 a sentence both in shorthand and in common script. I regard 
 all these little knacks as perfectly healthy and legitimate 
 occupations for the mind, and desirable in so far as they give 
 their possessor an additional source of pleasure or profit; and 
 if any of my children want to speak French or German, or 
 write shorthand, or play the banjo, I shall certainly encourage 
 them, so far as the accomplishment in question does not inter- 
 fere with more serious pursuits ; and, if I possess any of the 
 accomplishments myself, I will cheerfully teach them and 
 practise with them whenever I have time. 
 
 Nou', this practical accomplishment of speaking a language
 
 TEACHING MODERN LANGUAGES. 191 
 
 can, like all such practical accomplishments, best be acquired 
 by a great amount of practice in imitation of good models. 
 An ideal teacher to impart this accomplishment is accordingly 
 a person whose own speech is beyond question as a model, 
 who has patience and some tact in giving individual instruc- 
 tion, and whose time is not too valuable to be employed a 
 great many hours to accomplish the required result. These 
 qualities are generally found together in our country in per- 
 sons whose native tongue is the one to be taught ; and so we 
 find a large number of persons, almost without exception of 
 foreign birth, engaged in this work. The work is as legitimate 
 and useful as that of a teacher of music or stenography ; and 
 among those engaged in it are very many worthy and respect- 
 able persons, who have that high opinion of the importance of 
 their work which every one must have in order to succeed. 
 There are even many who for one reason or another have 
 better education and ability than is necessary for the success- 
 ful teaching of such an art, but are obliged to turn to this 
 work and do it for the small compensation which is sufficient 
 to pay the rather low-priced talent which is quite adequate for 
 the work, and thus determines the standard of compensation. 
 There is no good English word to distinguish this class of per- 
 sons. The Germans have the word Sprachmeister, which ex- 
 presses pretty well the idea of something parallel to a music-, 
 drawing-, or dancing-master, and has been used to some extent 
 to express the idea in English. Like the others referred to, 
 the Sprachmeister lives by the practice of an art, and is not, 
 in virtue of his calling, an educator by profession in the sense 
 that we are. Still, as I said just now, many of them are 
 really very intelligent persons, and have developed their work 
 on sound pedagogical principles. 
 
 These lead logically, in the great majority of cases which 
 fall within the province of the Sprachmeister, to what is best 
 known as the " natural method," about which I shall speak 
 later. Various shades of this method, which I take for
 
 J1V2 COMMON SENSE IN 
 
 granted is familiar to most of you, have been used with great 
 success by men who are thoroughly competent in their line, and 
 cannot in any way be called quacks. But their success has 
 opened a profitable field to very many who cannot be called 
 anything else, who find profit in taking advantage of the very 
 loose ideas which prevail concerning the real usefulness and 
 the real difficulty of speaking a foreign language, to get pu- 
 pils and sell text-books on the strength of some particular 
 "method" which promises to do what every experienced 
 teacher knows is impossible. And even the best of the 
 Sprachmeister are prone, like all artists, to claim for their art 
 an exaggerated importance, and exalt the speaking knowledge 
 of a language to a position in the work of education which in 
 no way belongs to it. The conservative educators generally 
 pay little attention to all the noise made by the various 
 schools of Sprachmeister, but occasionally one of them finds 
 it worth while to bring forward something in refutation of 
 their extravagance. One of the best things of the kind is an 
 article by Professor Calvin Thomas, which is largely devoted 
 to the point which I wish to bring forward next.^ 
 
 Professor Thomas implies that a reading knowledge of a lan- 
 guage is the key to higher things than a speaking knowledge, 
 but does not think it worth while, apparently, to argue the 
 point, which he assumes as self-evident. I doubt if it is self- 
 evident to the lay mind, and I have even got some new light 
 on the matter recently myself from an investigation regarding 
 the vocabulary possessed by various individuals. It has be- 
 come a sort of tradition that a child or illiterate person has only 
 a few hundred words — some have it as low as two hundred 
 or three hundred. I tried to get at the vocabulary of adults, 
 and make experiments, chiefly with my students, to see how 
 many English words each knew. We know that the Bible 
 contains about eight thousand words, and that Shakespeare 
 used not more than eighteen thousand. The " International 
 
 1 See page U.
 
 TEACHING MODERN LANGUAGES. 193 
 
 Dictionary '' contains about one hundred aud twenty thousand. 
 My plan was to take a considerable number of pages from the 
 dictionary at random, count the number of words on those 
 pages which the subject of the experiment could define with- 
 out any context, and work out a proportion to get an approxi- 
 mation of the entire number of words in the dictionary known. 
 The results were surprising for two reasons. In the size of the 
 vocabulary of such students, the outside variations were less 
 than twenty per cent, and their vocabulary was much larger 
 than I had expected to find. The majority reported a little 
 below sixty thousand words. Now, it may be that some edu- 
 cated men in modern days use as many words as Shakespeare 
 in expressing their thoughts, but probably very few use 
 anything like as many. The fact brought out by my experi- 
 ments means, then, that every educated person carries a read- 
 ing vocabulary of several times the number of words he uses 
 in speaking. The same thing is undoubtedly true of people 
 of an education inferior to that of college students — the ordi 
 nary middle-class people, whose range of reading, as well as of 
 conversation, does not extend so far, but who, nevertheless, 
 do read about many subjects which they do not often talk 
 about. 
 
 The complexity of modern life requires that every one who 
 reads at all shall be able to read of things which do not con- 
 cern his own daily life. But no one speaks very fluently 
 about things which do not come into his daily life. (We 
 teachers, whose own daily activity requires us to have a ready 
 command of language for many subjects, often fail to realize 
 this till we are brought face to face with an after-dinner 
 speech or an oral examination.) 
 
 Now, in these days of the printing-press, practically every 
 one enters all the higher fields of thought, at least for any 
 purpose of serious study, through reading; and his ability to 
 talk on such a subject comes after he has become familiar 
 with it in print. (How many of us in writing for public
 
 194 COMMON SENSE IN 
 
 delivery have had to consult the dictionary for the pronuncia- 
 tion of some word which we know in print, which expresses 
 an idea that we need to use, but which we have never heard 
 spoken ! ) 
 
 Modern education is acquired very largely, and I think in 
 an increasing degree, through the eye ; and the training of the 
 eye is entitled to the first consideration. You know that mod- 
 ern psychology shows that some individuals do their thinking 
 largely or entirely in terms of one set of sense-impressions, 
 and some in those of another. This is a fact of the greatest 
 importance in the work of education, and has not had suffi- 
 cient consideration in the teaching of modern languages, where 
 it obviously has very far-reaching effects. For if a pronounced 
 " visualizer " — a person who records and reproduces all 
 thoughts as sight-impressions — tries to work with methods 
 that are better adapted to a person who records by sound- 
 impressions, or vice versa, there may be a great waste of en- 
 ergy. Take a very common case. A " visualizer " who has 
 had the usual amount of practice in silent reading can get 
 through a printed page very much faster than the words can be 
 spoken, while a person who depends upon sound-impressions 
 cannot. 
 
 I have found a few persons who can finish a book of two 
 hundred ordinary pages in an hour, and give a satisfactory ac- 
 count of its contents. If such a person be compelled to learn 
 languages through the ear, there is a loss of this natural 
 advantage, which might just as well be used. Now, our psy- 
 chologists have found that the great majority of Americans 
 are " visualizers." ^ And I incline to believe that the visual 
 habit is that which gives the most satisfactory means of com- 
 munication with the external world, and the readiest and best 
 available forms of thought, that therefore the increase of 
 
 > Germans Beem to have a much larger proportion among them of those who 
 remember by sound-impressions ; a significant fact in view of the peraistence of the 
 German Sprachmeister.
 
 TEACHING MODERN LANGUAGES. 195 
 
 " vituality " to which I referred above is in no way unde> 
 sirable, and that methods of instruction which take it into 
 account are better adapted to American schools than those 
 which do not. 
 
 Now, if a man finds the speaking knowledge of his own 
 language, which he has acquired in his own daily living and 
 thinking, insufficient for all the demands of a liberal educa. 
 tion, it is of course impossible to make the necessarily inferior 
 knowledge of a foreign language which can be acquired in a 
 country where it is not the current language, come anywhere 
 near meeting those demands. I am sure that no one who 
 looks without prejudice upon the results of various methods 
 of instruction in modern languages can fail to observe how 
 the apparently brilliant results of the natural method, or of 
 any method which makes prominent the ability to speak, 
 prove barren for all the uses of a really liberal education. I 
 would apologize for dwelling so long on this point if I did not 
 feel that all the unsatisfactory things in the modern language 
 teaching in our schools and colleges grew in one way or an- 
 other out of it, and also if I did not know from unmistakable 
 evidence that this fundamental misconception exists more 
 generally and in higher educational circles than most of us 
 would at first believe. 
 
 Granted, then, that the ability to speak a foreign language 
 cannot be imparted by school instruction, and is not worth 
 while if it could be, and that the ability to read should be the 
 chief end of our instruction, how shall we teach our pupils to 
 read ? Common sense would seem to answer : Let them 
 read, as fast and as much as they have time to do intelli- 
 gently, and don't bother them with any side issues. I believe 
 that for the great majority of American boys in our schools as 
 they are this is literally the true answer. But it makes all 
 the difference in the world at what age your pupils begin the 
 study. If you have young children whose imitative faculty 
 is strong, who are rapidly adding to their vocabulary in their
 
 196 COMMON SENSE IX 
 
 own language as they make the acquaintances of new ideas, 
 and are ready to take any word given them, or any two or 
 three words, for an idea when they first meet it, who cannot 
 read so well as they can speak, and never heard of grammar, 
 then the common-sense way to teach them is to use at first 
 the " natural method," pure and simple, and go over from 
 that to more '• bookish " ways as the mind develops into 
 something which can work better with books. The vocabu- 
 lary thus acquired is useful in further study so far as it goes, 
 and any facility in speaking or understanding does no harm, 
 and may do some good. But this kind of thing has no great 
 educational value unless it is followed by a course which deals 
 with ideas as well as words. Take an extreme case of suc- 
 cess with this method — a child of ten or twelve years, of 
 German parents, who has had good instruction and heard as 
 much German as English, and really uses one language as 
 well as the other. No child of that age has the stock of 
 ideas, in whatever language he expresses them, to understand 
 the meaning of the facts of literature or history without 
 further study ; and the fact that he can express in two lan- 
 guages what ideas he has does not help in this matter at all. 
 Moreover, this is a field for private instruction or special 
 schools, and does not concern the usual American school at all. 
 In most cases our pupils do not begin modern languages till 
 they are past the age mentioned. 
 
 Very many do not begin until they are in college or in the 
 last year or two of their preparatory course. The question of 
 how such students shall learn to read modern languages is a 
 different one from that last mentioned, and it is practically 
 the only one which our instruction has to take into account. 
 Here we must again make several distinctions. One is made 
 by the ultimate purpose of the study. Some students need to 
 read German solely for the purpose of knowing how the Ger- 
 mans express ideas which are already in the student's mind, 
 or are to come in, for the sake of the idea. Such are espe-
 
 TEACHING MODERN LANGUAGES. 197 
 
 cially scientific students or advanced students in various fields 
 who need to use German text-books. Others wish to make 
 the acquaintance of German life and thought for the culture 
 which it gives them, and so are more on the lookout for spe- 
 cifically German ideas, and consider it more important to get 
 in touch with the national " atmosphere " and character. The 
 former class generally greatly outnumbers the latter in our 
 schools, and, since the proximate object of the instruction is 
 much the same in both cases, has the greater consideration in 
 shaping the exact plan of instruction. The time which can 
 be given to the study is generally no more than enough to 
 attain a satisfactory reading knowledge ; and even if it is, 
 such knowledge is the first thing to be acquired. 
 
 What does a satisfactory reading knowledge mean ? It 
 does not mean the ability to recite German paradigms never 
 so correctly and glibly, or to render a German sentence, after 
 a long session with the dictionary, into a more or less correct 
 English equivalent ; and it certainly does not mean the ability 
 to recite German poems from memory, or to recognize at sight 
 or by sound all the sentences in Ollendorf. To my mind it 
 means that to a person having such knowledge, the idea em- 
 bodied in a German sentence seen for the first time shall 
 reach the mind at once as directly and unceremoniously, so to 
 speak, as possible. It is not necessary that the idea shall go 
 through the medium of the English language to reach the 
 understanding, nor is it necessary for the usual "visualizing" 
 American mind that it shall go through the medium of the 
 sound-symbols for the same idea. 
 
 Let us dwell a moment on this point. The sight-symbols 
 on the printed page of German are one expression for an idea. 
 The sound -symbols heard when the printed sentence is read 
 aloud are another. The English words, spoken or written, for 
 the same idea are another. Finally, if the idea is an at all 
 familiar one, there is in most minds a sort of shorthand ex- 
 pression for it — some association of form, or color, or sound,
 
 198 COMMON SENSE IN 
 
 or tactile sensation which stands for the idea and spares the 
 trouble of putting it into words. That is why people can 
 read faster than the words can be spoken, or listen to a 
 speaker and keep up an independent train of thought without 
 losing what he says. It is this, the ultimate symbol for the 
 idea, which we wish the printed sentence to suggest imme- 
 diately. 
 
 The sound-symbol for the idea is, of course, what every indi- 
 vidual begins with in learning his own language. When he 
 learns to read he substitutes sight-symbols, which, in the case 
 of people who read a great deal, become not merely a substi- 
 tute for the sound-symbols, but another equally direct and 
 much more rapid means of conveying ideas to the brain, 
 through a different sense-organ. And this, as we have seen 
 above, gives access to a much more comprehensive range of 
 thought than the spoken language, which limits a person for 
 thought material to the ideas of the people he meets. 
 
 When we wish to acquire this same ability in a foreign lan- 
 guage, we must simply give ourselves the same amount of 
 practice. The fact of being able to use one language in this 
 way is, however, an immense advantage in learning another. 
 The chief task is to get the vocabulary of the new language, 
 taking vocabulary in the broad sense to include both words 
 and idioms as expressions of ideas. If we already have a 
 familiar way of expressing the idea, we can use that to bridge 
 the way to the new way. That is what we do when we go 
 from the sound-symbol to the sight-symbol in first learning 
 to read ; and we must either make the same transition in learn- 
 ing to read the new language, or go from the expression of the 
 idea in our own language — in other words, translate. Which 
 of these shall be done depends on the conditions of the prob- 
 lem, — the purpose of the study, the age of the pupil, the 
 opportunities for practice, and finally, and perhaps chiefly, in 
 the many cases whe^e other things are equal, upon the person- 
 al! tv of tlie teacher.
 
 TEACHING MODEKN LANGUAGES. 199 
 
 There is an outcry against translation, which is kindred 
 with the din of the " natural method " people, and it is based 
 upon a kindred misconception. Like the " natural method " 
 people, those who raise this cry are right under certain con- 
 ditions ; but those conditions are not found where they believe 
 them to be. Their assumption is, that the spoken language is 
 the language, that the written language is only a set of sym- 
 bols for the spoken language, and that this must be learned 
 before the written language can be used. This was entirely 
 true before the invention of printing, and probably for a long 
 time after; it is true to-day of the great majority of the 
 human race — of all who cannot read well, and probably of all 
 persons who record thought by sound-impressions ; but for 
 just the people with whom we are concerned — the modern 
 Americans who have reached the higher schools — the writ- 
 ten or rather the printed language is not a set of symbols for 
 the sounds of the spoken language, but for the ideas, just as 
 directly as the sounds of the spoken language are. It should 
 never be forgotten that such a student can acquire an ability 
 to read a foreign language perfectly adequate for air his pur- 
 poses without ever hearing a word of it spoken, and that in 
 very many cases it makes no difference to him whether he 
 ever has heard it or not. Such a student will almost inevi- 
 tably set out from the expression of the idea in his own lan- 
 guage ; if he is compelled to go through the spoken foreign 
 language to the written, it is simply a more roundabout way. 
 Whether it is worth while to take such a way is always a case 
 of a " condition and not a theory." The ability to under- 
 stand the foreign language is often worth something ; though 
 I believe it is generally greatly overestimated, both as to its 
 intrinsic importance and its bearing on the work of instruc- 
 tion. I find that it can be brought in at almost any stage 
 along with translation, that it helps many students to fix 
 their vocabulary, and is a pleasant variation in the class-room 
 routine ; but that if it is used so much as to encroach upon
 
 200 COMMON SENSE IN 
 
 translation in the earlier part of the course, many students 
 who have not a quick ear are not reached at all, and all are 
 liable to get into dilatory habits. 
 
 The reason is not hard to find. Hold a student responsible 
 for a clear understanding of the ideas expressed by the Ger- 
 man on the page, and he can work cheerfully with grammar 
 and dictionary as many hours a day as he needs, and the re- 
 sult is only a question of his own talent and industry. But 
 the understanding of the spoken language is something which, 
 in ordinary cases, he can practise only in the class-room ; you 
 cannot test his progress except by indirect means, and he 
 does not feel that he has anything definite to do when he is 
 at work by himself. I should therefore give predominance to 
 translation as a practical matter of economy in teaching. The 
 other method calls for a disproportionate amount of work on 
 the part of the teacher, unless he is really so deficient in 
 English as to make translation the greater task to him ; and, 
 after all, it is what the pupils do, and not what the teacher 
 does, that really counts in their progress. In general, how- 
 ever, the mental processes involved in the use of the sight- 
 symbols and the sound-symbols for a language lie so near 
 together that progress in one always carries with it some- 
 thing of the other ; and I find that students who are really 
 proficient in either line take up the other line very readily. 
 After two years' thorough work with the emphasis on transla- 
 tion, college students can enter a course conducted entirely in 
 German with very little disadvantage, and come out at the 
 end of the year much better than those who enter it after a 
 half-dozen years of " natural method." The whole matter, 
 from this point of view merely, is not worth quarrelling 
 about. Every teacher must determine for himself in what 
 manner he can get the best results from the classes that come 
 to him, and shape his methods accordingly. 
 
 Far more important is the question of the relative disci- 
 plinary value of the two methods. I am not one of those who
 
 TEACHING MODERN LANGUAGES. 201 
 
 say flippantly that they " don't believe in mental discipline." 
 Great abuses have existed in the name of mental discipline ; but 
 that should not blind us to the fact that, as Professor Thomas 
 says elsewhere in the article from which I have quoted, " we 
 cannot throw it too often or too hard the face of the public 
 that our work is chiefly educational." It is our business to 
 make out of the boys who come to us men who can reason 
 clearly and correctly, and have the purpose and the power to 
 use that ability to do with their might whatsoever their 
 hands find to do. I would rather have contributed to the 
 formation of the character of a thousand such men than have 
 written the most brilliant philological work of the decade, or 
 a text-book that sells a million copies. I have discussed at 
 length elsewhere ^ the value of translation work in modern 
 languages for this purpose. Compared with this, the value 
 of any method which excludes translation is very slight. The 
 advocates of such methods often admit this fact, but justify 
 their method either by saying that they are not responsible 
 for the mental discipline of their pupils, — that their business 
 is to teach German, not to teach German, — or by claiming 
 that the disciplinary feature of language work is covered by 
 other studies, and that their work can be given to " practical " 
 objects. The former amou.nts to the admission that they 
 conceive of themselves as something extraneous to the proper 
 work of education, — as hangers-on on its outskirts, like the 
 Sprachnieister ; the latter is again a case of a " condition and 
 not a theory." Where a class of students has abundant drill 
 in grammar and translation work in the classical languages, it 
 is perfectly possible that a modern language teacher who is 
 more at home in the " unilingual " method than in translation 
 may do them more good in that way. The question here 
 turns on the personality of the teacher. In any case it 
 would be the height of folly to reject this potent instrument 
 if it can be used ; and if any educator does reject it, or finds 
 
 1 See page 124.
 
 202 COMMON SENSE IN 
 
 that his modem language teacher is rejecting it, it behooves 
 him to take strict account of the reasons for the course. The 
 burden of proof is most certainly on the opponents of trans- 
 lation, not, as they would make it appear, on the other 
 side. 
 
 The most important factor in the teaching of modern lan- 
 guages is the teacher. I have printed a discussion of the 
 qualifications of modern language teachers, the points of 
 which are in brief as follows : ^ — 
 
 1. Every teacher, in whatever department, should be a pro- 
 fessional educator, who is in the work from choice, and in it 
 to stay. He should teach his subject with reference to its 
 educational effect, and should be able to see its relations to 
 the more general problem of the training of mind. 
 
 2. He should be a man of broad general culture. 
 
 3. He should be thoroughly in touch with the mental life 
 of his pupils, and able not only to follow, but to lead, their 
 thoughts in their own language. 
 
 4. A modern language teacher should know intimately the 
 language he is to teach ; every word and turn of thought 
 should mean to him something actual ; he ought to be able to 
 think in the language, to dream in it, to crack jokes in it; 
 must have, in short, such a knowledge as is only possible to 
 a person who has lived in the country where the language is 
 spoken. 
 
 5. He must have sound and serious scholarly training in 
 his special field ; must know the history and literature of the 
 language he teaches and of the languages related to it, and 
 must keep abreast of the times in his scholarship. 
 
 " I believe that no teacher can be notably deficient in any 
 of these five lines without impairing seriously his professional 
 usefulness — so seriously as to shut him out from the very 
 foremost rank in his profession." Are modern language 
 teachers often found in the foremost ranks of the profession ? 
 
 1 Papers of the Modern Language ABSooiation, New SeriM, vol. i., p. lii.
 
 TEACHING MODERN LANGUAGES. 203' 
 
 President Harper, in a recent article on college salaries, 
 enumerates a dozen or so of departments in the order of the 
 salaries paid in them. He does not reach modern languages 
 at all ; and if at almost any institution the Commencement 
 procession were formed in the order of amount of salaries, 
 the modern language teacher would surely be found toward the 
 tail end. Of course this is rather a Philistine view of 
 the matter, but dollars and cents often furnish a touchstone 
 by which we can prove higher things. The market price of 
 anything is always a fair index of its quality; and we can 
 legitimately ask, " Why is not the quality of the modern lan- 
 guage instruction in our schools better ? " My answer to 
 this question you will have already anticipated. It is because 
 there has prevailed a false conception of the nature of the 
 work to be done, which has turned away the energy which 
 should have gone into true educational work toward the 
 practice of a mere art, and thrown the work into the hands 
 of a set of men whose general average as educators is very 
 low. 
 
 I have been accused on all sides of hostility toward for- 
 eigners as modern language teachers. I am hostile toward 
 some foreigners, as I am toward some Americans, and for the 
 same reason. I am hostile toward any one whose activity 
 tends to lower the standard of my profession. I am hostile 
 to any one who uses that profession as a makeshift while he 
 (or she) is on the lookout for a better opening in some other 
 occupation (such as law, medicine, or matrimony), or as a 
 " snug harbor " after failure in something else. I am hostile 
 to any one who sets a lower for a higher aim in any field of 
 instruction. I am hostile to any one who undertakes any 
 work of instruction without a thorough fitness for it. 
 
 Now, there are some classes of foreigners who are likely to 
 incur my hostility for some of these reasons. First, the 
 Sprachmeister, who are and should be foreigners. I have no 
 hostility towards them so long as they attend to their business
 
 204 COMMON SENSE IN 
 
 and confine themselves to their legitimate sphere of usefulness. 
 I send to them freely any of my students who want what they 
 can give ; but if they or their methods cross the threshold of 
 the higher schools, I oppose them by all means in my power. 
 
 Then, there is the foreigner who is not a teacher. Any 
 man trained as a teacher abroad, who should come here to 
 practise his profession, teaching modern languages if that is 
 his line, I would welcome, and give the same chance to make a 
 place for himself that I would give to any teacher. A German 
 with the training of a Gymnasiallehrer in modern languages, 
 who had spent a year in England as he should, might come 
 here and begin work with as good chance of ultimate success 
 as most Americans. But if such a man is a good man, he is 
 sure to find work at home ; and, as the real state of things, we 
 find too often that the foreigner who comes here to teach mod- 
 ern languages is some inferior specimen, who never quite found 
 his place in the world, and comes to see if he cannot make a 
 living by exploiting the tendency of the Americans to employ 
 foreigners in modern language teaching. To such I am hostile ; 
 and so also I believe are the real teachers of foreign birth, 
 who often know best how these fellows injure the profession. 
 
 There are men, too, who are of really superior ability, who 
 have come to this country for various reasons (often because 
 their very ability has made their own country less agreeable), 
 who have turned to their language as a means of support, and 
 worked their way through the Sprachmeister grade into real 
 educators. Such men have for a generation played a very 
 important part in our modern language instruction. Toward 
 them I am not hostile in the sense that I am toward the other 
 classes mentioned. I gladly recognize them as colleagues, and 
 will work with them and discuss with them to reach our com- 
 mon object ; and, if there is an honest difference of opinion, I 
 am glad to talk it out with them in a temperate spirit. But 
 I very often do find a difference of opinion which needs ad- 
 justment. It is among these men that a modified form of
 
 TEACHING MODERN LANGUAGES. 205 
 
 Sprachmeisterei is most persistent, and, just because of their 
 comparative moderation, most difficult to overcome. You 
 will find that they all have in their hearts a lingering desire 
 to dispense with translation, and do all their work in the 
 language in which their thoughts move most freely — that 
 they want their students to go the same way they went them- 
 selves in learning to read their language, namely, through the 
 spoken language, which they are prone to consider the lan- 
 guage par excellence. This tendency grows less generally as 
 their proficiency in English increases ; but you are liable to 
 hear from the most liberal of them, in a tirade against trans- 
 lation, something like this : " Aside from the reading of the 
 German text, and even that is not always done, the student 
 hears and speaks nothing but English; in other words, for 
 about ten minutes out of a possible fifty he learns German, 
 the remaining forty minutes he learns facts about German." 
 Epigrammatic and plausible ; but you see the implications : 
 the only German is that which is heard ; hearing German 
 is learning German, and you are not learning it unless you 
 are hearing it; facts about German discussed in English do 
 not help to learn German. Even the man who is thoroughly 
 trained as a professional modern language teacher in Europe 
 is likely to make too much of the spoken language for the 
 needs of our schools, because the spoken language is of vastly 
 more practical importance in Europe than with us, and the 
 methods which are developed there very properly give it more 
 consideration than it needs here. 
 
 There was at first, as was to be expected, a strong opposi- 
 tion on the part of the foreign-born teachers against the 
 employment of Americans to teach modern languages. This 
 has of late yielded very much, iu the face of undeniable facts, 
 among the better teachers in our schools and colleges, but is 
 still in full force among the Sprachvieister and the public who 
 take the cue from them. The fact is that really all-round 
 men are not often found in modern languages. The foreigner
 
 206 COMMON SENSE IN TEACHING MODERN I.ANGUAGES. 
 
 almost never gets over his disabilities on the third point of my 
 list, unless he comes over so young that he is practically an 
 American, or else spends years, always at the expense of his 
 pupils, in mastering English and getting in touch with Amer- 
 ican life so that he can manage American boys. The Ameri- 
 can is likely to be deficient on the score of thorough practical 
 knowledge in the language. In all other respects he is the 
 equal of the foreigner, and in the matter of understanding the 
 American student he is incomparably superior. He can by 
 the same assiduity called for in the preparation of teachers 
 for other work — by spending as much time in Europe as they 
 spend in their laboratories — get a practical knowledge which 
 is sufficient for his work. But the scale of salaries paid for 
 modem language teaching has not yet warranted this thor- 
 oughness. There are American teachers who have it, as there 
 are foreigners who have overcome their essential weak point; 
 but I have known many cases of good men who began to pre- 
 pare to teach modern languages, but turned off to some related 
 field, such as English or history, because they could not see a 
 living ahead of them in the face of the fierce competition of 
 the foreign-born teachers, and a public sentiment which up- 
 held the latter, and demanded a kind of work which was not 
 up to the true standard of liberal education. 
 
 There is still a great deal of inertia to overcome, Sprach- 
 meister traditions to be lived down, and " dead wood " on the 
 teaching-force to be superannuated. It rests with those of 
 you who employ teachers, and those of your kind elsewhere, 
 to make the work of teaching modern languages what it 
 should be in dignity and usefulness. Set your faces like flints 
 against Sprachmeisterei in liberal education, employ no man 
 or woman who is not a real educator by profession, and pay 
 salaries which shall warrant the same earnestness and 
 thoroughness of preparation which you expect in teachers of 
 other subjects.
 
 TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH.* 
 
 BY B. SPANHOOFD, ST. PAUL's SCHOOL, CONCORD, N. H. 
 
 In this paper on " Translation into English " I shall not so 
 much treat of the method as try to give briefly my reasons for 
 practising it in teaching. Its exclusive use, borrowed from 
 the practice of the teachers of ancient languages, led nearly 
 forty years ago to a great reaction, the so-called " Natural 
 Method." This method went too far in the opposite direction, 
 and we soon saw that the position of the child which is learn- 
 ing its mother tongue is unique, in that the child knows no 
 other language whatsoever, and that, after one language has 
 been learned, we cannot assume in our pupils the same favor- 
 able conditions as regards any other. But no sooner could we 
 think this method safely disposed of, than there came to us 
 from Germany and France the New Method, as it is now gen- 
 erally called in contradistinction to the old Grammatical or 
 Translation Method. This is based on the modern view of 
 language, as something really existing only in the actual speech 
 of people, and therefore emphasizes the spoken language above 
 everything else ; it makes extended use of the results of the 
 equally modern science of phonetics and consequently lays 
 predominant stress on the acquisition of a faultless, if not 
 accent-less pronunciation ; and it insists upon the exclusive 
 use of the foreign tongue as the only medium of instruction 
 and of communication between teacher and pupil. The 
 advocates of this reform method object to translation for two 
 
 1 Read before the Modern Language Section of the New Hampshire State 
 Teachers' Association on October 20th, 1911, and reprinted from Monatshe/te. 
 
 •J07
 
 208 TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH. 
 
 main reasons : in the first place, they say that the constant 
 transition from the articulation of the organs of speech for the 
 one language to that of the other makes the acquisition of an 
 even decent pronunciation quite impossible ; and, in the second 
 place, they claim that by constantly translating from and into 
 the foreign language nobody can form the habit of under- 
 standing the foreign language, or of thinking and speaking in 
 it, independently of his mother tongue. And they like to 
 wind up with the accusation that in the old method translation 
 is treated as if it were the principal object of language teach- 
 ing. To which advocates of the older methods retort that the 
 reformers, forgetting entirely the literature of the foreign 
 language and its study, make the mere speaking it the princi- 
 pal object of their teaching. And so the war has been waging 
 in Germany, France, and Scandinavia for the last twenty-five 
 years. 
 
 In this country, the discussion between the Natural and 
 other methods had in time cleared the atmosphere sufficiently 
 for us to see that both the translating and the speaking 
 method have a right to be used, provided they are not con- 
 sidered the objects, but merely the means of our instruction. 
 The preponderance of one or the other in our teaching will 
 depend on the age of our pupils and on their immediate prac- 
 tical purpose in studying the foreign language. If our pupils 
 are young or if their immediate aim is to learn to speak the 
 language, of course we shall practise speaking to a great 
 extent; but if — and this is our case in preparatory schools 
 — our pupils are old enough to be rather set in their native- 
 born modes of thinking, we shall have to reckon with the 
 mother tongue; and especially, if their main object in studying 
 a language is to pass the examination required by our colleges, 
 we shall have to devote a great deal of our time to translating 
 into and out of the language. We have to adapt ourselves to 
 the conditions under which we have to teach; we are not 
 responsible for these conditions. 
 
 ,1
 
 TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH. 209 
 
 But, even if we could change these conditions, I believe 
 there are some reasons why we should never entirely give up 
 translation into English. 
 
 In the first place, we have to consider the weaker members 
 of our classes, boys or girls below the average, not necessarily 
 in intellect, but certainly in linguistic talent. I have always 
 felt very strongly the claims of the spoken language and have 
 always desired to give to its practice as large a part of the 
 time of my classes as possible. I have consequently used in 
 former years the Natural method, as well as the Berlitz method, 
 both in French and German ; but, even when I had avoided 
 the use of the English language for a while, I have almost 
 always resorted to a translation of the whole ground covered, 
 as a test of its thorough comprehension, and almost invariably 
 have found some member of the class who had missed the correct 
 meaning of a word or idiom, to whom, therefore, part of the 
 lessons had remained a blank. There is in every class a 
 pupil whose ear is very obtuse to foreign words, or one who 
 persists in hearing nothing but English words out of the 
 jumble of German or French sounds that strike his ear. What 
 can we do for such a one but give him a word-for-word trans- 
 lation of even the simplest sentences ? He has a right to 
 learn as well as his more fortunate classmates with a gift for 
 languages, and he must be taught in the manner in which he 
 most readily takes in the knowledge that we have to impart 
 to him. His having no ear for languages certainly ought not 
 to keep him from learning them by sight, or from enjoying the 
 science and literature embodied in them. 
 
 In the second place, I think it is a fallacy to believe that a 
 foreign word is ever learned directly, by merely associating it 
 with the object designated and without resorting to the corre- 
 sponding word of the mother tongue. If I point to a chair or 
 window, saying c'est une chaise, das ist ein Fenster, pupils will 
 think of the English name of these objects at once, or even 
 before I can give them the foreign appellation, because object
 
 210 TKAiSSLATION INTO ENGLISH. 
 
 and name are by habit so closely connected in their minds 
 that one involuntarily calls up the other. The word of the 
 mother tongue cannot be eliminated simply by its not being 
 mentioned. And so there is always a silent translating going 
 on, especially when from these simple object lessons we pass 
 on to a somewhat more intricate idea. My observation is that 
 our pupils do not believe they have got the right meaning of a 
 word until they have guessed the English equivalent. The 
 German word Gegenteil expresses an idea the meaning of 
 which can be made clear by a few examples : Schwarz is das 
 O. von weiss — gut von schlecht, gross von klein. The first 
 direct question : Was ist das Gegenteil von kurz ? will gener- 
 ally elicit the correct answer from several members of a class, 
 and a few more similar questions with their answers will 
 spread the meaning of the word to the weaker members of the 
 class, so that even they can give correct answers. But, when 
 finally the English translation of the word is given, it is 
 amusing to see the expression of evident relief that appears on 
 a good many faces. Though these boys had had a general idea 
 of what the word meant, as was shown by their correct an- 
 swers, they undoubtedly had still been puzzled as to the exact 
 meaning, which nothing but the translation could give them to 
 their full satisfaction. And is not this the usual process by 
 means of which we increase our vocabulary, either in our own 
 or a foreign language ? In meeting a word several times in 
 various positions and connections, we get each time a clearer 
 idea of what it may mean, and, when we have arrived at what 
 we think is the correct meaning, we like to see, by consulting 
 the dictionary, whether we have guessed correctly. Guessing 
 does not exactly describe the mental process of evolving the 
 meaning of a word from different contexts); it is more like 
 finding an unknown quantity by means of an equation. 
 Applied to languages, this operation constitutes a very good 
 method for learning new words, because we get possession of 
 the word first, and the mental labor we expend on getting at
 
 TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH. 211 
 
 its meaning insures its permanent retention in our memory. 
 But it is a rather lengthy method and not always applicable in 
 a class, where we cannot be sure that the mental operation is 
 properly carried out. If the meaning of a word has been cor- 
 rectly evolved from the context, the translation gives an un- 
 deniable satisfaction and might be retained for that purpose 
 alone ; if not, a translation in time will save us a lot of trouble. 
 
 In the third place, there is no doubt that we need it as a 
 criterion to determine whether the right meaning has been 
 arrived at. There are in both French and German a great 
 many words which by their form or by their sound lend them- 
 selves to constant misconceptions. Attendre does not mean to 
 attend, nor blesser to bless, nor se dresser to dress one's self; 
 the German word Hausjlur does not mean the floor of the 
 house, but its "hall," nor does lustig mean "lusty." And 
 think what a chance also has to be identified with " also," and 
 denn and beJcommen to be taken for "then" and "to become." 
 It would be easy to multiply these examples, and some of these 
 mistakes look so elementary that it seems impossible that any- 
 body should be misled by them. A woman of intelligence 
 once told me that up to her thirtieth year she had always pro- 
 nounced to herself the word "misled" as if it were the parti- 
 ciple of a verb "' to misle." Faintly conscious, perhaps, of her 
 misconception, she had never used the word herself, so that 
 she did not discover the error until she accidentally misread 
 the word aloud to some one who was in a position to correct 
 her. Do we not almost daily have the experience of being 
 caught quite easily in the simplest traps ? My inference is 
 that we must have our pupils translate even the simplest 
 German or French, so as to guard against all such misunder- 
 standings. It does not take such a great deal of time to do 
 this, but it is essential to apply this test to their knowledge, 
 and to ascertain by this means its accuracy. 
 
 So far, I have had in view only the initial stages of language 
 study, when it might still be possible to avoid translation and
 
 212 TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH. 
 
 exclude entirely the use of the mother tongue, and yet accom- 
 plish good results ; when we pass on, however, to the reading 
 of connected narrative or dialogue interspersed with historical 
 and didactic passages, it is not such an easy matter to confine 
 one's self to the use of the foreign language. For instance, in 
 a conversation the word gut is often used in the sense of " all 
 right," and nun in the sense of " well " as in the French Eh 
 hien. Words also assume new meanings in different connec- 
 tions, and form with other words idiomatic expressions which 
 have a meaning of their own, and which can most readily be 
 learned by a simple translation. If in a certain passage the 
 French word onde is explained by the other word eau, we 
 may have been given the bare meaning of the passage ; but, 
 unless we are also told that the word really means " wave," 
 all its poetry is simply lost on us. If the sentence, cette idie 
 souHt d, mon p^re, is explained by elle lui parut bonne, we do 
 not gain much unless we are also made aware that sourire 
 means "to smile." In order to remember well idioms such as 
 sefairefete de qlch, sich auf etwas freuen, we must comprehend 
 them in all their literalness, but their full force is not felt 
 until the translation "to look forward to a thing with 
 pleasure " is found. And there are stranger and more in- 
 tricate idioms in every language, for which an equivalent ex- 
 pression in our own must be found before the mind is fully 
 satisfied. 
 
 The objection may be raised that, by constantly translating, 
 the pupil becomes dependent on the translation for getting at 
 the sense of a passage in a foreign language. I think, how- 
 ever, that this fear is exaggerated. I am sure that our pupils 
 read and understand perfectly, without translating, passages 
 in simple French and German ; that they read them that way 
 constantly in preparation for their recitations, especially if 
 the oral use of the language is not entirely neglected ; and, as 
 their vocabulary and their knowledge of more intricate con- 
 structions and idoms increase, they will read in this way longer
 
 TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH. 213 
 
 and longer passages, only halting at places where an unknown 
 or less familiar word or expression or a more intricate thought 
 makes a translation desirable. I find that, even in reading 
 my own native German, I sometimes translate into English 
 when I come to an obscure passage, the translation in such a 
 case sometimes showing up the vagueness and looseness of the 
 thinking processes of the author, or at any rate helping to 
 make the passage perfectly clear. Inasmuch as our pupils 
 need this clearing away of difficulties much oftener than we 
 do, we need feel no compunction about using translation so 
 constantly. Only one precaution ought to be observed : namely, 
 never to have a passage translated without first having it read 
 in the foreign language. This practice is of the utmost im- 
 portance. Without it our pupils would never learn to take in 
 an idea in the form in which it is presented by the foreign 
 tongue. 
 
 Of course this ability to understand a passage without trans- 
 lating, though important when the rapid perusal of an article 
 or a book is aimed at, does not serve the purpose of a pupil 
 whose object is to pass a college examination. There, an in- 
 telligent translation into English is expected ; and that, while 
 it presupposes the receptive comprehension of the text, calls 
 for a reproductive mental activity that can be gained only by 
 constant practice. I need not enlarge upon this point. Here 
 is an argument that would compel even the most enthusiastic 
 advocate of the New Method to retain translation as a promi- 
 nent feature of his teaching, at least during the last year of 
 the school course. I do not quarrel with the colleges for 
 keeping it on their programs. My line of argument is all in 
 favor of their position, and I will add to my other reasons a 
 last one, that looks at the matter from a more general educa- 
 tional point of view. 
 
 I refer to the value of translation for our pupils' English 
 mother tongue. I take it that the use of the mother tongue 
 (in this case English) is the centre of all school instruction.
 
 214 TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH. 
 
 All the various studies pursued at school may have aims of 
 their own, but if any one of them did not subserve the study 
 of English, I am sure it would soon be abandoned. In fact, 
 what good would all the knowledge we impart to our pupils 
 do them if they could not, if they did not, acquire at the same 
 time an increasing facility in expressing this knowledge in 
 their own language? We take it too often for granted that 
 our pupils know all about the English language. For instance, 
 we want them well grounded in English grammar before they 
 come to our classes, and get impatient when they cannot distin- 
 guish between a pronoun and an adjective, between a relative 
 and an interrogative pronoun, between, an adverb and a con- 
 junction, forgetting that that is just what we are there for, 
 namely, to make them see logical distinctions that the English 
 language does not make. Nor are they always sure of the cor- 
 rect use of the prepositions or the meaning of the more unusual 
 words and phrases. There is no better opportunity for discuss- 
 ing synonyms than when translating from a foreign language. 
 Original composition fails to give the desired mastery of the 
 English language, because the pupil may discard the words and 
 constructions about which he is doubtful and uncertain, for the 
 simpler and more familiar ones ; considering, as a boy is said 
 to have put it, that the use of synonyms consists in employing 
 one word " when you do not know how to spell the other." 
 Translation, on the other hand, forces a great many new and 
 useful words and phrases upon the learner's attention, and 
 helps, therefore, to enlarge his vocabulary and to extend his 
 power of expression to thoughts more mature and profound 
 than could have originated in his own brain. 
 
 In this connection, I may mention that translation also 
 makes the new subjects and new ideas which he meets with in 
 foreign authors more immediately and practically available. 
 When, in Germany or France, we read an article, essay, or 
 book, we are, of course, interested in remembering its subject 
 matter or thought-context in the German or French form, be-
 
 TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH. 215 
 
 cause only thus can we make use of it in conversing with 
 Frenchmen or Germans ; but, as long as we live among English- 
 speaking people, if we wish to communicate to them ideas 
 and facts that we have gathered from foreign sources, our first 
 effort will be to clothe them in a form that will make them 
 available for this purpose. 
 
 You may think it quite unnecessary that I should rehearse 
 here all these reasons for the practice of translation into Eng- 
 lish, of the use of which you are probably perfectly convinced. 
 What I have said is not meant to convince anybody, but to 
 justify to myself the extended use I am making of this means 
 of instruction. With the exclusive use of translation I have 
 never been satisfied ; I have for years, therefore, read eagerly 
 the reform literature so abundantly supplied by Germany in 
 books, pamphlets, and Victor's publication, Die Neueren 
 Sprachen, and as a result I have been confirmed in my con- 
 viction that the oral use of the language, which I had never 
 quite given up since the days of the Natural Method, is just 
 the corrective we need to make our teaching both interesting 
 to our pupils and satisfactory to ourselves. Feeling strongly, 
 therefore, the claims of the spoken language, I might have 
 gone the full length of the reform method, if the peculiar con- 
 ditions under which we teach here, the age of our pupils and 
 the college requirements, had not necessitated the retention 
 of translation ; and, finding myself thus in opposition to views 
 with which I am at heart very much in sympathy, I have 
 looked for as many reasons as I could find in justification of 
 my course. If this self-examination has taxed your patience, 
 I apologize. 
 
 But I shall not close without a few remarks in favor of the 
 oral use of languages. After enlarging on the uses of trans- 
 lation, it is only just that I should also say what I think it 
 cannot do. 
 
 1. It cannot teach pronunciation. On the contrary, the 
 change which it involves from the articulation of the language
 
 216 TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH. 
 
 to be learned to that of the mother tongue counteracts directly 
 the acquisition of a good pronunciation. Phonetic explanations 
 are of no avail, and the reading of a few sentences or short 
 passages leads only to worse bungling. Only speaking the 
 language can suffice, using it in question and answer, in con- 
 versation or short anecdotes. For every sentence that you 
 can have your pupils read you can ask half a dozen questions, 
 and you can ask every question half a dozen times without 
 boring the class. There need be no fear of that ; young pupils 
 like to do something and are eager for their turn to answer. 
 Do you think you could have an exercise of six sentences read 
 by every pupil in the class without causing a revolt ? And 
 here is a large amount of German or French being spoken with 
 pleasure — and spoken after having heard it pronounced by 
 the teacher correctly and with the proper intonation. This 
 must lead to a tolerable pronunciation and trains the ear as 
 well. But let me insist, it cannot be done without a great 
 amount of speaking. A good pronunciation is a very gradual 
 growth; it must be started right by correct explanations of 
 the new sounds and some sort of phonetic drill, so that no 
 faulty habits are formed at the beginning. Moreover, only 
 years of practice can give that ease of articulation and that 
 particular intonation which are the essentials of what we call 
 the accent of a foreign language. 
 
 2. Translation cannot give a vocabulary. I mean a working 
 vocabulary, the words of which are at our fingers' ends and 
 jump to the tip of our tongue whenever we are in need of them. 
 Translation provides us with the meaning of words, but it does 
 not associate the idea and the word together so that one may 
 call up the other; nor does it fasten them in our memories in 
 such a way that they are available for our use whenever we 
 need them. Only speaking can do this, because only by speaking 
 can we get the necessary amount of practice. We have com- 
 plete command of a word only after we have used it in all its 
 different forms and in all possible contexts. No amount of
 
 TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH. 217 
 
 translating can give us such opportunities. But can speaking 
 do this ? Yes, only we must distinguish a working vocabulary 
 from the general dictionary of a language. The former con- 
 tains all the most common words, from 700 to 1000. These 
 are all that are really necessary to understand a language, but 
 then they must really be part and parcel of our linguistic out- 
 fit. The meanings of all other words we either get from the 
 dictionary, or else they come to us from the context of a series 
 of familiar words. Now I should not consider it an unrational 
 plan to devote the first year of language study principally to 
 the acquisition of such a working vocabulary by all possible 
 means, but especially by the practice of speaking. The rest 
 of the language would gradually grow around this nucleus by 
 a kind of crystallizing process, and for this gradual growth 
 translation, of course, is of great assistance ; hence, it would 
 find its place in the later years of the course. 
 
 3. Translation does not teach one to think in a foreign lan- 
 guage. By thinking is not meant logical thinking. Of course 
 we can never teach our pupils to reason, make inferences, and 
 draw conclusions in French or German, or, as it has been put, 
 make a boy rack his brains in German or cudgel his brains in 
 French. What is meant by " thinking in a language " is merely 
 the ability to express a thought in the foreign language or to 
 take in a thought clothed in a form of the foreign language, 
 and to do this directly, without taking the roundabout way 
 through the mother tongue. That this can be done is a matter 
 of a very common experience; in studying a foreign language 
 we always aim at this, and we are sure of having made progress 
 in a language when we feel we can think in it. This, of course, 
 is the very opposite of translating. As I have said, however, 
 translating is not quite so much of an obstacle in the way of 
 this result as would seem at first glance. Just because it is a 
 roundabout way, the mind refuses to travel it and does without 
 it, as soon as it gets some familiarity with the ground to go over. 
 Only we must assist the mind a little in gaining this familiar-
 
 218 TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH. 
 
 ity, and that can best be done by speaking — which involves 
 constant practice, constant repetition, without which there can- 
 not be any real familiarity with a subject, especially a language. 
 If, then, we would have our pupils get a good pronunciation, 
 a good working vocabulary, and some ability to take in the 
 meaning of a passage without translating, we ought to include 
 the practice of speaking in our modern language courses. There 
 is also this general consideration that should never permit us 
 to omit the oral use of a language which we are teaching : 
 speaking is the essential part of a language. We teach German 
 script, not because it is of so very much importance, but be- 
 cause it belongs to German, and if we omitted the script from 
 our German courses we should neglect part of our duty, which 
 is to teach as much of German as we can under the circum- 
 stances. We teach a great many things that are of no impor- 
 tance in themselves : e.g. that der Kdse is the only masculine 
 noun in e belonging to the first class of the strong declension, 
 or that the verb Mnir forms an irregular past participle in t, 
 and so forth, while we slight more or less — let us confess that 
 we do it — the most essential part of a language, namely, a 
 speaking knowledge of it. It is an incontrovertible axiom with 
 me, that nobody can pretend to know a language unless he can 
 speak it. Do we consider that our immigrants know English 
 as long as they cannot speak it ? And yet there are people 
 who think they know French and German without being 
 able to speak them. Send them to France or Germany, if 
 you want to disabuse them. Look at the fate of Latin. As 
 long as it was spoken in class and lecture room, people got a 
 fairly good knowledge and command of it; they did not leave 
 it behind, when they left the halls of learning, but read and 
 enjoyed their classic authors all their lives. Latin was alive 
 as long as the teachers of Latin kept it alive, and became a 
 dead language only when they killed it by dropping its oral 
 use. Now, French and German are living languages. The 
 question is : Ought we to teach them as if they were dead ?
 
 IBS 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 ^°^L APR 13 19^9 
 
 NTERLIBRARY LOANS 
 
 MAR 5 1979 
 
 mn 
 
 ji^ 
 
 AN 1 9 1931 
 
 I WAYS 1933 
 jfV^7 -1936 
 
 DME TWO WE 
 
 JUN 1 8 1979 
 
 EKS ^OM DATE OF RECEIPT 
 
 JDK ^4 1944 
 
 D 
 
 AM "''^Y 3 19E 
 
 7-4 4-9 
 
 5 
 
 PM 
 9-10 
 
 Form L-9-3o)«-8,"28 

 
 ^^ '3 i'l '58"" 00440" "4223 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACIL 
 
 AA 001 178 433 7 
 
 LB 
 2365 
 
 L4M4 
 1893 
 
 ;ALiFi»^NiA, 
 
 /CALIF,