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THE AET
OP
TEACHING AND STUDYING
LANGUAGES.
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2007 with funding from
IVIicrosoft Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/artofteachingstuOOgouirich
THE ART
OP
TEACHING AND STUDYING
LANGUAGES.
BX
FEANgOIS GOUIN,
PfiOFESSEUK D'ALLEMAND A L'lICOLE SUPERIEURE ARAGO, PARI3.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
BY
H W A R D S W A N
AND
VICTOR BETIS,
JlEilBRK DE L'ENSEIQNEMENT PUBLIC EN FRANCE.
SECOND EDITION.
LOITDON:
GEORGE PHILIP & SON, 32 FLEET STREET;
NEW YOKK :
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 743 & 745 BROADWAY.
%/
First Edition^ May 1892, Second Edition^ July 1892.
PKEFACE
Mankind has long passed from the stage in which speech is
used for the mere expression of physical facts and desires, to
that in which language is employed as the highest tool within
the grasp to paint the pictures of poetic imagination, and
sway a world-wide audience to noble thoughts and deeds.
Not only to satisfy the necessities of travellers in far countries
has the study of language been ever desirable, but to penetrate
the spirit and genius of Homer, Yirgil, Shakespeare, Goethe,
Hugo, Dante, it has become, to the cultured of every country,
a necessity for the full gift of a liberal education. Since
language became literature, the necessity for the mastery over
other tongues than his own has forced the attention of student
and of professor to the problem of the study of languages ; and
the great intellectual value of a complete and logical system
for the mastery of tongues, if such could be found, is so
apparent, that the greatest honour has always been awarded
to discoverers in this region, which is still felt, however, to be
to a large extent unexplored, or at least unconquered..
The world has this year seen a magnificent celebration of the
grand services to the cause of education rendered by Comenius.
In spite of this we are still far from having definitely adopted
in our school and college practice the now acknowledged
principles perceived by Comenius — that education must be
organic and not mechanical, that language teaching, modern
and classic, should proceed by dealing with things and not
with words and grammatical abstractions, and that before all
else education should have direct bearing upon actual life.
The late Mr. W. H. Widgery, M.A., has a veiy pregnant
sentence in almost the first paragraph of his admirable booklet
vi PREFACE.
on " The Teaching of Languages in Schools " (D. Nutt), where
he says —
" Our great modern reformers, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel,
have been the sources of mighty inspirations; they have
pointed out in the rough the paths along which we must
travel. They failed in system. We now need rather some
powerful organiser, well trained in philosophy, in logic, in
psychology, one who will do actual school-work for some years,
and then clear for us the jungle of educational literature."
Mr. Widgery evidently looked for his language-organiser
to come after many years and after weary labour. This labour
is, happily, as will be seen, already in great part accomplished
and the work organised ; and perhaps no sentence could better
express what it is that the work of M. Frangois Gouin, here
presented, attempts to perform.
This work might not inaptly be entitled "The Gift of Lan-
guages, and How to Acquire it ; being an Investigation into
Linguistic Psychology." It will be found to appeal, not only
to the teacher and the specialist in pedagogic science, but to
the student and the general reader, for in its train it draws
interesting and far-reaching developments.
It is primarily an investigation into the psychological laws
underlying the universal act of learning the mother-tongue
by the little child, and, springing therefrom, the exposition of
an artificial system of teaching foreign languages — a system
which produces peculiarly successful results and endows the
learner with the gift for languages : and these results ^-e
curiously easy of explanation, being based on the laws of
gradual development of the human mind itself.
It may be well to point out at once that the work of M.
Gouin is essentially a new departure ; it is based upon a close
observation of nature — that of the little child at its games
weaving its own individuality and learning its native tongue ;
its mental operations are analysed with extreme care and
described with a clearness and simplicity to which one is
not always accustomed in subjects so apparently abstruse as
that of psychology.
The system set forth is not a variation of the ordinary col-
PREFACE. vii
lection of exercises. That which is therein presented consists
of the expression of the real facts of life itself ; not accidental
facts merely, but those which every one has lived, is now
living — external and internal phenomena, deeply imprinted
upon the mental background of every human being. And
these facts are not seen at hazard ; they are grouped, analysed,
organised, studied in the exact order of succession which is
marked out by Nature. These facts are lived over again, as it
were, a second time by remembrance ; they are reconstituted
as a part of the individuality of the student, who again learns
to express them, but this time in a foreign language. Our
common life is once more begun at the mother's knee, and
lived through with the rapidity of thought ; and the conscious
knowledge of self thus acquired is obtained as well as the
mastery of a foreign language.
The act of speaking and understanding any sentence in
one's native tongue may be thus briefly analysed. We may
take as example the phrase "The shepherd-dog collects the
flock of sheep." The speaker forms in his mind a picture
(in this case of a pastoral subject), being a generalisation " of
many mental photographs; the words, that is, the "sounds,"
expressing this picture he knows by long association. He
utters these sounds in the right order ; they strike against the
ear of the listener, and the same association between the sound
and the mental picture, having to him also long become habi-
tual, arises at once in the mind of the listener. There is
here nothing in the nature of translation, but the act is one
of pure intuition — seeing in the mind. There is nothing here
of printed signs : the signs or letters are but the phantom
or symbol of the sounds, carefully analysed phonetically ; they
also by long habit are associated both with the sounds and
with the mental picture, but mental picture, sound, and
written symbol of the sound are all distinct elements of what
collectively is termed Language ; and in learning the language
the first two are evidently the most important.
It is in the recognition of the vast part the imagination —
or, to be more accurate, the faculty of visualisation — plays in
the learning of languages, as in all mental operations, that the
viii PREFACE.
originality and success of M. Gouin's " Series " system depends.
Not only so, but it opens up an almost unlimited field for the
organisation and training of the faculty until now almost un-
heeded, possibly the principal one the mind exercises (besides
that of control of the muscles), namely, the recollection of
sense impressions — those of sight, sound, taste, smell, and
feeling — but especially the first two — memory of sights and
sounds — which may be termed mental visualisation and mental
vocalisation. This power of visualisation in the mind, actually
denied to a portion of mankind by some physiologists (amongst
others Galton himself), is probably the one great and simple
faculty of the mind — that which makes man more than the
beasts of the field and gives him his mastery over Nature ; and
the power of converting one mental image into another, and
of comparing two mental images, will be found when analysed
to be that which we term Reason. So that we might venture
the statement that "man is not a reasoning animal," using
the word "Reason" as the name for some abstract and
abstruse mental operation, but simply "a mental picture-
making animal." This theory has far-reaching aspects.
Desirable as the discovery of the rationale of the gift of
languages may be and certainly is — for language underlies
the acquisition of all knowledge and the study of all arts and
sciences — the investigation of this "gift "must be, whether
it be recognised or not, in reality the investigation of the
rationale of all " gifts " and all powers of the mind. The
"gift for languages" once proved to be a method and not an
abstruse faculty of the mind, inherited or acquired, is there not
an a 'priori reason that the gift for calculation, for drawing, for
music, may be methods % What is it that constitutes talent,
and what genius itself ? And if we reply, " The strength of
the power of mental representation," we are perhaps near to
the answer. The extremely important questions such an idea
raises are hinted at in this work, and the basis is laid for the
initiation of an intuitive method of teaching.
The work of M. Gouin has within it therefore the promise
of awakening other discoveries. One of these is hinted at on
p. 6, where the act of mental calculation, so wonderfully
PREFACE. ix
employed by so-called ''calculating prodigies," is suggested
for investigation; and, again, on p. 292, where the gift for
drawing is alluded to, and the principles of its development
are sketched out.
In the definite organisation of language, first into two
great divisions of objective and subjective, and then into the
groups corresponding, on the objective side, to the varied
occurrences in the external world ; and on the subjective
side, to the varied play of the faculties — in the organisation
of the totality of the expressions of any language into con-
centric groups, viz., of those expressions known by a child of
seven, those by a boy of ten, those by a youth of sixteen, and
those by a graduate of twenty one — in all this M. Gouin gives
a grouping eminently helpful not only to language teachers,
but also to philologists. In the methods of teaching arranged
in accordance with the psychological law of the development
of individuality in the child, we have not only a possibility of
greater efiiciency and adaptability in the methods of teaching
all subjects, but in the abrogation of the wearisome correction
of exercises and construing, and in the presentation of a less
abstract grammar, we have a deliverance of both pupils and
teachers from their weariest drudgery.
The latter, the exposition of a universal psychological con-
jugation (Part III. Grammar), calls for some more particular
remark. All grammars up to the present have been cast in
the same mould, without questioning if this were the only-
possible one or the best. The form of the word or words and
their endings is the material organised by them, and not the
thought which underlies these words and endings. The difii-
culty of accurately fixing the exact thought-subtleties under-
lying the tense-forms is almost absurd, as the writer well
knows, compared with the simplicity of the result when once
determined as embodied in a table such as the one given on
pages 231 and 238-9. In suggesting a new mould for the
setting forth of grammatical forms in lieu of the time-honoured
divisions of Pass^ Indefini and so forth, clearness of visualisa-
tion of the exact act expressed by the verb has been the only
guide, and is also the main result aimed at.
X PREFACE.
By the present methods we are all well aware that even
after four or five years' courses at ordinary school-classes,
pupils are certainly usually not able to understand native
speakers or lecturers, or capable of speaking correctly and
idiomatically themselves, until after some considerable period
of residence abroad. Indeed, it is no unusual occurrence to
find that students, on the usual methods, may have passed
examinations with, success, and yet be utterly unable to sustain
a simple conversation, or even understand a native speaker.
The ordinary class method, so well known by all of us, is here
alluded to ; other teachers have partly advanced on the lines
so thoroughly carried out by M. Gouin. To them all honour !
The reason of the success of M. Gouin's system, and the
ill-success of the ordinary class methods, may be briefly
summed up as follows : —
The ordinary classical method sets the students (i) to read
from a book what they do not yet know |iow to pronounce ;
(2) to connect the printed word in one language with another
printed word in another language ; (3) therefore, to perceive
the sense of the foreign language, always through the inter-
mediary of their own language, i.e., by translation, and not as
a native, by direct association ; (4) more often than not the
class exercises given are void of real sense or signification —
a set of more or less absurd, illogical (and untrue) statements,
having no application whatever to the learner's own individu-
ality, are used for exercises, introduced solely to employ the
vocabulary and to illustrate the rules of grammar; lastly,
the whole process throughout is abstract and arbitrary,
resting on no other foundation than the fancy of the
compiler.
To this process the system set forth by M. Gouin is opposed
in almost every particular, (i.) The learner has for exercises
sentences which bear a distinct and sensible meaning, and are
true in substance and in fact ; these are linked together in
logical sequence of the development of their action, forming
separate and simple dramatic scenes of primitive life, giving
rise, naturally, to good literary expressions; (2.) the learner
has the significance of the word or phrase always given to
PREFACE. xi
him or called up in his mind hefore he is introduced to the
foreign word or phrase which express it; (3.) the association
of the foreign word or phrase is thus not with an English
word, but with the actual fact or mental conception which the
English word only stands for and expresses ; (4.) he is given
the pronunciation orally first, and hefore he sees the printed
form, and this several times successively and methodically, until
it is engraven on his memory; (5.) only after he thoroughly
knows the meaning and pronunciation is he allowed to see
the written or printed word ; and lastly, no rule, no word, no
expression, is given in an abstract condition, but always as
depending on some concrete fact previously known and directly
applying to the student's own individuality. .
In this way the foreign language becomes in reality a
*' language" to the learner, not a slow translation or a set of
printed signs ; it is associated with actual facts, and expresses
his ideas and mental conceptions in the foreign language
itself — in other words, the student "thinks in the foreign
language."
All that is developed in this work is evidently in strict
accordance with the principles which have guided the work
of Pestalozzi and of Froebel, as of Herbert Spencer. The
Series System indicates, indeed, a direction in which the long
acknowledged principles of the Kindergarten system can be
carried on into more advanced work — languages, modern and
classical, science and technical education ; and in this it may
serve a doubly useful purpose, for it may give into the hands
of teachers the method so long desired of enabling the training
of the mind to go hand in hand with the teaching of useful
knowledge, while it may also reduce the time necessary for
elementary instruction by furnishing more efiicient means, and
so leave more time for higher and technical education.
To many minds the chapters on the teaching of classical
languages will doubtless have most interest, especially at a
juncture when the compulsory teaching of Greek at the Univer-
sities is hotly challenged as against the spirit of the age. The
system of teaching the classics here proposed will unfailingly
call forth many and very varied opinions. The author's ideas
xii PREFACE.
upon these points are very fully set forth in the chapters on
Greek and Latin (Part V., p. 362 ef seq.).
The original work was written in Geneva, and, it is interest-
ing to learn, was set up and composed in type by the author
himself, and printed at his own expense. It was published
in 1880 in Paris by G. Fischbacher, ^:^ Kue de Seine, and has
therefore been before the educational world for the last twelve
years. It is now out of print. Curiously enough, for such
an original and daring work, it has remained entirely unknown
to the British public, so far as the present writer can find,
until his introduction of it to those interested in educational
literature. At the time of the great Paris Exposition of 18S9,
being interested in language teaching, he had a copy of the
work put into his hands by a friend with the remark, " I do not
know whether the system has been carried into practice, but the
book is an attempt to reconstruct the child's mental life, and
is almost as interesting as a novel" — as indeed he found it.
Meeting, by a happy coincidence, M. Victor B^tis, the ardent
disciple of M. Gouin, who came to England on purpose to
introduce the system, the writer has given the time since to
preparing a faithful and careful translation of the book, which
embodies the life-work of one who may, perhaps, deserve to be
enrolled amongst the reorganisers of Pedagogy. This transla-
tion, undertaken with the close collaboration throughout of
M. Victor B^tis, presents a few modifications in one or two
particulars to adapt it to English requirements.
These modifications consist solely in the omission of two
or three paragraphs having more direct reference to French
schools ; the rather important modification of the chapter on
grammar (pp. 236-240), due to an extended comparison of the
English and French forms of the verbs, leading to a somewhat
deeper analysis of the author's investigations into the psycho-
logical differences underlying the tense forms of the conjuga-
tion ; the addition by the author of a scene from " Bomeo and
Juliet," illustrative of English literature in the form proposed ;
and yie publication in the Appendix of the certificate from
M. Lockroy, the French Minister of Public Instruction.
PKEFACE. xiii
The following facts with reference to the author, M.
Francois Gouin, it may be desirable here to mention. Born
in 1 83 1, a native of Normandy, he was educated at the Col-
lege of 8eez. Advised by the professors of the College of Caen
to complete his philosophical studies in the German univer-
sities — as he relates in the book — he made a dismal failure
in his attempt to learn the German language by following out
in its simplicity the ordinary or classical method of learning
a language, which no one probably has ever before carried to
its extreme limits. Studying, on his return, a child, his little
nephew of three years old, who had meanwhile leamt to talk
its native tongue, he made the discovery which is the keystone
of the book, and therefrom worked out his system of "The
Art of Teaching and Studying Languages." M* Gouin returned
to Germany, and lived for many years in Berlin, eventually
holding the position practically equivalent to that of Professor
of French to the Berlin Court, and enjoying the personal
friendship of Alexander von Humboldt. In i860 he made a
brief stay in England ; and shortly after was nominated by
one of the Ministers of Roumania to organise the system of
public instruction in that country. But the continual change
of Ministry, and finally the fall of Prince Couza (1864), forced
him to leave the country, and he eventually settled in Geneva,
where he established a school, and during this period his book,
"L'Art d'Enseigner et d'Etudier les Langues," was written
and published. Later (1880) he became Director of the Ecole
Superieure of Elboeuf, but left, much to the regret of the in-
habitants, who looked to his system to endow the rising genera-
tion with the knowledge of languages, and thus to furnish
them with the means of becoming the most successful of com-
mercial correspondents.
M. Gouin was then (1883) appointed Professor of German at
the Ecole Superieure Arago, Paris, which position he now occu-
pies. Here he taught German, and in his private time Latin
and Greek, upon his "Series System," and pubHshed further
works dealing with the practical part of the method. His book
falling into the hands of a certain French gentleman of wealth,
M. Tempie, he was accorded ( 1 885) the means to carry on experi-
xiv PREFACE.
mental classes for the teaching of German in the Ecole Normale
d'Instituteurs of Paris, the result of which, as given in the
certificate which is found in the Appendix (p. 395), was to
demonstrate that a thorough knowledge of the ordinary spoken
and written language, ability to understand a native speaker
or lecturer, with command of the grammar (and also some
knowledge of the literature of the country), with ability to
give lessons in the language, was obtained by students in less
than one year's course.
One word should be said in reference to the present methods
so heavily attacked in this volume. Methods, not men, alone
are criticised. There is no possibility of any personal feeling
having been imported, for the original work was directed
against French methods. Many there are who will welcome
this volume as a deliverance from purgatory — those who feel
the insufiiciency of present methods, as well as those who are
already arrayed against the classical process of abstract teach-
ing by grammar and vocabulary. Yet, nevertheless, it would
almost have been well to have had a head-line to every page,
in the words of the author's preface : —
METHODS AND NOT MEN ARE CRITICISED.
From the interest already shown by many persons of influence
to whom the work has been mentioned, it is certain that a
large measure of appreciation will be accorded in many direc-
tions in England to the life-long task of M. Gouin ; and if it
is felt that in any way a better study of the beauties of our
own or of foreign or classical literature, or the possibility of a
more useful and inspiriting education can be given by its
means, then the small amount of work done in presenting the
book in its English dress would have more than ample repay-
ment.
HOWAllD SWAN.
Richmond, Surrey,
July 1892.
CONTENTS,
PAGE
Preface v
PART FIRST.
HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
I. Need of a " mental railway " between nations — Character,
conditions, and final aim of a good linguistic method —
Possibility of its construction — Its prototype in nature . i
II. Means of demonstrating a truth and of setting forth a
system — Analysis and synthesis 7
III. The author attempts to learn the German language — Clas-
sical antecedents — The commencement — Hamburg Uni-
versity 8
IV. The first effort — The grammar and irregular verbs — Un-
successful result . . 10
V. The study of the roots — Second deception . . . .12
VI. An attempt at conversation — Disgust and fatigue — Reading
and translation, their worthlessness demonstrated . . 14
VII. The Ollendorf method — Enchantment— Thirty lessons in
ten days — Sad acknowledgment of the master — Delusion 18
VIII. Jacotot and Robertson — Disorder and arbitrariness esta-
blished as principles — Disconnected steps — The syste-
matic vocabulary by Plcetz 22
IX. Berlin University — Mixing with the Students — Fruitless
attendance at the classes 2 C
xvi CONTENTS.
PAGR
X. A heroic resolve — Study of the Dictionary — Struggle and
victory— Third deception— Futile toil .... 26
XI. A child of three years old — Development of language in
Nature's school — New point of departure — Observation
of the child — A clue — Looking at the mill — The intel-
^ lectual digestion — Saying and doing— The game — Light
^n- in the darkness 34
vJ*/" XII. First insight — Transformation of a perception into a
3 O conception — The scholastic process compared with
' f ^C a^ that of the child — Secret logic and marvellous order of
" C^ ^ Nature 39
XIII. Second insight — Principles of classification employed by the
child — Order of succession in time — Relation of end to
means — The incubation — Secret of the child's memory —
Explanation of my failures 42
XIV. Third insight — The child assimilates the mother-tongue
sentence by sentence, and not word by word — Hevela-
tion of the high value of the verb — The true pivot of the
natural system 44
XV. The web of language — Law of its formation — What is the
receptive organ of language ? — Incomprehensible error of
the College 46
XVI. Formation of the individuality by language — Precise defi-
nition of the work to be accomplished for the acquisition
of the basis of any given language — The idea of Series —
A generalisation — The mystic ladder of human indivi-
duality 48
XVII. Fourth insight — Two languages in one language— Objective
language and subjective language — The relative phrase
— Figurative language — Intuition of the system in its-
totality 52
XVIII. Return to Berlin — The test — A philosophical bout at the
University — The triumph — Excuse to the reader . . 56
XIX. Epilogue and prologue 59
CONTENTS. xvii
PART SECOND.
CONSTRUCTION AND APPLICATION OF THE SYSTEM.
PAGE
I. Division of the subject— Order to be followed ... 60
OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
Organisation in Series.
II. Definition and material of the Series 61
III. Construction of the Series — Outline of the general process
to be followed in organising them 62
IV. Construction of one " theme " of a Series .... 67
V. Character and properties of the exercises on the new method 70
1. Logical cohesion and original arrangement of the
sentences in the exercises 70
2. The number of words contained in a lesson . . 73
3. Intrinsic value of the terms contained ir> an ordinary
exercise 74
4. Two kinds of substantives — Common and general
nouns — Specific nouns — Their relation ... 76
5. Two kinds of verbs — ^Verbs of ends and verbs of
means — Their relation 77
6. Epitome and general view 79
7. Mnemonic properties of the method .... 80
VI. Critical observations upon the art of composing Series . 82
1. The pprpetual speech — Written Series — Hidden
difficulties 82
2. A method is a system necessarily artificial ... 85
3. Requisite capacities — Pedagogic measure of the Series
— Their division into exercises — Construction of these
exercises — Rules to be observed .... 86
4. Logical linking together of the sentences in an exer-
cise — Order and disorder — The human breath —
Measure of the phrase — Placing line by line — The
intellectual effort, its extent — Pedagogic measure of
a linguistic exercise 90
XVlll
CONTENTS.
VIT. Specimens of the Elementary Series
Tlie Pump
The Well .
The Spring
The Fire .
The Stove
VIII, Co-ordination of the Series — Importance of the Domestic
Series
PAGE
96
99
108
III
112
120
OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
Mode of Teaching the Series.
IX. A Language Lesson 127
1. Urgent need of a reform in the art of teaching
languages 127
2. The master-organ of language 127
3. The lesson of the teacher and the work of the pupil-
Assimilation — The part of the ear, the eye, and the
hand in the study of a language . . . .129
4. The pronunciation 13^
5. One teacher for three classes 142
SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
Its Organisation.
X. Classification of the Relative Phrases 144
1. Definition of the Relative Phrases— Their object and
their number in eacb tongue 144
2. Two kinds of Relative Phrases— Those perfect or
absolute, and the Enclitics 14S
3. Classification of Enclitics — General insight
4. Classification of the absolute Relative Phrases
General insight
147
149
CONTENTS. xix
SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
Art of Teaching it.
PAGE
XI. An ordered conversation carried on by means of the Rela-
tive Phrases 159
First Lesson in eight Languages : Latin, Greek, Italian,
French, Spanish, German, English, Norwegian . . 168
XII. Critical observations upon the practice of the Relative
Phrases 176
1. Remark upon our Appendices — Double function of the
Relative Phrase — Its practical value . . .176
2. Correspondence of the system with the maternal pro-
cess — The triumph of art — Correction of exercises —
The teacher's power doubled — The question of
accent — Free students 177
3. A declaration by a Minister of Education — The key-
stone of the edifice 180
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE*.
Its Organisation.
XIII. Object of this study — Two problems to be solved . . 182
XIV. Metaphorical themes 183
1. Origin of the metaphor — Its constituent elements —
Its definition 1 83
2. Ordinary symbolism— Construction of the metaphorical
themes . ' - . . . 186
The Art of Teaching Metaphors.
XV. Two kinds of processes 189
1. Intrinsic rank of the figurative language — How assimi-
lated in ordinary life — The part remaining to be
done by Art 189
2. Search for a connecting link between the metaphorical
theme and that of the Series — Idea of Dominants —
Crossing and harmonious progress of the two
languages . . 192
XVI. Still another question 195
XX CONTENTS.
PART THIRD.
GRAMMAR.
PAGH
I. Two opinions upon the practical value of grammar . .196
II. Definition and division 197
STUDY OF THE VERB.
Exercises in the Conjugations (First Week).
III. Indicative (present acts) 198
1. First exercise 198
2. Second exercise - . . -199
3. Third exercise 2cx)
IV. Critical examination of the process 201
1. Properties of our exercise in verbs .... 201
2. Upon the unity of the conjugation .... 203
3. Our process and that of nature — Awakening of the
grammatical sense — The indicative mood, the form
of the present tense, and the third person — The
Series of the Verb 207
4. Summary and conclusion — Grammatical teaching must
be reformed, not abolished 209
Exercises in Conjugation (Second Week).
V. Indicative mood — Acts past, present, and future . .211
1. Six times or six periods — Definite times and indefinite
times — Moments of precision 211
2. Natural association of the forms of the verbs with the
times — The tense intuition 215
3. The ordinary period of time (yesterday, to-day, to-
morrow, &c.) — The false period of time of the gram-
mars (the past, the present, the future) . . . 220
4. Erroneous notions of the tenses in the grammars —
Various causes of these errors : disdain of observa-
tion, traditional logomachy, confusion of the tense
and the act, vain symmetry 222
CONTENTS.
XXI
VI. Our practice in the forms of the Indicative
1. First exercise — Simple and momentary acts
2. Second exercise— Continuous and habitual acts .
3. Third exercise — Two acts occurring within the same
period of time — Simultaneous acts — Imperfect,
anterior, and posterior acts — The pluperfect acts
PAGE
227
227
232
235
Exercises in Conjugation (Third Week.)
VII. The Conditional and the Subjunctives .... 244
1. First exercise — The Conditional 244
2. Second exercise — The Subjunctives .... 246
STUDY OF THE SENTENCE.
Elements of the Sentence, their Functions.
VIII. Spoken Analysis of the Sentence .....
1. Various functions of the terms of a sentence — The
pupil's initiation into this knowledge
2. A starting-point and a direction . . . ,
IX. The complements — Cases or inflections — Declensions
1. The art of declining out of school
2. The art of declininf? at school
3. Practice of the declensions in our
4. Parallel of the two processes
X. The Preposition ....
XI. The Prefix
system
250
250
252
253
253
259
261
266
268
271
Construction.
XII. Two sorts of construction— Natural order and logical order 276
XIII. Practical study of the construction in an ancient or modern
foreign language . . 279
1. Construction by the ordinary process .... 279
2. Construction by our method 281
xxii CONTENTS.
THE MODAL PHRASES.
PAOB
XIV. Classification and practice 284
1. Definition of the modal phrase — Its constituent ele-
ments — Their relations 284
2. Establishment of the moods — Vicious circle of the
Classical school — Our process 285
3. Ordinary practice of the modal phrases and the moods
— Our process 286
ANNEXES AND COROLLARIES OF THE SYSTEM.
I. The Orthography— Spelling 288
IT. Reading 289
III. Drawing — Its relation to language — The illustrated Series . 292
IV. The time necessary to learn a language .... 294
V. The teaching of languages brought within the reach of all
— Linguistic aptitudes of women 299
VI. Can a language be learnt without a teacher ? . . .301
PART FOURTH.
STUDY OF THE CLASSICS.
Literary Series.
Outline of a new process for translating, reading, and assimilating
the classical authors.
I. Putting a literary work into Series 3^5
1. Principle and point of departure 305
2. Transcription of a classical work into literature lessons 306
5. Specimens of transcriptions 308
••The Lion and the Gnat" 3^9
•« Canis et Lupus " 311
•• Die Drei Spinnerinnen " 313
•• Romeo and Juliet " 320
II. Elaboration of a Literary Series— Our method of teaching . 325
1. One of La Fontaine's Fables 325
2. A page of Virgil 333
CONTENTS. xxiii
THE LANGUAGES BY THE SCIENCES AND THE SCIENCES
BY THE LANGUAGES.
PAGE
I. The solidarity of the sciences and the languages . " . .341
II. The languages by history and history by the languages
1. Necessity for a reform in the teaching of history
2. History put into Series ....
" The battle of Rossbach " .
3. The teaching of the history lessons
4. Geographical Series
III. The languages by the natural sciences and vice versa
IV. The languages and the exact sciences .
343
343
345
348
350
355
356
359
PART FIFTH.
GREEK AND LATIN.
I. The value of Greek and Latin 362
1. The interest of the race 362
2. The interest of the individual . . . . . 364
II. Condemnation of the processes applied to the study of
ancient languages 367
1. Ten years and ten masters 367
2. The dictionary, or the discipline of the vicious circle . 369
III. The fear of improvement — Sceptical disdain of the official
schools and their secret aversion to reform . . . 376
1. A last contest 376
2. Solution of the conflict 380
IV. The dying dialects — An ark of safety 383
APPENDIX.
I. Three French Series lessons ...,,. 386
II. Co-ordinated acts — Author's text 389
III. " Le Lion et le Moucheron " 392
IV. Certificate of the French Minister of Public Instruction . 395
Index 397
THE AET OF
TEACHING AND STUDYING LANGUAGES,
PART FIRST. ^^' ' ^-
HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM
NEED OF A "mental RAILWAY" BETWEEN NATIONS — CHAR-
ACTER, CONDITIONS, AND FINAL AIM OF A GOOD LINGUISTIC
METHOD POSSIBILITY OF ITS CONSTRUCTION — ITS PROTO-
TYPE IN NATURE.
The feeling which leads nations to become acquainted with
each other and to penetrate farther and farther into each
other's territories is one which it is useless to resist. It is in
vain that despotism constructs frontiers bristling with for-
tresses and cannon ; in vain that the spirit of absolutism strives
to multiply the germs of discord between nation and nation,
and to imprison the races each within the barren confines of
its own unhealthy egotism.
Steam and electricity have drawn nations nearer together
than were neighbouring villages in the olden times. By their
means every movement, every aspiration is made known and
reported from one to the other, is revealed and published hour
by hour. A proximity, an interpenetration of the nations such
as this, renders more imperative day by day the need for
mankind to be able to speak to and understand each other,
to exchange their ideas and the fruits of their activities.
Unfortunately, however moral and legitimate the demand
may be for the complete satisfaction of this need, a barrier
A
2 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSIEM.
is opposed wnich until now has been almost insurmountaLlo,
namely, the difference of language. To what, then, should
fall the task of throwing down, or at least of levelling up, this
obstacle of Nature? Evidently to science, to teaching, to
the school.
Alongside the material railway needed to enable our bodies
to communicate, it is absolutely necessary to construct a
*' mental railway " for the intercourse of minds. This mentnl
railway must take the form of a linguistic method that shall
enable a person, by means of the language, to enter into and
assimilate the intelligence, and the spirit of a foreign nation,
not as now, in a period of ten or of twenty years, and in so
doing to expend the third part of a lifetime, but in the space
between two equinoxes, or, for those of trained will, in the
space of a single season. On the day when this new species
of locomotive is definitely organised and put at the service of
men of thought and will, the brotherhood of nations will cease
to be a vain and empty word — a word which Governments
laugh to scorn, and peace as well as liberty will perhaps have
found their most solid foundation.
Nations would never strive to cut each other's throats if
they understood each other thoroughly, and if a healthy and
moral hospitality drew them together. However great the
perverse ambition of those who excite the races to make war
upon each other, their efforts must inevitably fall to the ground
if opposed to a universal league waging a continual crusade in
the cause of the most sacred interests of humanity.
Nothing, therefore, could be better than this "mental rail-
way " to prepare and hasten the development of that Areo-
pagus which sooner or later — vowed inwardly by all men of
heart — will effectually close the temple of war by curtailing
and disarming for ever the sanguinary fury of political
ambition. From this point of view a good linguistic method
is not merely a scientific and a literary work, but a humani-
tarian and a moral one. As such, it is worthy of the greatest
efforts of the profession of teaching, and perhaps takes the
lead of all other scholastic undertakings.
*' But the world is old," say the numerous friends of routine
• — those who have lived in it, those who live for it, and those
who live by it — " the world is old, and that which the master-
minds who have preceded us must have sought and could not
THE MENTAL RAILWAY. . 3
discover — the solution of this grand problem — can we flatter
ourselves that we can discover ? "
If the world is old to-day, it was already old sixty years ago ;
and if, sixty yeai-s ago, every one had taken this reason, so
dear to all quietists, to comfort themselves in idleness, we
should never have had to this very hour the knowledge of
either steam, or electricity, or the thousand other forces which
science and industry have already begun to subdue or to trans-
form as into new organs of our race.
Nations do not grow old ; they change, and in so doing they
remain eternally young. If the men of the last century were
to awake to-day, they would have some difficulty in recognising
the present generation as their children. They would at first,
perhaps, believe in the accession of a new race. Pascal him-
self, at the sight of natural forces so magnificently conquered,
so cunningly adapted to the needs of modern life, might well
feel inclined to take us for magicians. Would he not be
wonderstruck at the marvels executed by engineering and
the omnipotence of calculation ? Would he recognise in our
sciences, in our industries, in our arts, the corollaries of his
own discoveries and his own profound intuitions ? Before the
marvels of chemistry even Lavoisier, the father of this science,
might well stand speechless.
" Nil mortalibus arduum est ! " This statement, which in
the ode of Horace sounds like a hyperbole, has become a
living reality. Lightning itself and all the indomitable ener-
gies which the giants, sons of the earth, drew from the contact
with mother earth, are now practically at the beck and call of
man — "Sub ditione hominis."
In spite of this, or rather because of this, the earth is still
young, extremely young ; for the power of mankind is, above
all, a growth. It is, as yet, hardly at the beginning. His
success has, it is true, given to man a consciousness of his
power; this is much, no doubt, but it is a commencement
and not an end.
Considered from the moral point of view, can it be said that
the world has attained to years of discretion ? Which of us is
in possession of the true knowledge of good and evil ? Look
around towards the four points of the compass and say whether
the nations most resemble men actually and incontestably free,
or children under tutelage. No, the world is not old, and the
4 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM
era of discovery, so far from being closed, has but just opened.
Great inventions are the daughters of Necessity, and when
Necessity has spoken, man seeks and always finds.
Before the advent of the railway, it may be said that nations
lived so far apart that the need of speaking to and of under-
standing each other did not really exist. It made itself felt
slightly at the frontiers, and for this Nature herself has pro-
vided.i But to-day, thanks to the locomotive, nations are
next door to each other. Necessity wills that they shall bo
able to talk together with intimacy, that they shall have no
more secrets one from the other, that they shall not betray one
another, that at last they shall know and understand one
another mutually and to the utmost depths of their natures.
The material railway has long been built, and it calls inevit-
ably for the mental railway of which we have spoken. In
reality this, if we but knew it, is the end of which the other
is simply the means. Each cause must have its effect, and
tends thereto until this has been realised. In the historical
development of the human race that which was an " end "
during one generation becomes a "means" to the next; that
which to-day seems to us an "effect," to-morrow will be a
"cause," and will have the virtues of a cause together with
its character.
Material railway, mental railway : have we here a vain
antithesis ? Can the latter be constructed, and will it ever be
constructed ? Why not, we may ask, if for it there is, as we
have seen, a historical necessity — a necessity of civilisation ?
Why not, if Nature possesses already the marvellous machi-
nery which, in the child, weaves in so short a time the wondrous
fabric of the human individuality out of the raw material of
language 1 Why not, if the method sought for is working
every day under our very eyes ; if the child practises it con-
tinually with so much success as to assimilate the idiom of his
native soil ; and if all that is needful to transform it definitely
into a general instrument of the mind is to submit the mater-
nal process to the work of exegesis commanded by the pro-
found saying of Bacon, " Interpretanda est natura " ?
Our individual efforts to conquer the language of the coun-
tries which surround us, the love of children, the constant
and assiduous search for the laws which must preside over the
^ Frontier races speaking both languages (Trans,).
NATURE'S SOLUTION OF THE PEOBLEM. 5
curious and rapid development of language in early years, the
long philological studies, these have perhaps enabled us to
discover some of the principles of this method, which, when
perfected both by time and by practice, might well be called
by the name of the "Natural Method."
To those who a ■priori tell us, "Your system, whatever it
may be, and however ingenious it may be, can only represent
a chimerical idea, or else it is simply a trick and a delu-
sion, you are seeking to square the circle" — to those we
answer as did the Greek sage to the sophist who denied that
movement existed — the philosopher simply walked. We on
our part point to the child — the little child who knows how
to speak a language at three years of age, who has learnt it
whilst playing round his mother, who speaks it in a way in
which most of us would be proud of being able to speak
the language of any of our neighbours. Yes, Nature has
already solved the problem that we are investigating, and
she holds a permanent school for early infancy, in which we
can, if we wish, at any time take part, and where we may be
able to study her never-failing processes.
Unhappily the child has remained up to the present a
hackneyed riddle which we have never taken sufficient trouble
to decipher or even to examine. In the feverish and change-
ful rush of its life we have not kept sight of the regular and
mathematical development which has been effected in its mind
by (or through) language. In the turmoil of its acts, sensa-
tions and feelings so diverse and multifold, we have hitherto
been able to perceive only a pure game of chance. AVe have
never been able to conceive that possibly there might be, or
that we might find in this something resembling a method ;
that we might find somewhat of order, that is to say, a
" principle of order." Yet the little child, which at the age of
two years utters nothing but meaningless exclamations, at the
age of three finds itself in possession of a complete language.
IIow does it accomplish this ? Does this miracle admit of
explanation or not ? Is it a problem of which there is a possi-
bility of finding the unknown quantity ?
It is instinct, says one. It is a gift of Nature, reply others.
Yery convenient answers, no doubt, having the remarkable
property of equally well solving all questions of an intellectual
and moral nature.
6 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
When Henri Mondeux,i in his appearances before the
colleges, and even before the Acad^mie des Sciences at Paris,
stood up on the platform, and, without pens or paper, solved
intuitively and in a few seconds problems which it had taken
Arago eight days to calculate, the professors wagged their
heads, and they also said, '' It is a gift ! " And thanks to this
superb word, thanks to this impious disdain, the university
has left buried with Henri Mondeux a method of calculation
which, applied to steam, to electricity, to modern industry,
might to-day have increased tenfold the power of mankind.^
No, the marvellous aptitude of children for assimilating a
language is not a "gift;" it is the result of a process admir-
ably carried out, resting upon principles as yet imperfectly
apprehended, and often in entire contradiction to those which
the usual systems now proclaim. Given a child of four or
five years with a Greek or a Chinese nurse : is it true,
or is it not true, that this child will speak Greek or will
speak Chinese at the end of six months in a manner that will
confound the greatest philologists in the world ? And is it
true, on the other hand, that if this same child had as masters
these same philologists, at the end of six months it would
know practically nothing of either of these languages ? There-
fore the child by the side of his nurse would have a gift or
faculty which it would lose by the side of the savants !
Gift and instinct — these are two words, two sayings void
of sense, to which man still turns to excuse his idleness or
conceal his ignorance.
To conclude our preamble : the child learns in six months,
in a year at the outside, to talk and also to think. The youth
or the adult having to do but a portion of this work, since he
already knows how to think, should therefore be able without
trouble to learn in six months, or in a year at the outside,
to speak any given language, be it Chinese, Japanese, Arabic,
Sanscrit, German, English, or French. And he certainly can
do this on condition that he follow the special process known
^ A famous French calculating boy (Trans.).
^ It may not be uninteresting to state here that one of the disciples of the
author has worked out the theory and the method of this wonderful mental
calculation, as the result of the hint given above, with extremely interesting
and successful results, which will be embodied in a work on intuitive
calculation (Trans.).
MEANS OF DEMONSTRATION. 7
find so well applied by our own mothers. Nature has set
lierself the problem in equations : it is for us to clear the
fractions and determine the unknown.
II.
MEANS OF LEMOXSTRATING A TRUTH AND OF SETTING FORTH
A SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS.
When a teacher puts a question before the little public of
his class, we may suppose that he knows the solution of it.
In the same way when a writer upon pedagogy or the science
of teaching undertakes to bring forward a new method to the
larger public, he should be, or believe himself to be, in posses-
sion of a certain number of practical truths until that timo
more or less unknown. It is not, therefore, a discovery so
much as a demonstration which he proposes to make.
Now there are, as is well known, two means of demonstrating
a scientific theorem, or, in fact, a thesis of any kind whatsoever.
We may either combine or turn about the data in order to
discover the necessary constant relations which these facts
bear one towards the other ; or else, knowing these relations
beforehand, we may bring them about or establish them in
the first place, and then by a series of logical deductions arrive
at the particular truth which results from these relations.
In reality these two processes are two portions of the same
whole. The first, usually termed *' analysis," is the rational
part of the demonstration, since it establishes the necessary
relations of things. The second, usually termed "synthesis,"
is the practical part, since it develops and brings to light the
truths which lie in the germ within these relations. We may
add that the one is the necessary complement of the other.
Without the first the second leaves something arbitrary and
unexplained. On the other hand, without synthesis and
deduction, analysis remains but a barren effort, like a word
half articulated or a circle abruptly and awkwardly broken
through.
Therefore, to explain our present method as clearly as
possible, that is, to demonstrate the practical truths embodied
in the system, we must have recourse to the double process of
analysis and synthesis. But in what can the analysis consist
8 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
in a case such as this ? It should be the same, for example, as
the explanation of the process which has given us porcelain, or
the web from the Jacquard loom, which would be an account
of the successive experiments by which the two inventors have
attained the realisation of their conception. It is, therefore,
by the history of what we may term our " discovery " that we
are invited by logic to begin the explanation of the system.
The reader is asked to pardon the intrusion of the author's
personality in a work of this kind; but for an author the
interest of the idea and his success take precedence over every
other consideration, and in the name of logic, and for the sake
of clearness of exposition, we may perhaps be permitted to
begin the treatise by an account of the author's personal
experiences.
We should like to point out before commencing that this
linguistic method is, so far as we know, the first yet brought
forward which begins by the advancement of a theory ; it is
indeed the first which even admits of a theory, or which it
has been possible to form into a distinct system. Jacotot,
Robertson, Ollendorf, &c., have in reality nothing to do with
theory ; their works, as we shall show, do not rest upon any
real principle of psychology ; they either consider themselves
superior to all principles, or more probably the possibility of
a theory never occurred to them.
III.
THE AUTHOR ATTEMPTS TO LEARN THE GERMAN LANGUAGE —
CLASSICAL ANTECEDENTS — THE COMMENCEMENT — HAMBURG
UNIVERSITY.
On leaving what are termed by our masters " solid studies,"
I embraced, both by taste and by vocation, the career of teach-
ing. I was at first in charge of a fifth (lower middle) class,
and in the intervals of the lessons I had to prepare students
for the Baccalaureat.^ Besides this, I followed assiduously
the Academy courses in literature and science, most of these
being given at hours when I was at liberty. This first stage,
and these university studies, in our lovely town of Caen, were
^ The French matriculation, considered equal to a degree (Trans.).
THE CLASSICAL PROCESS. 9
to last four years. I threw myself into the methods and the
classical proceedings with all the ardour of which one is capable
in the early days of youth.
For the purpose of argument I will grant that this zeal
occasionally did develop sundry small prodigies. For instance,
at my first attempt, a student who had never before learnt
any Latin was taken in hand by me one October, and in the
October following he passed his examination at the head of
the section. All which is to indicate that I must have known,
to have practised it, both the strength and the weakness of
the classical method of teaching, which I shall attack and
combat lat«r on.
My professors at the university (of whom T may be allowed
to mention the revered names of MM. A, Charma and Ch.
Ilippeau), believing they had distinguished certain philoso-
phical aptitudes in their pupil, engaged me to cross the Bhine
and go to listen, if not to the great masters of the German
school, Hegel and Schelling, at least to the last echoes of
their voices and the doctrines of their successors. I departed
with joy, furnished with precious letters of introduction to
many of the celebrities of the day.
To cross the North Sea, to leave Havre and alight at Ham-
burg, did not require a great effort. The first and greatest
obstacle to conquer was not the distance, but the language, for
J. hardly knew the German characters ; but at the age at which
I was then, nothing is deemed impossible, and I thoroughly
expected at the end of a few weeks to be able to speak
German, at any rate, as well as the children of the place. It
seemed to me that a living language might be somehow assi-
milated in the very air of the country.
Hamburg was thus my first stage. My idea was there to
conquer the foundation of the language, then to proceed to
Berlin to enter the university. Hamburg had, moreover, an
academy with many able professors and largely frequented
by students. Every class was crowded with earnest students
of both sexes, a striking and humiliating contrast to the unfor-
tunate French universities, usually neglected by the people,
and practically unknown to the district ever since the time
when the State constituted them its exclusive property. I
had thus ready to my hand an excellent means both of con-
trolling my progress and of habituating my ears to the accent
lo HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
and to the language of German science. I promised myself to
profit well by such a good opportunity, and to make consider-
able use of this pleasure.
The carrier pigeon, before taking its flight, mounts straight
upwards into the air, and, seeking its way, measures the space
it has to traverse. To estimate approximately and to fix in
my own mind the distance between the point of departure and
the point of arrival, I resolved to listen at the very first at
least once to each of the professors, and see how much of his
thought I should be able to grasp by the attentive observation
of his gesture and accent. Alas ! I can only state my absolute
incapability of penetrating a solitary one of the ideas so eagerly
and so religiously gathered up by a crowd of students whose
happiness I envied. I was therefore compelled to set to work,
commencing " at the very beginning."
IV.
THE FIRST EFFORT — THE GRAMMAR AND IRREGULAR VERBS
UNSUCCESSFUL RESULT.
For the study of languages I knew but one process — a pro-
cess without any particular name — the classical process. My
faith in the grammar, the dictionary, the translation from and
into the foreign language, was entire and above suspicion. To
my mind the value and the efficacy of this " universal " pro-
cess were indisputable. Was it not the final outcome of the
experience and the science of mankind ? To learn first words,
then the rules for grouping these words, and of these to make
up sentences, this seemed to me to include the whole art, the
■whole secret, the whole philosophy of the teaching of languages.
Was it not thus that I had learnt Latin myself, and had after-
wards taught it to others ? Was it not to this process that -I
owed what knowledge I possessed of Greek ?
When I thought about it seriously, my knowledge of Greek
and Latin appeared to me, it is true, insufficient for a living
language, and the thought of the length of time I had devoted
to their study would sometimes come to trouble the serenity of
my confidence and to disquiet the hope that I had of master-
ing German in a few weeks ; but a word, a snying, an inward
GRAMMAH AND IRREGULAR VERBS. 1 1
voice, had the virtue of chasing away all these troublesome
thoughts. " Those are dead languages," I said to myself,
"and German is a spoken language." And this simple anti-
thesis sufficed to put to flight every objection, every impor-
tunate suggestion.
I had armed myself after leaving Havre with a grammar
and a dictionaiy. I applied myself resolutely to the study of
the grammar. I divided it into seven or eight portions, and
I devoured it, I assimilated it in a week. Declensions,
strong, weak, and mixed ; conjugations, regular and irregular ;
adverbs, prefixes, and propositions, syntax and method, all
passed under my eye, upon my tongue, and into my memory —
all with the exception of the table of irregular verbs. This
was divided into two parts and imposed as a task for the two
following days.
In my previous studies I had given more than a year to
learn the Latin grammar; in ten days I had mastered the
grammar of the German language. This victory swelled my
courage, and I hastened forthwith to the Academy in order to
measure the extent of this first step and to realise the powder
acquired.
But alas ! in vain did I strain my ears ; in vain my eye
strove to interpret the slightest movements of the lips of the
professor; in vain I passed from the first class room to a second;
not a w^ord, not a single word would penetrate to my under-
standing. Nay, more than this, I did not even distinguish a
single one of the grammatical forms so newly studied ; I did
not recognise even a single one of the irregular verbs just
freshly learnt, though they must certainly have fallen in
crowds from the lips of the speaker.
For a moment I was prostrated. Then musing over the
extent of my first effort, I consoled myself for this deception
or for this failure by reflecting that I had familiarised myself
as yet with rules and terminations only, and that with respect
to the foundation of the language itself, I knew only its 248
irregular verbs. All that was needful again to give me courage
was the explanation or reason of my failure ; and I thought
I had found it in nothing more serious than the foregoing
consideration. What now had to be done, therefore, was to
attack the foundations of the German language. But where
was I to find these foundations and how detach them from their
surroundings 1
12 mSTOEY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
THE STUDY OF THE ROOTS SECOND DECEPTION.
^Yhen, in my school-clays, I had been learning Greek, I had
studied Lancelot's book of roots. Full of faith in the pro-
mise of the professors, who, without being certain of it them-
selves, yet assured us that it sufficed to thoroughly know the
two thousand root words to know Greek thoroughly, I had
perhaps ten times learnt, ten times forgotten, and ten times
more reconquered the " Garden of Greek Roots," which finally
became for me a kind of breviary which I repeated over every
morning.
The promise of my masters, it is true, was not fulfilled, and
although I was perhaps a better Hellenist than any other of
my co-disciples at the university, I could not altogether deceive
myself. I was very far from being able to read and enjoy
Thucydides and Plato as I could read and enjoy the authors
of my native land. But Greek was a "dead language," and
no doubt there was, for a knowledge of dead languages, a point
which one could never expect to pass. Tliis reflection tran-
quillised me by deluding me as to the real value of my classical
knowledge.
So that if by the " Garden of Greek Roots " I had not alto-
gether arrived at the promised land, I did not feel that I had
the right to draw from this an argument against the efficacy of
the German roots. German being a living language, the pro-
cess which was defective for Greek might yet be excellent for
German. One should be careful not to prejudge. A remedy
which might be impotent upon a dead body may very easily
produce an effect upon a living being.
Far from confirming this objection, reason reminded me
that there should be, and in fact there was, for each language
a foundation, a substance, as for every other thing; and that
this foundation, this substance, is nothing else than the collec-
tion of the roots, namely, that part, that unalterable element
of the language which supports and nourishes the varied and
variable assemblage of cases and of conjugations as a plant
supports and maintains the phenomena of efflorescence.
I made up my mind, therefore, to treat German exactly by
the same process as Greek, and I visited all the booksellers of
STUDY OF THE ROOTS. 13
Hamburg to procure a book of this description, which, vastly
to my astonishment, was not to be found. Nevertheless,
German was, I reflected, a language constructed after the
manner of Greek. Ought not the study of the roots to be made
the subject of the first lesson of all the courses in philology ?
Could it be possible for this science to have any other point of
departure ?
I deemed it impossible that a collection of German roots
should not exist ; and, in spite of the denials of the book-
sellers, I set myself to work to find this book, and to look
through all their shops (they spoke French), and I ended at
last by discovering in the corner of a shelf the treasure I
sought.
It was quite a small book, bearing the name of a Jesuit
father ; a very complete collection, and with the roots arranged
in alphabetical order. If my memory serves me, this booklet
contained eight or nine hundred roots. The smallness of this
number, I must confess, somewhat disenchanted me ; it dis-
concerted and almost discouraged me. If, indeed, with the
two thousand Greek roots I had arrived at no very practical
result, how could I hope to achieve anything practical by a
study which only required half so great an effort 1
A thousand roots, I said to myself at last, after having
counted and recounted the columns of the book ; it is, at any
rate, so much gained. Let us begin, afterwards we will see if
anything more complete can be discovered.
Four days afterwards the Jesuit father's work had passed
into my memory. I gave myself four days more to look
through and digest my grammar, my 248 irregular verbs, and
my 800 roots. This time I thought I really possessed the
foundation of the language, as well as the laws and the secret
of its forms, regular and irregular.
If the method was good — and how could I doubt it ? — was it
not the grammatical and classical method 1 If the masters of
my alma mater were not deceived — and how should they be ? —
themselves the representatives and the ministers of the wisdom
of the university ? If, in a word, I had not completely mis-
taken the reality of my efforts and the amount of work accom-
plished, I ought now to possess the German language, doubt-
less not in all the amplitude of its riches, but sufficiently at
any rate to listen, to read, to penetrate whatever was within
the reach of a person of ordinary intelligence.
14 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
I I hastened to the academy, content within myself, and
filled with confidence, tasting in advance the double pleasure
' /of hearing science through a foreign dialect, and of feeling my
small personality suddenly increased by half in mastering the
sS speech of a vast country.
y / Imagine then, if it be possible, the astonishment at first,
then the stupefaction, then the degradation by which I was
overtaken after the first quarter of an hour at the lecture I
attended, when I had to submit to the evidence, and to confess
to myself that I was, so far as regards the spoken language,
y ) exactly in the same state as upon the first day ; that I did
not understand a word, not a syllable, and that all my efforts
had been made in pure waste, or at least had produced no
appreciable result.
* This was no longer a mere deception — it was a failure ;
jjf nay, more than this, it was a defeat. My amour projire
' ^ was deeply touched ; my courage and the confidence I felt in
my energy were greatly diminished thereby. I sorrowfully
< wandered back to my lodgings, seeking the causes of my
^ incapability, and unfortunately this time unable to give my-
' / self any explanation.
VI.
AX ATTEMPT AT CONVERSATION — DISGUST AND FATIGUE — READING
AND TRANSLATION, THEIR WORTHLESSNESS DEMONSTRATED.
I now attempted to converse with my hosts. Up to this time
I had neglected, or rather disdained, this means, as being too
slow, too uncertain, too casual, too troublesome, especially for
those to whom I spoke. However, I had taken rooms at a
hairdresser's; I could hardly have been in a better school.
So I drew myself together for another effort, and each day
found me established for long hours in the hairdresser's
saloon, where I attempted to follow the conversation, hazard-
ing from time to time a sentence carefully prepared before-
hand, awkwardly constructed with the aid of my roots and
grammar, and apparently always possessing the property of
astonishing and hugely amusing the customers.
Meanwhile the days passed and the weeks also, and truly
I could not see what I had gained from one morning to the
other. I considered that the sundry conventional phrases I
CONVERSATION AND TRANSLATION. 15
could now exchange with the frequenters of the house were
really not worth the pains I had given either to gather or
to retain them. I felt, besides, that to converse with me was
an undertaking hardly less painful than with a deaf-mute.
Moreover, I had an intense desire, an ardent thirst for order
and logic, to which the scraps of ordinary conversation, more
or less vapid and continually interrupted, corresponded but
ill. This want of order enervated and fatigued me beyond
measure. Studied in this manner, a language appeared to mo
under the guise of a Penelope's web , where the work of the
nig:ht destroyed that of the day. .
Seeing no limit to a work thus carried on at haphazard, ^\ ^
suddenly broke off with a process that could lead me to i ^^
nothing, and I returned to reading — translation by the aid( '
of the dictionary. The prodigal son, who had one moment \J,^
wandered from the straight path, entered once more upon y
classic ways. The depth of the ideas translated would prove no )
obstacle, nay, rather for a student of philosophy should possess J
an attraction ; so I went direct to Goethe and Schiller.
If I had been able to doubt for one instant the wisdom and
the infallibility of the university, "Et si mens non Iseva
fuisset," I should have been able, — indeed, I ought to have
been forced, from this moment to appreciate at its true value
the study of roots and the vocabulary'' in general, that exercise
so much extolled by all scholastic bodies.
Practically, in spite of the perfect knowledge I believed I
had acquired of the roots of the German language, although
I was able to repeat them by heart from one end to the other,
and although I had saturated myself with them every morning
before breakfast, yet when I opened the first page of my
author, I found I could recognise hardly any of the words
I had acquired, though the page must have contained many of
them.
, If perchance one of them seemed to me to be a little better*
I known or less strange than the others, its inner sense always
Jescaped me ; this I could never find, and above all could never
/precisely fix. It was exactly as one recalls having seen a
iperson somewhere without being able to call to mind either
(his name or what he was.
When my glance fell upon a word of my native tongue, the
idea represented by this word shone or sparkled forth, so to
i6 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
speak, under my eyes. The word became transfigured with a
certain mysterious element of life. I beheld no longer mere
letters ; I saw the idea itself.
Strange that this phenomenon would not occur for the
German word, even when I had been able to determine its
meaning by the aid of the dictionary. The word was always
as a dead body stretched upon the paper. Its meaning shone
not forth under my gaze ; 1 could draw forth neither the idea
nor the life.
*' Tragen," for instance, was for me but an arbitrary assem-
blage of six letters, perfectly incapable of revealing to me the
effort or the special movement it had the mission to represent.
The hour was yet far distant when I should ask myself the
reason of this difference, or should seek the explanation of
this curious phenomenon. Other trials were needed to open
my eyes.
/So my work on the roots and the irregular verbs seemed
ho have been made in vain. Nevertheless I could not bring
myself to believe this seriously. " The fire smoulders under
the ashes," I assured myself, "and will brighten up little by
little. We must read, read, read, day in and day out ; trans-
late, translate continually ; hunt, hunt a hundred times after
the same word in the dictionary ; catch it a hundred times, a
hundred times release it ; we shall finish by taming it."
The first day I had much difficulty in deciphering even one
page, and I was not sure I had not made a dozen blunders in
'this. The second page seemed to be equally difficult with the
first. For a week I worried and tossed about my dictionary.
In this week I had hardly interpreted the meaning of eight
pages, and the ninth did not promise to be less obscure or less
laborious than the preceding.
I felt I was not advancing, that I should never by this
means arrive at the knowledge of the language in its totalit}^,
* that the words did not grave themselves upon my mfemory,
and that my work this time was indeed a Penelope's web.
Translation might be a useful and necessary esercise for the
study of Greek and Latin ; it appeared to me to be far less
fruitful for living languages. <■
C> For the first time in my life I dared to question the effi cacy^
o f the classical methods of the university^ I still maintained
Them, it is true, for the ancient tongues ; but I boldly
14—.-
ir- ^
TRANSLATION AND READING. 17
condemned them for modern languages, and these are the
considerations upon which I grounded my judgment.
*' To translate a volume of 300 pages would take some 300
days ; this is a whole scholastic year : and, moreover, would
this work be profitable except to a person who should set
himself to learn the pages of the book by heart as he trans-
lated them ? Now no one can ignore the fact that by the
time he had mastered the last page he would probably have
forgotten at least 290 pages. Moreover, this book is far from
containing the whole of the language, with all its terms and
all its forms.
"At school, when we had finished construing a book of
Herodotus, we were made to pass to Thucydides. Now, I
never found that the interpretation of the first book facilitated
very much the interpretation of the second. The same verb,
it is true, reappeared often, but nearly always with a different
signification. Each sentence was an enigma which must be
deciphered with the aid of a dictionary.
*' Translation is not merely a slow and painful process, but
it leads to nothing and can lead to nothing. Suppose that I
have translated the entire volume, there is every evidence that
I should not be in a state either to speak or understand speech,
or even to read readily a second volume."
The means was therefore judged, and condemned for ever.
I closed my Goethe and my Schiller, decided not to reopen
these books until the day that I could speak the language of
their authors.
However, I had not arrived at my goal ; I judged it,
indeed, farther away than ever, for my faith was beginning
to be shaken. What new proceeding should I next essay?
To what artifice could I have recourse 1 For it was indeed
necessary that I should learn German ; I icould learn German.
The thing could not be impossible ; the little children learnt
it easily enough ; the hairdresser's babies prattled around me,
saying all they wished to say, understanding all that w^as
said to them, answering to all that was asked of them, and
this without having learnt either grammar or roots or irregular
verbs, and without ever having worried a dictionary.
18 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
vir.
THE OLLENDORF METHOD — ENCHANTMENT THIRTY LESSONS
IN TEN DAYS^A DOUBT SAD ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE
MASTER — DELUSION.
I paid another visit to the booksellers of Hamburg, and
telling them of my unfortunate experiences, I begged them to
let me into the secret of the persons who learn German, or
rather of those who had really arrived at learning it.
They immediately offered me Ollendorf's book, and bade me
pay especial attention to these words, '^ fifty-fourth edition."
The whole world then studied this book ! There was no
doubt of it ; it was certainly here that all the foreigners W'ho
spoke German had learnt that language. I bought the cele-
brated method ; I read the preface attentively, then I medi-
tated and I pondered for some time over this promise, "German
in ninety lessons."
Three months added to the long weeks sacrificed to my
unfruitful trials represented a period which exceeded con-
siderably the time I had judged necessary for a first initiation
into the ordinary language, and from this would result an
annoying 'delay which would derange all my plans for study
at the Berlin University. I therefore put the question to
myself, if I could not, by stubborn efforts, accomplish in six
weeks the work which an ordinary student would achieve in
three months ? It was a thing that might be tried. I divided
my day into three parts, and in each I placed a lesson of
Ollendorf.
It is unnecessary to say more than that success recom-
pensed my zeal, and each day saw me at the end of my triple
task. I should like to retrace here for the benefit both of
teachers and of students the impressions which I felt in pass-
ing abruptly from the classic methods to these new methods,
which might be aptly termed " extra-scholastic."
I. Instead of isolated words, as abstract as logarithms, such
as the roots and irregular verbs, connected together by the
purely fortuitous circumstance of the similarity of their initial
letters, Ollendorf produced words ready set in their phrases,
the meaning of which was consequently definitely fixed, and
which had for connection, if not logical relationship, at any
THE OLLENDOKF SYSTEM. 19
rate those of the immediate wants of life and of every-day
usage.
" Have you a knife 1 "— " Yes, I have a knife."
" Have you any shoes ? " — " Yes, I have some shoes."
2. The grammar, instead of being presented as an undi-
gested mass of abstractions, of theories more or less obscure,
of rules and exceptions regulating a priori, and from the
heights of a special book, matters unknown to the pupil,
was hidden beneath the kindly form of counsel given as the
necessity for it arose, passing immediately into practice,
embodying itself in actual facts and in habitual locutions to
which one had recourse a hundred times a day.
3. It was no longer by the figurative literary language of
classical authors that the pupil was forced to begin. It was
the expression of the life of every day, the expression of the
most ordinary phenomena that Ollendorf presented to us, or
pretended to present to us, and this in doses having the
appearance of being regulated according tt) the measure of a
partial effort of the mind.
This linguist gave the actual, objective world for the
foundation of his edifice ; the world of facts, not of pure
idealities and abstractions. With- him we commenced no
longer at the topmost summit, as we had done at college when
learning Greek and Latin, where metaphorical language was
the kind almost exclusively cultivated, and was in reality the
only language held in honour.
4. The same word reappeared indefinitely ; sprung upon
one abruptly, incoherently, aproj)Os of nothing, and subduing
by its very frequency both the eye and the ear. This want
of order, this desultoriness appeared to me to conform perfectly
with the ordinary method of life.
Ollendorf 's method was decidedly based upon Nature : it
was certainly a natural method. As such it could not fail to
lead to the point at which the child, whose infallible method
Ollendorf seemed to have copied, so quickly and easily arrives.
These numerous advantages amply accounted to me for the
favour which the new method enjoyed, and the vogue which
had raised it to twenty editions a year. After the arid pro-
ceedings of the classical methods, and the intellectual fatigue
which results from these, Ollendorf's book spread before those
20 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM!.
who still had the courage to study languages like a delicious
oasis, where real and living beings were once more encountered,
instead of the sempiternal and odiously abstract phantasms of
the classical solitudes.
I found one thing only to object to in the book, and this
was its smallness. My repeated checks had rendered me
distrustful. Its weight seemed to me, at first glance, too
light to equal that of a complete idiomatic system ; its volume
appeared to me too restricted to contain the whole material
of a human language. But the promise of the author was
formal, and formally inscribed in the preface to the reader.
This promise had been repeated, republished fifty-four times
in fifty-four editions. Had I the right to doubt a statement
whose truthfulness no one until that time had publicly con-
tested ?
So I boldly entered my new skiff, making regularly my three
knots a day. After an uninterrupted effort, a struggle with-
out quarter for a whole fortnight, I had conquered, and com-
pletely conquered, the half of the book, thoroughly learning
off each exercise, repeating it, copying it out, taking each
lesson as a subject, elaborating it, treating it in all imaginable
ways.
During this time I severely denied myself all attempts at
conversation with the family at whose house I was staying.
To be able to construct as well as to understand a sentence, 1
considered it was necessary first to be in possession of all its
elements. A single unknown term sufiiced to render it either
impossible or incomprehensible. I did not desire to expose
myself to a failure which might affect or diminish my courage.
I did not feel myself yet sufficiently assured to dare to chal-
lenge the doubt.
After the forty-fifth lesson I was seized with a great tempta-
tion to attend one of the Academy classes. But the fear of a
fresh defeat, which might paralyse all my forces, restrained me. .
*'When T have finished," I said to myself, " I will no longer deny
myself this pleasure. Yet another week, and then another.
Patience till then, and courage."
The third week passed and the fourth. I had mastered the
whole of Ollendorf. Did I know German? Perhaps, — but
indeed I was hardly sure of it.
From the third w^eek doubts had begun to assail me, which
THE OLLENDORF SYSTEM. 21
I repulsed as suggestions of the Evil One. The nearer I
approached to the end of the book, the faster they arose, —
numerous, importunate, pointing out thousands of forms,
thousands of words, forgotten or wilfully omitted by the author.
They became truly terrible when at the foot of one of the last
pages I came upon a note where the master, taking each of
his disciples, as it were, to one side, acknowledged in confidence
that the work was but roughed out, and invited him to invent
and construct by himself similar exercises to those given,
assuring him that he would shortly be able to compose them.
Up to this point I had implicitly believed in the words of
the master. To believe in him any further was clearly im-
possible. I candidly avowed myself incompetent for what lie
termed the completion of the undertaking, which was in reality
that of teaching myself a language I did not know. Without
going to the Academy for the proof or the demonstration of
the fact, I understood that I had been once more deceived.
Talking was, as a matter of fact, equally difiicult, or perhaps
I should say equally impossible, as a month ago, and the con-
versations in the hairdresser's shop did not seem to be less
impenetrable than at the date of my arrival. I was at a loss
especially at every point for the verbs, and these the most
common and essential. Having represented throughout the
book nothing but written words, having never in reality
translated any of the perceptions or conceptions proper to
myself, — when I wished to express these, all the words learnt
by heart immediately took flight, and I found myself exactly
in the condition of Tantalus, and this without being able to
discover the sins that were costing me this chastisement.
That which had led astray my inexperience in the Ollendorf
method was above all its contrast with the classical method
and the deserved criticism it indirectly administered. I was
not to discover till much later the prodigious errors of the
pedagogic art that had presided over this miserable compila^
tion of words.
For the present, all my wrath was poured upon the book-
seller who had praised and sold me the drug. At first he
entrenched himself behind the time-honoured formula, "Well,
anyhow that's the book every one buys ; " then changing his
tune, he drew forth from his shelves two other books and
cast them towards me — Kobertson and Jacotot. I piously
carried away these two fresh masters.
HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
VIII.
JACOTOT AND ROBERTSON — DISORDER AND ARBITRARINESS ESTA-
BLISHED AS PRINCIPLES — DISCONNECTED STEPS — THE SYSTE-
MATIC VOCABULARY BY PLCETZ.
" All is in all," said Jacotot.
This time, instead of yielding myself blindly to the good
faith of my guide, I determined to examine, to scrutinise
attentively, his ways and means ; to judge beforehand, if pos-
sible, the point of arrival by the point of departure ; to read
the last lesson of the book by the light of the first.
Ollendorf proceeded by irregular bounds, by leaps and
somersaults. Ilis principle was disorder — intentional and
systematic disorder. His logic consisted in mocking at logic.
In this he thought himself in accord with Nature. I had
thought so too in the first instance, as others besides myself
had thought, for the book was in its fifty-fourth edition.
Jacotot, on the other hand, played as his imagination led
him with the diverse sources of the association of ideas, linked
word to word, perception to perception, thought to thought,
sentence to sentence, everything to everything. From the
''acorn he went to the oak, from the oak to the carpenter's axe,
irom the axe to the ship, from the ship to the sea, from the
sea to the clouds ; from the clouds he descended again upon
the plain to go to the tillers of the soil, to the harvests, to the
flourmills, to the rivers, &c. All was in all, and all roads led
to Rome. He laid the plan of the teaching which was to
return to us later from Germany under the name of " object-
lessons."
Nothing then seemed more contradictory than these two
systems. Which was the better? for the choice had to be
made. After meditating long over them, I thought I per-
ceived that the two systems, apparently so opposed, touched at
a point, and that this point was a vice, and a fundamental
vice, which took from both the right to arrogate the name of a
" Method." Both rested upon " the arbitrary," and a frightful
arbitrary it was. If indeed Ollendorf could not state exactly
why from the bread-knife he jumped to the Englishman's or
the Spaniard's jackboot, rather than to the back of an elephant
or the planet Saturn; why he admitted the verb *'to dance,"
JACOTOT AND ROBERTSON. 23
and refused access to the verb " to abstain," — so, on his side,
Jacotot would have been greatly embarrassed to explain why,
instead of going from the acorn to the ship, he did not go to
the roof of the Louvre or the belfry of Notre- Dame.
Although this latter system seemed to me to be certainly
superior to the former, still I felt that to yield myself to
Jacotot was to embark in a vessel unprovided with compass
or rudder. It was a thousand chances to one that I should
ever touch port, but rather should drift about continually on
a limitless ocean, only to hear in the end the new pilot cry
out to me, as the other had done, "Now try and find your way
by yourself.'"'
The perception of this first vice enabled me to espy a crowd
of others. I felt the weight of the book also, and I found
it quite as light as that of Ollendorf. I turned over its 120
or 160 lessons, and I came to the conclusion that the frame
was decidedly much too small to contain the human language,
whose imposing mass and infinitude of detail I Avas now begin-
ning to realise. I closed the book and I opened Robertson.
I found him occupied in dissecting, I think, a page of "Gil
Bias," pirouetting about in a hundred different ways on each
word, turning and twisting each sentence about endlessly,
putting questions and giving answers often more than extrava-
gant, then finally inviting the reader to set himself to work
in the same way, and create from his own inner conscious-
ness and from the same material a chapter as long as that of
the teacher. A single paragraph of Gil Bias thus ended by
developing into a large volume.
Evidently for Robertson as for Jacotot "all was in all."
Their proceedings differed but in this, that Jacotot applied
himself more particularly to make substantive spring from
substantive, intentionally neglecting the verb as too rebellious
for his purpose. Robertson, on the other hand, exerted himself
to make sentence spring from sentence, and consequently verb
from verb. This he did by proceeding by questions and
answers, by having recourse to what he termed the " Socratic
method."
I put to Robertson these two questions : —
I. How many pages of "Gil Bias" approximately would be
required, developed in this manner, for one to be sure of having
gathered and assorted the whole of the forms, the whole of the
/
24 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
terms of the German language ; meaning of course the language
of ordinary life ?
2. The collection having been made, how much time should
I require to read it over and repeat it in order to fully assimi-
late the contents ; by which I mean, to be in a condition that,
given an idea, not of Lesage or F^n^lon, of Addison or Swift,
but of my own, in which I should be able instantaneously and
intuitively to find the exact and adequate expression for it?
I turned the leaves over and over and backwards and for-
j awards, and I found no answer to either of these questions. I
Jv therefore condemned Robertson's method on the same indict-
^ ment as that of Jacotot, supporting my judgment on the same
^ /considerations,
A certain book was, at this epoch, greatly in vogue at the
German schools — a book specially prepared for the study of
French. This was the "Systematic Vocabulary" by Ploetz.
The two languages ran side by side in this book. If it was
good for the one, it should be equally good for the other.
Ploetz at this time was teaching French with great success
in the "Gymnase FranQais" at Berlin. I know not how it
was that it occurred to none of the booksellers to offer me
this book. It was not until much later, when I no longer
had any need for it, that it fell under my notice. I afterwards
became acquainted with Ploetz himself, and often discussed
with him the merits and defects of his book.
In my judgment the "Systematic Vocabulary" lacked, in
order to be a real method, merely that which was lacking to
Pygmalion's statue to make it Galatea, namely, life. Quite
sufficient, one may say. It is nevertheless true that Ploetz
was upon the right track. If he had allowed himself to study
the little child, and then to recast his book upon the model
of the as yet unpublished proceedings of Nature, instead of
leaving it in the state of dry and abstract category, of in-
complete nomenclature, always more or less arbitrary, then the
Natural Method would have been constructed twenty-five
years sooner. He did not try this; one can only suppose that
the idea did not occur to him.
The book made the fortune of its author without producing
the results sought for by him. The best criticism upon this
first book is the later work of Ploetz himself. The " Vocabu-
lary " being always found incapable of giving the student the
BERLIN UNIVERSITY. 25
knowledge and usage of the language studied, the author, in
order to supply the deficiencies of his work, was obliged to have
recourse to the composition of an indefinite series of dialogues,
themes, and exercises in the same style as the attempts of
Ollendorf and Robertson.
Even supposing good luck had at the time placed in my
hands this new instrument, incontestably more perfect than
the preceding ones, should I have been able to make better
use of it than the author himself ? Evidently not. I have,
therefore, little to regret in not having earlier become ac-
quainted with the " Systematic Vocabulary. "
IX.
BERLIN UNIVERSITY MIXING WITH THE STUDENTS
FRUITLESS ATTENDANCE AT THE CLASSES.
As the sick person, feeling himself at the end of his strength,
seeks for change of air and surroundings., so now I felt an
irresistible desire for change of place. I left Hamburg —
sojourn of misfortune, witness of my many defeats — and I
departed for Berlin. My first care was to become acquainted
with the persons to whom I had letters of introduction, to
make inquiries of them as to the scientific resources afforded
by the technical schools of the capital. Almost every one
talked, and liked to talk, French ; and I never ceased wondei--
ing how all these people had learnt this language. Every one
encouraged me to frequent as much as possible the company
of the students, assuring me that this was the shortest means
of becoming able to understand and speak German — the first
thing, of course, to which I must attain.
To be well received by the various students' societies was
easy enough. The French were much liked at this epoch ;
they were feasted and petted by every one. But what was
most difficult was to get any of these young people to converse
in German with a Frenchman. I soon recognised that the
greater part of them sought my society with the interested
motive of exercising their French. At first I let them do as
they wished — I had talked alone long enough in Hamburg.
But I was not long in taking steps to counteract this abuse,
and, recalling myself to duty, I forbade myself all further
conversation in French. Visits and friends at once began to
26 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
decrease. I already knew how apt my German conversations
were to produce this effect.
T needed something to take the place of the chattings and
socialities of the students, which, moreover, appeared to me
not particularly profitable. So I resolved, for a next trial, to
attend the university courses, and to do this perseveringly
from morning until night. I wished to see whether my ear
would not in time become accustomed to the sounds of the
German words and the accent of the phrases ; and whether,
like the child, by sheer force of bending the attention and sense
of hearing to them, I could not become able intuitively to pene-
trate the meaning of the expressions used by the professor.
I persevered thus for a whole week, listening without under-
standing a word to discourses which seemed to me to form one
continuous sound, and which, if they had been written down,
would have formed a single word on a single line three-quarters
of an hour long. In other words, on the last day of the week,
as on the first, I could distinguish neither the words, nor the
sentences, nor the periods of the professor. I had sat and
watched for seven or eight hours a day, various mouths alter-
nately opening and shutting, and this was all.
Such an entirely negative result demonstrated to me that
the new means was no means at all, and that I might attend
the German university for a thousand years under these con-
ditions without learning German.
What was I to do next? Had I not tried everything?
Was a Frenchman really a being incapable of learning any
other language than his own ? No, for I had seen some simple
workmen who had come from France some time after myself,
who apparently could understand everything and talk about
everything with the first-comer. What was it that held in
such utter incapability a young professor gifted with a strong
memory and a will perhaps even stronger still ?
X.
A HEROIC RESOLVE — STUDY OF THE DICTIONARY — STRUGGLE
AND VICTORY THIRD DECEPTION — FUTILE TOIL.
There still remained one last method . . . but one so strange,
so extraordinary, so unusual — I might say, so heroic — that I
hardly dared propose it to myself. This supreme means was
STUDY OF THE DICTIONARY. 27
nothing else than to learn off the whole dictionary. ** My
ear," I told myself, *' is not sufficiently familiarised, first
with the terminations, then with the body of the words —
that part from which the idea ought to shine and spring forth
instantaneously.
" Now a resolute and persevering study of the dictionary
would evidently produce this double result. In fact, the same
termination as well as the same root-word striking thousands
and thousands of times upon the eye, the ear, and the mind —
the inner sense of this termination and this root, the idea
hidden in these two elements of the language — would end by
shining forth with the sound itself, and by being substituted,
so to speak, for it.
"Therefore, if I could assimilate the whole dictionary, with
the 30,000 words it contains, there was every evidence that,
every term being no longer a sound but an idea, I should be
able to follow and understand every conversation, read every
book, and, by reason of this double exercise, arrive in a very
short space of time at being able to speak iiu'ently myself."
"But to learn off the dictionary," added my thoughts,
"what an extravagance ! Was ever such an idea entertained
before 1 It was absurd on the face of it, and quite unrealisable.
There must be some other means of arriving at the same
result. The child learns no dictionaries by heart ; and even
supposing such a desperate means should enable me to succeed,
it was certainly not a method I could recommend to any one
else. If none other existed, no one would, of a surety,
ever undertake to learn German." Such were the reflections
and objections by which I myself combated this strange
idea.
After a time the human mind becomes familiarised with
situations and resolutions which at first appeared impossible
and utterly repugnant. Seeking a fresh way and finding
none, I fell back naturally on my dictionary, and returned in
spite of myself to my latest notion.
** It is quite true," I reflected, " that the child learns to speak
without opening the dictionary ; but it is also true that it
finds itself in conditions far other than those in which I am
placed — conditions extremely favourable, in which I cannot
hope again to place myself, and which I am powerless arti-
ficially to re-establish. Besides, the child has before it an
28 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
indefinite time, such as I have not now at my disposal. The
hours glide away slowly for the child, but for me day devours
day, month courses after month. Cost what it may, I must
go forward. I am forced to turn, like Alexander, to any
remedy, however violent, only let the effect be prompt."
My will began to waver. From day to day the thought of
the dictionary gained ground. My reason even allowed itself
to be subdued, and gradually passed over to the enemy. The
finishing stroke was given by a sudden consideration and an
argument which seemed to me final. I thought : " Is not
learning the dictionary in reality the work which is imposed
when we study the classical tongues 1 Would it not bo simply
carrying out at a stroke by a continued — a Herculean — effort
what we are supposed to accomplish at college, little by little,
in the space of nine years, that is to say, by nine times 360
partial efforts ? Is not the pupil obliged to cull the words of
a language one by one, during nine or ten years, from the
dictionary ?
" If he has been made to seek diligently for them, instead
of having them offered directly to him, so that he could serve
himself with them from hand to hand, this is apparently
because the research itself is held to be advantageous and pro-
fitable for him. Indeed, thus to hold an expression in his
memory during the time required by its research, its deter-
mination, its organisation, and its application to a given
thought, is not all this to submit it to a kind of incubation
thoroughly suitable for the purpose of opening out and fixing
this expression in the mind ? "
I took again the path toward the classical teaching, and
after having made the amende Iwuorahle, I entered again into
grace. I exalted, I glorified its principles and its fundamental
process. Despair had brought about, between routine and my
mind, a full and complete reconciliation, and without asking
myself the question whether the nine times 360 efforts were
always crowned with success, I exclaimed —
" There is but one wisdom in the world, that in which I
have been brought up ; the wisdom of the university ! I will
study the dictionary as they do at college, as the university
requires. But I will study it with a vigour which will cer-
tainly gain me the plaudits of the masters who have sung me
the praises of the Greek roots. The frequency of repetition,
STUDY OF THE DICTIONARY. 29
R repetition occasioned by daily needs, will supply, and more
than supply, the * incubation ' occasioned by the constant use
of the vocabulary."
Thereupon I took up my dictionary. I weighed it again
and again in my hands ; I counted its pages, and the number
of words in a page, then I did a sum in multiplication. " Three
hundred pages," I said to myself, "and thirty thousand
words !"
*' If this can be learnt off, if the task be feasible, it must be
accomplished within a month. For no one need flatter him-
self that he could retain for very long without practice a mass
like this learnt under these conditions. The new matter will
soon have covered up and obliterated what had gone before.
Besides, there is the question of fatigue. Thirty days of super-
human work is a task which a man of my age and constitution
can undertake at a pinch, but there is no use in abusing one's
strength for nothing, and an effort such as this could not be
indefinitely prolonged.
*' So, three hundred pages in thirty days ; -this is ten pages
a day. Can I do it ? And if I manage it to-day, could I do
it to-morrow, and the next day, ten days following, twenty
days following ? Let us try."
The next day, at six o'clock in the morning, I opened my
dictionary, and at noon I had accomplished my first task. It
was a good augury, but I did not yet dare to judge of the final
result. To prevent every cause of discouragement, to avoid
every annoying interruption from without, I thought it prudent
to resort to measures under whose protection I had been able
to study first my roots and then the lessons of Ollendorf. I put
myself, and declared myself, in quarantine, and prohibited
every walk and every dialogue which was not an absolute
necessity. I placed my recompense at the end of the month,
the most lovely of all recompenses ; a lesson in philosophy at
last understood at the university !
The second day a fresh fight, and at noon, victory 1 And
in the afternoon I had time to look over yesterday's field of
battle. The eighth day I achieved my eighth triumph. Three
more such efforts and the German language will be tamed.
The second week's struggle placed the second quarter of
the dictionary in my power. Fifteen thousand words were in
my memory. To turn back was impossible. My courage waa
30 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
exalted, ray confidence in the coining success was absolute ;
my happiness was complete.
Should I for a moment break my quarantine and go to
hear a lesson, just one lesson at the university ? I bravely
resisted the temptation, and persevered in my first resolve,
desiring absolutely to keep whole and entire the surprise which
was to come at the end of the month.
The third week gave me the third quarter of the dictionary ;
the thirtieth day I turned page 314, the last; and, more
triumphant than Caesar, I exclaimed, " Vici ! " That same
evening I went to seek my crown at the university — a crown
surely well merited.
To comprehend what now happened to me it is necessary to
have studied profoundly, as I have since been able to do, tho
question of language ; to have determined accurately the con-
ditions in which mankind, infant or adult, must be placed that
they may be able to learn any language, no matter which.
I understood not a word — not a single word !
I shall be refused credence by him who, keeping his faith
in the classical methods, has studied only Greek and Latin (I
will not say learnt), and in whom faith in the dictionary is
anchored by a practice of ten, twenty, or thirty years.
He will never believe that, knowing thoroughly the elements
of a language from the first to the last, I should not know
thoroughly the language itself, at any rate sufficiently to under-
stand it spoken or written. He will rather prefer to deny
that I was really in possession of the grammar and the voca-
bulary.
He also will not less refuse me belief who, having studied
a living language, did not, through force of circumstances or by
his own determination, confine himself exclusively to the classical
process, and who making nought of the inflexible logic which
caused me to push the precepts of the college to their last
extremities, had the good sense to yield himself idly to the
free and easy course of things, and learnt like the little child
learns, " laughing and playing."
He will not believe that a book written expressly to be an
aid to the study of languages might prove an obstacle to the
study of these languages. I certainly would not have believed
it myself if I had not gone through the whole experience.
DOUBLE FAILURE. 31
And nevertheless I repeat, " I did not understand a word —
not a single word." And I permit no one to doubt the
sincerity of this statement. "Not a word — not one single
word."
Feeling unable to bring my mind to acknowledge such a
result as this, I returned the next day, the day after that,
every day, to listen to the professors whom I judged to be the
most clear and interesting, those who seemed to be most popular
with the scholars. But their lectures remained for me just as
impenetrable, as strange, as they had been when first I had
listened at Hamburg.
If I could not hear, perhaps at least I could read. I looked
up my Goethe and Schiller again ; but the trial was not very
much more successful than it had been at Hamburg after the
study of the roots. It took me half a day to decipher two or
three pages, and then I. was not absolutely sure of having
found the real meaning of all the sentences.
No one need be surprised at this double failure. I shall
demonstrate further on that it is exactly What should have
happened, and I hope to lay bare the true causes of this
obstinate incapability. I may be allowed to say at once, how-
ever, that this incapability was due, not to any native or
national incapacity of the writer, but solely to the process
which was applied by him, and which he now intends to
arraign.
Since that time I have sometimes been " reproached " with
having what is termed the *' gift for languages." If I had it
not then, perhaps I have "acquired" it. Six months after
this struggle, the outlines of which with its first wanderings
I have attempted to sketch, I required no more than four
months to learn any language ; and I actually did learn
several, one after the other, of those I thought would be most
useful to me ; but by following out an entirely different pro-
cess, and, as one may well imagine, "without learning off
any more dictionaries by heart."
One of my university professors wrote one day this judg-
ment on the margin of a dissertation which I had submitted
to him : "Faculty of following long and far the same idea."
I.'he preceding history proves that this faculty — which excludes
more or less a certain mobility of mind sometimes extremely
32 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
necessary — is not always a good quality — above all, a practical
quality. What came next goes to demonstrate that I was still
the same in the year in which I undertook to learn German.
The process I followed was defective. The proof of this
was visible and palpable. Any other person than myself
would have been convinced of his error, and, uttering maledic-
tions upon his dictionary, would have flung it away together
with the roots of the Reverend Father. But I was too obstinate
to believe that I was not on the right path, or that there
could be another, shorter and better. Hence the next reason-
ing and the next resolution was this : —
" I have learnt the dictionary, but I do not know it
thoroughly. I have been able to know it thoroughly, for a
time and partially, ten pages by ten pages, but not in any
constant manner in its entirety. This alone explains my
failure, and indicates at the same time the means to remedy
the matter.
" I must go through my dictionary again, and in such a
way that what is learnt yesterday and to-day will be repeated
to-morrow, and so on until the thirtieth day's task, which
will carry me through the whole vocabulary. In this manner
the vocabulary will become a part of myself, and this time I
shall be able to affirm unhesitatingly that I really do know
the German language."
So I recommenced my work upon this plan, and I indeed
perceived that I had forgotten much. This discovery almost
gave me pleasure; it confirmed my judgment and justified
my latest measures.
T will spare the reader my further struggles. I will say
simply that my will triumphed over all obstacles, and that at
the end of a fortnight I had again traversed the greater part
of the dictionary. I knew it so thoroughly that I could go
through the whole of it in two hours, and so saturate myself
with it every morning. Almost at a glance I could take in
the eighty words of a column, translating them mentally as
rapidly as the eye could see them. I should add that I went
every day to pass several hours at the university, but that my
hope of arriving at a comprehension of the words of the pro-
fessors was deceived, always deceived, deceived to the very end.
Alas ! I can say it now ; it all depended upon a very small
error. I had simply mistaken the organ. The organ of
i^-pC^^L^. FUNDAMENTAL ERROR. 33
Innguage — ask the little child — is not the eve : it is the ear.
The eye is made for colours, and not for sounds and words.
Now all I had hitherto learnt, I had learnt by the eye. The
word was in my eye and not in my ear. The fact expressed
by it had not penetrated to, was not graven upon, my intel-
lectual substance, had never been received by my faculty of
representation. This was why I was deaf though yet I heard,
and both deaf and dumb though I was able to speak. Fool
that I had been ! I had studied by the eye, and I wis hed to
understand by my ears. I had set myself to represent printed
characters instead of representing real facts and living ideas.
I had wearied my arms to strengthen my leg s.
In a future chapter I shall show the consequences of this
unfortunate misunderstanding, or rather this fundamental vice
of the classical teaching.
This tension, continuous and contrary to Nature, of the
organ of sight, this forced precipitancy of the visual act, pro- \^
duced what it was bound to produce, a disease of the eyesight. ^
My left eye was first attacked and refused • service, then my jjr
right eye also became affected, and the doctor condemned me
to remain blind for a month. This was quite time enough -^
for me to forget my vocabulary, which resided, as I have said, ^
essentially in my eye ; and for words, this organ is without. ^ ^
true memory , not having the wherewithal to "retain" them. }\
As soon as I had recovered sight, I opened my dictionary,
and for the third time I passed the contents under my eye.
After which my ardour moderated. What other means was
tliere indeed of "following longer and farther" — I will not
say my idea, but the process I had adopted ?
As I ought not, however, to allow the seed thus sown at
the expense of so many efforts to perish, I made the resolution
to recite the seventh part only of the dictionary every day,
so as to look it through at least once a week. And because
matters would not take place differently, I simply waited
patiently for time to fructify my labours.
I had been introduced by my professors to some of the
most eminent as well as the most distinguished minds of the
time. I now gave to visiting them all the moments I could
tear from my roots, my grammar, my vocabulary, my authors,
and my always " incomprehensible " lessons at the university.
Spring came, and after spring the holidays. The fine
c
34 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
weather and the summer sun once more called up pictures of
the country within me. I resolved to go back to my native
soil, and I departed with the fixed intention of returning to
Berlin, and of again joining the classes, to pursue the work
I had commenced.
XI.
A CHILD OP THKEE YEARS OLD DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE
IN nature's SCHOOL NEW POINT OF DEPARTURE — OB-
SERVATION OF THE CHILD A CLUE — LOOKING AT THE
MILL — THE INTELLECTUAL DIGESTION SAYING AND DOING
■ — THE GAME — A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS.
In taking leave of home ten months before, I had kissed
good-bj^e to one of my little nephews, a child of two and a half
years, who was beginning to run about, but could not yet talk.
When I entered the house on my return, he began chatting
with me about all sort of things quite like a little man.
Although I had but just returned to France, the question of
language, as one can well imagine, was my constant pre-
occupation, and would remain so until I had triumphed over
this obstacle. To this point everything I saw, everything I
heard, now had reference.
This language, so living and so thoroughly real, within the
power of such a tiny mortal, handled with so much ease,
applied to everything with so much surety, so much precision,
so much relevancy — this phenomenon could not but strike
me forcibly. It was impossible not to make a comparison at
once between the child and myself, his process and my own.
" What ! " I thought, '' this child and I have been working for
the same time, each at a language. He playing round his
mother, running after flowers, butterflies, and birds, without
weariness, without apparent effort, without even being con-
scious of his work, is able to say all he thinks, express all ho
sees, understand all he hears ; and when he began his work his
intelligence was yet a * futurity,' a glimmer, a hope. And I,
versed in the sciences, versed in literature, versed in philo-
sophy, armed with a powerful will, gifted with a trained
memory, guided by an enlightened reason, furnished besides
with books and all the aids of science, have arrived at nothing,
or at practically nothing 1 "
THE CHILD IN NATURE'S SCHOOL. 35
" How happy slionld I be if I could talk German as this
little child can talk French; if I could express in German
the simple facts which come to his tongue so instantaneously
and so spontaneously, and this without seeking either words
or rules to construct his sentences."
A doubt accompanied with a heavy anger rose in my mind.
" The linguistic science of the college," I exclaimed, ^' has
deceived me, has misguided me, has led me completely astray.
The classical method, with its grammar, its dictionary, and its
translations, is a delusion — nothing but a delusion.
" Nature knows and applies another method. Her method
is infallible ; this is an undeniable, indisputable fact. And
with this method all children are equally apt in learning
languages. Do they not all learn their mother-tongue, and
this within a time sensibly the same 1 Was Jacotot really so
wrong when he proclaimed the equality of intellects? For
languages at least his - assertion had a foundation. In the
school of Nature this equality was real enough. Where is the
child born under normal conditions of whom Nature despairs,
whom she declares incapable of learning its mother-tongue,
and of speaking it, at the latest, at four years of age 1 "
But to criticise is always easier than to do. I now knew
my process to be essentially defective. But how ? In what ?
I had judged the tree by its fruit only, not as yet from its
inner nature — from itself.
To perceive anything, we must first have light upon it.
Falsehood cannot be well distinguished but in the light of
truth. To judge the value of my previous process, as one
might say, with a full knowledge of the brief, some definite
point of support was necessary ; in other words, I required a
term of comparison. This term of comparison was a better
method — in the present case, the method of Nature.
Leaving the classic system, therefore, entirely on one side,
I said to myself, " To surprise Nature's secret I must watch >•-
this child."
To tell the truth, I had been deceived so many times during
the last year, and the work of Nature seemed to me so con-
fused, so complex, so tangled, so disordered, so desultory, and
so arbitrary, that I despaired of discovering anything at all.
Was there really anything to discover ? Why had it not been
discovered already 'i
36 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
I did not, therefore, delude myself. Nevertheless I held in
my hand at any rate a slight clue, and however frail, loose,
lightly attached, and insecure it might be, yet I took the
utmost pains never to release my hold of it. This was the guiding
thread which was to lead me through this dark labyrinth of
ends and means, of causes and effects, that I had entered with
such temerity, and finally was to aid me in emerging therefrom
with honour, after having found and slain the monster.
This guiding clue was the following simple reflection : —
" The child has not yet seen everything, has not yet perceived
everything. I should like to surprise him in the presence of
some phenomenon entirely fresh to him, and see what he
would do — on the one hand to express this phenomenon to
himself in the aggregate and in all its details, and then to
assimilate the expressions gathered, attempted, or invented
by him on the occasion of this phenomenon."
One day the mother said to the child, " Would you like to
come along with me 1 I am going to the mill ; you have never
seen a mill; it will amuse you." I was present; I heard the
proposition; and the words, "you have never seen a mill,"
recalled my watchword to me.
The little lad went along with his mother. He went over
the mill from top to bottom. He wanted to see everything,
to hear the name of everything, to understand about every-
thing. Everything had to be explained to him. He went up
everywhere, went into every corner, stopped before the tick-
tack, listening long in mute astonishment. He curiously
examined the bolters, the millstones, the hoppers. He made
the men open the flour-store ; he pulled back the curtain of the
bran-room, admired the turning of the pans and belts, gazed
with a sort of dread at the rotation of the shafting and the
gearing of the cog-wheels, watched the action of the levers,
the pulleys, the cranes lifting through space the sacks stuffed
full of wheat. All the time his eyes eagerly followed the
millers, whitened with flour, moving about here and there,
loading and unloading sacks, emptying some, filling others,
stopping the motion of the wheels, silencing one clattering
wheel and then starting another.
Finally the child was led to the great water-wheels outside.
He lingered long in ecstasy before these indefatigable workers,
and before the mighty, splashing column of water, which,
THE DISCOVERY OF NATURE'S METHOD. 2>7
issuing from the mill-pond, already full to overflowing, rushed
white with foam along the mill-race, fell in roaring torrents
into the floats of the water-wheel, setting and keeping in
motion with thunderous roar the giant wheels, with all this
immense and marvellous mechanism turning at full speed
beneath their impulsion, driving, devouring the work with a
bewildering rapidity.
He came away deafened, stunned, astounded, and went
back home absorbed in thought. He pondered continually
over what he had seen, striving to digest this vast and pro-
longed perception. I kept my eyes upon him, wondering
what could be passing within him, what use he was going to
make of this newly acquired knowledge, and, above all, how
he was going to express it.
In the child the intellectual digestion, like the physical
digestion, operates rapidly. This is doubtless owing to the
fact that it never overloads its imagination any more than its
digestive organs.
At the end of an hour he had shaken off his burden.
Speech returned. He manifested an immense desire to recount
to everybody what he had seen. So he told his story, and
told it again and again ten times over, always with valiants,
forgetting some of the details, returning on his track to repair
liis forgetfulness, and passing from fact to fact, from phrase
to phrase, by the same familiar transition, "and then . . . and
then . . ." He was still digesting, but now it was on his
own account; I mean, he did not stay to think any further
over his perception ; he was conceiving it, putting it in order,
moulding it into a conception of his own.
After the discourse came the action; after Saying came
Doing. He tormented his mother till she had made him half
a dozen little sacks ; he tormented his uncle till he had built
him a mill. He led the way to a tiny streamlet of water near
by ; and here, whether I would or no, I had to dig a mill-race,
make a waterfall, drive in two supports, smooth two flat
pieces of wood, find a branch of willow, cut two clefts in it,
stick the two pallets in these clefts ; in short, manufacture a
F-imulacrum of a large wheel, and then, lastly, place this wheel
beneath the waterfall and arrange it so that it would turn
and the mill would work.
The uncle lent himself with great willingness to all these
38 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTE:M.
fantasies, and acquitted himself in tlie enterprise as well as
lie could. During all this time I watched each movement of
the importunate little fellow attentively. I noted each of his
words, each of his reflections, striving to read the interior
thought through the work or the external pre-occupation.
When the mill was definitely mounted and. set agoing, the
little miller filled his sacks with sand, loaded them on his
shoulder with a simulated effort accompanied with a grimace ;
then, bent and grunting beneath the weight, carried his grain
to the mill, shot it out and ground it, so reproducing the scene
of the real mill — not as he had seen it, but as he had after-
wards *' conceived " it to himself, as he had '' generalised " it.
Whilst doing all this, he expressed all his acts aloud, dwell-
ing most particularly upon one word — and this word was the
" verb," always the verb. The other terms came and tumbled
about as they might. Ten times the same sack was emptied,
refilled, carried to the mill, and its contents ground in ima-
gination.
It was during the course of this operation, carried out again
and again without ceasing, "repeated aloud," that a flash of
light suddenly shot across my mind, and I exclaimed softly to
myself, ** I have found it ! Now T understand ! " And follow-
ing with a fresh interest this precious operation by means of
I which I had caught a glimpse of the secret so long sought after.
I I caught sight of a fresh art, that of learning a language.
I Testing at leisure the truth of my first intuition, and finding
jit conform more and more to the reality, I wandered about
(repeating to myself the words of the poet, " Je vois, j'entends,
' je sais " — " I see, I hear, I know ! "
What had I seen in this short and fugitive instant"? What
was it that had been made clear to me ? This I will now
attempt to explain.
The foregoing recital will serve as preface or introduction
to the general system I am wishing to set forth ; it will serve
as a beacon-light to the reader who has decided to follow me
across the labyrinth of theses and of facts, of principles and
of consequences, of precepts and criticisms contained in this
treatise. For what had appeared to me in this short moment
of time — for me ever memorable — was a whole system, a system
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 39
of Nature weaving and building up the individuality of man
upon and by language. It was the system of which, in this
book, I propose to retrace the principal lines and the general
construction.
XII.
FIRST INSIGHT TRANSFORMATION OF A PERCEPTION INTO A
CONCEPTION THE SCHOLASTIC PROCESS COMPARED WITH
THAT OF THE CHILD — SECRET LOGIC AND MARVELLOUS
ORDER OF NATURE.
While before the mill, the child's mind had taken a passiv^e
and entirely receptive attitude ; but after the hour of " intel-
lectual digestion " he had changed the part he played, and
reacting upon the impressions thus received and experienced,
he had worked upon them as upon raw material, and had
transformed them into realities, or, if the term be preferred,
into " subjective images," that is to say, i;ito ideas. To this
phase — the passive attitude of perception — had succeeded the
active phase — the reactionary attitude, first of the reflection,
then of the conception. In other terms, he no longer saw in
reality ; he " saw in the mind's eye; " he represented.
" To see in the mind's eye " — let us not forget this fact, this
psychological moment. It is the point of departure of Nature's
method; it will be the first basis of our linguistic method.
We shall not commence either by declining or conjugating
verbs, nor by the recitation of abstract rules, nor by mumbling
over scores of roots or columns of a vocabulary. We shall com-
mence by representing to ourselves — " seeing in the mind's
eye " — real and tangible facts — facts already perceived by us
and already transformed by the reflection and conception into
constituent parts of our own individuality.
It was because I had represented to myself nothing but
*' abstract words," and not real facts, grafted in reality upon
my individuality, so becoming an integral part of my being,
that I had foundered so often in my laborious voyage across
the grammar, the roots, the lessons of Ollendorf, and the
dictionary.
This was the first truth or first principle I now caught sight
of, one which thoroughly explained to me the incapability, the
sterility, the utter uselessness of all my previous efforts. Was
40 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
this the whole of what I saw 1 No, indeed ! In this humble
scene of the mill, reproduced or rather acted before me, I had
read and heard many other truths, many other principles,
many other lessons.
The child had represented to himself the complex pheno-
menon of the mill ; but under what form had he represented
this phenomenon ] What form had he given to the original
perception ? Had the double work of reflection and conception
altered, modified in any way the immediate perception ? Was
this representation at first ordered or disordered 1 Was it a
picture, a confused incoherent mass of facts and ideas, a chance
throwing together of remembrances, recalling one of Ollendorf 's
lessons, arranged in a similar way, and justifying the point of
departure and the intentionally "illogical" process gloried in
and brought into fashion by this linguist ? Ko, no ! most
certainly no.
It is not disorder which presides over the secret and curious
work of reflection and conception. It is a principle, or rather
it is a need diametrically opposed to this ; it is that indeed
which makes the mind what it is. To reflect, to_conceive^s(
to set in order " — to set the details of a perception m order.
The linguistic work of a child does not take place by chance,
day by day, the sport of the fleeting impressions of the moment,
as the greater number of linguists proclaim, and as I myself
had at one time imagined. The child follows, on the contrary,
a marvellously straight line — an order, a logic absolutely irre-
proachable, which we will presently reveal ; one which is the
secret of this prodigious memory that allows a little child of
four years old to assimilate in a year the several thousand
terms of the language of ordinary life, with all the phrases and
turns of expression derived therefrom, without including the
forms termed grammatical.
Thus the child had reflected, had conceived, had cast in the
mould of a certain "concept" the complex perception of the
phenomena of the mill. Consequently he must have set his
perception in order — I repeat " set in order," — this perception
being the sum total of the phenomena perceived by him in the
presence of the mill.
Was it upon this plan that I had myself worked when I
had forced my eye, never my inner sense, to course at full
speed over the thirty thousand terms, the thirty thousand
PERCEPTION AND CONCEPTION. 41
abstractions of the vulgar tongue, classed, moreover, in alpha-
betical order, that is, by the accident of their initial letter ?
Could I expect anything else than to sustain check after check,
mortification after mortification ?
The child sets in order each of his perceptions intellectually,
gliding upon those that have gone before, upon the knowledge
already " acquired," stopping abruptly before new ones, rearing,
so to speak, at them, loitering curiously around them, working
upon them, until he has set these also in order in their turn and
transformed them, like his previous perceptions, into knowledge
henceforth "acquired."
It is the irregular course of a botanist through wood and
field ; neglecting the common plants, he stays only before thoso
species to him unknown and new. It is the fi.ight of the bee
in the meadows, which hovers over one blossom, passes by
another already visited and harvested, dips into a third, sucks
a fourth, and on another freshly opened stays and plunders long.
By this play, this action, this toil, apparently so arbitrary,
so fantastic, so desultory, but yet in reality so logical and so
easily understood, the child deceives the most attentive observer.
The observer indeed watches for the child always in the wrong
place, seeks always where his mind cannot be, requiring order
where the child cannot possibly place it, and neglecting or
disdaining precisely those facts where he always does place it.
What the child is incapable of establishing is the order of
the succession of its perceptions. It cannot make, for in-
stance, the presentation of the mill come immediately after
that of the harvest or of the threshing. But what it can and
does mould, what it can and does set in order, is the detail of
each separate perception. At whatever hour of its life a fresh
phenomenon occurs, the child looks at this phenomenon, studies
it, puts the details into their order, and transforms it at last
into "knowledge."
The ordinary philosopher, not being able to perceive in the
succession of the child's perceptions an order which does not
exist, concludes therefrom that in the mind of man all linguis-
tic work is done in disorder, is brought about by chance. Tiie
secret work accomplished by the mind upon each particular
perception escapes his notice.
/ Thus, not hour by hour and day by day, but from perceptioti\
/
42 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
to perception, progresses and develops the illimitable fabric
of a human individuality, which fabric constitutes the psycho-
logical or mental ground-work of the individual himself.
XIII.
SECOND INSIGHT — PRINCIPLES OF CLASSIFICATION EMPLOYED BY
THE CHILD ORDER OF SUCCESSION IN TIME RELATION
OF END TO MEANS THE INCUBATION — SECRET OF THE
child's memory EXPLANATION OF MY FAILURES.
The child conceives, that is, sets each of its perceptions
in order. Who can dispute this 1 But to set in order is to
classify ; and to classify, a rule, a constant principle of classi-
fication is necessary. Without this, order becomes disorder.
Therefore a further question is presented. What is the rule
followed by a child when it organises and mentally sets one of
its complex perceptions in order 1
Psychology acknowledges six or seven various relationships
by which the mind of man associates ideas one with another.
Among these relationships is that of " succession or contiguity
in time." It was this that the child observed by me had
adopted. He classed in his imagination all the facts relative
to the mill, according to their order in succession of time,
attaining by this means the most profound, the most logical
of all relationships — we may say the sole scientific one of the
seven ; that of cause and effect.
First of all, he filled his little sacks with grain,
then — he hoisted them on his shoulder,
then — he carried them to the mill,
then — he emptied the contents before the. mill,
then — he gave them to be ground in an imaginary mill.
Meanwhile, the water ran out of the mill-pond,
then — it Howed along the mill-race,
then — fell upon the wheel,
then — this wheel turned round,
then — the mill worked,
then — the mill ground the corn,
then — the flour was sifted,
then — the flour was put into the sacks, &c., &c
THE ORDER OF SUCCESSION IN TIME. 43
The child represented, and repeated always in the same
order, the totality of the facts which constituted his general
perception of the mill ; and when he recounted what he had
seen, he joined, as we have said, all the sentences together
invariably by the conjunction " and then."
The order of succession in time was not, however, the only
relationship which presided over his conception and regulated
it. To work as he worked, to group the facts as he grouped
tliem, the child must evidently have grasped the second rela-
tionship, that of ''means to an end."
To grind the corn was the final or supreme aim, and this
aim or end was attained by the diverse means we have just
enumerated, which formed the material of the child's game.i
The first relationship, that of succession in time, serves to
aggregate the various elements of the conception. The second,
that of means to an end, binds them together, enframes them,
gives them that unity without which there is and can be no
" conception."
Perception of the relation of succession in time, perception
of the relation of means to an end, these are the instruments
of logic with which Nature has provided childhood ; these are
the loom and shuttle which elaborate the marvellous web of
language, and by it the individuality of each one of us.
To this primitive logic join an incubation of five or sjx days/ 3
the repetition of the same game by the indefatigable andinA
satiable player, until the moment when a new perception arrivea
to distract him from the previous one, and you have the secret!
of the prodigious memory of the child, which, without having
learned by heart either grammar, or authors, or roots, or
vocabulary, but after having played some sixty games similar
to that of the mill, finds itself shortly in possession of itsj
mother-tongue.
Let us keep well before us these three articles of the natural \
method — r elations hip of succession in time, relationship of
means to an end^ a nd the incubationT Let us place these
carefully on one side ; they should form also the basis of our
artificial system.
I had therefore at last discovered the logic of Nature, the
^ This desire for the perception of the relationship of means to an end
is so universal, that a child's first question when placed in front of au
object is always, " What is that for ? What does it do ? " (Trans.).
44 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
logic of the little child. What a light it threw upon all my
learned proceedings ! Comparing from this new point of view
my own work with that of the child, I could explain more and
more to myself both the triumphs of the ignorant baby and
the defeats of the professor.
The child had proceeded from one " complex " perception to
another " complex " perception, and I, from one abstract word
to another abstract word, from one abstract phrase to another
abstract phrase.
The child had transformed its perceptions into conceptions,
and I had travestied the living word in characters purely
typographic.
The child had submitted each of his conceptions to the innate
logic of the mind; and I, although I had studied the roots,
the grammar, the dictionary — although I had learnt the lessons
of Ollendorf and of Robertson — I had begun to work at hazard,
to learn everything in the greatest disorder possible, under
the pretext of better exercising myself and of hardening my
memory.
The child sets its conceptions in order in its mind, and I
disposed the letters of words in my eye.
I had therefore taken exactly the opposite course to that
of Nature. I had worked on a system exactly contrary to
Nature's ; and thus I had arrived at a point which Nature
never approaches.
XIY.
THIRD INSIGHT THE CHILD ASSIMILATES THE MOTHER- TONGUE
SENTENCE BY SENTENCE, AND NOT WORD BY WORD — RE-
VELATION OF THE HIGH VALUE OF THE VERB — THE TRUE
PIVOT OF THE NATURAL SYSTEM.
My intuition could not rest simply here. I could not but
remark that the child, in going from one fact to another fact,
proceeded not from one word to another word, but from one
sentence to another sentence. This was a revelation of the
highest importance, which condemned the ancient system,
together with the course of declensions and dictionary, and
opened out to pedagogic science a new path with a new
horizon.
In the school of Nature the child does not spell ; never
IMPORTANCE OF THE VERB. 45
does it spell isolated words. It knows, understands, enounces
nothing but complete sentences. Each isolated word is an
abstraction ; the child does not comprehend abstractions. It
is by synthesis that the human mind commences its growth.
The faculty of analysis is the fruit of age, of experience, of
reflection.
The child's first word, even if monosyllabic, is not a simple
word, but a phrase, a complete sentence : the enunciation
imperfect, but formed from a judgment fully complete. The
child of three conquers, assimilates the mother-tongue not
word by word, but phrase by phrase, sentence by sentence.
We will also put on one side this precious article of the
natural system, with it to endow, later on, our artificial
system.
Finally, the child, going from act to act, articulated either
aloud or softly to himself the expression of this act ; and this
expression was necessarily the verb. This was the last revela-
tion (or the last but one), and perhaps the most important.
How shall I trace what this revelation was to me ? The
verb ! Why, it was the soul of the sentence. The verb was
the foundation upon which the child, little by little, built up
his sentence. The verb was the germ from which, piece by
piece, sprang and blossomed forth the sentence itself. The
verb ! Why, when we have this element of the sentence, we
have all ; when this is lacking, we have nothing. The verb !
This, then, was the link by which the child attached sentence to
sentence, perception to perception, conception to conception.
In the classical process, as in the methods of Ollendorf and
his co-workers, it w as the substanti ve that played the principal
part ; and in the process ot JNature it wa s the "ve rb."
The verb ! The method which rested upon the substantive,
in reality rested upon space which contained the substances.
Now space having neither height nor depth, beginning nor
end, the method which took it for a basis was condemned to
be and to remain eternally illogical, arbitrary, disordered.
When is it, in reality, that you name the sky ? When and
in relation to what do you name the earth 1 When this knife ?
When the floor? And in the name of what principle, by
what association of ideas, do you pass from one to the other :
from the spoon to the horse, from the fish to the spoke of a
wheel. The arbitrary, and nothing but the arbitrary, will
govern your system.
46 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
" Have you a hat 1 "
"No, but I am eating a beet-root," writes, or migbt write,
Ollendorf.
Considered by itself and divorced from time, space is the
region of chaos and disorder. Therefore every method based
npon the substantive cannot represent, and does not represent
in reality, anything but a vain jugglery.
" Have you a hat ? "— " Yes, I have a hat."
" Have you a broom?" — "Yes, I have a broom."
The verb ! The method which is based upon the verb is
based in reality upon time. The German term " Zeit-icort "
(time-word) is a whole chapter of psychology. In time and
by time everything is in order, because everything in it is
successive, everything springs from something else. The
method which rests upon the verb is therefore based upon a
principle of order.
<C. We will take up this theme again in another place. We
will establish, when the proper moment arrives, the immense
value of the verb, and assign to it the part and place belonging
to it in a linguistic method which desires to rival the method
of Nature. For the moment, it suffices to say that the verb
appeared to us as the pivot or axis of the linguistic method
practised by Nature. This sole insight contained in germ a
whole revelation in the art of teaching languages.
XY.
THE WEB OF LANGUAGE LAW OF ITS FORJIATION — WHAT IS
THE RECEPTIVE ORGAN OF LANGUAGE ? INCOMPREHENSIBLE
ERROR OF THE COLLEGE.
Nature and the child had now both in great part given
up their secrets ; there remained only to draw the conclusion.
The conclusion was as instantaneous as vision — " Ab uno
didiceram omnia" — from one I learnt all.
Whence had the child drawn the terms which he had used
to express such a complex scene as that of the mill ? As-
suredly it was not from a dictionary, nor from a grammar,
nor from any book whatever ; for he did not know how to read.
He obtained them from his mother or from the persons who
had answered his questions at the time of his visit to the mill.
THE WEB OF LANGUAGE. 47
Among these expressions some were " special," and there-
fore new to him. These he had gathered immediately,
directly, upon the fact itself together with the perception.
The others — and these formed the greater number — were the
terms already acquired by him, having served to translate
his anterior perceptions.
The purely linguistic effort of the child had been therefo^
in_reality very slight,_liaxdiy,perceptible to himself. /"The vFork
by wh ich~Tieassim ilat ed a new element, a new knowledge
with new locutions, had been a game which had given him a
very similar pleasure to that of trying on a new jacket ; and,
in fact, the new perception of the mill with its expression
constituted for his mind a veritable " new " adornment.
On the one hand, this alliance, this forced mixture of the
old with the new ; on the other hand, this grafting of the new
upon the old, enabled me to catch sight for the first time in
its true light of the web of language. I saw that to express
each new perception, it was necessary, so lo speak, to employ
the whole of the vocabulary already acquired. Here thc'J?
formula of Jacotot, " All is in all," found a just application^
Language appeared to me under the form of an embroidery,
where the same thread ran from end to end, always identical
in itself, yet nevertheless creating constantly varying designs
by combining with its neighbours.
I drew from this fact, hitherto unobserved or neglected,
tlie important practical consequences which are contained
within it, and I formulated at last for myself the law which
presides over the formation of a language. This I shall
attempt to formulate anew and more explicitly with regard
to the construction of the system over which this same law
must equally preside.
Which, now, was the receptive organ of language? In
the scene of the mill, certain " special " locutions had arisen.
Was it to the sight, or to the touch, or rather to the hearing,
that they had been confided ? Happily for him, the child not
yet knowing either how to read or to write, it was his ear
that had received and transmitted them to his inner sense.
The process of Nature was therefore again in utter contra-
diction to that of the school. At school languages are taught
by books ; consequently it is the eye, and not the ear, which is
required to transmit the locutions to the mind. At school
48 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
the eye is the receptive organ of language. It was thus to
my eye that T had given my roots and my vocabulary. This
is why the spoken words would never enter my understanding.
And which was right — the School or Nature ?
To ask the question is to answer it ; and a little child had
given me the answer. The eye is made to perceive colours
and forms ; the ear is made to perceive sounds and words.
How is it that philology has never seen and prescribed this ?
How is it that linguists have never applied this ? How is it
that they have hitherto obstinately confided to the eye a part
which appertains only to the ear ?
XYI.
FORMATION OF THE IXDIYIDUALITY BY LANGUAGE — PRECISE
DEFINITION OF THE WORK TO BE ACCOMPLISHED FOR THE
ACQUISITION OF THE BASIS OF ANY GIVEN LANGUAGE THE
IDEA OF SERIES — A GENERALISATION — THE MYSTIC LADDER
OF HUMAN INDIVIDUALITY.
I had now in my hands all the elements and all the principles
of a system ; but I had not yet the system itself. What was
needed ? A simple generalisation, and this generalisation was
made at once. I said : —
"The same process which the child had used to express and
translate his perception and then his conception of the mill
must have already been employed by him to express, for
instance, all that he knew of the mower and of haymaking —
all that he knew of the reaper and of the harvest — all that
he knew of the woodcutter, the weaver, the blacksmith — all
that he knew of the dog, the sheep, the horse, the cow — all
that he knew of the birds — all that he knew of the insect-^
all that he knew of the plant— all that he knew of the power
and the play of the elements — all that he knew of man himself
from the baby in the cradle to the old man tottering to the
gi-ave."
It was at this moment that I began to perceive in its vast
extent, and also in its marvellous genesis, that which is called
an " individuality," and for the first time I understood what
is meant by the words " to learn a language."
THE IDEA OF "SERIES." 49
To learn a language was to translate into this language not
Ollendorf, not Goethe, not Virgil, not Homer, but the vast
book of our own individuality. Now this book is composed of
a multitude of chapters analogous to the episode of the mill.
To learn German, then, what I had to do was to reconstitute
the whole of my individuality, to form it anew piece by piece,
to take again one by one all my perceptions, and treat them
exactly as does the little child.
This work appeared to me at first stupendous. Then it
became simplified all at once in view of this consideration : each
perception, such as that of the mill, represented not a solitary
fact, but a totalit}^ a group of facts more or less extensive.
I counted approximately these groups, and I saw that there
might be some fifty of them .
' It was therefore a book of fifty chapters that I had to
compose as the child had composed that of the mill. His
work had been as rapid as it was easy ; mine should be the
same. Moreover, the child's individuality is formed within
the revolution of a year and under the influences of the various
scenes which unrolled before him in the four seasons. The
linguistic work had therefore very precise limits, and the book
which had to translate a perfectly definite development could
not itself be without end.
The work was still further simplified when, my reflection
dwelling upon a special chapter of my own individuality, I
perceived that the material of this chapter represented in
reality a " series " of ends, realised one after the other by a
series of means, such as I had already gained a glimpse of in
the scene of the mill. Each chapter — that is, each general
perception — was a complete book, or might be made to furnish
one. To treat this conveniently and easily, it was important to
divide it into parts, and now I had found a division as simple
as it was natural — the division into " ends " sought.
I will ask the reader to permit me here to reproduce the two
examples which I myself employed to fix my thought, and
which became the point of departure of a vast and definitive
generalisation. vT
" If I follow the growth of an oak," I said to myself, ** from/ \yy
the time the acorn falls to the ground to the moment when, ( /
now an oak itself, it produces an acorn in its turn, I shall have /
named all the phenomena of which this tree is the occasion \
50 HISTOEY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
or the cause. In the history of a single tree I shall have the
history of all trees, and in the expression of the development
of a single plant I shall have the expression of the develop
ment of all plants, I shall have nothing more to ask of the
dictionary than certain substantives, the names of certain
species. In this way I shall have translated an important
chapter of my individuality, and this while thinking imme-
diately and directly in German.
" But every end is expressed by a verb, and every means is
equally expressed by a verb. Now, to write the history of a
plant is to determine and then to express, on the one hand,
the diverse ends which Nature seems to propose in view of the
development of this plant ; on the other, the means by which
she realises each of these ends.
" The whole of this work must therefore be carried out
upon and by the verb, and not by means of the substantives,
which will never be able to yield me anything but the names
of the parts of the tree.
'^ Moreover, each verb expressing an end, a means, or a
state of being, will it not forcibly drag along with it as subject
or complement the name of the organ in which occurs the
action translated by the verb 1
" Whilst conquering the verbs, therefore, I shall obtain as
well all the substantives and other terms specially appertain-
ing to vegetable life. ' Ends and means,' two facts, or rather
two ideas, I had already caught sight of in the child's work
around his mill. 'Series of verbs,' expressing a series of
means, was not this the litany which the child ceaselessly recited
when he loaded, unloaded, and carried his corn to the mill ?
The acorn sprouts.
The oak plant takes root.
The shoot sprouts out of the earth.
The sap rises.
The sapling throws out leaves.
The stalk buds.
The stalk blossoms.
The flower blooms.
The fruit forms.
The fruit ripens.
The fruit falls, &c., &c.
*' These are some of the general aims of Nature. Tliey will
THE MYSTIC LADDER. 51
form the divisions of the chapter entitled 'The Plant.' Tlie
total of the means by which each of these ends is realised will
form the subject-matter of each division. I shall thus have a
series of themes corresponding to a series of ends or aims. I
shall call the whole of this chapter ' The Series of the Plant.'
"Here again is a farmyard," I continued to myself, '"'and
here is a hen. This bird has before itself, the whole day long,
a series of ends which it realises one after the other by a series
of means. If I follow this fowl attentively from the moment
it awakes till the evening when it goes back to roost ; if I ex-
press in German all these ends and all these means, I shall
have translated a new chapter of my individuality, a chapter
which will be the expression not only of the existence of this
bird, but of all its species ; not only so, but of every kind of
bird. I shall find arising from this material, as from that of
the oak, a series of themes corresponding to the series of ends,
and I should call, or I might call, this new chapter 'The
Series of the Fowl or the Bird.' "
" Series ! " For some time now I had had the thing. The
name was still missing which was needed definitely to fix
my conception. This name I had now found, or rather
"captured;" and a final effort was to consecrate it as one
to be definitely adopted. I had calculated that the human
individuality — my own, at all events — could be written in fifty
chapters. I soon substituted for this expression that of " fifty
series."
I had sketched out rapidly the series of a growing plant
and the series of a living being. My conception could there-
efore be applied to the whole of Nature. I actually so applied
it, and in the light of this idea I first perceived the law of the
"progressive work which had presided over the development of
my own personality. Then leaving myself, I sought to realise
the development by language of every thinking and speaking
being. Then arose before my eyes that which might be called
"the mystic ladder" of the human individuality, a ladder
whose innumerable steps stretched from earth to heaven.
Marvelling inwardly, I sketched out its form. From it re-
sulted the system I shall now attempt to construct.
52 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
XYII.
FOURTH INSIGHT — TWO LANGUAGES IN ONE LANGUAGE — OBJEC-
TIVE LANGUAGE AND SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE THE RELA-
TIVE PHRASE FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE — INTUITION OF THE
SYSTEM IN ITS TOTALITY.
But had I really yet seen everything ? Was the whole language
really comprised within the fifty or sixty chapters, however
large they might be, that I had now enumerated to myself ?
It was as the ocean in the great waters of the earth. But
in the ocean there are two oceans : an ocean of water and an
ocean of living beings. The first contains, nourishes, main-
tains the second, yet without being identical with it.
In a language were there not also two languages, one
language for external facts and another language for internal
facts ? And what connection was there between the two 1
Was not that which I had already perceived merely the first
of these 1 Where, then, was the second ? Without doubt it
should be found in the first, as the effect is found in the
cause. But the effect never is the cause. What was neces-
sary, therefore, was to separate these two languages in order
to consider and study them apart, and so to learn to know
them better, at first by themselves, and afterwards in their
reciprocal play upon each other.
In the spoken scene of the mill I had, as a matter of fact,
noticed two languages, parallel, and profoundly, essentially
different, which, like two currents, spread out and developed
themselves side by side without ever being confounded together.
At every moment the child interposed in his story or his
action expressions or reflections such as the following : " That's
all right ! — now, then ! — there you are ! — that's it ! — that's fine ! .
— I think that . . . — I should like to . . . — I think I'd better
. . . — I'm going to try to . . . &c., &c.
These locutions appeared to me to have nothing, absolutely
nothing, in common with those that translated the facts rela-
tive to the mill : filling a sack — carrying a sack — emptying a
sack — grinding the corn — the water falling from the mill-race
—the wheel turning — the mill going, &c., &c. I saw here
two categories, two species of expression which it was impos-
sible to resolve one into the other. From the differences of
OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE. 53
consequence I naturally concluded difference of principle.
From the effect I ascended to the cause, and I discovered a
second source of language in the depths and in the secret
energies of the human mind itself.
*' Man," I said to myself, " does not merely perceive the
phenomena of the external world. He judges them, he appre-
ciates them, that is, he reacts upon them. By the contact
with exterior facts the mind is awakened and the struggle is
begun. The mind is a force gifted with diverse faculties, each
of which operates in its own way. It enjoys this and is pained
by that ; it approves this and blames that ; it wishes for this
and repels that ; it believes this and doubts that, and so forth.
" These movements, these internal facts, are as capable of
receiving names as are the external facts. Hence, a new lan-
guage, that which translates the facts and activities of the soul.
These facts and activities are so varied, their slight differences
are so fine, so delicate, and, moreover, so .numerous, that this
second language might well be as rich as the first,"
We shall see hereafter how well founded was this suspicion
when the attempt is made to arrange the categories of the
innumerable abstract forms of any given language.
As before, I had the idea together with the thing, but as
yet I had no name with which to fix it. The language which
translated the complex play of the faculties of the soul never
having been separated or distinguished from the other by
any philologist, was a language as yet " nameless." In order
better to understand these myself, I gave them distinct names.
That which translated the facts of the external world I termed
"objective language." That which translated the facts and ope-
rations of the soul I termed " subjective language." Thus : —
The wheel turns,
The mill goes,
The grindstones crush the wheat, &c.,
belong to the objective language.
That's right,
It is true,
It is false,
I wish to . . .
You think that . . •
form part of the subjective language.
54 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTE.M.
" Subjective," however, was a generic designation. I re-
quired and I sought a " specific '"' designation. I soon per-
ceived that a subjective locution only expressed a fraction of a
thought, was only the part of a whole. It resembled the form
abstracted or separated from its basis — of a line abstracted
from the surface, of the surface abstracted from the solid.
" That's right ;
He wishes to . . ."
But what is right 1 What is it that he wishes to do ?
Every subjective locution was applied to, was connected with,
an objective fact, and had some relation to this fact. I
thought, therefore, to define it by terming it " Relative
Phrase." And since then, however imperfect this denomina-
tion may be, no other has presented itself to me which has
seemed to be more appropriate to the idea.
Contemplating from the heights of their resources this
objective language and this subjective language, I saw how,
in Nature, they perpetually crossed each other, how they ran
concurrently to form the marvellous warp and woof of which
I have so often spoken. A double problem now remained to
be solved, an arduous problem withal : first, to systematise tho
subjective language, to gather and classify it in such a way
that it might be easily assimilated ; then to find the secret of
attaching the exercise of it to that of the objective language
or of the Series properly so called.
In Nature the two languages progressed side by side,
developing themselves harmoniously, one gearing or working
into the other. No sooner does a fact of the external world
present itself than immediately the mind takes possession of
it and judges it. A linguistic system cut according to the
pattern of Nature must be required to reproduce this beautiful
harmony. What had to be done, therefore, was to invent
some connection, some gearing at least equally practical with
that of Nature.
A more and more profound study of the '• relative phrase,"
joined to an inspiration as happy as it was unexpected,
suddenly revealed to me the secret sought after. I will not
dwell here upon this important discovery : it should form the
^ subject of a special chapter. I will confine myself to saying
that Art triumphed over Nature, by permitting the young
learner as well as the adult to learn in a few months that part
THE FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 55
of the subjective language which the child assimilates but
imperfectly in the space of a year.
The child observed by me had not arrived at the age when
abstract ideas are produced or sought to be embodied in sym-
bolic language and metaphor. But the subjective language
was already in his mouth ; and this language, which rested
upon abstraction, led me forcibly and by foresight to study
the problem of the figurative language. It was not difficult
for me to establish the true relationship between this third
language and the former two, and to postulate that the figura-
tive language was grafted upon the objective language and
implied the previous development of this.
I again ask the reader's permission to leave the study of
this question to an ulterior chapter, in which, developing at
leisure my insight, I shall attempt to organise the figurative
language itself and to harmonise it with the two others in 1
imitation of Nature, and, if possible, better than Nature.
I had started from the system of the objective language. I
had returned thereto by way of the symbolical language. The
voyage round the linguistic world was achieved ; the circle was
perfect ; the vision seemed complete. One thing remained to
be done, and this imposed itself upon me with the authority
of a duty — to prolong indefinitely this intuition, and finally to
convert it into reality, that is to say, into a well-thought-out
system.
If sometimes, and for certain minds, I have been obscure or
apocalyptic in the setting forth of this linguistic revelation ;
if, above all, I have not been complete, I beg the reader to
have patience. The same facts, the same principles, the same
problems will be taken up again, discussed separately one after
the other, sounded at leisure, and, I hope, the whole brought
into the full light of day.
56 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
XVIII.
RETURN TO BERLIN — THE TEST — A PHILOSOPniCAL BOUT AT THE
UNIVERSITY THE TRIUMPH — EXCUSE TO THE READER.
The best- constructed mechanism requires to be tested at
least once. In the same way the most ingenious and the most
logical of systems requires to be put to the trial, must be seen,
at least once, at work.
I started again for Berlin, for it had been sufficiently demon-
strated to me that it was by the living voice that a language
was transmitted, and never by books or by solitary studies. A
little child, more clever in this than all the doctors of the
university, had proved to me that the veritable receptive
organ of language was the ear, and not the eye. The fifty
series which translated or expressed the sum total of my indi-
viduality — the whole book of my existence— these I must live
over again in German, must conceive over again in German,
and for this I must first hear them in German. This time it
was the ear that should, as in Nature, play the principal part.
I boarded and lodged with an excellent family of Saxon
origin, and at my particular request the children were given
over to my charge. Their greatest desire had always been to
learn French ; there was therefore an exchange of services
between us. We established ourselves around a table, and we
began the study of the series such as I had conceived after the
episode of the mill.
This is not the place to recount how I directed the lessons,
or rather the conversations, and how, in the manner of Socrates,
and of the little child itself, I managed to draw out from my
little interlocutors successively all the German expressions
corresponding to the details of my French series. This be
longs to a future chapter (" Practice of the Method, or the|
Art of Teaching "). I have only to declare that the grammar,
the roots, the dictionary, together with Ollendorf and Robert-
son, were pitilessly banished from our table.
From the second day I felt I was on the right road. Not
only was the work deliciously easy — easy, in fact, as a game —
but that which we assimilated in an hour was prodigious ; and
once entered by way of the ear, it was imprinted upon the
3
TKIUMPH AT THE UNIVERSITY. 57
memory, and never after became effaced. My sense of hearing
^vas not long in recovering its pristine vigour, and this vigour
often surprised even myself. After an hour of conversation I
was able to repeat, without making a mistake in a single word,
a series of ten or fifteen pages — 300 or 400 sentences — and
my young hosts could do as much in French.
At the end of a week I began to comprehend ordinary con-
versations. My tongue spontaneously became loosened, and
like the child, spontaneously I began to speak. Like the child,
I found words, and the correct words, to say all that I wished.
Like the child, too, and intuitively, I applied the grammar,
and my speeches all at once lost the sad property of making
everybody laugh. In short, at the end of two months " I
dreamt in German."
A fortnight after, in a philosophical bout at the university
— "in disputatione philosophica " — I made a speech in German.
The subject proposed (I can never forget it) was the compari-
son of the formula of Descartes, "Je pe*nse, done je suis,"
with the formula of Hegel, '' Das reine Nichts und das reine
Sein sind identisch." After a long and lively debate (in
German, be it understood), the French student was proclaimed
victor. I knew German I
I have had it said to me, and others doubtless will say it
again, " But your long work previously must have been of
considerable assistance to you, possibly even without your
being aware of it yourself." Reader, be not deceived in this
respect.
This anterior work had, on the contrary, hindered me —
hindered me to the utmost extent, and this for two reasons :
the first, because it had completely falsified my pronuncia-
tion ; the second, because there was not a single verb in the
whole language to which I did not attribute a meaning quite
other than its true one. So that I had a double task to exe-
cute : first to forget, afterwards to re- learn ; and the latter was
by no means the most difiicult and troublesome of the two.
But beyond this, my little friends, who had not suffered the
penance either of grammar or of dictionary, at the end of
three months dreamt in French as easily as did their tutor in
German.
I should, however, be unjust towards the dictionary if I did
not acknowledge that the study of it has rendered me a great,
58 HISTORY AND CONCEPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
a really great, service. It lias cured me of, or preserved me
from, all fear of dictionaries. Henceforth I could read or
study a dictionary, be it as thick as that of Littr^ as I could
any other book. Were it not for this benefit, I should hardly
have dared to undertake a task of which I shall speak here-
after, which constitutes an essential part of my system.
Reader, my story has been long, possibly wearisome. I pray
you excuse it. This hour of struggle, fierce as it may have
been, counts amongst the most delightful of my life. It is
for this I love to return to it ; it is for this I love to recount
it, as the veteran does the battles in which he has fought ;
and when I begin, I know not when to fiinish.
This introduction to " The Art of Teaching and Studying Lan-
giinges" was the subject of a lecture given at the Palace of the Paris
Exhibition in October 1878, under the auspices of the Gongrh Libre de
VEnseignement.
THE BOOK OF NATURE. 59
XIX.
EriLOGUE AND PROLOGUE.
In this first part analysis has bodied forth the general
features of the linguistic system of Nature. Gathering together
with care the definitions, the axioms, the principles developed
by this analysis, and combining them as logically as possible,
we will endeavour to reconstruct synthetically this same system,
and, by simplifying it, to raise it to the dignity of an art.
The synthesis being the analysis reversed, many repetitions
will be inevitable — indeed, indispensable. We trust the reader,
in view of the importance of this object, will not find them
too tedious.
Before commencing, let us put a question to ourselves which
without doubt every reader will ask of us. We have just
spelt out the first page of a hitherto unpublished book of
Nature. When we shall have finished it, shall we have re-
vealed the whole child 1 Shall we have revealed the whole
art of Nature herself? Shall wo have penetrated all her
secrets ? Will she have hidden from our eyes none of her
artifices? To this we must reply in the words of Pascal,
" We shall never know the whole of anything."
Nevertheless the book will have been opened, and if we
know not how to read all therein, others after us will be more
fortunate, and the practical science of language will be at
last constituted, like all other sciences, upon the immediate
observation of Nature, the only true rational basis of human
knowledge, and the only fruitful one.
6o CONSTKUCTION AND APPLICATION OF SYSTEM.
PART SECOND. 6.o~ /f^.
CONSTRUCTION AND APPLICATION OF THE
SYSTEM.
DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT — ORDER TO BE FOLLOWED.
The method, properly so called, will divide itself essentially
and naturally into three chapters, corresponding to the three
constituent parts of the whole human language. It should
treat of the objective language, of the subjective language,
and of the figurative language. Let us repeat the definitions
already given.
The objective language is the expression of the phenomena
perceived by us in the exterior world.
The subjective language is the expression of the play of the
faculties of the soul.
The figurative language is the expression of the purely
ideal, that is, of the abstract idea by means of symbols borrowed
from the exterior world.
Where shall we begin ? Where shall we finish ? The
objective language is the occasion of the subjective language.
It precedes it as the cause precedes the effect, as action precedes
reaction. It is, moreover, the substratum upon which it rests.
Without the external phenomena, the exercise of a mental
faculty has no reason for existence. Lastly, it is by the
objective language that the child begins. The child seems,
even for some considerable time, to know and exercise this
language to the exclusion of the two others.
The figurative language itself rests upon the objective lan-
guage, which feeds it and furnishes it with images. Further,
abstraction being a product of the play of the intellectual
faculties, the language which translates this abstraction
ORGANISATION IN SERIES.
6i
presupposes the awakening of these faculties. Therefore
the subjective language takes its birth before the figurative
language, and consequently must always precede it.
Both Nature and reason show us clearly the order to follow.
"We shall commence by the objective language, we shall con-
tinue by the subjective language, and we shall finish by the
figurative language.
These chapters admit in their turn, and require, a sub-
division : firstly, the theoretical organisation of each of these
languages ; secondly, the practical art of teaching them.
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The reptile.
The insect.
The plant.
The elements.
The species which enter into each of these great divisions
form the material of the series. Thus the Elements give the
Series of the River, the Series of the Sea, the Series of the
Storm, the Series of the Sun, &c., &c. It is a treatise on
cosmography and of elementary natural science.
The plant gives the Series of the Yine, the Series of the
62 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
Apple-Tree, the Series of the Corn, that of the Grasses, that
of the Walnut, &c., &c. It is a treatise on botany and
agriculture.
The insect gives the Series of the Bee, of the Ant, of the
Butterfly, of the Spider, of the Beetle, &c., &c. It is a vast
chapter of natural history.
The bird gives the numerous set of Series of the Domestic
Fowls, the Singing- Birds, the Birds of Prey, &c., &c. Another
large chapter of natural history.
The quadruped gives the Series of the Domestic Animals
(sheep, cow, horse, &c.), the Series of the Rodents, the Series
of the Carnivora, &c. A further and vast chapter of natural
history.
Man gives for Series : — the Child, the Student, the Young
Man, Mature Age, the Trades, the Arts, &c., &c.
III.
CONSTRUCTION OF THE SERIES — OUTLINE OF THE GENERAL
PROCESS TO BE FOLLOWED IN ORGANISING THEM.
A Series follows the being it is dealing with, first in the
life of one day, then in its life during the four seasons of the
year. It thus embraces the totality of its existence, and
consequently reproduces the totality of the terms which the
language possesses for the expression of all that we know
about this being.
Each " end " proposed by the being in question forms tl.e
" motive," the title of one theme, and the successive "means"
by which the being attains this end form the material or the
development of the theme. Suppose we have to construct
the Series of the Bird. The following are some of the ends
which will be proposed by this being, and to which it will-
tend : —
1. A couple will pair.
2. The pair will make a nest.
3. The hen-bird will lay.
4. The hen -bird will sit.
5. The young will be hatched.
6. The father and mother will feed them.
7. The nestlings will grow, will be fledged.
8. The brood will leave the nest.
CONSTRUCTION OF THE SERIES. 63
This is a sequence or series of ends, but this is not a series
of themes or elaborated descriptions.
What is it that has to be done to draw from this series a
series of themes 1 We must consider, and say : —
1. How the birds pair.
2. How they build their nest.
3. How and under what conditions the eggs are laid.
4. How the incubation takes place.
5. How the hatching is accomplished.
6. How and with what tlie father and mother feed the
brood.
7. How the nestlings quit the nest.
8. How the little birds learn to fly, Sec,
and the numerous accidents which arise from the bird's
relation with the elements and with the other species of
animals which make war upon it, or upon which it makes
war itself.
Here is a second example. Suppose we have to construct
the Series of any species of " Plant." Determine first of all
the series of ends that the plant itself, or that Nature, seems
to desire : —
1. The seed is planted in the ground.
2. The seed sprouts.
3. The plant takes root.
4. Thie plant grows.
5. The stalk develops.
6. The plant puts forth leaves.
7. The plant buds.
8. The plant blossoms.
9. The flower is fertilised.
10. The fruit hardens.
11. The fruit increases in size.
1 2. The fruit ripens.
13. The seed falls and propagates the plant, d'C,
and the numerous diverse facts which arise from the relation
of the plant either with the elements or with animated beings.
Develop each of these ends, and you will obtain as many
themes. More than this, each of these ends will be in itself
a mine of secondary ends ; each species of plant will give you
a small treatise full of interest, in which, one by one, all the
64 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
problems of botanical science will be thoroughly traversed.
This is what I term a Series.
I will cite a third example. Suppose the Series of the Bee
is to be constructed. This is the series of facts or general
aims : —
First, the swarm builds the honey-combs,
then — the workers provide a store of wax,
then — they gather the honey from the flowers,
then — they store this honey,
then — they defend their treasure against enemies who
wish to steal it,
then— the queen-bee takes her marriage-flight,
then — the queen breeds,
then — the workers wall up the royal cells,
then — the eggs are hatched,
then — the grubs change form,
then — the nurses take care of the new-born,
then — a new swarm is formed,
then — the new queens fight the old queen,
then — the hive swarms,
then — the exiled swarm flies off to establish a new
colony, &c., &c.
Add to this the various possible accidents (inclement
weather, enemies, disease), both for the life of one day and
for the various seasons, and you will have a monograph of
the insect as interesting as any romance, and from which, if
required, the material for a couple of hundred chapters or
more might be drawn.
Develop properly each of these chapters and you will
obtain a series of themes wherein can be placed practically
the whole of the terms that the language possesses to express
all that we know about the insect world in general.
The Series of the Ant may follow that of the Bee. It will
give many valuable terms, whose meanings it is difficult to
fix, both for architecture and for the art of warfare ; for the
ant is by nature both warrior and architect. Any other
insect observed by Beaumur, and described in his immortal
memoirs, would furnish material for still other series equally
interesting with the foregoing, and not less rich in terms of
all kinds.
CONSTRUCTION OF THE SERIES. 65
In the same way the Series of the quadrupeds may be con-
structed; in the same way that of the reptiles, that of the
fishes, that of the elements ; and thus also, and before all
the others, those which represent the development of the life
of man through one day, through the seasons, through the
historic eras, through the arts and the manifold labours of
industry.
Suppose now that a student has conquered the Series of the
Elements, the Plant, the Insect, the Fish, the Amphibious
Animals, the Bird, the Quadruped, and the Man, will he know
the whole language ? the whole language translating exterior
facts, the expression of the " non-ego " — in a word, the whole
objective language 1 Yes !
Indeed, what remains to be expressed beyond these facts ?
Language can only express that which we know of the world
wherein we exist. Now our Series claim to exhaust the general
phenomena of the objective world. The severe order which
presides over their construction does not allow a single detail
of these phenomena to remain unexpressed. The whole of our
Series includes, or ought to include, the objective language in
its totality. The whole vocabulary should be found therein,
and is, in point of fact, found therein. When arranging our
system, as soon as we constructed a series, wo went through
the whole of the thirty thousand words of the ordinary lan-
guage. We inserted in this series the terms which we might
have overlooked, but which belong naturally thereto. Then
we crossed out in the dictionary all the words contained in
the series. At the end of about the fifteenth complete series,
the whole of the dictionary was found to be crossed through.
This number " fifteen " is an answer, admitting of no reply,
to a grave objection which has often been addressed to us, and
certainly will be so again. " Granted," we are told, " that the
whole language is to be found in your Series ; that may very
Avell be ; it is even evident it must be so. But would not the
study of such Series as these be * infinite ' ? "
We reply : The number of Series is, or might become, im-
mense, because it might be made equal to the number of the
different species. But the human language happily has not
the same dimensions. Language only expresses or represents
general facts, and, moreover, has very precise — I should even
say, very restricted — limits.
E
66 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
Write the Libtory of any single quadruped — of the quadruped
which presents the most varied existence or which is best
known to us — that is, develop its Series (of the sheep, horse,
or cow, for example), and you will find therein all the terms
the language possesses for the genus " quadruped " as a
whole.
Write or develop the Series of a single bird — the one best
known to you (that of the hen, for example) — and you will
have all that part of the language which expresses the whole
of the general phenomena special to the genus "bird."
The single Series of the bee will give that part of the
language appertaining to the phenomena of the "insect" in
general.
The " wheat " or any other plant chosen will give the whole
of the terms appertaining to the phenomena of vegetation in
general, &c., &c.
From whence it results that to know any language it
suffices to know thoroughly fifteen or twenty general series,
subdivided, as we have previously set forth, in fifty or sixty
special series.^ The remainder would be no more than exercises
in reading, and scientific treatises, in which will be reproduced,
with the infinite variety of Nature, facts analogous to these,
and expressed in the same general terms.
When I state that a Series will give all the terms the
language possesses for any similar order of facts, I should
explain further. These terms are not substantives or iso-
lated words, as the reader might imagine if I were not to
apprise him of it. This method knows "sentences" only.
It is therefore, and with good reason, the enemy of the
vocabulary.
It is not the substantives naming, in any order whatsoever,
all the parts of the tree, all the parts of the insect, all the
parts of the bird, all the parts of the quadruped, which con-
stitute this method, but the expression of phenomena and the
detail of the existence of each kind of being. It is not the
cold and hackneyed enumeration of the constituent parts of
this being that our method proposes ; it is rather the repre-
sentation of the life itself in its movement and in its natural
^ For instance, the Series of the Bread would be a General Series, of
which those of the Ploughman, the Reaper, the Miller, the Baker, &c ,
would be Special Series. Each separate scene in any of these will form u
*' thcir.e " or exercise (Trans.).
OUTLINE OF THE METHOD. 67
development. It is not the name of the organs which it
aspires to give, but it is the pl;iy ot' these organs which it
first reveals in order to express.
In a word, in the classical process and in the pretended
methods of Robertson, Ollendorf, Jacotot, and others, it is the
substantive, wittingly or unwittingly, that plays the principal
part. In ours it is the verb that plays the principal part;
the verb — we have already said it, and cannot repeat it too
often — the verb, soul of the sentence; tJie verb, that which
translates the movement and the action, and which manifests
the life ; the verb, principal organism of speech, the living
centre around which, in the phrasej gravitate all the nouns,
whether subject or complement, with all their train of preposi-
tions and adjectives. This sole difference, we think, opens a-u
abyss between the ordinary processes and our method.
Before we proceed to draw the numerous theoretical nnd
practical consequences which unfold themselves from the sub-
stitution of the verb for the substantive as the first principle
of language, let us say, or rather repeat, that our method is
a method solely by this adoption of the verb as base. In
reality, he who says " Method " says " Order." But from the
substantive we can neither pass logically to the verb, nor to
the adjective, nor to the adverb, nor to the sentence; much
less still from one sentence to another sentence.
From the verb, on the other hand, we go straight to the
substantive and adjective which are called up around it, as
we have just said, either as subject or as complement. And
from one verb, that is, from one action, we pass quite natu-
rally to another verb — that is, to another action — consequent
upon or complementary to the first. A linguistic system,
therefore, which takes the verb as base is founded upon a
principle of order. This system consequently may become a
*' Method " in the true sense of the word.
lY.
CONSTRUCTION OF ONE TUEME OF A SEEIES.
We have just seen what it is that constitutes a linguistic
series, considered in its general development and its principal
68 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
divisions. It now remains to explain how a simple element,
a simple exercise,^ any particular theme of a given series, is
elaborated. For this purpose we will choose one of the series
which translates that which we term the common life, that is,
the ordinary everyday life of mankind ; say the " Series of the
Fire." And in this series we will take an exercise or theme
capable of giving rise to the enunciation of the greater part
of our principles — that, for example, which has as its title
" The Maid Chops a Log of Wood."
To chop a log of wood, — this is the end. What are the
means employed 1
To chop wood, we require a hatchet.
Therefore, first of all : — she goes to seek this hatchet ;
then what does she do ? — she takes a log of wood ;
then what does she do ? — she goes up to the chopping-block ;
then what does she do ?— she kneels down near this block ;
then what does she do ? — she places the wood on the block ;
then what does she do ? — she raises the hatchet ;
then what does she do ] — she brings down the hatchet ;
what follows ? . . . — the hatchet cleaves the air ;
then what happens 1 . — the hatchet strikes the wood ;
then what happens ? . — the blade buries itself in the wood ;
and then ? . . . . — the blade cleaves the wood ;
and then ? . . . . — the two pieces fall to the ground ;
and then ? . . . . — the woman picks up the two pieces ;
and then ? . . . . — she chops them again and again to
the size desired ;
and then ? . . . . — she stands up again ;
and then ? . . . . — she carries the hatchet back to its
place.
The end is attained. The exercise is therefore finished :
the theme is complete.
Before examining the contents of this exercise and taking
stock of the process which creates it, let us transcribe it under
the form which experience has definitely shown us to be the
most practical.
^ The word " exercise " is used here, and throughout the book, in a definite
sense, as a lesson which includes a certain poitiou of the language, and
not a merely fugitive lesson of words or tenses (Trans.^.
CONSTRUCTION OF AN EXERCISE.
69
The maid chops a log* of wood.
— The maid goes and seeks her hatchet, seeks
the maid takes a log of wood, takes
the maid draws near to the chopping-block, draws near
the maid kneels down near this block, kneels down
the maid places the log of wood upright upon places
this block.
— The maid raises her hatchet, raises
the maid brings down her hatchet, brings down
the hatchet cleaves the air, cleaves
the blade strikes the wood, strikes
the blade buries itself in the wood, buries itself
the blade cleaves the wood, ' cleaves
the two pieces fall to the ground. fall
— The maid picks up these pieces, picks up
the maid chops them again and again to the chops again
size desired,
the maid stands up again, stands up
the maid carries back the hatchet to its carries back
place.
* * * *
. . Maid (housewife, cook, servant, domestic, girl, woman,
person, hewer of -wood, she, &c.)
2. Chopping-block (block, log, billet, article, thing, object, it,
&c.)
3. Place (right place, proper place, spot, corner, post, posi-
tion, location, &c.)
4. Blade (edge, cutting edge, sharp edge, keen edge, iron,
steel, metal, it, &c.)
5. Hatchet (axe, wood axe, chopper, chopping-knife, cleaver,
cutter, bill, billhook, instrument, tool, edge tool, imple-
ment, it, this, that, &c.)
70 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
AVe have many times met with persons who, after having
heard a single exercise such as the above set forth, have not
only understood our method in its general idea, but who have
instantaneously grasped the whole mechanism of it almost to
the point of themselves being able to develop the system there-
from out of hand as clearly and directly as we should
have been able to do it ourselves. Amongst others, of those
linguists who have a name, we may be permitted to mention
M. Eichhoff, who, at the end of a class inspection at the
College of Caen, conjured us, so to speak, to complete a method
which could and must, according to his opinion, render the
grandest service to the teaching of languages.
This facility of comprehension results from the fact that
each exercise contains the whole method — is the method in
miniature. And it was by an intuition of the same nature,
relative to the linguistic development provoked by the spec-
tacle of a mill and observed upon a very young child, that we
ourselves discovered, or believe we have discovered, the true
process of Nature in the formation of language, and that, in
one and the same glance, we gained both an insight into the
details and a survey of the whole general development of the
present system.
We may now proceed to consider the reflections called up
both by the basis and by the form of the preceding theme.
V.
CnARACTER AND PROPERTIES OF THE EXERCISES ON THE
NEW METHOD.
I. Logical cohesion and original arrangement of the sentences in
the exercises.
In the table of the exercise given, we see first of all the
enunciation of a general action — that of chopping wood — then
the development of this action in and by a species of definition.
It is therefore a general act defined by a series of particular
acts. Considered from another point of view, that of logic,
this exercise presents : —
1. A general end, unique and simple — to chop wood.
2. A group, a series of means conducive to this end.
mOrERTIES OF THE EXERCISE. 71
The relation of end to means is therefore the *' logical con-
nection" which binds together the title of this exercise with
its development. But the diverse pieces that serve for this
development, are they also bound together amongst themselves,
and upon what relationship is their association founded ?
The logic which in onr method links sentence to sentence is
not the more or less artificial, and more or less arbitrary logic
of the printed book in general ; it is that wdiich may be called
*' the logic of nature," a logic accessible, or rather familiar, to
everybody — one which the little child understands and practises
equally with the man of genius.
The relationship of succession in time — this is the natural
cement which in our exercises unites phrase to phrase and
sentence to sentence. This relationship, let it be borne in
mind, constitutes in itself alone the elementary logic of the
human mind. It is by it that thought begins. The mind
perceives it while perceiving movement, and it is by it that
we are led to the perception of more profound relationships,
those of cause to effect, of principle to consequence, of end to
means.
A simple, a very simple expression presides over and suffices
for the genesis of our themes; the words "and then." This
is an expression or a relationship understood all the world
over ; it is an expression or relationship pre-eminently that of
the child when it attempts to tell others its little tales : —
" and then . . ."
Hence the peculiar form under which our exercises are pre-
sented to the listener ; hence the disposition of our phrases
upon the paper itself. Each has its own line, each occupies a
special line. In this manner the book itself aids us in dis-
tinguishing, in anal^'sing the thoughts, brings out the unity
of the sentences, isolates them in order better to manifest
them, instead of holding them confounded together, as do the
ordinary printed books.
A true linguistic method is certainly subject to conditions
other than those of an ordinary book. It cannot aim at too
great clearness, at too much precision. It should, to the
highest point attainable, put in evidence each element of the
language, which for us means every sentence. This is why,
in our exercises, the sentences progress in single file ; being
elaborated separately, being born, so to speak, beneath our
72 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
very eyes, one after the other in a regulated succession, each
presenting a complete whole, on which are concentrated all
the rays of the eye as well as all the energies of the intelli-
gence, upon which the mind, which aspires to assimilate the
idea together with its expression, lingers and rests at leisure.
So therefore, in our exercises, all is bound together, strictly
and logically ; the title is strictly connected with its develop-
ment; the pieces of this development are strictly connected
among themselves. And yet in all this everything is distinct ;
the title is perfectly distinct from its development ; the end
is distinct from the means ; the means are distinct from each
other. If perfection consist in the union of these two extremes,
our system should attain this point to the nearest possible
limit.
In the exercise already cited it will be noticed that certain
guiding-points are marked by the sign ( — ). These signs
are iutended, on the one hand, to determine rigorously the
diverse moments of the action, on the other, to indicate to the
teacher, when he is giving the lesson, the precise points at
which he should stop, both to repeat it himself and to ask
the pupil to recite it. These signs mark, so to speak, the
number and extent of the steps that the pupil must take to
conquer a given theme.
It is better, in fact, to banish the arbitrary as far as it can
be found possible, not only from the method itself, but also
from its application. In itself the general disposition of our
exercises, considered as linguistic reading lessons, already, we
think, incontestably offer considerable advantages. In the
chapter on the employment of the method or the art of
teaching, we shall see this same disposition acquire a prime
importance.
If we sum up what we have just said, we shall find therein
the five following facts to be noted : —
1. Each exercise is composed of two parts, to wit, of a title,
and of a certain number of phrases which develop and define
this title by analysing it.
2. The title expresses an end, a simple end ; and the body of
the exercise expresses the means, the equally simple means, by
which the end is attained.
3. One sole relationship, always the same from one end of
the exercise to the other, that of succession in time, enjoys,
PROPERTIES OF THE EXERCISE. 75
to the exclusion of all others, the privilege of connecting the
end with the means.
4. The means are enounced in the same order in which they
succeed each other, or should succeed each other, in view of an
end to be attained ; and the sentences which translate these
means are written line by line.
5. The various moments of the action are distinguished with
care, and separated one from another by a sign or guiding
mark, in order to assure a logical exposition and an easy
assimilation.
Such is the art, or, more modestly, such are the principles
which preside at the genesis of all our exercises. We shall see
farther on how much these dispositions have in common with
the processes of Nature.
2. Tlie number of words contained in a lesson.
Let us now take stock of the gross vaTue of our exercise.
We will count first of all the number of words which it con-
tains, and then estimate their intrinsic value. The main body
of the exercise gives sixteen different verbs (twenty-two words),
(go, seek, take, draw near, kneel down, place, raise, bring down,
strike, bury, cleave, fall, pick up, chop, stand up, carry back) ;
twelve nouns (maid, log, wood, axe, hatchet, block, air, blade,
piece, ground, size, place) ; three adjectives (upright, two,
desired) ; five prepositions (of, to, upon, in, near) ; six pro-
nouns (her, she, this, these, itself, its) ; in all, forty-eight
separate words. So much for the body of the exercise itself.
Now look at the appendix placed at the foot of our small
table. It contains about forty words entirely different from
the others. These new terms are intended to be substituted
for their equivalents in the exercise, according to a process
which we shall set forth in the chapter '' On the Art of Teach-
ing a Language." We give them for this reason the name of
'• equivalents or substitutes," that of " synonyms " not being
sufiiciently general, or only applying accidentally.
Therefore, in sum total, the preceding exercise would contain
over eighty different words. We do not count therein the
adjectives and adverbs that each phrase of the exercise might
include and calls for naturally, such as : maid (industrious,
quick, active, strong, &c.); blade (hard, shining, cutting, sharp,
&c.); verbs (rapidly, quickly, firmly, then, afterwards, Sec).
74 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
If we reflect tliat the ordinary langunge, that which sufiiceg
for the wants of everyday life, hardly amounts at most to more
than ten thousand words, it will be easy to calculate what is
the number of exercises analogous to this which will be neces-
sary to yield what may be called the first basis of the language.
This interesting calculation we shall make in detail a little
farther on.
3. Intrinsic value of the terms contained in an ordinarij
exercise.
Let us now estimate the intrinsic value of the terms con-
tained in our exercise. And first of all, some may possibly
be astonished at the comparative commonness of the fact
chosen by us. We shall reply provisionally that the method
does not contain only these series translating common life,
but that it can be raised, and as a matter of fact is raised, to
the extreme heights of science as well as of poetry — the poetry
of nature and the poetry of truth. Here indeed is whei'ein it
triumphs. Consequently, if we do not disdain these every-day
facts, if we deem it well to express them, and to accord them
a place in our work, it is because they are imposed upon us by
a certain character of utility and of practical necessity.
We will reply further once again, that to learn a given
language is to translate into this language the whole of our
individuality. Now " fire," and all that appertains thereto,
certainly occupies a page in the book of our perceptions and
our remembrances. Therefore the Series of the Fire has the
riofht to fi2rure in our method.
Lot us add that fire is the symbol of love, and therefore the
source of those elevated metaphors by means of which the life
of the heart is expressed and manifested. The heart is set on
fire, glows, burns, is consumed, &c., like the wood which the
housewife arranges upon the hearth. Thus, again, the passions
take fire, grow cold, smoulder, die away, are stirred, spring
from their ashes, revive, &c.
Our humble scene of the fireside is therefore found to con-
ceal the precious terms of the language of the heart. Conse-
quently the Series of the Fire has a double value; it serves
for the practical and material life ; it serves also for the
moral life.
Thus it is with the greater part of the series which translate
VALUE OF THE EXERCISE. 75
common life. The life of every day, the life of every one of us,
the terms by which each series expresses a certain order of
tangible facts, serve at the same time to render a certain order
of psychological facts; in other words, to interpret a phase of
the soul. For this reason our set of everyday series takes a
very high position. Humble as they are, who can dare to
despise them ?
So much having been said, let us return to our exercise of
chopping wood, and from the standpoint of utility let us
weigh attentively in the balance all the terms which it offers
to us.
Take the exercise piece by piece, and examine each piece by
itself, and pick out, if you can, one single expression ; quote
one word, any single word, to which you are not obliged to
have recourse a hundred times a day ! AYe know that in order
to act we must think, and that thinking is talking to one's self
by means of this interior speech, which always stands ready
within us, which is the first minister of the reason and the
will, and which analyses, secretes ceaselessly our thoughts and
our volitions; distributes them, classifies them as regards an
action, in the double category of ends and of means.
Dialogue or monologue, our speech is continual. Language
is a constant need of the mind. This granted, let us see first
of all if the verbs of our exercise are often to be found upon
the pathway of thought, if they serve this thought, and how
they serve it.
Seek. — What is there that we do not seek, from the gar-
ments with which we clothe our bodies to the glory which
adorns our life ?
Draw near. — We draw near both to the table which bears
our meals, and to the truth or perfection for which our nature
longs.
Take. — We take both the bread which nourishes our body
and the courage which sustains us morally.
Place. — We place our foot on the ground, and we also place
faith in our cherished beliefs.
Eaise. — We raise a glass of water to our lips, or a difllculty
to mental progress.
Fall. — The fruit in the orchard falls, and so also does the
man whose will is abandoned to evil or whose intelligence
strays in the paths of error.
76 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
Fick up. — We pick up not only the tool that has dropped
from our hands, but the moral force which begins to fail under
misfortune.
Carry. — Do we not see carried, not only the basket on the
arm or the burden on the shoulder, but dismay to the ranks
of an enemy, complaints to the officers of law, or a new hope
of life to a condemned prisoner 1
Open any good dictionary at these verbs, and from the
length of the columns devoted to them, judge whether these
are the idle words in a language. We can then appreciate at
their true value the expressions which form so large a part
of the web of the ordinary language ; and appreciating this
common language itself, we shall appreciate the series which
translate it.
Let us next consider the substantives and the terms of re-
lationship contained in this same exercise. These words are
not idle in themselves : — Axe, log, wood, maid, air, blade,
piece, earth, size, place. Nor these : — Servant, domestic, girl,
woman, article, thing, place, spot, position, post, sharp, steel,
metal, chopper, billhook, instrument, tool, &c. Nor these : —
Of, near, on, in, to, &c.
Have these terms, all of which enter into our exercise, the
appearance of being idle and low simply because they are
grouped and organised ; or is it rather that they serve to ex-
press a scene which is too humble, too familiar? To most persons
there will be no necessity for maintaining the importance of
simplicity in the early lessons, and we shall presently demon-
strate the importance of order, that is, a regular grouping —
a logical organisation relative to the normal action of the
memory — and we shall state besides the extreme value, from
the linguistic point of view, of the ordinary every-day facts of
life and of their expression.
4. Two lands of substantives— Common and general nouns — •
Siiecijic nouns — 21ieir relation.
Compared one with another, the substantives in our lesson
present two characters profoundly diverse : some are specific,
others are general. Axe is a specific noun ; it designates the
species. Instrument is a noun relatively general ; it marks a
kind. Of these two species of nouns, one is more necessary
than the other. The specific substantives are more important
ENDS AND MEANS. ^j-j
than the general substantives. The general terms are, so to
speak, terms of luxury, which the language can upon necessity
do without. A kind of pronoun, or substitute, as we have
named them, they are there for the convenience, sometimes
for the elegance, more often for the rapidity of language.
The specific substantives, on the other hand, are indispensable.
Therefore tlie word "axe "will always have its correspondent,
its translation relatively exact in a foreign language, while the
general term, such as instrument or tool, will seldom find an
equivalent which affords exactly the same extension, or which
presents an adequate signification.
Our exercise, therefore, which yields us in its first part a
series of purely specific nouns, and which, in its second part,
bears a list of general terms corresponding to the specific nouns,
cannot possibly be made to proceed with more strictness of
method, nor to be more practical or more complete.
Further than this, the specific nouns are found repeated
almost at every line ; so that it may be said that the frequency
of repetition of each term is proportional to the relative value
of this term. This is also noticeable in the practice of ordi-
nary language. For ten times that a child will say axe or
chopper when speaking of the instrument that bears this name,
he will hardly once make use of its general name of " tool. "
5. Tico lands of verhs — Verhs of ends and lerls of means —
Their relation.
Like the nouns, the verbs also, when compared amongst
themselves, present two distinct species which all serious philo-
logy should recognise. Verbs of one species designate the
ends; verbs of the other species express the means employed
to attain these ends. Thus, to draw water, this is an end.
To take the pitcher — to carry it to the spring — to dip it in tl.e
water — to fill it with water — to draw it out of the water — to
carry it to the house : these are the means. This distinction
established, let us ask ourselves a question similar to that
which we asked ourselves relative to the substantives. Which
are the most important, the verbs expressing " ends " or the
verbs expressing " means " ? Or are they rather of equal value ?
Between these two species of verbs there exists the same
relation as between the larger and the smaller pieces of
7^ OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
coinage. The large pieces have a greater value in themselves,
the small pieces are most indispensable for every-day trans-
actions, and at need can serve instead of the former. The
smaller pieces circulate largely in commerce. What should
we do without them ? The larger pieces, on the other hand,
could be reduced to the least possible number, or even totally
disappear, as indeed has happened at a period not greatly
distant from the present, as, in fact, is still the case in certain
countries. Such exactly is the relation which exists between
the verbs which express ends and those which express means.
The verbs of means form a current coinage absolutely
necessary for commerce. The verbs of ends are useful with-
out being indispensable. Their utility is analogous to that
of the larger pieces of money. They abbreviate and simplify
the language, and consequently accelerate and facilitate the
exchange of ideas between man and man. But they can be
perfectly well replaced by verbs of means, and this substitu-
tion does, in fact, take place at every instant in practice.
Instead of saying, " Close the door," we often say, " Pull the
door to;" instead of saying, " Iling the bell," we often say,
" Pull the bell." Pull, in these cases, is not the end ; it is the
means. It is this fundamental distinction which has rendered
possible both the organisation of our series and the construc-
tion of our exercises.
Considered separately and outside the action, outside the
mind which conceives this action or the will which desires it,
all verbs have the same character — a character to which no
name is given, because every name is the result of a distinc-
tion, and every name presupposes a distinction. Verbs, there-
fore, only express ends and means relatively and not absolutely.
It can now be understood how and why philology, ex-
clusively preoccupied with the meanings and the absolute
value of words, without any regard for the intrinsic mental
value of the acts which these words may translate, has never
notified, has never caught sight of, the double character with
which the verb can be clothed in the practice of language.
We repeat, these two characters, which seem to have escaped
the sagacity of the philologists, have nothing in them of the
absolute. They are essentially relative ; the same verb which
here expresses an end, elsewhere will express a means. An
example will throw a little light upon our thought.
ENDS AND MEANS. 79
To open the door of the woodshed is an end in relation to
the act of turning the key in the lock, which is the means of
attaining this end. But opening the door of the woodshed is
only a means by relation to the end of going to fetch some
wood. Going to fetch wood in its turn is a means by relation
to the superior end of lighting the fire. Lighting the tire
itself is a means by relation to the more general end of heat-
ing the room or of cooking the meal. The value of the verbs
is, therefore, like that of the actions, one which we might call
a "shifting" value.
In this series of ends and means, in this ascending hier-
archy, as in the machinery of human industry, the most
important and the most essential wheels are just those which
are the most elementary, the very smallest, and apparently
the least precious. Take, lift up, lay down, carry, leave,
turn, push, open, shut, stretch, &c., these are the elementary
essential wheels of the language; these are the true "roots"
of tongues. You will find them at the base of all actions ;
you will come across them at every line from the pen of the
author, at every phrase in the mouth of the orator. Nay,
more, the grand, the metaphoric style hardly admits, as verbs,
others than these "vulgar" verbs, and this because, in their
quality as expressions of the current tongue, they surpass all
other verbs in clearness and precision ; and because, all the
world making constant use of them, they are " understanded
of the people."
6. Epitome and general view.
The natural development of the man, of the animal, of the
plant, of the elements, can be conceived as a series of diverse
ends, realised or attained by a certain number of means.
There are, therefore, two species of verbs in the language,
and this language is not and cannot be other than the ex-
pression of this development. Some verbs there are which
express "ends," other verbs express "means."
The verbs of ends are not absolutely necessary ; the verbs
of means are indispensable. The greater part of the ends
require for their attainment the action of a certain number
of means. Therefore for one single verb which expresses an
end there are several verbs which express means.
Our existence is one "continued conversation," either with
8o OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
ourselves or with our fellows — one continual entertainment or
talk, in which we express aloud or to ourselves our ideas, our
sensations, our beliefs, our perceptions, our sentiments, our
volitions, our actions. An end perceived or pursued by us
involves always the perception, and therefore the expression —
articulated or mental — of the means necessary to the realisa-
tion of this end ; and the same end involves always the
employment, and consequently the 'expression of the same
means.
Therefore, already the verbs of means, in reality and in the
ordinary practice of language, repeat themselves with as great
frequency as the verbs of ends. But we should further point
out that even this equality is not the true relation between
these two sorts of verbs from the point of view of frequency.
In reality there is not a single means which does not serve as
such to a whole crowd of diverse ends. Therefore, in practice,
the verbs of means are repeated with far greater frequency
than are the verbs of ends.
Each of our exercises faithfully reflects all of these distinc-
tions, reproduces and manifests all of these relationships.
1. The ends are found therein perfectly distinct the one
from the other.
2. Each end is distinct from its means.
3. The verbs of means are repeated ceaselessly from one
end to another end, from one series to another series.
To all these observations upon the inner constitution of our
exercises we need to add one other relative to these observa-
tions themselves. The method ought not to be judged solely
from the manner in which we here present it. Language
being the most direct and immediate product of the human
mind, the theory of its development is, and cannot but be, at
bottom a chapter of psychology; and whatever efforts are
made to render its principles intelligible to the whole world,
these principles will always present themselves with that
character inherent to all principle — I mean, of abstraction.
7. Mnemonic propeiiies of the method.
Let us examine our theme from a new, that is, the purely
practical point of view. This theme that we have given, is it
within the reach of every intelligence, within the grasp of every
memory ; in other words, is it possible of easy assimilation ?
MNEMONIC PROPERTIES. 8i
The exercise itself is a sufiicient answer. Read it over
once more, and say if you know of one child so deprived of
intelligence as, first, not to be able to understand this theme,
then not to be able to imagine in all its details the fact
which this theme expresses, and further, to repeat it to you,
however weak his memory may be, as soon as you have pro-
perly and methodically given it to him, that is, placed it
before him in the true order in which the facts take place,
carefully detaching the sentences one from the other.
Make the experiment upon the least gifted of your scliolars,
and if you are in the least expert, you will inevitably arrive
at this joyful conclusion, that before the study of language,
with a method conformable to that of Nature, all intelligences
are sensibly equal — a conclusion, T am well aware, contrary to
the prejudices of scholastic teaching, and unfortunately anti-
pathetic alike to the instinct and to the interest of the pro-
fessors, who too often avoid placing the burden upon their own
shoulders, preferring to shield themselves behind allegations
of stupidity upon the part of the pupil rather than admit
the possibility of error in the more convenient methods of
routine.
Therefore w^e may claim, at least, that our lessons are acces-
sible to all intelligences, are within the reach of all memories.
Their conception is as instantaneous as perception, their assimi-
lation as rapid as speech. Two things specially contribute to
this result : —
1. The perfect simplicity of the sentences, which are re*
duced almost throughout to three terms, — a subject, a verb,
and a complement, without making use of incidentals.
2. The logical connection which links together all the
sentences of each exercise.
And if our themes are easy of assimilation, easy in the
mother- tongue, they are also relatively easy of assimilation
in a foreign tongue, provided always that the process of giving
the lesson is a rational one, like that which we shall shortly
attempt to describe.
Our exercises afford one other fact that deserves notice, and
on the practical values of which it is well to insist. NTot only
do the verbs of the sentences call forth around them a crowd
of words ; not only do the substantives, as we have said, gather
of themselves towards these verbs, either as subjects or as
F
82 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
complements, but these nouns are repeated, or may be re-
peated, quite naturally almost at every phrase.
Count how many times in our exercise recur the words
maid, axe, block, wood, &c., and from this how many times
what we have termed their " substitutes " might themselves
be repeated.
This special form of our exercises offers very considerable
advantages in practice.
1. Each phrase expressing a detail, a new fact, the repeti-
tion of the same subjects and the same complements has not
the character of an ordinary repetition, of a repetition pure and
simple. Owing to this new detail, this step made in advance in
each phrase, neither tediousness nor fatigue is to be feared.
2. This natural repetition of the same nouns, this constant
and periodic return of the thought towards the same object,
this reiterated effort of the representative or visualising faculty
upon the same idea, is not all this the graver's tool which
engraves the ideas and their expressions upon the memory ?
3. This same repetition, this perpetual recurrence of the
same sounds, is not this the essential condition, is not this the
most sure and solid guarantee of a good pronunciation 1
4. The listener, feeling himself safe in this repetition of
subjects and complements, turns the principal effort of his
attention quite naturally upon the verb. But the verb, which
is the soul of the phrase, the most important and precious
element of the sentence, is at the same time the most difficult
to conquer and to keep. It is important, therefore, that the
attention should be fixed entirely upon this term. Now, by
means of the before-mentioned evolution, all the visual rays
of the intelligence are verily concentrated upon a solitary
fact, the action — upon a solitary word, the verb.
Is it possible to place the memory under more advantageous
conditions? Would it be possible for any one to propose
better conditions ?
VI.
CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS UrON THE ART OF COMPOSING SERIES.
I. The perpetual speech — Written series — Hidden
difficulties.
Each one of us in reality, from the first dawn of intelligence,
forms series, constructs exercises, works out themes. Was it
THE MOTHER'S SERIES. 83
not in seeing a child of three so doing that we ourselves gained
an insight into this system — the formidable work of the human
mind creating for itself, spinning for itself a language condi-
tioned to its life ?
The humble nursemaid forms a series, or at least a theme
analogous to our own, when, leading the baby towards the
door, she says to it —
Walk, baby ; that's the way I
now, go towards the door ; that's it !
now, you've got there ; bravo !
lift up your little arm ; capital !
take hold of the handle ; that's quite right !
turn the handle ; how strong you are !
open the door ; what a clever little baby !
now, pull the door open ; you little darling ! &c., &c.
It has already been stated that in any language there are
two languages. It is therefore by design that we have here
disposed in two columns the text which the ordinary books
present confounded together in spite of their diversity. We
shall return at the proper time to this distinction ; for the
moment let us pass on.
The mother or the nurse makes a series also when she
dresses the little child, a series which she repeats every morn-
ing, always the same in substance ; and she makes a lesson of
this series when she says —
Come along !
let me put on your frock ;
put your little head through ;
give me your little arm ;
pass your little arm into the little sleeve ;
now let us button the sleeve, &c., &c.
I omit the reflections and terms of endearment with which
she knows so well how to season each of her phrases, and
which form part of what we have called " the subjective lan-
guage or relative phrases."
Our life is a perpetual talk. You cannot open a door with-
out mentally expressing each movement necessary to arrive at
this end, without commanding yourself to do it, as the nurse
commanded it aloud to her baby. It is this constant and per-
manent exercise which alone can explain this prodigious facility,
H OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
this miraculous mobility of language which flashes forth with
an idea like the thunder with the lightning, which walks with
the thought and runs with it like the shadow with its sub-
stance, lingering when it lingers, hurrying when it hurries,
going up hill and down dale without ever asking for respite.
Has it never happened to j^ou in the railway train to find
yourself listening to two foreigners conversing together in an
unknown tongue 1 Which is it that has most astonished you,
the intellectual power which, in the interval between two
stations, can thus reel off, by linking them together, the
myriads of ideas ; or this language which strikes them off as
quickly as they are produced, without fatigue and without
cessation ?
I repeat, life from one end to the other, even in sleep, is
a perpetual talk. In the light of this fact one can already
judge of those methods and those masters, and those astonishing
Government regulations, innocently proposing to teach or to
have taught any language in giving or voting for it one hour, two
hours, three hours a week, that is, five to ten full days a year.
If, therefore, each of us constructs these series ceaselessly
and almost unawares even to himself, and if it is true that by
dint of striking one may become a smith, one might be led to
believe that nothing is more easy than to build up the system
of which we have thus laid the foundations. And this indeed
is the conviction which at first is forced upon whoever is
desirous of listening to the explanation of the system ; and
possibly this very fact is a presumption in favour of the system,
if the words of Pascal are true, " Seeing a good book, you
expected to find an author ; you are quite astonished to find
nothing but a man."
But any one on setting to work will soon find himself stum-
bling against unforeseen obstacles ; and this method, so natural
when listened to, so natural when an experienced teacher
applies it before you, immediately appears bristling with
difficulties to the most skilful person who undertakes to con-
struct — I will not say the system entire, I will not say even
one series — but the most lowly of the exercises. This results
from the first conditions that the system must fulfil in order
to be what it ought to be — a system conformable to the nature
of the human mind, a sj^stem truly "psychologic." We will
endeavour to establish the most important of these conditions.
ARTIFICIAL METHODS.
2. A method is a system necessarily artificial.
A method can never, and must never, repeat Nature, or it is
no longer a method. Tliis would be simply a plagiarism — less
than a plagiarism — a bald caricature. To reproduce Nature
without tracing, without copying her, is the sphere of art. A
linguistic method is essentially an art. Now an art cannot in
itself be "natural." It is indeed inspired by, and ought to be
inspired by, Nature ; but it exists in order to vanquish Nature,
to do better than Nature. Art is the rival of Nature, it is
not Nature herself. To become art, Nature must be recast in
the mould of a human concept. Let us therefore confess it
from the first, and declare it aloud : our method does not
admit, it refuses, this qualification of " natural ; " and if it is
not yet an art, it is the roughed-out model of an art — it is an
"attempt at an art," as we have named it, as we ought to
name it.
Let no one therefore bring against us the absurd reproach
of having found only an "artificial" method. A method
cannot be other than artificial, and it is so much the better
the more it is artificial, that is, the more it resembles an art,
the more it is endowed with the means proper to vanquish
Nature itself. In the sense in which we understand the word
artificial, let us remark that it certainly does not exclude sim-
plicity. On the contrary, it requires it ; for is not simplicity
a first condition, an essential virtue of all that bears the name
of art? If the expression "natural method" has any signi-
fication, it is that which is contained in the profound saying
of Bacon, " Interpretanda est natura" — nature must be inter-
preted.
Steam is a natural force, an agent every day producing
numerous phenomena which may be called " natural ; " but
put to the service of man, it becomes an "artificial" force.
The railway train set in motion by steam is not a natural
fact. The natural force condensed, so to speak, by the will
and by the industry of man, provided by him with a special
organism, produces that which we all know : a thing which is
not in Nature, a thing consequently artificial, and, let us add,
a thing far superior to that which would be realised by Nature
if left to herself. The telegraph, again, is not a product of
Nature, but the true offspring of man, who has endowed
86 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
electricity with an organism appropriate to his social wants.
In these creations art has magnificently and gloriously van-
quished Nature.
So it should also be with a good linguistic method. Psycho-
logy will interrogate Nature, and will ask of her a primitive,
an original force, a principle ; then it will adapt a special
organism to this principle, and the system will be of good
repute if it can produce, for instance, within the duration of a
single season, that which Nature can only achieve in the space
of one or of several years. The system will be defective if it
cannot compete with Nature either in the quantity or in the
quality of the products. By its fruit the tree shall be judged.
A linguistic method is an art, or should tend to become
one; such is the idea which has been kept in view in the
construction of our own method, and which has guided us in
our work.
3. Requisite capacities — Pedagogic measure of the series — Tlieir
division into exercises — Construction of these exercises —
Rules to he observed.
The first condition requisite for composing a series is to
have lived it. To write the Series of the Fisherman, one must
have fished or seen some one fishing. To write the Series of
the Hunter, one must have hunted or have followed the
hunters. To write that of the Shepherd, one must have
tended sheep or lived with shepherds. To write the Series
of the Harvest, one must have reaped corn. To be able to
speak of the sea, one must have voyaged. To write the Series
of the Oak or the Fir, it is necessary to have studied the tree,
not in a book, or according to a cold and dry nomenclature,
but in itself, in its living reality, and to have followed it, if
possible, from its first germ and its first cell unto the most
complete of its fruits. And so for the rest. The construction
of the fabric desired demands, therefore, an observing mind
which has long been in immediate contact with Nature, and
which, after having widely lived the life of the fields and the
life of the people, has embraced with passion and devotion the
study of the sciences and of literature.
This is what might be called the subjective condition of the
enterprise. Let us pass to the objective conditions.
MEASURE OF THE SERIES. 87
A series being given to develop, it is necessary before aught
else to trace its limits and to settle upon its contents. Tiiis
first operation already offers considerable difficulties. Too
long, the series will fatigue the child ; too short, it will not
occupy its imagination for a sufficiently long duration of time.
The intellectual incubation not having the desired length, the
hatching will not take place. Neither the phenomena itself
nor its expression will be able to take root in the moral sub-
stance. They will leave in the memory, like the shooting-star
in the heavens, nothing but an ephemeral trace.
Upon what, therefore, must we base our measure? Can
Nature here also serve us as guide 1 Has she some wise indi-
cation, some model to offer us ?
We have seen, in the first place, that the child begins by
playing at games of the facts and occupations of serious life ;
we have seen also that he lingers a determinate time upon
each of his games. This time is the measure sought. It is by
the ordinary duration of a child's game that the duration of a
series, and so the extent of its development, should be regulated.
Cut according to this pattern the series will interest the scholar
without risk of fatiguing him.
If necessary, we can divide and subdivide the material ; and
by making several series, to some extent concentric, spring
from the same subject, we can treat them each at its proper
time, at determined intervals ; so leading the pupil's imagina-
tion back periodically, as is done in Nature, towards facts in
appearance identical, in reality always diverse, we might even
say, always new.
The distribution of the general matter in chapters, that is,
in different and special themes or exercises, and the construc-
tion of these exercises themselves, have also their difficulties.
Each exercise, indeed, should form a complete whole in itself,
an independent whole, without ceasing to be a natural and
necessary link of the series. Moreover, each exercise should
be conceived under a form which strikes the imagination,
should be developed with a certain movement which interests
and captivates the mind, while remaining accurately faithful
to the reality. A word, a simple detail sometimes, suffices to
produce this effect ; one must know how to find it. All this
necessitates very careful work, which cannot be accomplished
without long experience and a clear idea of the end to bo
attained.
BS OLJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
Upon the testimony of several sufficiently able persons who
have attempted to write some of the series on the model of our
own, this work, in appearance so simple, would seem to be of
considerable difficulty. It is usually not easy to say where to
begin or where to end any particular theme. It is still more
difficult to say precisely to what depth the analysis of the
phenomenon described should be pushed. The temptation
arises, indeed, at every instance of forcing matters, and of
doing violence to Nature in order to attain such or such an
expression. The ploughshare too readily buries itself in the
soil, or, to speak more directly, one becomes lost amongst
details. An exercise composed under these conditions is defec-
tive in itself and indigestible by the student. The pupil's
mind cannot assimilate it. He feels a miserable hesitation, a
repugnance that paralyses part of his forces.
It can soon be recognised if an exercise has attained the
wished-for perfection, when, in the first place, its contents
attract the attention of the class and impress it, and, in the
next, when several of the more moderately gifted pupils dis-
pute, at the first reading, the honour of repeating it. The
tailor who is jealous of his good repute will not deliver a suit
until after he has carefully fitted it to his customer. The
pedagogue who has a love and respect for his art, before pub-
lishing his work will submit it to the natural test he has always
to his hand, and will prove it long and conscientiously upon
his class. The pleasure and the ardour of his scholars are the
true touchstones of the school-book.
It is in the highest degree necessary that the lesson given
by the master should do nothing but awaken in the mind of
the pupil a conception, a representation, which already exists
in his imagination. The method must not propose, at any rate
at first and in the elementary series, to endow the pupil's
mind with fresh ideas, but to translate those which are already
there; to express his individuality, such as it is, without
changing anything thereof, in a new tongue ; to re-make, to
reconstruct this individuality in French, in German, in Greek,
in Latin, &c.
Nay, more than this : the method proposes, and proposes
essentially, to place the pupil in those conditions under which
he will be enabled to re-thmk his own being, to take up again
and re-read the book of his existence, to re-live his Ego in
German, in Greek, in French, &c. For example, if the pupil
RULES TO BE OBSERVED. 89
has never seen a mill, you will not give him the series of the
miller to study, but you will first take him to a mill, or wait
till he has the opportunity of visiting one. Your series will
then reawaken his perceptions, will set them in order and
organise them perhaps, but will not create them. The expres-
sion will not precede the idea or the perception, but will
follow it : it will not shape it, it will clothe it. So much for
the general direction.
The same precepts apply not less rigorously to the details.
Your Series of the Miller — we are supposed to be still speaking
of the mill — will not contain more facts than those which are
to be found in the imagination and in the recollection of every
ordinary person who has seen a mill.
Experience has proved to us that too direct or too imme-
diate an observation of Nature is unfavourable to the pedagogic
description of a phenomenon. Like the artist, designer, or
painter, the pedagogic artist should be placed at such a dis-
tance that the secondary or too individual details are effaced
or disappear, and that the general features only remain.
The most propitious position in which to write the pedagogic
or linguistic description of a mill is not that in which the eye,
fully regarding this mill and actually contemplating it, em-
braces the mechanism and the action in the smallest details, but
rather that where this mill appears to us through the prism of
a recollection still strong, after having passed into an intel-
lectual concept, and having there bpen lopped, pruned, ridded
of all that is too individual, that is, of all that is not essential
and truly general.
We here touch upon one of the greatest difficulties of the
system, not only as to its teaching, but as to its construction.
It is this hidden difficulty which prevents the teachers, other-
wise able, of whom we have spoken, from creating an accept-
able exercise. Either they lost themselves among the details,
individualising too much, copying Nature too olosely, or else
did not follow Nature closely enough, wandering astray in
the vagueness of a generality without character, and without
attraction for the child, and therefore without profit.
90 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
4. Logical Unldng together of the sentences in an exercise — Order
and disorder — 21ie human breath — Measure of the phrase
— Placing line hy lirie — The intellectual e^ort, its extent —
Pedagogic measure of a linguistic exercise.
We have already established the high value of the relationship
of succession in time. We have said that it forms in itself
alone the elementary logic of the human mind, and that it is
before all the logic of the child, the only one it understands
well, and the only one it knows how to apply. The pedagogue,
therefore, in constructing an exercise, will practically employ
only this relationship. He may, however, from time to time
use the relationship of cause and effect, the most familiar to
the child after the former. He will use very rarely, and only
by exception, the relationship of '^ the whole to the part,"
which is a relationship neither logical nor constant, but alto-
gether accidental, fortuitous, and generally arbitrary.
The most ordinary judgment knows how to discern that
which goes before from that which comes after, knows how to
distinguish the cause from the effect, the end from the means,
the whole from the part. There is here, therefore, no really
serious difficulty. If any arises with reference to the arrange-
ment or order of the sentences, it does not belong to this
arrangement itself. It comes from something more abstruse ;
it belongs to the nature of the conception, to the separation of
the exercises, or to the progression of the series, and conse-
quently the problem enters into that of the previous one.
With reference to this arrangement or order, let us say that
the logic, severe, inflexible, constant, which links exercise to exer-
cise, sentence to sentence, makes of our labour an essentially
original work, without precedent as without model, and places
an abyss between our method and all others bearing this name.
It is necessary to repeat it : the attempts of OUendorf, of
Robertson, of 'Jacotot, and of others, are not methods at all.
Who says '' method " says " order." Now, all these books offer,
in reality, nothing but a hideous confusion, a frightful muddle,
worse even than the fortuitous sequence of the dictionary.
*' Have you a hat 1 "— " Yes, I have a hat."
" Have you a table ? "— " Yes, I have a table."
" What knife have you, that of the Englishmen or that of
the Spaniards?" — " No, I have the basket of the Jew."
There you have the logic of OUendorf !
ORDER AND DISORDER. 91
What, tliiuk you, is the natural relationship which connects
these four words : hat, table, knife, basket ? And how could
it be hoped that I should dispose within my memory, by means
of this astounding jugglery, the thirty thousand words of the
vocabulary and the sixty thousand turns of expression of the
ordinary language ? Can we, then, be astonished that routine
still continues to rule supreme in the school, and that the
universities still always prefer the ancient way of Charlemagne
or King Edward to the impossible paths traced by the modern
linguists ?
Instead of studying words upon the facts and by the facts
they express, and in the eternal order in which these facts are
developed — as does the little child, and with such good re-
sults — the scholar studies the words for themselves as absolute
sounds, or rather as "abstract numbers," The unforeseen,
the unconnected — disorder, in a word — these are the ordinary
and universally received springs that are set in action in the
handbooks written for the study of languages. There " dis-
order " is raised to the height of a principle ; the unforeseen
and the strange are converted into a mnemotechnic means.
A singular proceeding this, which proscribes order and anni-
hilates logic and reason, to strengthen the memory, as if the
true memory was not the faculty wliich classes facts and sets
them logically in order within the mind.
This error — I should say this aberration — evidently proceeds
from a defect of observation already notified by us. The
authors of these methods have not reflected that Nature had
solved the problem of language long before them ; " that she
holds," as we have said, " for early childhood a permanent and
open school, at which we could assist, and where we could study
her always infallible processes. In the turmoil of the child's
life, so feverish and fitful, they have not caught sight of the
regular development which takes place in the child's mind by
language and for language. In the hurried and confused suc-
cession of its acts, sensations, and fantasies, so diverse and
manifold, they could see nothing but a ' pure game of chance ; '
and have never imagined that there could be therein anything
which resembled order — a principle of order."
This is why, imitating Nature, as they call it, they have
erected disorder into a principle, and have inscribed in letters
of gold upon their books : " Natural Method 1"
92 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
" Have you a hat 1 " — " Yes, I have a hat, but my brother
has the Frenchman's fork."
'' Have you been to sea ? " — *' No, but I have been skat-
ing," . . . &e.
Robertson, Jacotot, and their followers mark time, as it
were, upon the same substantive to the point of vertigo ; or
again, without regard to common-sense, without pity for the
reason, they will turn over and over and over again [like
Prendergast], one and the same sentence, and work it about —
unhappy collection of words ! — until it is thoroughly worn to
Everything that is developed in Nature, animal or vegetable,
is subject to fixed immutable laws. The life of the child does
not escape therefrom any more than the rest of Nature. We
have defined it thus : " A series of general ends which it pro-
poses either aloud or to itself, and which it attains one after
the other by successive and perfectly determinate means."
Here there is sequence ; here there is order. Who can deny
it ? By its inward speech the child talks, explaining all that
it feels, all that it wishes, all that it desires. Language, the
faithful and constant acolyte of all its internal developments,
participates thus itself, and from the beginning, in this order.
Therefore chance does not preside over the development of
language any more than it does over anything else.
This, philological linguists, is what you will learn first of
all in the school for little children kept by Nature, if you are
neither blind nor deaf, if you are not distraught, and if you
can become teachable. Only be observant and you will learn
many other things. But above all be logical ; then have the
courage to burn, if it is necessary, what until now you have
held in respect or even reverence.
Our method, therefore, is light, a thousand times right,
when it links series to series, exercise to exercise, sentence to
sentence. It is right again, when, among the various relation-
ships by which the human mind can associate two ideas, it
has chosen the most simple of all, that which is famiUar -to
the child, " the relationship of succession in time." It is by
reason of this solely, by this double character of logic and of
simplicity, that it is a " method ; " and if a method could
arrogate to itself the title of "natural," it should be that one
which, appropriating the secret processes of Nature, simplifies
MEASURE OF THE PHRASE. 95
them, sets them in order, or combines them until it has made
of them a veritable " organ."
We have stated the principal conditions which each exercise
should satisfy as to its contents and as to its fc«"m ; a second
problem remains to be solved, not less important than the
preceding ones, and beset with equal difficulties — " Where
shall an exercise begin, and where finish 1 " In other terms,
can we assign a limit to its length ? What shall be this limit ?
And upon what data or upon what principle shall we take our
stand in order to establish it 1
As animal life is developed by a series of pulsations which
are resolved into a series of " breaths." so intelligence is
developed by a series of ''conceptions" which are resolved
into a series of " ends ; " and the will of man is developed by
a series of ''efforts" which are resolved into a series of
"acts." If the human breathing is regulated, if it is subject
to a certain measure which it does not exceed, the human con-
ception and the human effort should also have their measure.
It is easy to demonstrate that these measures do actually
exist.
Must not the sentence, or, if you will, the phrase, be
trimmed according to the length of the human breath ? Why
does rhetoric repel and condemn all phrases that are inordi-
nately long^ Why does a sentence whose verb is loaded with
four or five complements appear to us heavy, detestable?
Is it not precisely because it exceeds the effort of the lungs,
because it cannot be held within the duration of a breath,
because it overflows and exhausts it 1
And why also, in certain German books, do the sentences,
dragging in their train incidents of every kind, so often appear
obscure ? Why must they be read over and over several times
before we can penetrate to the sense ? It is because each
partial efltort of the intelligence, as each effort of the lungs,
has a precise limit, and when the expression of an idea exceeds
the dimensions of a conception, the mind is obliged to retrace
its steps, and, in order to take possession of the idea, to decom-
pose the expression of it, that is, to reduce each part to the
normal length of an ordinary conception, exactly as we break
up a piece of bread in mouthfuls before putting it into the
mouth.
The ear is subject to the same conditions. From continuous
94 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGK
sounds, without intervals, a melody will never be made. The
reading of the most beautiful book in the world, given in one
breath — if the thing were possible — without stop, without
repose, would fatigue, confuse, deafen the ear, without trans-
mitting a single idea to the seat of intelligence.
So also is it with the eye and its glance, and so also with
all the senses. Each has its proper movement, each has its
period, each has a constant arc of oscillation or vibration. We
may draw from this two consequences of the greatest import-
ance for a linguistic method : —
1. In the first place, the phrase will always be a simple sen-
tence, and this sentence will be as short as possible, that is,
the verb will always appear therein with one complement or
with two complements, rarely with three. Consequently we
shall usually be able to write the sentence in one line.
Hence the original method of arrangement of our exercises,
where each phrase is on one line, and where each phrase has
its line to itself. Our phrases never, therefore, exceed the
dimensions of an ordinary conception, even of a little child,
whose phrases are eminently and necessarily brief. The
shortest breath can compass each of them. By this relation-
ship, therefore, the method is put into perfect accordance with
the lessons, prescriptions, and dictates of Nature.
2. The second consequence is of still greater importance.
The theme, the exercise, each link of a series will have a
precise measure which it should never exceed. We have
studied, from this point of view, some of the principal literary
masterpieces, and this is what we have discovered :
The ideas or general conceptions found therein succeed each
other at intervals of an almost mathematical regularity. The
complete development of each idea is found to occupy from
twenty-two to twenty-seven sentences or complete phrases.
To cite an example, the most beautiful scenes of Virgil, his
most beautiful pictures, are all presented under these condi-
tions, all without exception (see, for example, the transcrip-
tion of the -55neid on our system). It is interesting to read
them through again and to count them. Homer observes the
same rule perhaps more strictly still, even when he nods ; and
the great prose writers are not less faithful to it in all the
languages known to us.
This discovery, if it be one, is worthy of being taken into
LENGTH OF AN EXERCISE. 95
serious consideration. It will yield precious and fruitful
precepts for the science of teaching. Let us attempt to raise
this fact to the height of a rule or a law, by submitting it to
the double test of reasoning and of experience. Let us first
hear the verdict of experience.
When, before a well-disciplined class, I develop a linguistic
exercise, be it in Greek, in Latin, in German, or in English,
each pupil remains seriously attentive up to the twentieth, the
twenty-second, or the twenty-fourth sentence. Of this atten-
tion of the pupil I have as guarantee, first of all, his looks,
which will be fixed upon me, and then his good behaviour.
After the twenty-fifth sentence involuntary nervous move-
ments begin to show themselves. Legs begin to shift, feet
scrape on the floor, papers rustle, and faces lengthen. Evi-
dently the wits are wandering in quest of 9ther things. The
human patience is at an end ; the intellectual force is over-
loaded ; the limit of voluntary effort is overstepped. The bow
bent to excess is relaxed. In fine, the souls have flown else-
where. The menace and fear of a punishment is now necessary,
or rather, the interval necessitated by this diversion (!), to recall
them momentarily to the tree of knowledge.
I say momentarily, for you will never succeed, whatever your
talents and the charm of your language, whatever the ability,
the resources, the artifices of your discipline, you will never
succeed for a longer time — with profit, be it understood — in
holding your class prisoner. And your severity will be, in
reality, a want of tact, if not a cruelty, betraying an entire
ignorance of the elementary laws of the intelligence which
you have in charge to direct and to form.
At this moment, what is absolutely necessary is a rest, a
release, an interval, or rather a diversion ; for the mind does
not rest, and never remains absolutely idle. But what diver-
sion shall we choose that may be of profit to the intellectual
effort that our lesson has just provoked, that may sustain it,
complete it, render it fruitful '? This we will give farther on,
in the chapter upon " The Use of the Method." The extreme
limit of a linguistic theme is therefore settled. Where shall
we place its lower limit 1
In order that an intellectual effort may become fruitful,
the mind must take this effort seriously ; it must work upon
itself, must become heated, must bestow pains to produce a
result; in a word, this intellectual effort must be submitted,
96 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
in order to be hatched, to an incubation of a determined
period of time. Experience has proved to us, and continues
to prove every day, that an exercise which contains less than
eighteen sentences fulfils but ill the conditions which result
from the preceding principle. The pupil disdains and de-
spises it as being too far beneath his power. He does
not stay thereat the time desired ; he is not sufficiently in-
terested ; he does not ponder over or " incubate" it, and there-
fore he does not assimilate it.
The length of an exercise will vary, therefore, from twenty-
two to twenty-seven sentences, from twenty to thirty at the
outside. This is the verdict of our personal experience. It
fully agrees with the result of our study of the great writers.
Each one may, if he pleases, experiment in his turn, and
pronounce thereupon.
But if we submit the verdict of experience to the verdict of
reason, the second will only confirm the' first. In fact, have
we not established in principle that every effort of the in-
telligence has a determinate measure ? that every conception
has a definite amplitude, both when it is developed solitarily
in the mind of its author, and when it clothes a form in order
to penetrate to the minds of others ? in fine, that all intellect
tual development, to become durable, must be submitted to a
kind of incubation ? Reason, therefore, lays down the fact in
principle ; experience settles the question with exactitude.
VII.
SPECIMENS OF THE ELEMENTARY SERIES.
To precepts we judge it useful to add examples. Instead
of referring the reader to the book of the Series or to the
method itself, we will attempt to build up before him one or
two of these series. We will choose them amongst the shortest
and the most rudimentary — say the Series of the Pump or of
"Water, and the Series of the Fire.
I. TJie Series of the Pump.
Let us remark first of all that this series, elementary though
it may be, is not that by which the method should, or in prac-
METHOD OV CONSTRUCTING A SERIES. 97
tice does, begin. The development and the expression of
facts more rudimentary still, such as to walk, to dress one's-
self, to open a door, to shut a door, to go downstairs, to go
upstairs, &c., should precede it, and, so to speak, prepare the
way for it. It will rest upon these facts, as a theorem in
geometry rests upon those which precede it. It may recall
them in mentioning them, but will not go to the length of
describing them in detail afresh. So much said, let us analyse
the common act of " drawing water from the pump."
Let us commence by decomposing it into its separate
moments. For myself, I involuntarily picture in my mind
the first pump I ever saw, that which stood in front of my
childhood's home. There I picture to myself the kitchen
where my mother busied herself, and I always see the utensil
which she used when she went to draw water, to wit, an
iron-bound wooden bucket with a handle.
Will the reader be good enough to picture to himself, as I
have done, a "real" pump and a "real" kitchen, actually
known to him, those which he now knows, or used to know
best of all ? The earliest impressions are so profound and so
living, that in aU probability his mind will be transplanted,
like my own, spontaneously to the home of his childhood. If
this takes place involuntarily, so much the better ; if not, it
should be done voluntarily. For what is required to be trans-
lated is not a sequence of hackneyed phrases written down
upon paper, but a page of our own individuality — a page
which is to be found written in the depths of the memory
of every one of us upon the bed-rock of our intellectual
substance.
The personality of the reader is other than my own. Con-
sequently, neither the pump, nor the kitchen, nor the bucket,
which each of us pictures to himself, is identical. We shall
therefore avoid with care every detail which might be purely
individual, every means which would not be decidedly general.
Facts which are too special, instead of facilitating the work
of representation, would interfere with it. Our pen-and-ink
picture must confine itself to awakening the mind, to calling
it to the work, without ever hindering either the liberty or
the spontaneity of its movements.
This limitation has in view, it must be understood, only the
written series. It does not apply at all to the series as taught.
Q
98 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
Confronted with the reality, it will always be allowable to the
teacher to modify our exercise, and to push matters to more
minute particulars.
To go and fetch water from the pump is a complex act, in
which three distinct divisions may be counted : —
1. Going to the pump.
2. Pumping the water.
3. Carrying the water back to the kitchen.
The Series of the Pump will furnish us, therefore, with three
exercises. If it is considered better to leave to the maid this
domestic work, we should develop this short series in the
following manner : —
SPECIMEN ELEMENTARY SERIES.
99
THE PUMP.
L
The maid goes to the pump.
— The maid takes hold of the pail by the handle, takes hold
the maid lifts up the pail, lifts up
the maid goes across the kitchen, goes across
the maid opens the door, opens
the maid crosses the threshold, . crosses
the maid goes out of the kitchen, goes out
the maid turns round, turns round
the maid shuts the door. shuts
— The maid leaves the kitchen, leaves
the maid moves away from the kitchen, moves away
the maid turns towards the pump, turns towards
the maid draws near to the pump, draws near
the maid comes to the pump, comes
the maid stops at the pump, stops
the maid Lifts the pail, lifts
the maid puts out her arm, puts out
the maid sets down the pail under the spout of sets down
the maid lets go the pail handle, [the pump, lets go
1. Maid (woman, girl, servant girl, housemaid, servant, man,
lad, boy, domestic, servitor . . . ).
2. Pail (bucket, water-can, pitcher, jug, ewer, bowl, tub, pot,
vessel, utensil . , . ).
3. Kitchen (house, homestead, dwelling, domicile . . . ),
lOO
OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
THE PUMP.
n.
The maid pumps some water.
— She puts out her hand, puts out
she grasps the pump handle, grasps
she raises the pump handle, raises
she lowers the pump handle, lowers
she raises the pump handle, raises
she lowers the pump handle, lowers
the pump handle creaks, creaks
the pump shakes. shakes
— The water rises in the pump, rises
the water flows along the spout, flows
the water falls into the pail, falls
the water strikes the bottom of the pail, strikes
the water splashes at the bottom of the pail, splashes
the water swirls round in the pail, swirls
the water foams in the pail, foams
the water rises in the pail, rises
the water rises and rises higher and higher, rises
it fills the pail, fills
the maid lets go the pump handle. lets go
1. Pump handle (the handle, arm, lever, machine, thing . . . ).
2. Pump (the body of the pump, the cylinder, the interior, the
inside . . . ).
3. Spout (the conduit, the channel . . . ).
SPECIMEN ELEMENTARY SERIES.
TO!
THE PUMP.
III.
The maid carries the water to the kitchen.
— The maid bends down towards the pail, bends down
takes the pail by the handle, takes
and draws it out from under the spout, draws out
she closes her left hand, closes
she presses her fist against her hip, presses
she leans to the left-hand side, leans
and thus balances the weight of the water. balances
— She turns her back to the pump, turns
she leaves the pump, leaves
she moves away from the pump, moves away
she turns towards the kitchen, turns towards
she comes to the door, comes
she opens the door, opens
she crosses the threshold, crosses
she goes into the kitchen. goes in
— She shuts the door, shuts
she goes across the kitchen, goes across
she carries the pail of water to its place, carries
she bends down, bends down
and sets down the pail of water gently on the sets down
she lets go the handle, [ground, lets go
straightens herself, straightens
and takes breath ; takes breath
she then uses the water for the ordinary pur- uses
poses of her housework.
* H< H" ♦ 4e
Place (spot, position, corner, sink . . . ).
lo- OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
The reader shall decide for himself if these three exercises
are properly constructed according to the rules previously laid
down. We should, however, like to draw his attention to
sundry facts which could not be raised in the general explana-
tion of the method : —
1. Not only do the same substantives and the same verbs
reappear indefinitely, but whole groups of phrases are repeated
from one exercise to the other. Such, for example, is the case
with the whole of the phrases which translate the fact of loco-
motion (to leave, to move farther away, to turn towards, to
draw near to, to come to, to stop at). These complex elements
are at the same time a cement which bind together and fix
the whole, a valuable bndge upon which the imagination passes
without effort from the known to the unknown. After these
elements have been conquered analytically, they would be in-
cluded in one single verb. For example, the six phrases which
correspond to the six verbs mentioned are contained in the
phrase "The maid goes to the pump." In one step, therefore,
we have now taken six, and it is thus that the forward march
is continually accelerating, and the scholar ends by really pull-
ing on the seven-leagued boots.
2. I am not at all sure that it is possible to define any one
substantive exactly, but I defy the greatest philologist in the
world ever to define even one of the best known, the simplest,
and the most common of the verbs — and, indeed, especially one
of this kind. Now, observe : the knowledge which science is
incapable of yielding up to us, our exercises give to the child
intuitively, as is the case in Nature. What we mean is that in
our method each verb is defined by the particular place it occu-
pies, either in the recital or upon the paper. For example, to
leave is not to move farther away. To leave represents one
moment of the locomotion, and to move farther away repre-
sents that which follows and is complementary to it. The
second verb limits the first, that is to say, defines it, and vice
versa. This delimitation of one act by another act, of one verb
by another verb, is the only definition possible with these
kinds of expression, a definition purely intuitive. Let us
further recall to the reader that each exercise is the definition
of its title.
3. Exercise II. shows us the working of the pump. There
is here a pitfall to be avoided. We might be tempted to go
CONCENTRIC SERIES. 103
into scientific details of the interior working of the machine
and to explain, in passing, an interesting chapter of physics.
Our series would thereupon cease to be elementary. It would
no longer reproduce a perception, a personal conception of the
scholar. Moreover, the matter of it could only be assimilated
by a person to some extent scientific. Let us, however, at
once say that this part is only deferred, and that later on, in
a series concentric to the one just given, the complete working
of the pump would be scientifically set forth and explained.
4. The Series of the Pump has, as its natural complement,
the parallel Series of the Well and the Spring. We think it
useful to sketch out the principal exercises of these latter ; in
the first place, in order to afford a glimpse of what develop-
ments and expressions, of what resources and linguistic riches,
are contained in the most elementary acts of ordinary exist-
ence ; and in the next place, in order to establish and obtain
acceptance of this truth, that the expression of every-day life,
the domestic life, is the fundamental basis and bed-rock of the
human language — a truth hardly more than suspected in spite
of its evidence — and one which no linguist up to the pre-
sent day has thought of thoroughly applying and exploiting.
Moreover, without this insight, we should have some difi&-
culty in treating the chapter which should round off and make
complete the theory of the construction of the system, to wit,
the co-ordination of the Series.
5. At the foot of each of our exercises is seen a collection of
terms destined to be substituted orally for their equivalents
in the exercise proper. These appendices only occupy this
place for the present occasion, and solely for the purpose of
facilitating our explanation. The definitive method relegates
them to the end of the Series. Their presence at the foot of
the pages, indeed, impedes and hinders the regular progress
of the exercises, conceals and weakens their logical sequence,
unnecessarily overloads the Series, and disturbs the general
economy, taking away from it its character of simplicity.
Besides this, these terms themselves are susceptible of a
certain organisation. They can and ought to be arranged
according to their degree of generality, so that they may be
defined, as are the verbs, one by another, and by the intrinsic
mental value they occupy in each table. Let us add also that
their number being sometimes fairly large, there would often
I04 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
be a risk of their encumbering the pages and of preventing the
development of the ordinary exercises. Consequently, it is
better to assign them a separate place. We shall therefore
suppress them in the exercises vi^hich follow, believing that
the few examples already given will suffice to show how these
species of terms are treated by our method.
This grouping and the establishment of their intrinsic value
itself necessitates considerable work. After a series is con-
structed what we do is to read through the entire dictionary,
and carefully gather every term which can relate closely, or
more distantly, to the development of this series. This done,
we organise the material so found.
The Series of the Well comprises four exercises as follows : —
1. The housewife goes to the well.
2. The housewife lets down the bucket into the well.
3. The housewife draws up the bucket.
4. The housewife carries the bucket of water to the
kitchen.
In order not to load our text with too many examples, we
leave on one side all such exercises as would arise from the
possible and ordinary accidents which are connected with this
series and complete it. We will simply point out that, as an
aim can be attained, it can also be missed. An aim missed is
what we term an accident. The maid who upsets the water
in carrying it to the kitchen would miss her aim. This fact
constitutes an accident. The development of the indirect and
complementary series of the accidents is hardly less rich in terms
and sentences than the development of the direct series itself.
The well which I picture to myself is that of our village, the
first, I suppose, that I ever observed. As with the pump, the
pupil and the reader are invited to do likewise, that is to say,
to call to memory a real well and one known to themselves.
There exist several kinds of wells, or at least of mechanical
arrangements for drawing water. We have thought it best
to start with the most ordinary, if not the most simple — that
system having the windlass as its basis. In the vast develop-
ment which the whole set of the series presents, the occasion
will not be lacking for the description of the working of other
systems, and from thence to glean the special locutions to
which they give rise. This observation applies to all the
series, each one having what may be called its " variants."
A SEKIES IN A SINGLE SENTENCE. 105
Exercise I. presents a crowd of verbs, of sentences even,
already employed in the Series of the Pump. We have else-
where touched upon the advantages of this natural repetition,
so exactly in accordance with that of the " perpetual talk."
Exercise IV., "The housewife carries the water to the
kitchen," being identical with Exercise III. of the Series of
the Pump, we have summed this up in the line which forms
the title to this latter exercise ; and in the new exercise the
sign (■*), which is placed at this line, notifies the teacher or
the pupil to return to the analytical development of the fact
expressed, in case it is found not properly fixed in the memory.
But the analysis of this fact having been, so to speak, exhausted,
it would be equally idle and ridiculous to reproduce it on the
paper. It is by the living voice, and not by the written or
printed exercise^ that the repetition mentioned should be
carried out. It will be seen from this that he who has been
able to assimilate the three exercises of the pump, here clears,
in a single line, the space of twenty-four lines.
The Series of the " Spring " of water would be developed,
similarly to that of the pump, in three exercises : —
1. Going to the spring.
2. Drawing the water.
3. Carrying the water to the kitchen.
For the reasons we have just given, these three exercises
will be reduced naturally to one only. In this single exercise,
so formed, the first and third will be represented simply by
the enunciation of their titles, which will be indicated, if it be
desired, by the sign (*).
In the same way that an exercise can be thus reduced to a
single sentence, so also an entire series might be brought into
a single exercise, and again to a single sentence. For example,
in the Series of the Baker, when the dough has to be prepared,
water will be required. The single sentence, " The baker goes
and draws some water," will thus sum up an entire series.
It is in this linguistic synthesis that the seven-leagued
boots of which we spoke a few pages back are to be found ;
and we do not fear to affirm that here the hyperbole is, if
anything, below the reality.
Our series, as they are thus constructed, furnish, therefore,
constant occasion to turn back both to those already studied,
as well as to the separate exercises. And it is this, we should
io6 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
add, that provides a permanent test, as convenient as it is
easy, for the teacher to examine and report upon the degree
of assimilation of the series previously elaborated. This pro-
perty of our themes and our series does away with a drudgery
more barren even than it is wearisome, that of the correc-
tion of the pupils' exercise-books, which always costs so many
hours, and is usually productive of little, save the disgust of
the pupil, and the discouragement, the lukewarmness, and the
indifference of the teacher.
Instead of correcting, we do over again. This is simpler,
more profitable, and infinitely more expeditious. Is it not
by circulating that the sap purifies and corrects its acerbities ?
We wish our processes of instruction to be " organic " and not
"mechanical."
Our abridged Series of the Fire will be represented by two
parallel or concentric series, — that of the fire on the ordinary
hearth, and that of the fire in the stove. The Series of the
Spring was based upon that of the Pump ; the Series of the
Fire in the Stove will be based upon that of the Fire on the
Hearth. To light a fire is an act that can have the most
diverse final aims. It is needful, therefore, to state that to
heat the room is the sole motive of the action developed by
the present series. Furthermore, all the observations which
the Series of the Water occasioned equally apply to the
development of these two new facts of domestic life.
We will decompose the first into eight exercises : —
1. The housewife goes to the woodshed.
2. The housewife gets some wood.
3. The housewife lays the fire.
4. The housewife lights the fire.
5. The wood burns.
6. The wood consumes.
7. The housewife mends the fire.
8. The housewife puts out the fire.
We shall defer, as with the Series of the Water, the possible
and ordinary accidents which might give material for an
indirect and complementary series.
The theatre in which my imagination places and sees this
new scene is still the house in which I was born. The in-
struments of fire for us are reduced to their indispensable
SUBSIDIARY SERIES. T07
elements : a woodshed, some wood, a fireplace, a grate, some
firedogs, and a chimney. Fires are lighted in many other
places : under the baker's oven, in the limekiln, in the fields,
in the forest, in the forge, in the workshop, &c., &c. These
various fires will be the objects of as many series, similar and
at the same time complementary, which will rest upon the
first without repeating it, and will give rise to a host of special
expressions and new sentences. A detail, and consequently
an expression, relative to fire which would not be comprised in
the first series wiU certainly find its place in one of the
others.
As there are subsidiary and completing series, so there are
subsidiary and completing exercises. The exercise of the fire
affords us an example.
The act " to unlock the door " being given for development,
we must not descend at first into the extreme limits of
analysis. We must guard ourselves, for instance, from speak-
ing in the early lessons of the working of the bolt and of the
hasp, and of the movements of the spring in the lock. How-
ever, these facts requiring to be placed and named somewhere,
they are reserved for other and later series, where there will
be further doors to be opened. The primitive theme will
reappear, but more or less modified, charged with fresh details
yielded to us by a closer and closer analysis. We shall thus
penetrate gradually to the very heart of the phenomenon,
until we have definitely exhausted it, and possess the totality
of its expression. It is necessary also to remember, in con-
sidering the early lessons, that the fundamental literary ex-
pressions have taken their rise from habitual acts of simple
and primitive life.
The Series of the Stove is reduced to two exercises : —
1. Chopping the wood.
2. Lighting the stove.
The other acts having been written out in the previous
series, need not figure herein. The Exercise I. (chopping
wood) has already been given as a model : we will, however,
reproduce it in its place, so as to present the complete series,
and to ensure its continuity.
ro8
OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
THE WELL.
L
The maid g'oes to draw water at the well*
— The maid takes her bucket,
the maid goes out of the house,
the maid bends her steps towards the well,
the maid draws near to the well,
the maid gets to the well,
the maid stops at the well,
and sets down the bucket on the brink of the
well
— The maid leans over the well,
she stretches out her arm,
she catches hold of the chain,
she draws this chain towards her,
she opens the hook,
places the handle of the bucket in the hook,
and closes this hook.
goes out
bends her steps
draws near
gets to
stops at
sets down
leans
stretches out
catches hold
draws
opens
places
closes
— She puts one hand to the crank, puts
and with the other pushes the bucket into pushes
the mouth of the well,
the bucket swings to and fro over the depths, swings
the chain rattles, rattles
and makes the depths resound. makes resound
SPECIMEN ELEMENTARY SERIES.
log
THE WELL.
IL
The maid lets down the bucket into the well.
— She turns the crank,
the windlass turns round,
the windlass creaks in its bearings,
the rope uncoils,
the windlass is stripped rapidly,
the bucket goes down into the well,
swings from side to side,
catches against the sides,
and the depths boom hoarsely.
— The bucket goes down, down, down,
the bucket is lost to sight in the gloom,
the bucket gets near to the water,
the bucket reaches the water,
the bottom of the bucket strikes the surface
of the water,
the bucket turns over on the water,
the water rushes into the bucket,
the bucket turns up straight again in the
the bucket sinks to the bottom, [water,
and is filled with water.
turns
turns round
creaks
uncoils
is stripped
goes down
swings
catches
boom
goes down
is lost
gets near
reaches
strikes
turns over
rushes
turns up straight
sinks
is filled
— A dull sound comes up from below, conies up
the drawer of water hears this sound, hears
the drawer of water stops turning, stops
and seats herself for a moment on the crank seats herself
handle.
no
OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
THE WELL.
III.
The maid winds up the bucket.
— The maid rises from her seat,
grasps the crank handle with both hands,
winds up the rope one turn,
and so draws the bucket out of the water ;
she lets the rope go again,
plunges the bucket into the water again,
draws up the bucket once more,
tests to see if it is full,
and then turns the handle vigorously.
— The windlass turns round,
the windlass creaks and creaks,
the rope coils up round the windlass,
covers up the windlass little by little,
the bucket rises towards the mouth of the well,
the water drips off the bucket,
the bucket gets near to the well-mouth,
and comes to the level of the brink.
— The maid stops turning,
seizes the handle of the bucket with her left hand,
brings the bucket over to the edge of the well,
lets go the crank handle,
opens the hook,
unhooks the bucket,
flings back the chain into the well,
and carries away the bucket of water to the
kitchen. (*)
nses
grasps
winds up
draws out
lets go
plunges
draws up
tests
turns
turns round
creaks
coils up
covers up
rises
drips
gets near
comes to
stops
seizes
brings
lets go
opens
unhooks
flings
carries
SPECIMEN ELEMENTARY SERIES.
(11
THE SPRING.
L
The girl draws water at the spring:.
— She takes the bucket,
and goes away to the spring, (*)
she stops at the brink of the spring,
she bends over the brink,
and dips the bucket in the water,
the bucket displaces the water,
the water rushes into the bucket,
making a gurgling sound;
the water fills the bucket.
takes
goes away
bends
dips
displaces
rushes
making
fills
— The girl draws the bucket out of the spring, draws out
the overflow runs over the edge of the bucket, runs over
streams down the sides of the bucket, streams down
and falls back into the spring ; falls back
the girl sets down the bucket on the brink, sets down
and takes a breath. takes
— Finally, she catches hold of the handle of catches hold
the bucket with one hand,
takes up the bucket, takes up
puts the other hand to her hip, puts
leans her body over to the left, leans
balances the weight of the water, balances
leaves the spring, leaves
and carries the water to the kitchen. (*) carries
112
OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
THE FIRE.
I.
The housewife^ goes to the woodshed.
— The key of the woodshed is hanging on a nail,
the cook takes down this key,
the cook goes out of the kitchen,
the cook leaves the kitchen,
the cook goes away from the kitchen,
the cook goes towards the woodshed,
the cook draws near to the woodshed,
the cook gets to the door,
the cook stops at the door.
— She puts out her hand,
inserts the key into the keyhole,
turns the key in the lock,
the bolt shoots back from the hasp ;
the cook opens the door,
she lets go of the key,
she pulls the door,
the door yields,
the door turns on its hinges,
the door creaks on its hinges.
— The cook crosses the doorstep,
enters the woodshed,
and goes across the woodshed.
*****
^ The cook, housemaid, servant . . .
is hanging
takes down
goes out
leaves
goes away
goes towards
draws near
gets to
stops
puts out
inserts
turns
shoots back
opens
lets go
pulls
yields
turns
creaks
crosses
enters
goes across
SPECIMEN ELEMENTARY SERIES.
IJ3
THE FIRE.
n.
The cook fetches wood.
— The cook goes up to the heap of wood, goes up to
she stops near the heap of wood, stops near
she puts out her right hand, puts out
she catches hold of a piece of wood, . catclies hold
she lifts up this piece of wood, lifts up
she places it upon her left arm, places
she takes a second piece, takes
and places it beside the first, places
she takes a third piece, takes
she takes a fourth piece, takes
she takes a whole armful of wood. takes
— She goes up to a bundle of twigs, a faggot, goes up to
she takes a handful of twigs, takes
puts the twigs upon the larger pieces, puts
and clasps the whole in her arms ; clasps
she goes out of the woodshed, goes out
crosses the doorstep again, crosses
pushes the door to, pushes to
turns the key in the lock, turns
locks the door, locks
draws the key out of the lock, draws out
returns to the kitchen, returns
throws the wood into the woodbox, throws
and hangs up the key on its nail hangs up
114
OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
THE FIRE.
III.
The housemaid lays the fire.
— The housemaid takes some twigs,
bends her knee,
places the twigs against her knee,
and bends the wood,
the wood gives way,
the wood bends more and more,
the wood cracks,
the wood breaks,
the splinters fly over the kitchen ;
the housemaid doubles up the twigs,
stoops down to the hearth,
and lays the twigs on the firedogs.
— She stands up again,
goes back to the woodbox,
takes some bigger pieces of wood,
carries them to the fireplace,
bends down to the hearth,
places the logs on the twigs,
fetches a handful of shavings,
and stuffs them in beneath the twiofs.
takes
"bends
places
doubles back
gives way
bends
cracks
breaks
fly
doubles up
stoops down
lays
stands up again
goes back
takes
carries
bends down
places
fetches
stuffs in
SPECIMEN ELEMENTARY SERIES.
"5
THE FIRE.
IV.
The servant lights the fire.
— The servant takes a box of matches,
takes
she opens the matchbox,
opens
she takes out a match.
takes out
she shuts up the matchbox,
shuts up
she strikes the match on the cover,
strikes
the match takes fire,
takes fire
the match smokes.
smokes
the match flames,
flames
the match burns.
burns
and spreads a smell of burning over the kitchen.
spreads
— The servant bends down to the hearth,
bends down
puts out her hand,
puts out
puts the match under the shavings,
puts
holds the match under the shavings,
holds
the shavings take fire.
take fire
the servant leaves go of the match.
leaves go
stands up again.
stands up
looks at her fire burning,
looks
and puts back the box of matches in its place.
puts baclj
ii6
OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
THE FIRE.
V.
The wood burns.
— The match sets fire to the shavings,
sets firo
the shavings catch light,
catch light
the shavings smoke,
smoke
the shavings burst into flames,
hurst into flames
the shavings blaze,
blaze
the shavings burn.
bum
the shavings set fire to the twigs,
set fire
and the twigs catch fire.
catch fire
— The twigs smoke.
smoke
the twigs burst into flames,
burst into flames
the twigs blaze,
blaze
the twigs bum.
burn
the twigs crackle.
crackle
and throw out sparks all around ;
throw out
the twigs set fire to the logs of wood.
set fire
the logs take fire.
take fire
— The logs smoke.
smoke
the logs burst into flames,
burst into flames
the logs blaze,
blaze
the logs bum.
burn
the logs crackle.
crackle
SPECIMEN ELEMENTARY SERIES.
"7
THE FIRE.
YI.
The wood burns away.
— Smoke is given off by the wood,
the smoke rises up the chimney,
and deposits soot all the way up the chimn,ey-
the smoke issues from the chimney-pot, [shaft,
rises up in the air like a blue column,
curves over under the wind,
floats away into space,
melts away into space,
becomes gradually lost,
and finally disappears.
— Meanwhile,
the flames lick and lick the logs,
the flames devour these logs,
the flames consume these logs,
transform the logs into charcoal,
reduce the charcoal to ashes,
both the ashes and the charcoal fall to the hearth,
gradually heap up on the hearth,
and form a glowing mass of red-hot embers,
a great heat is given out by the hot embers,
spreads all around,
and heats the surrounding air.
is given off
rises
deposits
issues
rises
curves
floats
melts
becomes lost
disappears
lick
devour
consume
transform
reduce
fall
heap up
form
is given off
spreads
heats
ii8
OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
THE FIRE.
vn.
The housewife mends the fire.
— The fire burns and burns away, bums
the embers are consumed little by little, are consumed
the fire gets low for want of fuel ; gets low
the housewife notices this, notices
she takes up the tongs, takes up
stirs the firebrands together, stirs
rakes out the ashes from underneath, rakes out
puts the tongs back in their place, puts back
and then puts on some more wood. puts on
— A pair of bellows are hanging near the are hanging
chimney-piece ;
the woman takes down these bellows, takes down
places the nozzle to the fire, places
then she blows and blows, blows
the air rushes hissing out of the nozzle, rushes
comes against the red-hot embers, comes against
and brightens up the fire. brightens up
— The flames spring up from the charcoal, spring up
the flames lick and lick the wood, lick
heat the wood, heat
the wood blazes, blazes
the woman blows, blows, and keeps on blowing ; blows
presently she stops blowing, stops
and hangs up the bellows on their nail hangs up
SPECIMEN ELEMENTARY SERIES.
IIQ
THE FIRE.
vin.
The housewife puts out the fire.
— The fire bums for one hour,
the fire burns for two hours,
the fire burns all day long,
the fire burns until the evening,
the fire burns until bedtime.
— When bedtime comes,
the housewife takes the fire-shovel,
rakes the hot embers together on the hearth,
takes a shovelful of the ashes,
empties the ashes upon the burning brands,
covers them up with ashes,
puts back the shovel in its place,
and the fire smoulders under the ashes.
— The woman takes up the tongs,
removes the firebrands from the grate,
and stands them on end against the chimney,
a thick smoke is given off by them,
and escapes up the chimney ;
the burnt part crickles ;
combustion ceases,
the ends of the burnt logs become covered
the fire dies away little by little, [with ash,
and at last goes right out.
bums
burns
burns
burns
burns
conies
takes
rakes together
takes
empties
covers up
puts back
smoulders
takes up
removes
stands
is given off
escapes
crickles
ceases
become covered
dies away
goes out
I20
OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
THE STOVE.
L
The girl chops some wood.
— The girl goes and seeks a piece of wood,
she takes a hatchet,
she draws near to the block,
she places the wood on this block,
she raises the hatcbet,
she brings down the hatcbet,
the blade strikes against the wood,
the blade penetrates the wood,
the blade cleaves the wood,
the pieces fall right and left.
— The girl picks up one of the pieces,
places it upon the block,
raises her hatchet,
brings down her hatchet,
and chops the piece of wood,
she chops another piece, and then another,
she chops up all the wood. ^
— She puts down her hatchet,
gathers up the pieces into her apron,
takes one or two logs and some shavings,
and carries them to the stova
goes and seeks
takes
draws near
places
raises
brings down
strikes against
penetrates
cleaves
fall
picks up
places
raises
brings down
chops
chops
chops
puts down
gathers up
takes
carries
SPECIMEN ELEMENTARY SERIES.
21
THE STOVE.
II.
The girl lights the stove.
— She puts the wood down in front of the
stove,
she crouches down in front of the stove,
she opens the door of the stove,
she removes the ashes,
she cleans out the stove,
she puts in the shavings first,
then she puts in the chopped firewood on
top of these,
and she places the logs upon the firewood.
— This done,
she takes a match,
strikes the match,
lights the match,
puts the light to the shavings,
and closes the stove-door.
puts down
crouches down
opens
removes
cleans out
puts in
puts in
places
done
takes
strikes
lights
puts
closes
The fire is communicated to the firewood, is communicated
the firewood blazes ;
the fire is communicated to the logs,
the logs bum,
the flames rush up the stove-pipe,
the stove roars.
— The smoke escapes up the stove-pipe,
the stove-pipe gets hot,
the stove gets hot,
and radiates heat all over the room.
blazes
is communicated
burn
rush up
roars
escapes
gets hot
gets hot
radiates
122 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
YIII.
CO-ORDINATION OF THE SERIES IMPORTANCE OF THE
DOMESTIC SERIES.
For every fabric made there is a begiuning and an end.
The life of a tree commences at the germ and ends with the
fruit. At what point shall our method take its birth ? By
what series shall it begin ? Upon what series shall it come
to an end 1 What order shall be assigned to its development ?
We have said that the speech of mankind is perpetual, and
that its linguistic development takes place by a continual
creation of series which our method has taken, or claims to
have taken, as models. We will now go further : we will say
that to think is to speak. Speech and thought are identical.
In other words, man does not think ; he speaks. Thought and
word are certainly two distinct names. So are hatchet and
implement, yet no one would pretend that they represent two
different facts. One is the specific name, the other is the
general name of one and the same thing.
So it is with the two names "thought" and "word."
" Word " is the specific name, the true name, the proper name
or noun; "thought" is a "common" name or noun.
The word is a principle : it is the mind itself in process of
development, and the mind only develops, in point of fact, by
the word. But what has provoked its development, and what
continues to provoke it? It is action, that is to say, move-
ment. The word starts under the impression and the percep-
tion of movement, as does the waterwheel under the impact
of the water. Here we have the true origin of language.
The development of this theme would take a thick volume ;
prudence bids us stop. We will content ourselves by saying
that if this grave problem has remained unsolved up to the
present day, it is because the data were false. It has been
stated, in fact, as an axiom, not only that thought was essen-
tially different from speech, but that it actually gave rise to
speech, that speech was subordinate to it. Now the reverse is
the truth. Man does not speak his thought ; he thinks his
speech ; and this thought itself is still speech.
IMPORTANCE OF DOMESTIC SERIES. 123
The child speaks from its birth, that is to say, as soon as its
organism is finished and complete. Its first word is the cry
it utters on entering the world. And this speech is deter-
mined, set free by what? By the shock produced on its
organism by the double action of air and light. It is move-
ment which endowed and still endows our species with lan-
guage ; and it is by the word, and not by thought, that the
mind of man has its beginning.
It is without doubt the duty of an author of a linguistic
method to give his opinion, at least incidentally, upon the
origin of facts produced by a ** force" which he undertakes
to discipline.
The inarticulate language corresponds to the syncretic phase
of human life. The world, in fact, appearing before the primi-
tive perception as an undivided whole, calls for a single name
only, a monosyllabic noun. This will be the " article " under
one of its forms — a, e, i, 0, k, om, um, el, le, das, the, . . .
We will pass over this preparatory period, its creations not
being those that we are seeking to set in order and reproduce.
We will pass at once to the analytic phase, that in which the
mind begins to unravel, to batter down, by the aid of speech,
the primeval chaos. At this moment the linguistic develop-
ment of man takes place perceptibly, I repeat, by a continuous
creation of series. Henceforward we may be allowed to rest
upon this fact as axiomatic.
This stipulated, in what sphere and under what influence
does the child elaborate its first series ? To ask this question
is to answer it. Evidently it is under the influence of its
mother and inside its father's house. We designate this work
by the name of the *' Domestic Series."
The varied and manifold actions of the mother of the
family around the hearthstone, this is the material of the
child's first linguistic exercises. And let there be no mistake
here. This material is prodigiously rich ; so rich, indeed, that
the day the child is strong enough to cross the paternal thres-
hold, and venture out under the vault of heaven, he is already
able to analyse and to put into words the great unknown
world that lies spread before him.
Consequently our thanks once again are due to our mothers,
whose blessed words for us have added the life of the mind to
the life of the body. Consequently, also, our respect is due
124 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
to the most common, the most elementary of the series.
They constitute the marvellous organ of nutrition by which
speech is fed and strengthened the whole life long. Do you
know why it is that the adult arrives so seldom at assimilating
another language than his own ? It is because he usually never
thinks of translating these rudimentary series which form
what might be called his jfirst words, that is to say, the first
basis of his individuality. Every one knows how worthless
and unenduring must be a building of which the foundation
has either been forgotten or neglected.
The method will commence, therefore, by the "Domestic
Series." But what limits shall we assign to their develop-
ment ?
The child does not wait until he has finished the whole of
the series of indoors before he tackles those of outdoors.
From the first days of his life, in the arms of grandmamma
or of one of his sisters, he will go out into the open air, will
drink in the light, and will take into his eye the vast heaven,
with the sun, the moon, and the stars. The Series of the
Fire that burns on the hearthstone does not commence at the
woodbox, but at the woodshed. The Series of the Water does
not begin at the basin where the sponge is soaked to wash
baby's limbs, but rather at the pump or at the wayside
spring.
If, therefore, the Series of the Water and the Fire have one
end in the room where the child lives, they have their other
end out of doors; and thus with almost all of these earlier
series. But so soon as the child knows one end, he wishes
,to know the other; from effects he goes back continually
towards the causes, and will neither rest himself nor leave
you to rest until he has completed the series already partly
executed in the house. Hence his insatiable curiosity ; hence
his passion for the open air and the surroundings of the
dwelling. It is here, indeed, that he completes his first know-
ledge and lays the beginnings of further progress.
The final aim of the acts translated by the Domestic Series
is the "immediate" satisfaction of the every-day wants of
human nature. This, indeed, is the characteristic by which
a Domestic Series is known. Its starting-point will be the
first act which prepares for this immediate satisfaction. The
Domestic Series of the fire, for instance, will not go right
back to the action of the woodman who fells the tree. This
CO-ORDINATION OF THE SERIES. 125
«
action, preceding by more than one day the moment at which
the fire is lighted, can no longer be said to prepare for the
** immediate " satisfaction of an every-day want.
The Domestic Series themselves require to be classified,
co-ordinated among themselves. Upon what rule will this co-
ordination take place 1 What order are we to adopt ?
They will be regulated upon the order itself in which the
general wants of every-day life require and receive their
satisfaction. Thus will be obtained a natural co-ordination,
perfectly in accordance with the child's hidden series. To get
the breakfast ready, we need the fire ; the Series of the Fire
will, therefore, precede that of the breakfast. So far the
Domestic Series ; now for the others.
In searching, outside the house, for the first threads of the
Domestic Series, the child, finding himself confronted by fresh
facts, immediately sketches out, almost without knowing it,
series of a new kind ; those of the animals, those of the
insects, those of the reptiles, those of the plants, those of the
elements. . . . These series constitute the "Rural Series,"
which come directly and immediately after the Domestic Series.
It therefore remains to classify these amongst themselves.
What the child knows best is always mankind. Those
Rural Series in which mankind takes part are at the same
time the most interesting, the easiest, and the richest in
developments. They are besides the most useful and the
most instructive, inasmuch as they relate directly to the first
needs of life. The Rural Series should, therefore, be classified
according to the importance of the part played in them by
mankind.
The being that the child understands best after man is the
animal, and before all others the domestic animals. The
Series of the Shepherd presents the life of mankind reduced
to its greatest simplicity, alongside the life of the two domestic
animals, the dog and the sheep, which always have the sym-
pathies of childhood, and it is the Series of the Shepherd,
therefore, which appears to us the best qualified to open the
grand chapter of the Rural Series. After the shepherd will
come the tiller of the soil, then the harvester, &c. The rule
followed by us may be formulated thus : to proceed from the
best known to the least known, from the most living to the
least living.
126 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
The Kural Series will lead us straight to the ordinary
country trades, those which prepare or crown the action of
mankind out of doors. We shall then open a third chapter,
that of the *' Technical Series." We shall classify them, as
we did the previous ones, according to the degree of utility of
the fact which they translate, according to the relation, more
or less immediate, of this fact to the needs of mankind.
After the child has contemplated for some time the acts and
scenes of serious life, the idea comes to him to play at them.
This mimic play is the natural transition from the conception
to the action, that is, to contest. It leads very shortly to the
game properly so called, the game of emulation, to the struggle
of man against man, in which are seen force arrayed against
force, skill against skill, trick against trick.
The mimic games, which do nothing but reproduce the series
— domestic, rural, or technical — can give rise to no new kind
of series. It is far otherwise with the games of emulation.
These occupy a considerable place not only in the life of man,
but in the domain of language. For them the method will
open a fourth chapter, to which it will give the title, " Series
of the Games."
The succession of the games is usually regulated by the suc-
cession of the seasons. " Festivals," says the poet, "open and
close the great labours of life." We shall put the Series of the
Games in the same order that Nature or tradition have already
done.
The games and festivals, with the trades, will lead us to the
door of art and of science. At the end of its fourth chapter
the method will, therefore, have both exhausted and placed in
order the whole of the ordinary objective language.
We should not think of spreading before the reader here
the whole network of our series, and of enumerating all our
marches and counter-marches. But we are satisfied in being
able to show that their co-ordination is not, and ought not to
be, founded upon the arbitrary, and that before establishing
this co-ordination we have taken pains to unravel the more or
less tangled skein of the linguistic developments of mankind.
It is, therefore, Nature once more, attentively observed and
interpreted, that has furnished us, for this new labour, with
both a rule and a direction.
NEED OF A REFORM. 127
OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE. .
Mode op Teaching the Series, /fy^ ^ ^ ~
IX.
A LANGUAGE LESSON.
I. Urgent need of a reform in the art of teaching languages.
We will suppose the method constructed, C9nstructed accord-
ing to the rules which we have just laid down — constructed
with the most consummate art : in short, in accordance at all
points with our ideal. Would the reform projected by us be
accomplished? We do not hesitate to declare that nothing
will be done if the art of teaching is not itself reformed. The
best constituted plant will be struck barren, or will yield but
abortive fruit, if, during the time of fructification, it is taken
from the vivifying action of the light and the heat of the sun,
to be placed in a cellar and submitted to the influence of a
lamp or stove.
The spoken method must, therefore, be reformed equally
with the written method. But how are we to reach an art so
personal as that of teaching? The quality of the voice, the
accentuation, the rise and fall of the speech, the gesture, the
look, these are things that defy all regulation. We grant it :
like eloquence, the art of teaching comes from the heart.
But the art of speaking well has its rules. Then why should
not the art of teaching well ?
The truth is, that a large part of the present teaching not
only cannot be authorised upon any real pedagogic principle,
but violates at pleasure the least controvertible prescriptions,
not only of science, but of ordinary common-sense. The
art of teaching languages, therefore, calls imperatively for a
reform. We may, perhaps, be permitted to point out a few
of its essential features.
2. Tlie waster-organ of langtmge.
First of all, what is the natural organ of language, the
receptive organ ? Is it the eye ? is it the hand ? or is it the
128 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
ear ? A puerile question, you will say, and one which bears
its own answer. A question of the first importance, we reply,
and so little settled, that in all the methods for teaching lan-
guages, almost without exception, and in all the schools, the
problem is solved exactly the wrong way.
For it is writing — that is to say, the touch ; that is to say,
the hand — that is there taken as the "master- organ." It is
reading — that is to say, the sight ; that is to say, the eye-
that occupies the second place, often even disputing the first
with the before- mentioned organ. The ear comes last of all.
No one, we think, will contradict us upon this point.
Has this proceeding anything in common with Nature 1 Is
this programme due to any inspiration, any indication what-
ever gathered from Nature 1 33oes Nature allow the child to
read and write, does she even allow him to speak, before he
has already in his ear a large part of the language 1
What motive can it have been that has led the school to
adopt exactly the reverse order, and to direct the development
of a fully gifted child, a child who has the use of all his senses,
as if it had to work upon a " deaf mute " ? Yes ; the school has
certainly forgotten to consult Natui'e upon the part the ear
should play in the teaching of languages. Upon this point, as
upon so many others, the school has taken as guiding compass
chance and thoughtlessness.
The ear is the natural organ, the first organ, the most
immediate organ of language. To substitute for it the eye or
the hand, as is done in all the schools at the present time, is
to commit a capital blunder, which in itself alone condemns
the greatest philologist in the world to be unable to accomplish
in twenty years what the humblest nursemaid can achieve in
six months. It is this proceeding, so absolutely contrary to
Nature, which explains both the disgust inspired in childhood
by the study of foreign languages and the certificates of
incapacity which routine delivers to so many children. The
child who, with his mother and in playing, has been able to
learn a first language, surely this same child is not utterly
incapable of learning a second one.
Let us state it as impressively as we can : the incapacity of
the child is the incapacity of the teacher and the defectiveness
of the method. To learn to speak no matter what language is
a thing as natural and easy to a child as learning to fly is to a
METHOD OF TEACHING THE SERIES. 129
bird. For ourselves, however serious may seem the engage-
ment, we would undertake to make ourselves responsible and
to guarantee the development and real progress in a foreign
language of any child, however backward, who " loves a game
and knows how to play."
The child who shows himself eager and intelligent in playing
cannot but be eager and intelHgent in studying. It is the
part of teaching to know how to assume the character which
it must and can always have; that it should be as easy,
interesting, and attractive as a game, and that it should know
how to carry out each day, or rather each hour, a real and
perceptible development in the mental and moral nature of
the child. Playing itself, perhaps, only owes its own irresis-
tible attraction to the development it provokes.
To conclude : If we desire to obtain surely and rapidly a
development of the intellectual force, we must choose and put
to work the organ capable of producing this development.
Obedient, therefore, to the prescriptions of Nature, we will
begin, like her, by intrusting the language-lesson to the ear.
3. The lesson of the teacher and the work of the pupil —
Assimilatioti — The part of the ear, the eye, and the hand
in the study of a language.
We will suppose the occasion to be a lesson in French,
beginning with the exercise by which we generally initiate
pupils into our method : "I open the door of the class-room."
First of all, I briefly enounce this aim, and present it as such.
Then I set forth in the native tongue of the children the
successive means by which this end can be attained, to wit : —
— I walk towards the door, I walk
I draw near to the door, I draw near
I draw nearer and nearer, I draw nearer
I get to the door, I get to
I stop at the door. I stop
— I stretch out my arm, I stretch out
I take hold of the handle, I take hold
I turn the handle, I turn
I open the door, I open
I pull the door. I pull
I
I30 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
— The door moves, moves
the door turns on its hinges, turns
the door turns and turns, turns
I open the door wide, I open
I let go the handle. I let go
The end proposed is attained, my volition is realised ; I stop.
My exercise is dictated and written not upon the paper, but
in the ears ; and by way of the ears it has penetrated into the
minds.
One of the pupils, the weakest or the most distracted, should
now go through this analysis again in English, and the whole
class should be invited to imagine clearly to themselves not
only the end, but the successive means by which it can be
Attained.
This done, and when the whole class have " thought " the
exercise, the teacher once more takes the first phrase in Eng-
lish, detaches the verb — I walk, and thereupon throws the
French ^ verb — marche, upon which he emphasises by repeat-
ing it several times over slowly — marche, marche, marche.
He then calls for the second sentence, " I draw near to the
door," separates the verb "draw near," then pronounces the
French verb — approcJie, leans upon it, accentuates it forcibly,
as he did with the first.
He calls for the third sentence, and treats it in the same
manner. He attacks the fourth, then the fifth, and arrives
at the end of the paragraph. He has now given what I term
the first step.
The sign ( — ) at the beginning of the paragraph indicates
at the same time both a rest and a repetition. The teacher,
therefore, begins once more this first " step," that is to say, the
verbs which represent the sentences. He repeats them, if
necessary, a third time.
Now let us see what has taken place, or ought to have
taken place. In the first place, it is certainly the ear which
has played the chief part ; it is the ear, first, which has received
the lesson in English and transmitted it, not to the eye, but to
the imagination. The exercise has been, not read, but thought
— an entirely different matter. It is the ear again which has
received the first-fruits of the French ; and the sounds marche,
approche, arrive, arrete are identified, not with the words walk,
^ Or the German, if it is a German lesson.
METHOD OF TEACHING THE SERIES. 131
draw near, get to, stop, &c., but with the ideas, the percep-
tions, the representations revealed by these words. There has
been no *' translation " of English words, but a direct and
immediate translation of ideas or perceptions. The English
verb has simply served as a bridge for passing from one bank
to the other, but a bridge that has been drawn up as soon as
the passage was effected.
In other words, we have made the class " think in French."
The third repetition could be done, and ought to be done,
without tho aid of the English. The first effort has suc-
ceeded; our first end is attained. What proves this to us
is that hand which is raised over there ; one of the scholars
wishes to repeat what he has heard. All eyes are turned
towards him, and each mouth attempts to articulate in a low
voice what he articulates aloud.
The effort of the hearer has not been divided between all
the portions of the sentence — article, pronoun, adverb, prepo-
sition, case, subjects, attributes, complements. It has been
concentrated with care upon one and the same point, upon a
single element, the essential element, the generating element
of the sentence, " the verb." Therefore be not astonished if
all the class are found to know thoroughly the " step " given,
and if that pupil, reputed to be the least gifted of his com-
panions, knows it equally well with the cleverest. Both have
learnt their mother-tongue within sensibly the same time and
with the same ease. It appears that our process has re-estab-
lished, at any rate with regard to languages, the native equality
of intellects ! Here is a result worthy of the most serious
consideration. We leave the reader the pleasure of drawing
the inferences of this fact.
The second step is elaborated in the same manner as the
first; and the third, if there is one, like the two others.
The conquest of the exercise is accomplished so far as regards
the verbs. How about the other terms 1
I take up the theme once more, and giving beforehand each
French verb, henceforward well known, I build up upon this
the sentence which corresponds thereto. I seek the subject
first, and place it in front of the verb. I next seek the com-
plement, and, determining grammatically the case desired, I
place it after the verb. I thus arrive at the end of the first
step. Each subject has reappeared so many times ; the same
132 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
complement has returned so often under the same form, that
this once going through really suffices to set down and en-
grave upon each memory the exercise in its totality.
The work here is reduced, therefore, to the task of thinking
the exercise by the verb and in the verb ; and when the verb is
conquered, the learner finds himself suddenly, and without
need of any fresh effort, in possession of all the rest. From
this results a considerable simplification, worthy of the best
attention of linguists. We earnestly beg that our experience
may be repeated and our assertion verified.
The work we have just described is so simple, so elementary,
so easy both for teacher and pupil, that we are almost ashamed,
every time we are obliged to have recourse to all these words
and circumlocutions, to explain a process that any child of
six years old thoroughly comprehends at the end of five
minutes' practice. We are tempted, at every time, to sub-
stitute, as did the Grecian philosopher, action for explanation,
of throwing down our pen and of appealing to a demonstration
before the class. A single lesson, indeed, shows the whole
system, and never fails to convert the attentive listener to
our side. The most obstinate prejudice always gives way before
this living demonstration.
The exercise is conquered — conquered in its totality. All
the class has repeated, or is capable of repeating it. To what
task shall we next pass 1
Here is the moment to treat a question previously reserved.
We have said that after the oral elaboration of each exercise
should come a release, a rest, a diversion useful to the work
already accomplished. What shall this diversion be ?
All intellectual development, to be durable, must be sub-
mitted — we repeat it once more — to a species of " incubation."
The mind must brood for a certain time over each one of
its morsels of knowledge. This is a law of Nature which
pedagogic science will have to inscribe at the head of its
code. This mental incubation is an essential condition of all
real progress. It is not enough, in fact, to acquire knowledge ;
it must be " taken possession of." Our work, to be entirely
in accordance with reason and with Nature, must count two
distinct moments : —
First, conquest — and that by active force ;
Then, thinking over and taking possession-
METHOD OF TEACHING THE SERIES.
133
The first act has been accomplished. The mind is, so to
speak, exhausted by it. It is right to grant it a rest before
demanding a fresh effort.
To take possession of knowledge is to make it pass succes-
sively by way of all the senses. Now, our exercise has been
confided to the ear by the lesson given by the teacher, and
is graven upon the imagination. It should now be confided
to the eye by reading, then to the touch by writing. Each
pupil should now open his book and read, then open his
exercise-book and write : —
J'ouvre la porte.
— Je marche vers la porte, je marche
je m'approche de la porte, je m'apprcche
je m'approche et m'approche encore, je m'approche
j'arrive a la porte, j'arrive
je m'arrete a la porte. je m'an^te
— J'allonge le bras, j'allonge
je prends la poign^e, je prends
je tourne la poign^e, je toume
j'ouvre la porte, j'ouvre
je tire la porte. je tire
— La porte c6de, cbde
la porte tourne sur ses gonds, toume
la porte tourne et tourne encore, toume
j'ouvre la porte toute grande, j'ouvre
je lache la poign^e. je lache
The exercise will thus have passed by way of the scholar's
three principal senses ; the lesson will have penetrated into
his inner nature, and it will be equally indestructible. This
is the rest promised ; this is the diversion useful to the work
already accomplished. While the class is writing, let us dis-
cuss sundry considerations relative to the present proceeding.
Before everything else, it must be understood that the eye
and the hand only take possession of the exercise after the
ear has entirely conquered it for itself and transmitted it to
the mind. Indeed, change the order, and begin by the writ-
ing, or even by the reading lesson, as is now everywhere done,
134 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
and the lesson ceases to be fruitful. The pupil no longer
thinks — he translates ; he no longer assimilates — he dwells
upon the written word, the written line. The visualising
faculty is no- longer brought into play to look at the fact
itself taking place before it, but is content to notice the place
of the expressions of this fact in the book, to remark if this
expression is to be seen on one page or over-leaf, at the top of
the page, or at the bottom, or in the middle.
What is the consequence ? The consequence is that the
lesson now only yields the fruits we know of old. The child
leaves the morsel of intellectual food which he has been able
for one brief instant to separate by the reading, carelessly to
fall back into the book ; giving it back faithfully to the book,
instead of seeking to wrest it therefrom. Truly there is little
profit in such morsels.
On the other hand, transmitted as we have set forth, the
lesson passes (one cannot repeat it too often), really passes
into the nature of the pupil, and never more becomes rubbed
out, whether he have or have not what routine calls a
" memory." It must also be well understood that the exercise
taught is not any exercise, no matter what, but a page of our
method ; that is to say, a picture whose details are logically
linked together, linked together by the most natural of all
relationships, tliat of causation, or rather that of succession
in time, a relationship that the feeblest mind can grasp, and
which becomes the all-powerful auxiliary of the memory, which
it creates even if this does not already exist.
The class upon which ^ve Lave operated is supposed to be
composed of pupils new to the system or of beginners. These
will write out the exercise by simply copying it. But at the
end of one month's practice the programme will be modified ;
they will no longer copy — they will write it out of their heads.
Will they be able to do it ? you ask. How can they possibly
carry out this task ?
The pupil who has gone through a single series, a general
series, has assimilated (like the little child who has arrived at
being able to express his daily life) all that is most essential
of the language. After our Series of the Shepherd, for
instance, the pupil finds himSelf in possession of nearly all
the elementary verbs of the language he is studying, that is
to say, of those by means of which all ordinary matters can be
METHOD OF TEACHING THE SERIES. 135
expressed. An exercise which, at the beginning, would have
taken a quarter of an hour or more, may henceforth be given
in five minutes at the outside.
The teacher's labour is, therefore, simplified and consider-
ably abridged. At the end of five minutes the pupil is
sufficiently familiarised with the exercise to open his book.
Then, covering with one hand the text of the sentences, he
goes down the column of verbs step by step, and upon each
verb he attempts to reconstruct, as did the teacher, the cor-
responding sentence of which the verb recalls to him the
idea. As is seen, at this moment the effort of the pupil is
partially substituted for the effort of the teacher. After a
simple and short period of listening, the pupil elaborates and
conquers by himself the proposed exercise. We have arrived
at the " personal " work.
In two or three minutes the pupil will have reconstructed
the exercise, sentence by sentence. He then writes down in
his exercise-book the column of verbs, closes his book, and to
the left, opposite each verb, he composes and writes out his
sentence. This phrase is his own work; he has drawn the
whole phrase out of his own conception. The process followed
has permitted (and this is not one of the least of its merits)
the thought of the master or the expression of the book to
become the personal work of the pupil. This is the second
stage established by our method, and it is not the last.
His strength increasing quickly under such a system, the
pupil will be very shortly able to reproduce the whole exercise,
verbs and sentences. That day he will have put on the garb
of manhood. Henceforward, it will no longer be an isolated
exercise that he will be given to digest at a time, but an entire
series, all that can issue from the teacher's mouth in the space
of a quarter of an hour at first, then of half an hour, then of
a whole hour. But at this rate the fifty or sixty partial
series which translate the entire life, which exhaust the whole
generality of our conceptions, will soon themselves be ex-
hausted. What shall we do then ? Will the book be closed
and the work declared finished 1
Before replying to this question, we wish to develop two
points which have an immediate connection with the process
of teaching, of which we have just sketched out the general
features.
136 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
4. The pronunciation.
Submitted to the discipline which we have explained, will
our pupils acquire what is termed a good accent, a good pro-
nunciation ? The child speaks with a good accent, pronounces
correctly, when his nurse or his mother speaks with a good
accent and pronounces correctly. Where, indeed, can he
acquire a bad accent if he never hears any other than a good
accent ? How should he be likely to pronounce badly when he
has never heard anything pronounced other than well ? How
is it, then, that so many people pronounce so badly the foreign
languages that they have begun to learn at school ?
We believe we have found the true answer to the enigma.
The first great cause of a bad accent is reading — reading
undertaken at the wrong time, too soon. The second cause is
reading degenerating into a bad habit; and the third cause
still seems to us to be reading. Let us explain.
Is it more difficult to pronounce " boosh " than " bowch " ?
Evidently not. In French, the word written boucJie (mouth)
is pronounced hoosh, and not hoicch. If, therefore, you pro-
nounce the French word louche to me before I have seen how
this sound is represented in writing ; if the sound hoosh strikes
my ears before the letters bouche strike my eyes, I should
have no reason for finding the French pronunciation at all odd,
though I might, perhaps, its spelling. As is seen, the thing is
turned the other way round ; and if one learns French without
being able to read it, as the little child does, there will be no
longer much greater difficulty in pronouncing it than in pro-
nouncing words in English. This is perfectly evident.
" How about the spelling?" you will ask. The spelling ! You
would learn it like the young French children learn it, as you
yourselves have learnt the English spelling, ten times more
difficult than the French ; and this without letting the study
of the spelling spoil your already acquired pronunciation.
Besides, the spelling is a thing that can be reformed — the pro-
nunciation hardly at all. We must choose between the two
evils.
The modern Greek child of four or five years old, who has
hardly yet left his nurse, does he or does he not know how to
pronounce this beautiful language better than the most learned
of our philologists ? Every one will answer yes, and our philo-
THE PRONUNCIATION. 137
logist before the others. We vviU allow this child to grow up.
"We will send him to school, and suppose that he is made to
begin the study of, say, English. The first thing they will
do at the school, as we all know, is to put into his hands
either a grammar or a dictionary, or probably both.
How will our scholar read the first English word that
comes before his eyes ? He will undoubtedly read it in the
way he knows how to read — as if it were Greek ; he will pro-
nounce it as if it were Greek ; he will accentuate it as
if it were Greek. How should he do otherwise^ And this
false sound, this false accent, issuing from his mouth, ascends
to his ears, and is graven, is bitten thereon.. And the teacher
must be clever who will efface this first impression. It is,
then, the reading which does the harm, and the more the child
reads and repeats his word, that is, the more diligently he
works, the more the evil is aggravated, until the time may
arrive when he becomes absolutely incapable of reform. Our
young Greek is then condemned for life to pronounce English
badly, whatever effort he may make, whatever discipline he
may submit to. Even with our own method it would be ex-
tremely difficult, if not impossible, to alter. The fruit has
been vitiated at the germ.
If our young Greek, on the other hand, had been, on prin-
ciple, deprived of all books ; if his eye had been guarded from
the sight of the English spelling, if he had had the compan-
ionship of an Englishman who would never write a word
for him, he would then have acquired the exact English accent,
as he had already acquired the exact Greek accent with his
nurse.
The foreigner who comes to our colleges with a first tinge
of the language often leaves without having greatly corrected
his first accent. On the other hand, those who have never
studied, speak and pronounce almost as well as their teacher
at the end of six months. Any of us could do the same if we
would submit ourselves to a rational process of learning.
The first cause, therefore, of a false accent and pronuncia-
tion is the study of languages by means of reading. Neither
the temperament, nor the throat, nor the larynx are to blame.
With a Greek nurse, the child will talk Greek like a Greek ;
with a German nurse he will talk German like a German ;
with a French nurse he will talk French like a Frenchman,
and so for other languages.
138 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
In other terms, and to close the subject, we have mistaken
"the organ." Nature has funished us with ears for the
study of languages ; we have thought it possible to substitute
the eye in their place. Here is the primal fall, here the
original sin in the present teaching. Our method returns to
the order of Nature; it should arrive, and it does in fact
arrive, at the same result as Nature.
What must we say of those books where the author, amus-
ing himself by figuring the pronunciation of each word, super-
poses an artificial and abstract language upon the real language,
abusing the human patience and force to the point of desiring
to paint upon the student's eye the thirty thousand words of
the dictionary along with the thirty thousand shadows of these
words ? If such a labour were possible, this would mean the
learning of two languages in order to know one. These, never-
theless, are the aberrations which govern schools, and maintain
whole legions of printers and compositors.
We never allow any child to read or to write any exercise
that he has not heard, that he has not repeated, that he has
not assimilated ; any lesson which is not in his ears, which is
not at the end of his tongue, as a pianist has a tune in his
ears and at the end of his fingers. The pronunciation of our
pupils, therefore, will not be wrong, unless that of the teacher
himself is wrong.
Like the little child, our school mocks and laughs at all
these pretended difficulties of pronunciation — English, French,
German, Greek, &c. ; or rather, it never encounters these kinds
of obstacles upon its path. It gives the pronunciation of each
word as each word is met with in our series, and it does not
preoccupy itself with building up theories or formulating rules*
to settle — months or years in advance — the pronunciation
of them.
When a word occurs in an exercise taught by us, it occurs
under the form of a " spoken word," that is to say, together
with its pronunciation, and not as a vain assemblage of printed
characters. When once the word " mouth " has been translated
by the spoken French word " louche" it is impossible to hear,
without laughing, any one translate it by any other sound.
" Without laughing ! " This expression, or rather this fact,
is one of the bitterest criticisms of the ordinary teaching. Can
you cite a class where the most monstrous pronunciation
THE PRONUNCIATION. 139
excites the least hilarity ? Is it the same outside the class-
room? Pronounce once before a young Greek the superb
" Poluphloisboio ! " and in the burst of laughter that your
learned pronunciation will provoke, you will be able to judge
if your teaching is on the right path.
The pedagogic error which we point out is decried by every
one ; yet such is the fixity of tenure enjoyed in the schools by
the opposite process to that which we are prescribing, so much
has it passed into a habit, and, in appearance, so convenient is
it for the ease of the teacher, that we almost tremble for fear
of being neither understood nor even accorded a hearing. I
say "tremble," for if this prescription of the manner of teach-
ing is neglected, our method will remain as sterile as all the
others.
Address the ear, then, first of all and principally. After-
wards take as auxiliaries the eye and the hand in reading and
writing. The ear is the prime minister of the intelligence.
It is the sense which watches with the greatest constancy and
fidelity at its gateway ; it is the one that the intelligence
listens to most willingly, the one that speaks with the greatest
authority and the greatest intimacy, the one that guards
longest its depositions. Let the eye, then, reign over the
dominion of colours and forms, and restore to the ear a func-
tion which the schoolmen and pedantry have forced the eye
to usurp. The memory will thereupon gain a vigour hitherto
unknown, and will recover that power which so astonishes and
confounds us in the little child.
"But I cannot remember these verbs; I must see them
written down," exclaims the adult who, trained in the ordinary
schools, is subjected for the first time to our discipline. What ?
Do you hear the little child make this remark to his mother ?
Can lie not go direct from the fact to the word without pass-
ing by the intermediary of the written representation ? Our
nature, upon this point, has been so deformed by our scholastic
habits, that to arrive at the reality we have first to pass by
way of the shadow. Is not the written word the shadow of
the spoken word, and so the shadow of the idea ?
A man who, from some accident, has been obliged to
renounce the use of his arms, and who has learnt to use his
feet in their place — this is the image of our adult learners.
He has been " atrophied " by pedagogic science. When the
I40 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
ear is called, it is the eye that answers, leaving the sense of
hearing slumbering peacefully at the door, and communicat-
ing — ill or well, as the case may be — with the intelligence in
its place. Hence this cry of distress : — " If only I might see
the words written down ! "
It is precisely these "written words" that have paralysed
your linguistic sense. Renounce them, I pray you, coura-
geously, as the cause of all evil. Strike against this perni-
cious habit. Accustom yourself to learn only by listening,
that is, by going directly from the fact to the articulated, the
spoken word. Your sense of hearing will promptly awake
from its torpor, and, after a few days' practice, will completely
recover its native activity and energy.
The little child stammers and lisps long over each word
newly pronounced in his presence. This is because the ear is
far more docile than the tongue. The word is in the ear long
before being on the tongue. But do not fear. The ear has
received the correct imprint of the sound : it will act as
tuning-fork, correcting and regulating the attempts and efforts
of the tongue. The same fact is reproduced in our teaching.
The pupil has in his ear the accent of a phrase before the
tongue is able to reproduce it exactly. Be careful, therefore,
not to get impatient if the pronunciation of your pupil be not
perfect at the first lesson. The essential thing is that the
spoken word shall be deposited within the ear, that it vibrate
and resound therein, before the tongue has attempted to repro-
duce it. It is the ear that must give the law to the tongue,
not the tongue to the ear. The spoken sound must reside in
the ear as a type or ideal to which afterwards the tongue will
conform to fashion its products.
Do not, therefore, attempt to obtain a perfect pronuncia-
tion at the first lesson. Talk yourself, talk continually. At
the commencement let the pupil speak as little as possible ; it
is in his ear and not on his tongue that it is important to
fix the word or the phrase. When the spring is abundant it
will flow of itself, and the liquid supplied by it will have the
advantage of being pure.
Let us not forget that the little child listens for two years
before constructing a phrase, and that he has possession of
both the sound and its idea, that is, the spoken word, long
before attempting to produce it himself. For languages Nature
THE PKONUNCIATION. 141
appears to us to be the best of teachers ; let us strive to follow
out all her prescriptions.
In concluding this chapter, we think it will be useful to
formulate a grave corollary which results therefrom, and which
we will develop farther on. *'The spoken word must precede
in everything and everywhere the word as read or as written.
Therefore, the only really fruitful exercise is that of the trans-
lation of facts into the foreign language by the intermediary
of the professor,"
It results from this that our system condemns, a priori, the
exercise of translation from the foreign language, as under-
stood and practised until now. In this it is again found in
perfect accord with the process of Nature. Is it by making
translations from other languages, think you, that the little
baby learns its mother-tongue? The reading of a foreign
author cannot of itself be fruitful, except upon the condition
of its being transformed by pedagogic art into a series of state-
ments to be reconstructed in the language of the author by
the intermediary of the professor. To prohibit translation
into the language studied, and to replace it by translation from
this language, is to render the study of languages " absolutely
impossible." We shall farther on demonstrate this, and,
while pointing out the evil, we shall indicate the remedy,
which will be a " New Method " of reading, translating, and
assimilating the works of classical authors.
And let no one imagine that these principles apply only to
the study of living languages. There are not, and it is im-
possible that there should be, two right ways of learning a
language, be this language ancient or modern. The governing
body of a university which should be so ill-advised, under
whatsoever pretext, as to prohibit (as is done in certain coun-
tries) all translation into the language studied, would only
prove that it possesses no correct information upon the art of
teaching languages.
Be certain of this, that it is only by thinking directly in
the language studied that you will arrive at reading fluently
a page of Yirgil or a page of Homer. From the height of a
long experience, I venture to denounce translation as the true
cause of our ignorance in which we are of those two unfortu-
nate ancient languages, which we study all our lives and know
never.
It is too true : the ordinary collections of exercises seem to
142 OBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
become more and more absurd, and consequently perfectly im-
potent. But who is responsible for this result ? Is it the
exercises themselves or those who fabricate them 1 The child
in the family only does and only hears exercises in the lan-
guage he is studying. Does he succeed or no in learning the
language there spoken ? If yes, it is because the process is a
good one : we must preserve it.
It is not the abolition of this exercise which the head-masters
must decree; it is its reform which they must strive to
provoke.
5. One teacher f 07' three classes.
While the class is taking possession of the lesson by writing
it out, the teacher is idle. How could he best occupy his
time ? Should he give it to rest or to supervision 1 We believe
we employ ours more profitably by passing into an adjoin-
ing class-room and giving a second lesson. We have spoken
of pupils of three kinds, more or less advanced, treating and
elaborating the series in three different manners. These three
classes may be very easily taken in charge by a single teacher.
If each lesson is properly carried out, the moment at which
the teacher reappears in the first class will coincide exactly
with the moment at which this class finishes the work pro-
posed. One teacher, therefore, with our method of teaching,
is worth three.
And if the teaching of science were susceptible also of refor-
mation — of reformation in the sense which a future chapter
will indicate — our system would carry into the pedagogic
machinery a simplification of very considerable extent.^
We trust we may be permitted, in the interest of the cause
pleaded, once more to bring our own personality to the front.
By the aid of our linguistic, historic, and scientific methods,
we have carried on three classes simultaneously with more
ease, and infinitely greater success, than before we had carried
on, at college, a single class by means of the ordinary methods.
At the risk of sinning against modesty, we will state another
result. If one teacher is worth three, one year of our method
is worth two, or even more, of those passed under the ordinary
curriculum. There is not one of our boys who cannot subdue
in one year, and this without pain and fatigue, the work of
two, and often of three years of college. And this should not
be otherwise, because by teaching the sciences by the Ian-
ADDED POWER OF THE TEACHER 143
guages, and the languages by the sciences, we necessarily gain
a considerable amount of time, without counting the numerous
advantages assured to us by a plan of progress logically and
severely drawn up.
This is not all. No one thoroughly knows a science or an
art until he has taught it himself to others. This is specially
true of languages. Now, the simplicity of our linguistic exer-
cises, added to the simplicity of our process of teaching, allows
any of our pupils to give the lesson of any of the series learnt
by them almost as well as the teacher could do it himself.
And not only is this exercise possible, but we recommend it,
we impose it upon our students. It represents, in our eyes,
the last phase of assimilation.
Our method amply provides, therefore, for the multiplica-
tion of teachers. If anything hinders the progress of our
school, it will not be the scarcity, but rather the superabun-
dance of embryo teachers. " And the discipline, imposi-
tions 1 " we shall doubtless be asked. Discipline ? We speak
after a long experience. Discipline, such as you understand
by the word, is only necessary in classes where the studies are
a torture instead of being a pleasure.
144 SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE. LL f^V ~ ^"^
Its Organisation. (/ '
X.
CLASSIFICATION OF THE RELATIVE PHRASES.
I. Definition of the relative phrases — Their object and
their number in each tongue.
In every language there are two languages. The one
translates the facts of the external world, the other translates
the facts and gestures of the soul or the mind. The first con-
stitutes the "objective" language, the second constitutes the
" subjective " language. These two languages are irreducible
in terms of each other. The first forms the material of our
series ; the second is the source of what we term " Relative
Phrases." The relative phrases are destined to translate the
complex play of the soul's faculties, that is, to express our
ideas, our judgments, our sentiments, &c.
"Man," we have said, "does not only perceive the pheno-
mena of the external world ; he appreciates them, judges
them, that is, he reacts upon them. He enjoys this and
dislikes that, he approves this and blames that, he believes
this and doubts that." The expression of each of th^se move-
ments, of each of these operations, is a " relative phrase " : —
I am glad ... I want you to . . .
I am sorry . . . Attempt to . . .
I think that . . . That is good.
I hope that . . . That is bad.
I wish that ... It is true.
I believe that ... It is false.
I am certain that ... It is easy.
Do what you can to . . . It is difficult.
Try to . . . You must . . .
I wish you would ... It is important to . . .
Have the kindness to . . . I regret that . . . &c., &c.
These are "relative phrases."
These expressions do not stand alone. They rest upon the
expression of another fact ; they have a " relation " to another
fact. Hence the name "relative phrase," by which we think
we can venture provisionally to designate them. This lin-
THE RELATIVE PHRASE. 145
guistic distinction, as far as we are aware, has never before
been made by any one, although a prodigious number of these
formulae enter into the web of each distinct language or
dialect. It has, therefore, been necessary for us to invent,
or at least employ, a special name to represent this species of
locution.
The relative phrases are to the language what mortar is to
stones. It is they which bind the parts together. Without
them the knowledge of the series or the possession of the
"objective language " would be almost barren. The real or
apparent dualism presented by the human personality is re-
produced in the language itself. Its two .constituent parts
cannot subsist separately.
We have made a most careful collection of these expressions
from the most finished works in the languages studied by us —
dictionaries and classical masterpieces. Our manuscripts con-
tain, for each tongue, about sixty thousand of these phrases.
But let the reader be reassured. This number, like that of
the series, can be very greatly reduced. By organising the
material of the subjective language in a certain manner, our
method will enable every one to conquer in playing, and without
wearisome and exhaustive application, this formidable mass
which represents for each language the spirit and the genius
of the people who speak it. Nature solves this problem every
day ; then why should not pedagogic science also solve it 1
2. Two kinds of relative phrases — Those perfect or absolute,
and the enclitics.
The relative phrases are susceptible of division and sub-
division. In the first place, they divide themselves naturally
into two vast species. Phrases of one species express complete
judgments, as . —
It is true.
It is false.
I am satisfied.
You have spoken well.
You have done ill, &c.
Phrases of the other species express judgments ; incom-
plete, imperfect, and unfinished phrases, they express volitions,
beliefs, efforts, feelings, &c., of which the object is expressed
by a second phrase : —
146 SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
It is necessary to -^ work hard
I want you to -?- attend well.
I think "^ you can manage it.
I hope that -^ you will succeed.
Try to -7- conquer the difficulty.
I should like you to —p- succeed, &c., &c.
The first are relative phrases, properly so called, which
might be named "perfect." We term the second species
"enclitic" ("hung upon"), because they are as it were sus-
pended from or inclined against the expression of a second
fact which serves them as complement. "I want you to"
leans or is inclined upon "attend well."
Every language has about seven hundred words giving
birth to these enclitic phrases. This uniformity has nothing
very surprising in it. As a matter of fact, the number of
faculties is the same with all men. Therefore the enclitics
which express in precise terms the play of these faculties
ought to be equal in number in all tongues. To him who
seeks properly, each phrase has its equivalent in the language
of his neighbours. We can affirm that it is the sajne with the
simple or perfect relative phrases, and that the richness or the
poverty of a language in these expressions is, in fact, nothing
but the richness or poverty of mind of him who makes this
judgment. We have followed, step by step, five or six modem
besides the classic languages, and must declare that, in this
respect, none of them has proved weaker than the others.
This remark is of great importance. It is sufficient, in point
of fact, to draw up in a first language — in French or English,
for example — the complete system of relative phrases, and this
system will hold valid for all other languages. Is not the
mother's process the same in all latitudes ? A good method,
one truly inspired by Nature, should itself admit of but one
manner of proceeding, whatever might be the language to be
studied. In this our method offers the closest analogy with
the natural process.
For the relative phrases as for the series, our system, when
once constructed in one language, will really be done for all
languages. We shall no longer hear of a "special method"
for learning German, of a " special method " for learning
French, of a " special method " for learning Arabic or Sans-
krit, &c. There will be " T'/^e method of studying languages."
We shall see shortly how the grammar itself becomes One,
CLASSIFICATION OF THE ENCLITICS. 147
as the human mind is One. Let us return to our work of
classification ; and, in the first place, we will attempt to clas-
sify the "enclitics."
3. Classifi^cation of Enclitics — General insight.
The enclitics, as we have said, express and translate the
complete play of the faculties of the soul. If psychology were
a thoroughly developed science, we could borrow from it the
list of these faculties, and we should then only have to group
around each of these the expressions which relate thereto.
Thus the expressions : I believe that — I think that — I fancy
that — I doubt whether — It seems to me that, &c., relate evi-
dently to faith, or the faculty of believing. The expressions :
try to — attempt to, evidently belong to the will, or to the
faculty of willing. XJnfortunately psychologists are not agreed
either as to the number or the essence of the faculties of the
mind. The linguist is therefore obliged to work here to some
extent at his risk and peril j but at least his way is clearly traced.
First of all, he will consider the relative phrases one by one ;
he will determine with the closest possible accuracy to which
faculty of the mind they are related, and will again divide
them into a certain number of natural groups psychologically
distinct, so producing from this linguistic labour a work in
itself fundamentally philosophical.
The numerous expressions ranged around any one faculty
might also, in their turn, be distributed in secondary groups
corresponding to the various moments of this faculty. Each
faculty, in fact, has distinct moments, passes through various
phases and various states. For example : belief, certainty,
uncertainty, doubt, hope, &c., are all diverse states of the
faculty of believing ; as love, hate, desire, resolution, &c., are
distinct states or movements of the faculty of willing.
The linguist will determine these moments, and will deter-
mine his classification accordingly. The relative phrases which
compose these secondary groups can only be, and in fact only
are, synonymous locutions, expressing the various shades of
meaning of the same idea, the same conception, the same voli-
tion, or the same judgment — synonyms which can be them-
selves classified by basing them upon the relationship of the
most general to the least general, or vice versa. If this work
were properly carried out, the pupil who should practise the
I4S SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
relative phrases would Lave studied, at the same time, an
important chapter of ps^^chology.
Let us take the number of these faculties of the mind or
soul as twelve, and let us grant to each of them twenty diffe-
rent moments or states, a supposition which is evidently exag-
gerated. Twelve times 20 are 240. Each language would
thus comprise at most 240 simple enclitic phrases, elementary
and irreducible, types of all the others, of which all the others
are varieties. This number is found to be entirely in accord-
ance with the verdict of experience or of direct observation.
The child of five years old has not two hundred enclitic phrases
at his disposition ; but those he does employ form part of the
240 types of which we have just spoken. The child does not
say—
" Have the kindness to -^ pass me the bread."
" I invite you to -^ come and play with me."
He will say, far more simply, for example : —
" Please -^ pass me the bread."
" I want you to --^ come and play with me ! "
Provided with this light mental outfit, the child cannot,
indeed, understand everything, but he can say everything.
Ourselves, when we wish to undertake the study, of a foreign
language, the first thing we do is carefully to collect and
assimilate the 150 or 200 enclitic phrases chosen according
to the before-mentioned process. At that moment we are
not yet able to understand all we hear, but, like the little
child, we can say all we wish, if besides this we possess the
whole of the ordinary series. Finally, who would believe it ?
The jiEneid itself does not contain 300 different enclitic
phrases. If this number sufficed for Virgil, assuredly it can
suffice for others.
The three or four thousand enclitic locutions or formulae can
therefore be reduced to 200 primary enclitics. This reduction
appears to us to deserve the attention of linguists. To study
these 200 formulae abstractly or separately would be the work
of two or three days. To study them afterwards in their
various shades of meaning would be a longer task, but rela-
tively easy if these formulae were properly classified and logi-
cally set in order.
As a matter of fact, to learn them in the way we have
set forth is not even a task ; it is a gamk Yes, a game 1
"Why should it not be a game ? Ask yourselves if the little
CLASSIFICATION OF EELATIVE PHRASES. 149
child, when he was learning his own set of phrases, saw
therein anything else than a mere game. Let us once learn to
set about it as he set about it, and it might be, nay, it neces-
sarily will be, for us as for him, a game — nothing but a game.
4. Glassification of the absolute Relative Phrases —
General insight.
The absolute or perfect Helative Phrases translate, like the
Enclitics, but under another form, the diverse states or
movements of the inner nature. To classify them, it w^as
necessary to compare them among themselves, and to deter-
mine their common characteristics. We have devoted many
long evenings to this work; the following are some of the
heads under which we have found that the locutions con-
tained in our voluminous collection might be placed : Praise —
Blame — Advice — Wish — Reprimand — Admonition — Encour-
agement — Menace.
It must be understood that these categories are thrown
together at hazard, and not by any process of reasoning.
They appear here only in the light of examples or of indica-
tions. We give them to show simply that the definite classi-
fication is to be made, like that of the enclitics, upon an
essentially psychological basis. This important work must
form the object of a special treatise.
The classification arrived at could not remain at this first
generalisation. Indeed, several of the orders of phrases estab-
lished were found to be represented by columns of ten to
twenty thousand expressions. I had distributed the material
in orders ; it was now necessary to seek to divide these orders
into species. For long this problem appeared to me insoluble ;
and what caused me most to despair was that alongside this
problem I perceived a third, equally important and not less
difficult of solution.
In Nature the two languages gear together, as we have
said, one into the other, developing harmoniously side by
side, the one aiding and pushing forward the other. Even
supposing it were possible to discover a principle for subdivid-
ing the above orders into species how was I to be able to
cross the yawning chasm which separated the Ego from the
Non-Ego ? how was I to ally in the same exercise or in the
same oral lesson the subjective language with the objective
language? how, in point of fact, was I to wed the relative
phrase to the phrnse of the series ?
I50 SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
After long meditations and trials of every kind, I eventually
caught a glimpse, by a sudden intuition, of the true and
unique relation by which the two languages could be linked
together. And this relation was so simple — so simple — was
so natural and so close to me all the time, that I actually felt
sorry for myself. So much labour for so small a thing !
Such long researches to find what was under my very hand !
The disproportion between my efforts and their result was
enough to make a child laugh.
The third problem was, therefore, seen to be solved before
the second. But while examining more closely the solution
found, I perceived that it contained within it that of the
second, and presented a means as simple as it was practical of
subdividing the orders in question into species.
At the same time, the secret process by which Nature trans-
formed, for the child, the study of the subjective element of
language into a game, was explained and laid bare ; and this
process, by its perfect conformity with the solution already found,
justified our conception. But let us hasten to descend from
these generalities and approach directly the problem itself.
In order to prepare the reader for the full understanding
of the solution announced, we will conduct himt for a moment
to the school of Nature, and we will interpret before him the
object-lesson and the language-lesson which the nursemaid
gives, unconsciously, to the little baby in her charge, when
she amuses it, for instance, in making it open the door. For
this purpose, we may be allowed to give once more a well-
known exercise : —
Walk, my pretty ; That's it !
Go towards the door ; That's very good !
Now you've got there ; Bravo !
Lift up your little arm ; Capital !
Take hold of the handle ; That's the way !
Turn the handle ; How strong yon are !
Open the door ; What a clever little man !
Pull the door open ; There's a little darling ! &c. &c.
This exercise, which every one of us has done, or rather
played, under a mother's direction, is in miniature the system
which we believe we have wrested from Nature. It contains
it, as the acorn contains the oak. Never can the saying, " All
is in all," be invoked more truly or to better purpose.
The left-hand column represents the series or the objective
THE ACCENT. 151
language ; the right-hand column represents the relative
phrase or the subjective language ; and these two languages,
so diverse and so opposite as they seem, are here united to
form one and the self-same exercise. Let us here add, that
each phrase of the right-hand column expressing a judgment
"relative" to the corresponding objective fact, the name
" relative phrase " is seen to be sufficiently justified.
Philologists, linguists, and grammarians ! To weigh these
expressions, so widely different one from the other, you have
only known up to the present moment of the use of balances
in which substantive is weighed against substantive, pronoun
against pronoun, adjective against adjective. These scales are
good, perhaps, for the weighing of syllables, but they are not
made for the weighing of ideas. Your logical and grammatical
analyses have found nothing which essentially distinguishes
the sentence
" How strong you are,"
from the sentence
" Lift up your little arm,"
while the most ignorant of mothers has the knowledge of their
difference, and knows exceedingly well how to translate it and
make it understood by the child.
" What is her secret ? " you ask me. It is a secret which you
know full well yourselves ; it is a process with which you are
just as familiar as she is, and which you practise continually.
Living speech is not solely composed of syllables — of words
and sounds. You may, perhaps, have heard a talking-machine.
What difference do you find between the phrase articulated by
these ingenious pieces of mechanism and that which is uttered
by the mouth of man ? The speech of an automatic speaking-
machine affects you disagreeably. It is wierd, hollow, un-
earthly — the speech of a corpse. What is lacking for it to
sound like the speech of a living man *? A thing that art can
never give. This thing is called "the accent."
Now we have it ! It is by the accent — the stress- accent of
the voice — that the mother initiates her child into the subjec-
tive language ; it is by the accent that she teaches it to dis-
tinguish the words which express an external fact from the
words which translate a movement or a state of the soul.
And the baby — a better analyst here than Noel et Chapsal
[or Lindley Murray]— interprets admirably its mother's accent,
and according to the note of this accent classes such and such
152 SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
an expression in the objective language, and such another
expression in the subjective language. Without this virtue
of the natural accent confusion would be inevitable. Where,
otherwise, is the reason that should hinder the baby from trans-
lating the sound " How strong you are " by " Lift up your arm,"
and the sound " Lift up your arm " by " How strong you are 1 "
A child assists in a conversation between grown-up persons.
He assists in his own style, that is, by playing about and by
attending, in appearance at least, to anything else than the
conversation. An hour after, the next day perhaps, one is
astonished to hear issue from his mouth, suddenly and apropos
of nothing, a form of expression which he had never articulated
before, and of which the sense, more or less abstract, seems
altogether beyond his age. Whence has the child taken this
expression ? Assuredly he has not evolved it from his inner
consciousness? Go back in your mind to the conversation
which took place this morning or yesterday, and there is the
place where you will indubitably find it.
Quite a young child remarked to us a little while ago, *' The
weather is dark ; I really should not be surprised if it rained
hard. It has been snowing up on the mountain. The deuce !
the winter has begun early ! '* Now, " I really should not be
surprised " and " The deuce ! " are expressions which certainly
do not belong to the vocabulary of the little child. He must,
therefore, have taken them from some remark or other made
in his presence.
This explanation is generally held to be quite sufficient.
We declare, however, that it does not entirely satisfy us, and
we put this question : Why and how is it that he has retained
out of a long conversation this phrase and not another ? Why
has he fastened by preference upon an abstract expression
that he does not understand, or that he interprets as often as
not the wrong way round ?
He retains it, we may perhaps be told, simply because it
seems strange to him. This reason would be a good one if it
were a question of an isolated term — of a proper name, for
instance. But we are speaking here of a complex form of
expression, of an expression composed of words ordinarily
well known to him, and consequently not having even the
attraction of novelty.
We put the problem, therefore, once more : Why this phrase
and not another? And why is this expression, instead of
THE ACCENT. 153
belonging to the objective language, always found to belong
to the subjective language 1 " It is instinct," replies one. " It
is a gift of Nature," adds another. We have already said what
we think of this solution, and of the persons -who propose it.
The following is our own : —
The child has taken from a certain conversation this expres-
sion, and not another, simply because the expression in question
was accentuated in a different manner from all the others.
Yes, accentuated ! Everything is in this. The accent ! Is
not this the speech employed by the lower species ? Is not
this the language of the animals, a universal language ? Is not
the accent the signature of the soul in the phrase ? Attempt
to speak, to read; attempt even to think without accentuating
your words either aloud or to yourself. It. cannot be done.
In the monologue of its mother or its nurse, how is it that
the child can distinguish the absolute phrase from the relative
phrase, the objective language from the subjective language,
the expression of the tangible fact from the expression of the
pure idea, the translation of the act from the translation of
the judgment made upon this act ? Between the mother and
her child I do not see any other interpreter, nor is there any
other interpreter, than "the accent."
" Mamma," asked a little French child once in our hearing,
" Mamma, what does ' sacristie ' mean 1 "
" My child, it is the little room where the priest puts on his
robes," answered the mother.
" Oh, no ! It is not that sort of sacristy at all. When any
one lets fall something, and picks it up again, and then it falls
again, they say * sacr-r-risti ! ' "
This definition is an entire revelation. It demonstrates
that the accent, and nothing but the accent, had given to this
child the consciousness of the inner signification of a doubly
figurative locution. In conversation, the author of a relative
phrase, without knowing or without wishing it, isolates it by
accentuating it ; raises it, so to speak, above the level of the
rest of the conversation by a special intonation. The child
then catches it as it flies; or, if you will, it vibrates more
strongly than the rest in his ear, and is imprinted thereon in
less ephemeral characters. This is why and this is how his
tongue attempts to reproduce this expression an hour after, a
day after he has heard it.
Let us now see what use the child makes of a relative
154 SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
expression recently acquired. Follow him attentively, and you
will notice that the new phrase will be found at the tip of his
tongue quite as often as the newest of his toys is seen in his
hands. He serves this formula, as one might say, with every
kind of sauce. He applies it, wrongly or rightly, to all his con-
ceptions. He uses it for talking to his rocking-horse, to his
carriages or their coachmen ; he uses it to apostrophise his
wooden Punch and Judy or his living pets. He thus rapidly
appropriates and assimilates this particular expression. Pre-
sently he will listen to another conversation ; he will pick out
a new relative phrase, and will assimilate this like the first.
There you have the whole process of Nature. Was I not
right when I stated that even the study of the abstract and
subjective part of the language is for the child simply a game ?
We have here evidently arrived at the end of the phenomenon.
We may here halt awhile, in order to meditate upon the pro-
cess of Nature, to extract therefrom the precepts it may con-
tain, and finally to engraft them upon our own method.
In the school of Nature the subjective language and the
objective language are developed simultaneously and parallel
with each other. They advance together and side by side,
harmoniously, and without ever becoming confused ; the accent
marking them each with a character of its own. What would
happen if we were to advise the study of the various groups of
the objective expressions separately in a special vocabulary ?
We are able to reply to this question, having made at our own
expense the experiment of this deplorable proceeding. All
your efforts would be, and necessarily, made in pure waste.
They will even be prejudicial to you, inasmuch as you will have
to pull down before you can rebuild.
If one reflects for a moment, it will be seen that it cannot pos-
sibly be otherwise. The relative phrases are formed to lean or
rest upon some other thing. In themselves they present only
empty, hollow forms, as vague and fugitive as bubbles of air,
applying at one and the same time to everything and to nothing.
Try to . . .
Would you please . . .
^ I want you to . . .
I exhort you to . . .
It is important to . . .
Reflect that . . . &c., &c.
You might read these fqrms of expression over and over
MOTIVES OF RELATIVE PHRASES. 155
again till they became thoroughly imprinted upon your eye ;
you might train your tongue as much as you pleased to
articulate this indefinite sequence of sounds; when you have
reached, as you supposed, the end of this wearisome exercise,
you will find yourself just at the point where the author of
these lines found himself after having thought he had passed
the entire dictionary into his memory.
A man is not a joiner, and cannot pass himself for one
simply because he has just made the purchase of a complete
kit of joiner's tools. Nor will he become one any the sooner
by twisting and turning about indefinitely in his hands and
contentedly contemplating the tools which he now regards as
his stock-in-trade. The mere acquisition has not advanced
him one single step in his art. So also is it with him who by
sheer force of reading over and over again — that is, of regard-
ing the same syllables — has succeeded in heaping together the
whole of the forms of the subjective language in what he is
pleased to call his memory. He would not be less awkward,
less affected, if it were necessary for him to converse for a few
moments, than our raw joiner if any one gave him a window
to make, or rather, a simple mortice to cut.
We repeat, no one will ever learn a language by studying
isolated words, disconnected expressions, and abstract and
equally disconnected rules. Nature absolutely condemns this
process. Unhappy is he who works in opposition to Nature !
But how are we to put the indications and the teachings of
Nature into practice ? How are we to introduce Nature's pro-
cess into the schools 'i
Perhaps we have discovered this secret. The reader shall
judge.
The general motive, the sole motive which gave rise to the
relative expressions employed by the mother or the nurse in
the lesson of the door, is the manner in which the child carries
out his task, realises his intention, attains the end which he
proposed to himself, or which others had proposed for him.
Now the whole subjective language flows from a similar source.
There is not a single relative expression which cannot be made
to have for " motive " the manner in which an end has been
attained, is being attained, or will be attained. Was it not
this motive which inspired our mother to utter the following
expressions ?— " Bravo ! " " Very good ! " ** That's it ! " " That's
156 SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
the way ! " " Capital ! " " Splendid ! " " How strong you
are ! " &c.
Well, the manner in which the scholar himself has carried
out, is carrying out, or will carry out his task, that is to say,
has recited, is reciting, or will recite any given exercise, has
been adopted by us in our method as the " general motive "
of all the subjective forms of expression imaginable. And
amongst those which figure in our immense collection not a
single one escapes this generalisation. How indeed should it
escape 1 To recite a lesson, to repeat an exercise, is an aim
or an end like all other ends. Now a relative expression, from
the very fact that it is " relative," can only arise apropos of a
determinate fact or aim.
Besides this, phrases like the following : —
I think that ...
Try to . . .
Take care,
I congratulate you,
are absolutely independent of the nature of the aim; they
cannot be conceived as special to such or such an aim, but can
be applied to all indifferently, and with the same effect. To
open a door, to go and draw water, to study a lesson, these are
aims perfectl}^ distinct. Yet the expression, " I think that,"
can be adapted, when required, just as well to one as to the
others.
I think that -^ he has opened the door.
I think that -^ she has gone to draw some water.
I think that -.- you have studied this lesson.
A relative expression is, and can only be, dependent upon
the conception of the person employing it.
This granted, it is evident that the aim of reciting well or
reproducing correctly a linguistic lesson, is in itself alone
capable of supporting the whole of the relative phrases of
any given language, and in whatever number they may be
presented. This conclusion is important, extremely important !
However simple, however puerile and innocent the dialectic
that has led us to this point may appear, this conclusion
victoriously cuts the gordian knot of the practical teaching
of the subjective language.
TEACHING THE SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE. 157
What, in point of fact, was it that we were in search of 1
Was it not the " species " which would allow us to subdivide
the orders previously determined upon 1 Well, if we have
not yet obtained these species, we have the source from whence
they will spring forth in emulation, as it were, of each
other.
The recitation or the reproduction, more or less correct, of a
given exercise is a "general motive," that is to say, a motive
essentially complex, one including within itself a crowd of
other secondary and special motives. We wdll quote a few of
these : —
The pupil knows, or he does not know.
He pronounces well, or he pronounces ill.
He constructs his phrase w^ell, or he constructs it ill.
He goes too fast, or too slowly.
He experiences a difficulty, or he does not.
He is sure of himself, or he is not.
He has a good memory, or a bad memory.
He studies with method, or without method.
He takes pains, or he does not take pains.
He imagines the facts well, or he imagines them ill.
He speaks with thinking, or without thinking.
He recites by heart, or by reflection.
He analyses the facts w^ell, or analyses them ill.
He goes into all the details, or he forgets them.
He applies the grammar, or he does not apply it,
&c., &c.
In a word, the whole arsenal of the pedagogic principles
and maxims may be utilised. Each precept furnishes the
teacher with a natural motive around which he can group at
will an illimitable number of relative phrases, while varying,
according to the needs of the pupils or of the class, the moods,
tenses, persons — exercising to-day the positive form, to-morrow
the negative form, another day the interrogative or the ex-
clamatory form, Scc.^
Let us point out in passing that the use of these expressions
makes or may make of the language-lesson an admirable lesson
in psychology and in pedagogic science itself, as well as in
^ Thus employed, with the foregoing motives, the Relative phrases con-
stitute what are here termed " Interlocutory Sentences " (Trans.).
158 SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
grammar ; T will also add, in morality — the religion of work
being therein recommended, preached, and glorified by every
word of the teacher.
The aggregate of these special motives constitutes the aggre-
gate of the species which we were seeking for the purpose of
subdividing our " orders," and so completing our classification.
When, in a general treatise, the relative phrases are classified
and the whole subjective language thoroughly organised, there
will then only remain to make therefrom extracts or partial
treatises appropriate to every age. One of these will repro-
duce, for example, the relative phrases familiar to the child of
seven ; another will contain the subjective language practised
by a child of ten ; a third will be destined for the youth ; and
a fourth will be composed for the use of the adult. (Separate
treatises upon the subjective language and graduated collec-
tions of relative phrases will form part of the practical part of
the system.)
These new categories will present, besides, many incontest-
able advantages. By their aid the work will be graduated,
and the steepness of the mountain to be scaled will be pro-
portionately lessened. The elementary extracts will naturally
present those relative phrases which are the siijaplest, the most
usual, and the most indispensable, those which form the types
or the roots of all the others. Hence the most necessary
phrases will be first learnt. This labour will afford a kind of
" practical " classification of the species themselves.
As we have already stated, the dialectic that has enabled us
to discover these species has at the same time afforded the
means of allying the subjective language to the objective
language, of " wedding" the relative phrase to the phrase of
the series. The theoretic question is therefore solved. Let
us now pass to the purely practical part.
"We rely upon this both to enlighten and to confirm our
theory itself, as well as dissipate any doubts that the reader
may have still preserved upon the didactic virtue of the
system.
It was by meditating long and deeply upon the dualism
presented by language, as by all Nature ; it was by following
attentively and opposing one against the other the two currents
therein manifested; it was by disentangling and severely
separating the subjective element from the objective element ;
TEACHING THE SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE. 159
it was by isolating the first in order to be able to contemplate
it face to face ; it was by following the idea to the extremest
limit, as certain philosophers would say; in plain terms, it
was by determining with greater and greater precision the
general part played, the supreme and exclusive function of the
relative phrase in the language, that we have been enabled to
conceive the possibility of forming it into the pedagogic organ
which we have just explained, and which we shall see presently
in action.
SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE. //
Art of Teaching It.
XI.
AN ORDERED CONVERSATION CARRIED ON BY MEANS OF
THE RELATIVE PHRASES.
To thoroughly grasp the linguistic operation brought about
in our system of teaching by the relative phrase, it would
be necessary for the reader to give at least a few moments'
attendance at one of our classes. A lesson held in dialogue,
as ours is held, is extremely difficult to represent upon paper.
It loses its movement, and with this a great part of its clear-
ness and of its interest. We will, nevertheless, attempt, as
it is the only means within our reach of presenting an exer-
cise to the public, to give a lesson by means of writing.
The imagination of the reader must do its best to supply
what is lacking, amongst other things the accent — so pene-
trating and so effective — of the living speech, and the wonder-
fully communicative play of the physiognomy.
As a basis of operations we propose to take the known
theme —
To open the door.
In order to be understood by every one, we will go through
the process first of all in English. Before we begin, let us
make quite clear the exact moment at which the teacher
i6o SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
appears before the pupils. The teacher is supposed to have
already given the lesson, and the pupil to have elaborated it.
Consequently we are at the point where recitation by the pupil
commences. -
Teacher. — Here is a door : to open it, what is it you do?
Pupil. — First of all, I walk towards the door.
Teacher. — Capital ! And then what do you do?
Pupil. — I draw nearer to the door.
Teacher. — Capital ! And then what do you do 1
Pupil. — I get to the door.
Teacher. — Capital ! And then what do you do ?
Pupil. — I stop at the door.
Teacher. — Capital ! And then what do you do?
Pupil. — I stretch out my arm.
Teacher. — Capital ! And then what do you do ?
Pupil. — I take hold of the handle.
Teacher. — Capital ! And then what do you do next ?
Pupil. — I turn the handle.
Teacher. — Capital ! And what do you do after that ?
Pupil. — I pull the door.
Teacher. — Capital ! And then what happens?
Pupil. — The door moves. v
Teacher. — Capital ! And after that what happens ?
Pupil. — The door turns on its hinges.
Teacher. — Capital ! And then what do you do ?
Pupil. — I leave go the handle.
Teacher. — Capital 1 The aim is attained and the lesson
finished.
We will transcribe this dialogue under another form, where
the two languages are distinct without ceasing to be united,
without ceasing to be geared one into the other, and to com-
plete each other mutually.
The Pupil.
The Teacher.
To open the door :
I walk towards the door
Capital
And then ? . . .
I draw nearer to the door.
Capital
. And then ? . . .
I get to the door.
Capital
! And then ? . . .
I stop at the door.
Capital
And then? . . .
I stretch out my arm.
Capital
And then ? . . .
I take hold of the handle.
Capital
And then ? . . .
AN ORDERED CONVERSATION". i6i
The Pupil. The Teacher.
I turn the handle. Capital ! And then ? . . .
I pull the door. Capital ! And then 1 . . .
The door moves. Capital ! And then ? . . .
The door turns on its hinges. Capital ! And then 1 . . .
I let go the handle. Capital !
The expression " capital ! " may be replaced by the expres-
sions —
Bravo ! You couldn't do better.
That's right ! That is very well learnt.
Yery good ! You have worked hard.
That's it ! I am pleased with you.
You have it ! I congratulate you.
Exactly! &c., &c.,
and the thousand relative phrases by which satisfaction can
be expressed.
The above is a specimen of what we call, and have the right
to call, "an ordered conversation carried on by means of the
relative phrases." And this conversation is carried on, or can
be carried on, according to the language studied by the pupils,
in Latin, in Greek, in Arabic, or in Chinese, just as well as
in German, in Russian, in French, or in English.
Now, I would ask, Has this locution, " Capital ! " by the
effect of this exercise, entered into the pupil's memory ? Is
it assimilated by his understanding ? If you doubt it, try the
experiment. This expression is not only in his memory — it is
part of his very nature, and is there for ever. And what has
been done for one expression can be done and will be done for
twenty thousand expressions.
Another fact is to be noted, from whence springs a new
and important consequence. If a class of a hundred had
heard and understood this lesson, who is there, even without
having taken part personally in the conversation, who would not
have in his ear or upon his tongue this expression — " capital ! "
— or its equivalent in the foreign language? Our method,
therefore, answers admirably to the need so universally felt of
a collective method of teaching. A lesson like the preceding,
given before a thousand hearers, would be as profitable to
L
162 SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
the last as to the first, provided only that the teacher's voice
would carry so far.
Finally, we have hitherto placed the relative phrase or inter-
locutory sentence in the mouth of the teacher : there is nothing
to prevent it coming from the mouth of one or of several of
the pupils themselves, who, turn and turn about, acting as
leader of their class, would guide the conversation, while the
teacher would pass to the adjacent classes or divisions. While
one harvest is ripening, two others might be sown.
For three classes one teacher.
Tliis is a refrain which we shall yet repeat more than once
as finale to our chapters. In Nature, one child can and does
teach another child to talk. Is it so terribly difficult, think
you, for a pupil to direct a conversation like the preceding,
in no matter what language? Under these conditions the
pedagogic apprenticeship may commence early and has some
chance of being successful.
We shall, of course, have the question of disorderliness
again thrown in our teeth. We answer : Disorderliness is the
daughter of inaction and of weariness. Kdw our lesson or
ordered conversation permits neither the one nor the other.
Varied in the subjects of the lessons, varied in the details of
these lessons, alive and holding the attention like speech itself,
it stimulates the curiosity continually, occupies the visualising
faculty continually, and until the very end keeps the attentive
force upon the strain. There are schools in which the ill-
omened words, " strict and lax discipline," are practically un-
known. Apparently these schools are organised upon different
methods to others that we know of, as much for the scholars
as for the teachers. We may take it, at any rate, for certain
that our opinions with reference to schools will change on that
day that the methods themselves change. In any case, a man
to keep discipline will be less difficult to find and less costly
than a professor equipped by science in the way that we
desire.
" Capital ! " is an absolute relative expression. Let us now
take an enclitic phrase ; for example, the phrase, as common-
place as it is frequent —
Will you kindly . . .
USE OF ENCLITIC PHRASES. 163
and let us rest this upon the simple motive of '"to continue."
The lesson will be presented as follows : —
Pupil. Teacher.
I walk towards the door. Will you kindly continue ?
I draw near to the door. Will you kindly continue 1
I get to the door. Will you kindly continue ?
I stop at the door. Will you kindly continue ?
I stretch out my arm. Will you kindly continue ?
I take hold of the handle. Will you kindly continue 1
I turn the handle. Will you kindly continue ?
I pull the door. Will you kindly continue ?
The door moves. Will you kindly continue ?
The door turns on its hinges. Will you kindly continue ?
I let go the handle. The exercise is finished.
Instead of the enclitic phrase, " Will you kindly," we can
substitute —
Have the kindness to -^ continue.
Have the goodness to -t- continue.
Be so good as to -^ continue.
Please -:=' continue.
Try to ; endeavour to -^ continue.
Do all you can to —^ continue.
Do your best to — ?- continue.
Will you please -^ continue ?
I beg you to -^ continue.
I should like you to -?- continue.
You are requested to -?- continue.
I think -^ you can continue.
I hope -^ you will continue.
and the thousand expressions by which we can formulate an
invitation, a counsel, an order, a recommendation, &c.
We have in the above a second example of an '' ordered con-
versation carried on by means of relative phi-ases," a con-
versation which progresses not blindly and at haphazard, but
where each step is counted and regularly marked off in the
total journey to be accomplished — a conversation where each
expression exercised passes definitely from the "debtor" to
the " creditor " side. In other terms, having given a good
classification of the relative phrases, the master and the pupil
i64 SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
know to-day, will know to-morrow, will also know in two
months, exactly what they have done and what remains for
them to do. But this is a statement of account that can never
be rendered by the teacher, however conscientious he may be,
who follows the ordinary course of lessons.
In olden days, at the end of the first week I should have
been greatly embarrassed if required to recount the number
and the kind of expressions that I had been able to give to my
pupils. I imagine that more than one of the teachers now
practising would feel the same difficulty. It is, in fact, a
zigzag course to which we are condemned by the process
termed classical — a course in which we traverse the same road
over and over again a himdred times — a course in which each
advance is annulled by a retreat, and one consequently which
never allows us to arrive at our destination. We are pleased
to hope that a thorough classification and a judicious use of
relative phrases will furnish the remedy for this vice in lan-
guage teaching, and that the professor of languages will find
therein the guiding thread of which he stands in so great
a need.
Now that the reader understands — at least we hope he does
— our manner of proceeding and the mode* of teaching the
subjective language, we will remove the relative phrase from
the place we have given to it for the occasion at the right hand
of the exercise, and we will write it once only, and as appendix,
at the foot of this exercise. We shall thus economise space
and labour in the composition, and permit the two languages
to develop freely. We ought indeed to point out that neither
the sentences which compose the exercises of our series nor
the relative expressions VThich our collection contains are
always as simple or as short as are the phrases which figure
in the preceding example. Instead of one relative phrase we
shall be able to write three or four at the foot of each exercise ;
and the teacher will deal with them, one after the other, exactly
in the manner shown in the example above. Instead of asking
a single pupil to repeat the phrase, he -will ask three or four
different pupils to do so, having at hand the material for many
such dialogues.
Moreover, this arrangement of the text permits one last
detail to be added which our first exercise lacked, to be faith-
fully represented upon paper. We have stated in a previous
A COMPLETE EXERCISE. 165
chapter that the pupil, like the teacher, should find and then
enounce "first of all" the verb of each sentence. Now, in the
text which we have presented as definitive for the exercises of
the series, the verb is found repeated at the right-hand side
of the sentence. Perhaps the reader would better follow our
course, and would better understand the economy of our lesson
if the column of verbs were placed at the left hand of the
exercise instead of being placed to the right. Let us, in his
favour, make this slight change. It is better here to subordi-
nate practical convenience to clearness of exposition.
Here, then, at least is the form under which it seems to us
that our lesson may be fully comprehended by every person of
intelligence who cares to do so. The exercise presents its
three parts, set out in three columns, and in the following
order : —
T. The verb.
2. The complete sentence.
3. The relative phrase or interlocutory sentence.
The place of the last is indicated by the letters E.ph., and
its text relegated to the foot of the exercise.
Pupil.
I wish to open the door.
To do this : Master.
walk I walk towards the door. Rph.
draw near I draw near to the door. R.ph.
get to I get to the door. K.ph.
stop I stop at the door. ll.ph.
stretch out I stretch out my arm. Kpli.
take hold I take hold of the handle. E.ph.
turn I turn the handle. R.ph.
pull I pull the door. R.ph.
moves The door moves. R.ph.
turns The door turns on its hinges. R.ph.
let go I let go the handle. R.ph.
Master. — Continue, go on — and :
1. Try to -^ pronounce well.
2. Do your best to —^ pronounce well.
3. Do your utmost to -^ pronounce well.
4. Keep trying to -^ pronounce well.
i66 SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
Our too short appendix presents only a few relative phrases,
and we have chosen by preference perfectly simple enclitics.
The motive upon which they rest is that of the pronunciation,
and the hook ( -^^ ) is a sign which we have adopted to repre-
sent the relation of these expressions with the fact to which
they apply, which they are, so to speak, " hooked upon." How-
ever few, for want of space, these expressions may be, and
therefore however little variation there may be in them, they
certainly suffice, in the first place, to give a correct idea of our
process, and, in the next place, to afford a glimpse of the use
that linguistic science may make of this element of the lan-
guage.
A language-lesson thus constructed in English is perhaps
insufficient for a decisive, peremptory demonstration of the
excellence of the new process. Presented in a foreign tongue,
this same lesson will be more striking, and certainly more con-
vincing. It is the night that makes us appreciate the day.
At the risk, therefore, of overloading our text, we will repeat
the above lesson in the eight following languages : — English,
French, German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Latin, and
Greek. We would give it also in Russian and Arabic if this
would serve any useful purpose.
The last two words of our programme (Latin and Greek)
will let loose upon us a perfect tempest from the Classicists.
'* Your system," the pure Humanists will exclaim, "may be an
excellent one for living languages, but do not touch the sacred
ark of the dead languages : you can do nothing but profane
these grand monuments." In a future chapter, entitled " Greek
and Latin," we shall suitably reply to this strange dogma.
Provisionally, and to justify to some extent our audacity, let
us remark that the linguistic process of the mother of a family
at Rome or at Athens — so at least it seems to us — must have
been exactly the same as that practised by the mother of a
family at this present day in London, in Paris, or in St.
Petersburg. And let us also emphasise, to dissipate the pious
alarm of our opponents, the statement that no phrase or ex-
pression employed by us will ever be risked — that is, fabricated
by the sole aid of the dictionary.
Our veneration and love for the ancient languages is so
profound and sincere, that we have imposed upon ourselves, in
their honour, a task which perhaps would frighten more than
ORGANISATION OF THE DEAD LANGUAGES. 167
one of the purists scandalised by our temerity — to wit, we have
dissected, sentence by sentence, the works of the principal
Greek and Latin authors. This done, in the first place, the
expressions belonging to the objective language have been
distributed in the vast pigeon-holes of our series and of our
exercises; and in the next place, the relative phrases have
been arranged in the categories to which they are called by
the classification of which we have already established the
grand outlines.
By the aid of this double work, a dead language may be
treated exactly in the same way as a living language. But
there is something further; we are enabled to present to
whoever desires it the language of whichever writer he prefers,
In our manuscripts, each sentence bears the name of its author,
with the number of the chapter and the number of th3 line.
It was, in fact, of first importance to obviate this grave objec-
tion : — " Your Latin and your Greek are made-up Latin and
made-up Greek."
We think we may make the following declaration : That
the day upon which the student has assimilated our series and
our relative phrases, Greek and Latin, he will have assimi-
lated Virgil, Cicero, Sallust, Quintillian, &c.. Homer, Hero-
dotus, Xenophon, Plato, &c., and he will be able to read and
understand these authors exactly as he understands the master-
pieces of his native tongue.
So much said, we will commence by the Latin lesson.
1 68
SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
Latin,
OSTIUM APERIO.
pergo
Ad ostium pergo.
appropincLUO
ad ostium appropinquo.
advenio
ad ostium advenio.
subsisto
ad ostium subsisto.
extendo
bracbium extendo.
apprehendo
ansam apprebendo.
torqueo
ansam torqueo.
recludo
ostium recludo.
adduco
ostium adduco.
sequitur
sequitur ostium.
vertitur
cardinibus vertitur ostium,
pando
ostium pando.
dimitto
ostii ansam dimitto.
1. Optime dictum !
Amabo ut -=- persequaris. *
Pergratum mihi feceris si —^ persequi volueris.
Placet-ne tibi -^ progredi %
2. Perge, te precor, et . . .
Conare ut -^ bene dicas.
Da operam ut -t- bene dicas.
Cave ne -?- perperam pronunties,
Te hortor ad -^ bene dicendum.
Ne parcas operse :
Tua refert ut ^^ in dies proficias.
Non te poenitebit -^ laborem insumpsisse.
4. Macte animo !
Gaudeo quod
in dies proficis.
-p- tuum assequi propositum.
I^on dubito quin -^ brevi latine locuturus sis.
Tibi sane continget
FinST LESSON IX EIGHT LANGUAGES. 169
Greek, 'ANOirn THN QTPAN.
"^Epxofiai fpxofJLai irpos rrjv dvpav.
irXrja-id^cii TrXijaid^o) ttj 6vpa.
irapa-yivopai T7apayivop.aL ttj 6vpa.
e(f)-lcrTaixai ecfyiarafiai eyyvs ttJs Ovpas.
€K-T€lV(0 €KT€LVa) Ti]V X^^P^'
((p-dTrTOfxai ((pdirrofiai rrjs Kopoavrjs.
(rrpe(f)(0 crrpecjiQ) ttjv Kopwvrjv.
dv-oiyoo dvotyo) ttjv dvpav. •
€7r-epv(o eTTcpvco rrjv Ovpav.
fi'/cei r; Ovpa e'Ud.
aTp((f)€Tai 1) 6vpa (rrp€(f)€TaL enl to7s crTpo(f)€v(n,
dcji-ir^pi d(f)Lr]pi, rrjv Kopd)VT]i/.
1. KoXXtorra fines 1
TrapaKoXS) an —^ koXoos \4yeiv.
TvapaicaXS (re —r- SiareXeli/ Xeyovra.
diareive —^ npOws Xeyeiv.
upa ye (j)ikov aoi — ^ diareXelu rbv \6yov ;
2. Aiare'ivov Xiycov, Kai . . .
aTVOTeive top \6yov . . . (Plato)
dnoTeive rrjv obov . . . {Luciciu)
ireipai — ?- 6p6ws \eyeiv.
(Tnovhaa-ov ottcos —^ aKpi^Ss Xeyrjs.
eTTtfieXov OTTCOS —^ KdXov Xeyrjs.
3. Kdpve ws oTt pdXia-Ta . . .
crol yap avpcfjepei —7- npoKOTrreiv.
ov o"oi fieTaixeXrjaei —^ Trenovria-dac.
4. Qdppei ! pr} aTTOKdpve . . .
diaTJ-pd^Tj cocrre —^ 'EXXt^i^io-ti Xakelv.
eXTTi^co —^ ae raxv o-kottov rev^ecrdai.
cf)T]p' iyoi —p- ae raxv 'EXXaSa yXcoa-a-av ^(reiv.
(ra<j)S>s oida on — ^ av raxv iXXrjvl^eiv enLaTrio-rj.
170
SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
Italian.
10) APRO LA PORTA.
vado
Vado alia porta.
mi avvicino
mi avvicino alia porta.
arrivo
arrivo alia porta.
mi fermo
mi fermo alia porta.
stendo
stendo il braccio
prendo
prendo la maniglia della porta.
giro
giro la maniglia della porta.
tiro
. tiro la porta.
cede
la porta cede.
gira
la porta gira sui suoi cardini.
lascio
lascio la maniglia della porta.
1. Bene! Benissimo !
Abbiate la bonta di —p- continuare.
Abbiate la compiacenza di -^^ continuave.
Volete voi avere la bontk di -?- continuare 1
Dimostrate cbe -^ sapete il seguito.
Fate vedere che -^ sapete la continuazione.
2. Continuate, io vi prego, e . . .
Cercate di —^ pronunziare bene.
Fate tutto il possibile per -^ pronunciare bene.
3. Studiate con zelo :
Bisogna che -7- voi facciate dei progress!.
Non vi pentirete di -^ aver lavorato.
4. Fatevi corraggio !
Arriverete ben presto a -^ sapere la lingua.
Spero che -^ voi arriverete al vostro intento.
Vi prometto che -^ in sei mesi voi saprete la lingua,
Siate sicuro che -^ in sei . . .
FIRST LESSON IN EIGHT LANGUAGES. 171
French. J'OUVRE LA PORTE.
marche
Je marche vers la porte.
m'approche
je m'approche de la porte.
arrive
j 'arrive a la porte.
m'arr§te
je m'arrete h la porte.
allonge
j'allonge le bras.
prends
je prends la poignee.
tourne
je tourne la poignee.
tire
je tire la porte'.
c5de
la porte cede.
tourne
la porte tourne sur ses gonds.
mche
je lache la poignee.
1. Tr^s bien !
Ayez la bontd de -^ continuer.
Faites-moi le plaisir de -^ continuer.
Ayez la complaisance de — ^ continuer.
Je vous prie de -^ continuer.
Montrez que -?' vous savez le reste.
2. Continuez, s'il vous plait, et . . .
Tachez de -;- bien prononcer.
Faites tous vos efforts pour -^ bien prononcer.
Faites votre possible pour -^ bien prononcer.
3. Appliquez vous :
II importe que -^ vous fassiez des progres.
Vous ne regretterez pas —^ d'avoir bien travaille.
4. Courage !
Vous parviendrez -^ a apprendre la langue en six mois.
J'espere que -^ vous atteindrez bientot le but.
Soyez certain que -^ dans six mois vous saurez parler
Fran9ais.
172
SUBJECTIVE LANGUAdE.
Spajiish.
YO) ABRO LA PUERTA.
voy
r
Voy hacia la im/erta,.
me aproximo
me aproximo /d^ la puerta.
llego
llego d la puerta.
me paro
me paro cerca de la puerta.
alargo
alargo el brazo.
tomo
tomo la empunadura.
volteo
volteo la empunadura.
halo
halo la puerta.
cede
la puerta cede.
gira
la puerta gira sobre sus gozncs,
suelto
suelto la empunadura.
I. i Muy bien !
Tenga la bondad de -^ continuar.
Hdgame el favor de -^ continuar.
i Quiere Vd. tener la bondad de -^ continuar ?
2. Continue, si me hace el favor, y . . .
Trate de -^ pronunciar bien.
Haga todo lo posible para -^^ pronunciar bien.
3. Apliquese :
Es conveniente que -^ Yd. haga progresos.
Vd. no se arrepentird de -7^ haber trabajado.
i Animo !
Vd. llegard d -^ saber pronto el idioma.
Espero que -p' Vd. sabrd la lengua en seis meses.
Os prometo que -^ Vd. sabrd la lengua en seis meses.
Este seguro que -;- Vd. sabrd la lengua en seis meses.
FIRST LESSON IN EIGHT LANGUAGES. 173
German. ICH OFFNE DIE THUR.
f^reitc ju 3^ fc^reite auf tie Xijux ju.
ndf;eve mi^ 3^ ndf)evc mid) ber Xijux.
fommc an 3c^ fomme Bei bev 2;:^ur an.
bleibe ftefjcii ^d) Bkibe fcei bee itl^ur jieljcu.
ilrccfe auiJ 3d^ jivecfe ben 5lrm aus5.
fafi"c an 3d^ fajfe ben ©viff an.
brei^e urn 3 4 ii^'^fjc i'^it ®i^iff wm.
mad^c auf 3^ ^^^^ "^^^ 3:f;i"iv auf.
giet)e an 3(^ jielje bte S^fjur Tjcran.
gibt nac^ JDie 2!()iir gibt nac^.
bre'^t fic^ 5)ie Xijux brefjt jit^ auf ben ^Uuyln.
laffe to^ 3d^ laffe ben ©rif lo^.
1. @anj rid^tigl
(geien <Sie fo gut -^ unb fa'^ren <Sic fort.
3^^un ©ic mir ben ©efatfen -^ fcrtjufaT;rcn.
2BoUen @ie fo gut fein unb -^ fortfafjven ?
2. 3^ fcitte, faf^ren @ie fort, unb . . .
fu(^en (2ie -^^ ric^tig au^jufpred^en.
ntac^en <Sie, ba§ -^ @ie rid^tig au^fprcd^cn.
bemuljen @ie ft^ -p- ri^tig au0juf)?re(^en.
t:^un @ie 3f)v 5K6gU(^j^e^, urn -^ feinen ge()(cr gu mac^en.
3. <B^a\\t jleipig :
eg liegt bir »iel baran -^ ^^ortfc^ritte ju madden.
JDu irirjl eg nid^t bereuen -^ flfcipig jlubicrt gu I;aBen.
4. gaifen ©ie SWutt) :
geirip gelingt eg 3f)ncn -?- bic (Sprad^c in fed^g SWonaten in erfernen.
ic^ l^cfff, ba§ -r^ !2ie ju 3r;rem Strecfe gelangen itjerben.
174- SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
English. I OPEN THE DOOR.
walk I walk towards the door.
draw near I draw near to the door.
get to I get to the door.
stop I stop at the door.
stretch out I stretch out my arm.
take hold I take hold of the handle.
turn I turn the handle.
pull I pull the door.
moves The door moves.
turns The door turns on its hingea
let go I let go the door handle.
1. Quite right ! Very good !
Have the kindness to —p- continue. »
Will you have the kindness to —p- continue ?
Be so good as to -^ continue.
I beg you to -7^ continue.
Let us see that -7- you know the rest.
2. Go on, please, and . . .
Try to -^ pronounce w^ell.
Endeavour to -^ pronounce well.
Do your utmost -p- to pronounce well.
3. Take pains ; work hard :
It is important that -7- you should make progress.
You will not regret -t" having worked hard.
4. Be of good cheer ! Take courage !
You will very soon be able to -^ speak English.
I hope -^ we shall soon see a good result.
You will soon succeed -^ in learning English.
Rest assured that -^ in six months you will speak English
well.
FIRST LESSON IN EIGHT LANGUAGES. 175
Noncegian, JEG AABNER DCEREN.
gaar Jeg gaar henimod Doeren.
naermer mig ^eg nsermer mig Doeren.
kommer Jeg kommer til Doeren.
standser Jeg standser ved Doeren.
udstraekker Jeg udstrsekker Armen.
tager Jeg tager Doergrebet.
dreier Jeg dreier Doergrebet cm.
trsBkker 3 eg trsekker Doeren* til mig.
giver after Doeren giver efter.
dreier sig Doeren dreier sig paa sine Hsengsler.
slipper Jeg slipper Doergrebet.
1. Meget godt !
Yser saa god —^ at fortssette.
Hav den Godhed -^ at fortsaitte.
Vil De have den Godhed -^ at fortssette.
Vis at -^ De kjender Resten.
2. Yser saa god at blive ved, og . . .
Bestrseb Dem -^ for at udtale godt.
Gjoer Deres Bedste -^ for at udtale godt.
3. Yser flittig:
Det er noedvendigt at -^ De gjocr Fremskridt.
Det vil ikke angre at -^ De har arbeidet godt.
4. Tag Mod !
Det vil lykkes Dem -^ at Isere Sproget i sex Maaneder.
Jeg haaber at —^ De vil naa Maalet.
3eg lover Dem at —^ De vil Isere Sproget paa sex Maa-
neder.
Yser forvisset om at -t^ De vil Isere Sproget paa sex Maa-
neder.
^ The Norwegian barred is replaced by os.
176 SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE
XII.
CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS UPON THE PRACTICE OF THE
RELATIVE PHRASES.
I. Remark upon our appendices — Double function of the
Relative Phrase — Its practical value.
We do not wish our system of the subjective language to
be judged alone upon the semblance of organisation presented
by the above appendices. In the first place, our limited space
does not allow any really methodical and didactic arrangement
of the matter. The relative phrase appears therein, further-
more, in an unfavourable light, and under a strange and
almost bizzare form. AVe shall appeal, therefore, from these
mutilated groups to our special treatises.
In the next place, and more especially, these expressions have
been taken, so to speak, at hazard, and solely with the view
of awakening certain reminiscences of college life. Lhomond,
to whom we several times refer, and for a reason, seems
to have had some slight idea of this subjective language.
The third part of his Grammar, in fact, — that to which he
gives the title " Latin method," — is nothing else than a small
treatise upon relative phrases. It contains some sixty of
these divided into a dozen groups. It is from these groups,
copied and recopied by the modern grammarians, that we
have borrowed the expressions which figure in our appendices.
Our intention, as every one will at once divine, was to interest
the reader by showing him with what facility our process
triumphs, in a few moments, over the difficulties which in
other days so long hindered us, and which cost us so many
efforts and so many written pages.
Our appendices furnish us with the occasion for a final and
important remark upon the inner constitution of the relative
phrase, and in particular the enclitic phrase. If examined,
the phrase, " Continue, and try to pronounce well," is found
to be composed of three distinct parts : —
1. " Continue," — the motive which is the occasion of the
relative phrase, and which serves as transition from
the words of the pupil to those of the teacher.
2. "Try to," — pure enclitic expression.
3. " Pronounce well," — another motive acting as object
or substratum to the enclitic.
MULTIPLIED FUNCTION OF RELATIVE PHRASE. 177
The same motive may thus serve two ends : it may be either
the occasion of a relative phrase, or it may be the object, the
substratum of one : —
1. Will you kindly -^ continue.
2. Continue, please — and try to -^ pronounce -well.
In the phrase (t.) the motive "continue" is the object of
the enclitic expression "will you kindly." In the phrase (2.)
"continue" is the occasion of the relative phrase "try to
pronounce well ; " and " pronounce well " is the object of the
enclitic " try to."
Owing to this double function — this double action of the
motive of the relative phrase — there is not^ a single linguistic
position that we are not able to turn round and deal with in
our own way, — not an expression nor a proverbial or other
form of words which we are not able to appropriate in the
exact shape in which the wit or popular usage of the country
may have moulded it — form, flavour, subtlety, grace, and force
all restinsr intact.
2. Correspondence of the system with the maternal process — Tlie
triumph of art — Correction of exercises — The teacher^ s poicer
doubled — The question of accent — Free students.
The objective language comes from the mouth of the pupil,
and the subjective language from the mouth of the teacher.
It is the dialogue of the mother and the child. The two
languages are, therefore, perfectly distinct ; they develop
simultaneously side by side, marching abreast without con-
fusion, exactly as in the lesson from Nature. The relative
phrase arises quite naturally, without effort, with reference
simply to the subject of the series or the manner in which it
is presented. The two languages advance, one by the other,
one in the other, one with the other. This is the faithful
reproduction of the maternal process.
The relative phrase is not an empty form, a vain and foolish
string of words ; it is the expression of a real idea, of an actual
impression or sentiment, of a real conception bearing upon
some concrete fact, like the mother's observation or the child's
reply.
Like the child, we can play with the same relative phrase
M
17S SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
the whole length of the same exercise without offending
reason, until it has penetrated our intellect, until it forms
part of our thought, and, as we have said, becomes a veritable
organ of thought. The study of the subjective expressions,
that is to say, of the most abstract, and certainly the most
arduous portion of the language, becomes, in our school,
according to our prediction, actual play — a mere game. The
grammar itself, that bugbear of childhood, becomes trans-
formed into a quasi-attractive science, inasmuch as it reveals
and explains to the scholar, day by day, the marvellous action
of the human intellect, and of the genius of the people upon the
forms of language. The relative phrase, by slipping into the
enforced interval between two consecutive sentences of a given
exercise, does not require a special period of time consecrated
to its study. You develop the series, and obtain the subjec-
tive language into the bargain.
Far from standing in the way of the objective language, the
relative phrase renders it firmer by adding to the movement
of the facts that of the life of the spirit. Vocabularies and
treatises upon pronunciation play no part in our instruction.
Here is a still greater correspondence between our system and
the maternal process. No intermediary comes between the
words and the perception of the thought. These two identify
themselves, and arrive simultaneously at the ear, and are
thence transmitted to the understanding before being beheld
by the eye or being translated by the hand,^ — in other words,
before being subjected to the artificial processess of reading
and of writing.
Upon all these points our process is in exact correspondence
with that of Nature. But there is an additional feature which
makes of our system an art, and consequently endows it with
an incontestable superiority. Our series have a precision
which is necessarily lacking to the natural series, and our
exercises offer a richness of development which cannot be
expected of those of the child's nurse. The order of succes-
sion and the co-ordination of the series are themselves
reasoned out, while the child progresses more or less by
chance, and often lingers long of necessity upon the same
order of facts.
With regard to the subjective language, our school delivers
it ready organised to the pupil. In Nature it is a slow-growing
THE CORKECTION OF EXERCISES. 179
•fruit, which regulates its maturity by that of the cliikl. In six
months our scholar can learn as much, and more, of the sub-
jective language than could be learnt in six years outside the
school.
The child has, however, an advantage which it is right to
mention. Its ear is more tender, more sensitive, more impres-
sionable. The sounds are engraved upon it with greater force
and greater rapidity. But the more tempered will of the
adult, a more continuous attention, and a more developed
perseverance, these compensate, and more than compensate,
for the privilege of early childhood. While conforming, there-
fore, to the prescriptions of Nature, we can do better, and
teach more rapidlj^, than Nature herself. And is not the
" conquest of Nature " the true field of art ?
There is one duty which at present wastes the strength and
the time of teachers of language ; we mean the correction of
exercises. Has it been fully realised that the ordinary pro-
ceeding condemns the conscientious professor to decipher a
manuscript of more than 3000 pages a month, of more than
30,000 pages a year? Our method does away entirely w^ith
this long and painful labour, by rendering it absolutely useless.
Upon w^hat, I would ask, could a correction be made in our
system ? Where is the work which is not corrected ten times
over before the end of the lesson ? And where is the correc-
tion that a bright scholar could not make for himself ? Is his
oral lesson, think you, not perfect ? And if he is not sure of
the written reproduction, he has before him a faithful mirror,
which will point out his mistakes to him more certainly than
the -most attentive professor, — his printed exercise.
A correction can be of no profit except to him who seeks to
find out his faults. In our opinion, man should early begin
to judge himself. Now this exercise, both moral and pedagogic,
is within the reach of whosoever possesses, as in our system, a
settled rule and a definite model. To deliver the teacher from
the overwhelming drudgery of the correction of exercises is to
increase his power tenfold ; to increase tenfold the power of the
teacher is tenfold to enlarge the field of study and the know-
ledge of the pupil.
When a native of any country takes upon himself to give a
course of lessons in a foreign language, it is not long before he
begins to hear behind his back discouraging remarks against
his teaching. Were he the first philologist of his time, were
I So SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE.
be able to speak the language be teacbes with greater eleganco
than any person, no matter wbo, in the country where this
language is spoken, it would still be said his accent was not
pure, and a foreign teacher will always be preferred.
Is it necessary thus always to recruit the ranks of our
schoolmasters from foreign nations ? Of this grave problem
the system generally in use well knows it has no solution.
Our system appears more happy in this respect. By its
means the teaching of languages may become frankly, ex-
clusiv^ely national, while yet challenging the severest criticism,
and this privilege it owes to the organisation of the lessons
upon the basis of the relative phrase.
In fact, arranged and conducted as we have set forth, the
lesson is not only accessible to the willing student, but he
finds himself in the position of being able to teach it just so
soon as he has elaborated it himself. If desired, we can open
our classes to adult foreigners, to which *' hospites,'' as we may
term them, we should confide in our " ordered conversations "
the exercise and the bandying about of the relative phrase.
In this manner a teacher of the pupil's own nationality
can lead his class without fear and without reproach, having
in his class and ready to his hand the foreign accent, and that
a selected one. As to the ** hospites" we are quite sure
hundreds of applications would be received from foreigners
ready enough to learn our own language under such conditions.
3. A declaration hy a Minister of Education — Tlie keystone
of the edifice.
One of the French Ministers'^ said some time back, speaking
of the teaching of languages, that what was necessary was to
seek some means, not of making the whole class of children
sit still on the school-benches, but, on the other hand, of
putting them to work, and of utilising the unconquerable
need of movement of childhood upon the side of instruction ;
that the means should be found not of imposing silence upon
a class, but rather of requiring them all to speak. ^ Possibly
^ M. Jules Simon (Trans.).
2 This principle has long been acknowledged and its practice attempted
in the Kindergarten schools with much success in stimulating the intelli-
gence and utilising the energies of the pupils. The present system advances
a serious argument while indicating the means for the application of such
a system to more advanced scholars (Trans,).
THE TWO CURRENTS OF LANGUAGE. i8i
we have partly solved this problem. If we have had this
good fortune, we owe it entirely to the discovery of the relative
phrase.
The system of the relative phrases forms the keystone
of our linguistic edifice. Without this, our method would re-
main barren of what may be termed " the moral element " of
language. All language moves between two poles and upon
two distinct currents. The two poles are external nature and
the human soul — the non-Ego and the Ego. The two currents
are the indefinite succession of tangible phenomena, and the
permanent play of the faculties of the mind.
A language is the complex expression of these two kinds
of facts. Our series correspond with one of these, and our
relative phrases or interlocutory sentences t6 the other. The
swallow builds its nest by mixing its saliva with clay ; man
builds up his language by allying the expression of the
development of his mind to that of the movement of matter.
One is the dough, the other the yeast.
i82 FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.
XIIT.
OBJECT OF THIS STUDY TWO PROBLEMS TO BE SOLVED.
Above the objective language, alongside and often at the
Heart of the subjective language, appears a third, the "figura-
tive language." As its name indicates, it is not at all an
original language; it is the language proper — the objective
language — put to the service of the abstract ideas or concep-
tions of mankind, and lending thereto, if not a body, at least
an appearance, a figure.
*' I fall into the river," — is objective language.
*' I fall into error," — is figurative language.
The second is visibly grafted upon the first.
Unfortunately, pedagogic science hardly separates at all
these two languages, and teaches them mingled together
pell-mell, just as the book happens to be printed, without
rule, without method. Abstraction is a natural product of
the human mind ; therefore the metaphor, which is its form
or its expression, deserves, as such, to be taken into considera-
tion by linguistic science, and made the object of a somewhat
serious study. Not only should this science instruct the
scholar upon the character, properties, and usage of this im-
portant part of language, but it should also deliver humanity
from many errors and disastrous myths, which have often no
other root and no other nourishment than a vain symbolism.
The work we are here asking for has nothing in common
with the treatises which used to be imposed upon us under
the name of " figures of rhetoric." It is not, so to speak, the
customary name by which a garment is known which we are
in need of, but the secret of its shape and an harmonious
adaptation to the conception it is called upon to clothe. The
fanciful names of the rhetoricians no more represent the
science of figurative language than the common nomencla-
ture of the stars and constellations represent the science of
astronomy.
TWO PROBLEMS TO BE SOLVED. 183
The treatise which we have in mind should reveal to us the
intimate relationships that the symbol bears to the abstract
idea or conception which it is desired to translate. Without
this previous study, the question of a rational system of teach-
ing the figurative language cannot even be distinctly put.
One is evidently the corollary of the other. Before storing
the harvest in the granary, we must first gather the wheat
into sheaves.
Linguistic science finds itself once more face to face with
the two problems it has already had to solve with reference
to the objective and the subjective language, namely —
1. To set in order the material of the figurative language.
2. To discover a rational process for teaching it.
These two chapters are neither so long. nor so complicated
as the previous chapters. In the first, indeed, we ought to
set ourselves, not to distribute the entirety of the figurative
language into its various categories, but simply to discover a
principle which might preside over the arrangement in order
of this last portion of the language ; and the second problem
will be solved as soon as we have discovered a logical means
of attaching the metaphorical lessons to our series lessons.
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. / /
An Attempt at Organisatiox
XIV.
METAPHORICAL THEMES.
I. Origin of the metaphor — Its constituent elements — •
Its definition.
To set the material of the figurative language in order, we
need, as we have said, a principle. This principle must be
drawn from the very source of the metaphor itself — must be
deduced from the function proper to the metaphor. It will
most certainly be brought forth fiom a rigorous definition of
i84 FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.
this form of language. Let us try to trace back the metaplior
to its origin.
The human mind, as we have seen in the episode of the
mill, cannot dwell long upon a pure perception. In the mind,
every perception tends to become metamorphosed into a con-
ception. This is because, in order to assimilate an item of
knowledge, it is necessary to transform it, exactly as the
stomach transforms the food destined to nourish the body.
This work, this intellectual operation, is known under the
name of generalisation. To generalise, is to. pass fropi a per-
ception to a conception ; it is to raise the perception of the
individual thing to the conception of the species or the kind ;
it is to pass from the actual and ephemeral fact to the concep-
tion of a constant and eternal fact ; it is to cross the space which
separates the contingent from the necessary, the variable from
the absolute. The mind is the sense of the immutable, of the
eternal, the crucible in which is elaborated and secreted these
supreme forms of thought, the energy which transfigures every
perception and makes thereof a " supernatural" product.
The perception of two or thiee imperfections of character
enables us to sketch out, if not to constitute, the idea or the
general conception of " vice," as the perception of several good
qualities suffices for us to sketch out the idea or the general
conception of " virtue."
There is the possibility, however, of establishing two cate-
gories of abstract ideas. The general conception of a " mill,"
for instance, is essentially distinguished from the general idea
of " virtue." If we reflect, it is seen that their difference is
derived from the difference of their origin. In fact, the first
is born of the perception of an objective fact, while the second
arises from the perception of a subjective fact. Although they
are both, and from the same reason, direct products of abstrac-
tion, it is the last which bears exclusively the name " abstract
idea."
The general idea of a mill being nothing more than the
primitive perception in miniature, an extract, a kind of
quintessence of this perception, is expressed naturall}^ by the
terms which translate the perception itself. From this it is
seen that the figurative language is not made for this class of
conception. The abstract idea, properly so called, is found
under other conditions. A direct product of the perception of
ORIGIN OF THE METAPHOR. 185
subjective fact, it lias absolutely nothing of reality except as
regarded in the mind ; it is, indeed, for the mind that the
word " immaterial " has been coined. The abstract idea is
essentially immaterial — one might almost say, chimerical.
The terms which translate perception — that is, the real —
are therefore found to be as improper as they are impotent
to render these kinds of ideas.
Nevertheless the abstract idea is a product which deserves,
as much as the perception, to figure in the commerce of minds.
But a conception is only capable of transmission on the con-
dition of being embodied in a tangible form. Where, then,
are we to find a tangible form elsewhere than in the objective
language ? The mind will, therefore, be reduced to choose in
the external world the phenomena which a'ppear to it to have
the greatest analogy with its abstract conceptions. Then,
transporting the expressions proper to these phenomena into
the superior region of abstraction, it will adapt them to its
general conceptions.
If an abyss, for instance, appears to us to have certain
resemblances to our general conception of error, we shall
adapt to this conception the terms used for the abyss, and
if "to fall into an abyss" is said, we shall also say, meta-
phorically, "to fall into error." Another time we may per-
ceive a resemblance between error and a weed. We shall
transfer in the same way to error the terms proper to the
weed ; and because we say " to uproot a weed," we shall con-
sider ourselves authorised to say "to uproot an error." To
thus transfer to some conception a term expressly made for
a perception is to talk by metaphor. Note, in passing, that
the word metaphor (jULcrd-cfispu) is found to be the precise
definition of the intellectual operation which it expresses.
But, it will be said, how can the immaterial be represented
by the material, the subjective by the objective ? And again :
wherever there is metaphor there is necessarily comparison.
How is it possible to compare facts which are not of the same
kind ? These two objections appear well founded, and as such
deserve a reply.
We would remark, in the first place, that the metaphor is
a linguistic form which can never be adequate to its object.
It reveals it, manifests it, but cannot express it. It is a
variable which approaches more or less its limit, but never
attains it.
1 86 riGURATIVE LANGUAGE.
"To fall into an abyss" is the direct, immediate, and
adequate expression of an objective fact.
"To fall into error" is the indirect, mediate, and inten-
tionally symbolic expression of a subjective fact.
We would, in the second place, observe that the abstract
idea of "error" is a generalised conception of the mind, and
that the word " abyss " equally represents a generalised con-
ception. Therefore, upon this ground, our two facts are of
the same nature. From this it results that they are com-
parable together, so that, in a given case, the one may logically
serve as symbol for the other.
By the light of this theory upon abstract ideas it is easy
to determine the essential elements of every metaphorical
expression. Let us analyse, for instance, the locution, "to
uproot an error."
We find therein —
1. An abstract idea represented by the word "error."
2. A symbol unexpressed (that of a "weed"), but clearly
indicated by the verb " to uproot."
3. A secret comparison between the abstract idea and the
symbol.
4. The tacit identification of the idea with the symbol.
Such a simple conclusion at the end of an almost laborious
investigation may perhaps recall to the reader the mons
parturiens of the fable. But this disproportion between the
end and the means is inherent in the solution of every psycho-
logical problem. In the intellectual field the slightest fact
cannot be thoroughly established without relatively consider-
able developments.
2. Ordinary symholism — Constrtidion of the metaxihorical
themes.
The principle which we need to set in order the material
of the figurative language should, and in fact does, spring
from the preceding study or analysis. This principle may be
formulated thus : — " The abstract ideas of mankind are not
embodied in forms proper to themselves ; they are manifested
by the means of symbols taken from the external world, and
therefore borrow their expression from the objective language."
From this piinciple it is easy to deduce the process to be
followed for distributing in natural groups the general mate-
ORDINARY SYMBOLISM 187
rial of the figurative language. First, the list of the abstract
ideas of mankind will be drawn up. The most elementary of
dictionaries will contain their names ; they will be collected
from these. This done, they will be grouped into classes and
families. Under the heading of " Virtue," for example, all the
good qualities will be united ; under the heading " Vice," the
names of all the bad qualities will be placed, and so for the
rest. We must warn the reader that the number of general
abstract ideas is relatively quite small. It will certainly be
impossible to discover more than fifty species.
When the groups have been constituted, the research will
be commenced upon the symbols which relate thereto — those
which the custom or the genius of the nation has consecrated.
The same species may have several symbols. It is thus that
the symbol of the abyss and of the harmful plant equally fit
the abstract conception of error, as we can say both " to fall
into " error, and " to uproot " error.
But what wiU yield us the symbolism of a people ? How
and where are we to find the various symbols destined for
one and the same class of abstract ideas. The solution of
this problem is perfectly simple.
Suppose we have given the general abstract idea of "vice."
I open at this word the best dictionary at command, the last
published, that, consequently, which includes all the others.
If this dictionary is a good one, it will present a special para-
graph, in which are gathered together, firstly, all the ordinary
metaphors consecrated by usage to the abstract idea of vice,
and secondly, those metaphors special to the great writers — •
new and original metaphors, as a rule, not very numerous.
We shall find, for example, amongst them the following, which
are set down at hazard : —
To leave vice. To repress vice.
To fall into vice. To hate vice.
To turn away from vice. To fly from vice.
To become abandoned to vice. To cast one's self into vice.
To yield one's self to vice. To be ruled by vice.
To withdraw from vice. To remain in vice.
To plunge into vice. To stagnate in vice.
To wallow in vice. To come out of vice.
To uproot vice. To extirpate vice.
To renounce vice. To propagate vica
To shake off vice. &c., &c.
1 88 FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.
Amongst these expressions we have chosen two which seem
to be more particularly suitable for casting light upon the
process in question ; these are the expressions already men-
tioned : —
To fall into vice.
To uproot vice.
The two verbs, "to fall into" and "to uproot," clearly
indicate that the popular imagination sees wickedness some-
times under the form of a miry abyss, sometimes under the
form of a poisonous weed.
From the first symbol evidently come the expressions —
To fall into vice. To remain in vice.
To plunge into vice. To stagnate in vice.
To wallow in vice. <fec., &c.
and those also that translate a movement away from " vice " : — •
To tear one's self from vice. To escape from vice.
To turn away from vice. To fly from vice.
To withdraw from vice. &c., &c.
Considered in their totality, these locutions may provide the
material for an exercise, or a fragment of an exercise, which
we term "metaphorical theme." Moreover, the various parts
of this double picture, resting upon a perfectly determinate
objective fact, are capable of being set in order, and organised
upon the model of the exercises in our series.
From the second symbol (weed) are derived the expres-
sions —
To uproot vice. Vice germinates.
To extirpate vice. Vice takes root.
To propagate vice. &c., &c.
By setting these latter expressions in order around the
symbol from which they arise, we shall obtain a second meta-
phorical theme analogous to the first.
In this way may be determined, one after the other, the
various symbols under which the popular imagination repre-
sents the abstract idea of vice or wickedness. In the same
way, the symbols of all the other abstract ideas of which
the human mind is capable will be determined. The same
symbol will serve for all the ideas of one group, and each
METAPHORICAL EXEGESIS. 189
symbol will furnish the occasion and the material of a meta-
phorical theme.
We have attempted to do this with the greatest works in
those languages with which we are acquainted ; and here
again let us render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's.
On two occasions the dictionary has rendered us the greatest
service : the first time for gathering together and forming
into a system the subjective language — the relative phrases ;
and a second time, for an attempt upon the metaphorical
language.
There exists a second means, an indirect means, of reconsti-
tuting the symbolism proper to the genius of each language,
or rather of each nation. This process — certainly more
instructive and more attractive than the cold-blooded study
of national dictionaries, but less expeditious — would consist
in gleaning, one by one, the metaphors contained in the lite-
rary masterpieces of each tongue.
By the aid of this metaphorical exegesis, the symbolism
and the figurative language of each work or of each writer
might be gathered together and set in order. In a future
chapter (Method of Heading, Translating, and Assimilating
Classical Works) we shall indicate the practical means of carry-
ing out this important part of our labour.
FIGURATIVE LAKGUAGE.
The Art of Teaching Metaphors.
XV.
TWO KINDS OF rROCESSES.
I. Intrinsic rank of the figurative language — Hoic assimilated
in ordinary life — TJie part remaining to he done hy Art.
The figurative language represents the last linguistic con-
quest of man. Abandoned to his own resources, the child
achieves it but slowly. Many persons only practise it acci-
dentally, we might almost say that some never possess it.
190 FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.
This fact is the condemnation of a legion of books written for
the use of children, and which contain more metaphors than
the most misty treatise upon metaphysics.
The figurative language cannot be taught — and therefore no
attempt must be made to teach it — until after the language,
proper or objective, has been learned. To follow a different
course, as at present practised in most schools where the
metaphysics of the sacred books comes before all the rest, is to
begin the edifice by the ridge of the roof, to try to force the fruit
before the bud. Worse than this, it is to accustom the child
to take the effect for the cause, the shadow for the reality,
the false for the true. In short, it is to teach him the art
of deceiving himself — we might even say, the art of stupefying
himself. The question of the order to be followed in the
teaching of the three parts of language is therefore not one
of pedagogic science alone — it is one of morality.
The figurative language should be engrafted, as we have
said, upon the objective language. Now, before thinking of
inserting a graft, we must possess a subject capable of support-
ing it. For instance, the child who has never seen a plant
either uprooted or propagated will certainly not be able to
understand the metaphorical expressions —
To uproot vice.
To propagate an error.
This is perfectly evident. Therefore, before teaching a
metaphorical theme, we shall wait until the pupil thoroughly
knows that series in which the symbolic fact serving as basis
to this theme has been developed. Nothing is so vague as
a metaphor ; nothing is so light, vaporous, subtle, unstable,
mobile, as this flower of language. We know only one means
of fixing it in the memory : this is to link, knowingly and
resolutely, the abstract idea to its symbol.
Between the objective and the figurative language is a per-
fectly natural transition stage — the subjective language. It
will be observed, indeed, that a very large number of relative
phrases include a metaphor, and that many metaphors are at
the same time relative phrases.
To take courage, To woik with redoubled zeal.
To lose patience, To hit the mark,
To take pains, &c. &c.
METAPHORICAL THEMES. 191
these are expressions which assuredly represent metaphors;
but under this other form —
Take courage ! Work with redoubled zeal.
Do not lose your patience ! You will attain your aim.
Take pains ! &c., &c.
they may play, if desired, the part of relative phrases.
In reality it is in great measure by the channel of the
relative phrase that Nature transmits to each of us what
figurative language we have at our disposal for the translation
of our abstract ideas. We will even say Nature cannot do
otherwise. Coming from such a teacher, the process cannot
but be irreproachable, and it would be foolhardy either to
disdain it, or to apply it otherwise than does Nature. It is
therefore to the relative phrase that we shall, first of all,
have recourse to transmit to our pupils the part of the figura-
tive language that can be given to them in this way.
Nevertheless, it must be permitted to Art, here as elsewhere,
to do better and more rapidly than Nature. In the first place,
in yielding to us, by the process we have just described, the
metaphorical expressions. Nature neglected to reveal to us
the hidden symbols from whence these expressions arise. In
the next place, these expressions strike our ears more or less
irregularly and somewhat at hazard; and here assuredly is
one of the reasons which cause the figurative language to
remain all our life less familiar and more rebellious to the
thought than the objective language. Lastly, and above all,
whoever receives a metaphor wrapped up within a relative
phrase assimilates this metaphor unwittingly. Now a treasure
whose existence is not known is no longer a treasure.^ There-
fore there still remains something for Art to do.
If it can make mankind assimilate consciously the figurative
language after having assimilated it unconsciously ; if it can
make this assimilation take place regularly and methodically ;
if, in fine, it can cause this last part of the language to be
attached logically and harmoniously to the two others and to
form with them a homogeneous whole, then Art will have
^ The absence of conscious knowledge of the root of the metaphor, and
the employment of figurative expressions as simple "relative phrases," is, of
course, the cause of the use of mixed metaphors by unskilled rhetoricians
(Trans.)
192 FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.
done what Nature does not accomplish, and cannot accomplish
other than roughly ; that is, Art will have conquered Nature.
And Art can do this.
Our metaphorical themes will first make plain the unnamed
symbols from which they borrow their development ; then the
diverse pieces of these themes will be set in order and orga-
nised in the direction indicated by the nature of the symbolic
fact itself. It therefore only remains to discover between the
figurative language and the objective language a natural rela-
tion which permits the exercises of the one to be harmoniously
allied to the exercises of the other.
To study the figurative language indeed, in itself and for
itself, separately and in the abstract, would be a perfectly
barren labour, if not an impossible one. It would be simply
to repeat our early experience with the dictionary. In the
everyday practice of life the metaphorical expressions are
mingled and interlaced continually with those of the language
proper, coming one after the other, and linked together accord-
ing to the secret dialectic of the natural facts upon which these
expressions depend. But how are we to discover the relation
which we need to carry out the synthesis of the two languages ?
How are we to determine the exact point of their junction ?
The abstract language has no origin within itself. Its
occasional cause is in the external world ; therefore its roots
reach down into the objective language. The two languages
touch, thereforfe, at certain points. If these points exist, ^reflec-
tion can discover them. Let us see if we can find them.
2. Search for a connecting link heticeen the metaphorical theme
and that of the series — Idea of dominants — Crossing and
hannonious ijrogress of the tico languages.
Every objective fact perceived by man provokes a judg-
ment on the part of his mind. This judgment is the origin of
generalised conceptions, and represents the raw material out
of which abstract ideas are made. We have already stated
and described this elementary operation, by which the under-
standing transfigures all that happens to fall within its field
of action.
But if it transfigures isolated facts, it will also transfigure
the groups of facts presenting, as in each exercise of our series,
the synthesis of an end developed by its means. The groups
METAPHORICAL THEMES. 193
of facts indeed, because they are more clearly determined,
more clearly characterised than the isolated facts, draw the
attention more forcibly, and give more strength to its judg-
ments. In other words, as the mind treats the simple fact,
so it treats the composite fact — that is, it submits the second
as it does the first to abstraction and to generalisation. And
what does it abstract 1 What product is yielded by this double
operation ? Beginning directly with the facts themselves, let
us interrogate them ; they will answer for us.
Read, or ask some one to read to you, any theme of our
series. Without your being aware of it, there will spring up
in your mind, or rather your mind will disengage therefrom,
certain feelings, mental generalisations, Which we call, and
rightly, moral conceptions or abstract ideas. For instance,
in our Series of the Shepherd, the scene that represents the
fight between two rams will certainly awaken within you the
abstract ideas or conceptions of ill-temper, of anger, of fury,
of jealousy, and of brutality. In the Series of the Bird, the
exercise which represents the father and mother feeding their
young ones with their beaks will awaken in the same way the
abstract ideas of love, tenderness, affection, devotion, &c.
These are associations of ideas which it is beyond the power
of any one to prevent, and although not formulated aloud, the
conceptions which are derived from this source are none the
less realities. " Abstract " is a qualification which may be
properly used in speaking about these products of the thought,
for they are abstracted from facts belonging to the objective
world. It is not only the above-mentioned themes and those
which resemble them that give rise to abstract ideas within
the mind; every development of an objective fact evidently
enjoys the same property. The abstract ideas flash therefrom
as the spark flashes from the flint, as the lightning from the
cloud.
Let us now try to make use of this observation, and of the
important fact that it reveals to us. Amongst the diverse
abstract ideas that the development of a theme may give rise
to in the mind, there is usually one which springs forth more
naturally than the others from the general sense of this
exercise. We will call this the "Dominant," because it
dominates the subject as a whole. It is that which flows
from it, which is deduced from it, which is disengaged the
N
194 FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.
most quickly, that into which the whole theme seems most
directly to resolve itself.
In the exercise where the shepherd's dog, at a mere sign
from his master, does his utmost to gather the scattered flock
together, what is the abstract idea which comes before all
others^ To our mind, it is not agility, nor courage, nor
promptitude, nor even zeal, but rather obedience.
The Dominant : here is the intermediary of which we were
in search ; here is the true connecting link between the objec-
tive language and the figurative language. It is upon this
dominant that the passage from one to the other will be
effected, and this without embarrassment and without difli-
culty. Suppose, for instance, an exercise having as " domi-
nant " the abstract idea which is represented by the term
"courage." We shall construct the metaphorical theme of
taking or losing courage, and we shall make it an appendix to
the primordial theme. The one will be the complement and,
as it were, the satellite of the other. It will be given as a
lesson, and studied after the first.
It has been established that our series reproduced, or might
reproduce, all the situations in which are presented either
animate or inanimate objects. It has been established, besides,
that every abstract idea proceeding at the same time from the
mind which abstracts it and from the objective world whence
it is abstracted, must perforce emerge from one or other of
the facts developed in our series. Therefore, every abstract
conception which the human mind can conceive will find
occasion of expression within the limits of our system.
And if each theme of our series receives, as we have just
indicated, a metaphorical theme as appendix, the figurative
language will progress in our school as in practical life, side
by side with the objective language. The two languages will
not overlap sentence by sentence, but they will overlap exercise
by exercise. They will none the less from this constitute a
homogeneous whole, a firm and harmonious synthesis, analogous
and pedagogically superior to that which is elaborated in the
school of Nature.
To sum up and conclude : our method offers two means of
transmitting the figurative language to the pupil, to wit, the
relative phrase and the metaphorical theme, and it employs
them both. The metaphorical theme, the logical complement
STILL ANOTHER QUESTION. 195
of the series and its crown, leaves intact both the character
and the unity of the latter, therefore modifies in nothing what-
ever the conditions and the mode of teaching it. It does not
complicate the study of the objective language lesson, it illumines
it ; it does not increase it, it does not extend the material of
work, it raises it, or, as we have said, transfigures it. Conse-
quently this appendix does not constitute an overload of work
either for the master or for the pupil. It is to the mass of
the linguistic work as the salt is to the food of the body, as
the yeast to the dough, a solvent — a solvent which, instead of
overloading the conception or the memory, aids the intellectual
digestion. Hence this deduction, a well-known and obligatory
refrain of our chapters.
"The single master who sufiices for three classes for the
study of the objective language will be sufficient also for the
teaching of the complete or integral language in its three por-
tions — objective, subjective, figurative. And each lesson which
had the virtue, after the work of assimilation, of transforming
the disciple into teacher, will continue to enjoy this extremely
important property."
XVL
STILL ANOTHER QUESTION.
Our programme is fulfilled, the triple material of language
is organised, our linguistic instrument is complete. Is there
anything lacking to our exposition of the system ? All the
secrets of the construction of the said instrument have been
revealed, as also the complex play of its mechanism. The
raw material itself, which enters into the composition of this
instrument, alone has not been studied. In other words, the
system has been established directly upon the double base of
the verb and of the sentence ; but neither the properties of
the verb nor the organism of the sentence have been dealt
with thoroughly.
" Grammar " is the ordinary name for this study. When
nnd how, in our system, will the grammar be dealt with and
then practised 1 This is the important question we have next
to answer.
196 GRAMMAR.
PART TH I RD^
GRAMMAR /rP /" f ^ ^^.
I.
TWO OPINIONS UPON THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF GRAMMAR.
Considered as a means of studying languages, grammar, nt
the present time, is the object of two absolutely contradictory
judgments. The one says : — The child proves to us every day
that a language can be learnt perfectly without knowing
grammar; therefore the grammar is useless, if not harmful,
for the practical study of languages. The other says : — To
learn a language is to learn words and to construct sentences ;
now this construction is subject to certain rules : therefore
before all else it is necessary to study these rules. Which of
these two judgments is wrong? which is right %
To our mind, both are well founded, and it is by reason of
this that they are reconcilable. The reconciliation must take
place upon the basis of a grammatical reform — a reform in
theory, but above all a reform in practice.
Long before going to school the child uses grammar, and I
assure you good grammar. He declines and conjugates ; he
uses the genders and numbers ; he makes the verbs agree with
their subjects ; he determines, bends to his use, and adjusts
certain direct or indirect complements long before he is
assisted by a grammar. There is therefore a natural gram-
matical teaching, as there is a natural linguistic teaching.
The science of pedagogy must seek to be inspired by the one
as it should be inspired by the other, and the artificial process
ceasing to be in itself in contradiction to that of Mature, our
two contradictory judgments will evidently become reconciled.
But how are we to formulate the natural grammar, nnd
how are we to apply it? If our linguistic system is really
constructed upon the model of that of Nature, it ought to lend
itself with the greatest ease to this new enterprise. We may
attempt the task, and by basing it upon our system.
TWO OPINIONS UPON GRAMMAR. 197
11.
DEFINITION AND DIVISION.
The various terms or elements which constitute "speech "
or translate thought are subject amongst themselves to cer-
tain relationships, these relationships being determined by the
work of the intellectual conception. The study of these rela-
tionships is termed " Grammar." They may be studied in
two different ways. They may be studied in themselves and
without connecting them with their determining cause, the
mind ; or they may be studied by starting from the mind to
arrive at the form of speech. The first process gives a gram-
mar which we might term "experimental;" the second leads
to a grammar which is " rational." The first is multiple, that
is to say, which varies with every tongue ; the second is uni-
versal, that is to say, fits equally well all languages ; it aspires
to be one, as the human mind is one.
We have to choose between these two systems. We make
choice, evidently and necessarily, of the second. The first
process is suited to those who as yet know not, but seek. It
is not suitable to a master who teaches, the first condition for
teaching being to know. The second process, the only one
truly pedagogic, proposes nothing less than the " unification
of grammar." The psychologist-grammarian should determine
the whole of the grammatical conceptions of the human mind,
and from them draw up a well-thought-out series of questions,
to which each language must be made to reply. This would
be the ordinary teaching reversed. The latter, indeed, leaves
the languages to set us their enigmas entirely at the chance of
the teachers' fancy or that of their grammarians. In the
system which we seek to establish, it will be ourselves who set
the questions to the language. Instead of going uphill, we
should thus go downhill, an infinitely less painful labour, and
one which would lead us surely and in a short time to the
knowledge of no matter what grammar. The prize is indeed
worthy the pains. We will attempt to open up the path.
The practical study of grammar may be included under
three heads : —
1. The study of the verb.
2. The study of the sentence.
3. The study of the moods and their expression.
198 GRAMMAR.
The order to be followed is indicated. The study of the
expression of the moods presupposes the knowledge of the
simple sentence, and the study of the sentence presupposes
the knowledge of the verb. We shall, therefore, begin by the
study of the verb ; we shall continue by the study of the sen-
tence or syntax, and shall finish by the modal expressions.
STUDY OF THE YERB.
Exercises in the Conjugations ( First Wee k). L/^^-2,
111. ' "/
indicative (present acts).
We will again take our theme, " I open the door," and we
will suppose the course of language-lessons to commence by
this exercise. When it has been elaborated for the time re-
quired before the class and afterwards by the class themselves,
we have stated that it is absolutely necessary to afford the
class a rest, a relaxation, or rather a diversion, which shall be
of profit to the intellectual effort by completing it and rendering
it fertile, and this diversion we consider we have found in the
act of writing out the exercise studied.
But this transcription may be done in several ways; it
should, indeed, be varied with the varying aptitudes of the
pupils. We give it first of all the form of a grammatical
exercise.
I. First Exercise.
The pupil will write down the verb only, and this upon his
slate, conjugating it in what is termed " the present indica-
tive," in the present tense only, and according to a table pre-
pared by the master in which the root part of the verb or
radical is carefully separated from the variable part or the
termination. We will present our examples in three living
languages and one dead language : —
I. I walk we walk
thou walk est you walk
he walk s they walk
STUDY OF THE VERB. 199
2. je march e nous march ons
tu march es vous march ez
il march e ils march ent
3. ich schreit e wir schreifc en
du schreit eist ihr schreit et
er schreit et sie schreit en
4. perg o perg imus
perg is perg itis
perg it perg unt
The pupil will conjugate in this way, in the language
studied, the whole of the verbs of the first oral exercise, the
whole of this work constituting the first grammatical lesson.
A second oral exercise will be followed by a second "verbal"
exercise, the third by a third, and so on. It is, of course,
unnecessary to say that these exercises are only written by
the pupil after they have been treated orally by the teacher.
The verbal forms must, like all the others, be spoken first of
all, and strike the ear before being presented to the eye or the
hand. We have too often and too strongly insisted upon this
principle and iTpon its consequences, for any further insistance
to be necessary.
2. Second Exercise,
The verb will not be conjugated alone and in an abstract
fashion, but rather with its subjects and its complements ; and
above all, the mistake must never be made of enumerating
the terminations alone, but the termination must be connected
to its radical : —
1. I walk towards the door,
thou walkest towards the door,
he walks towards the door.
we walk towards the door,
you walk towards the door,
they walk towards the door.
2. Je marche vers la porte.
tu marches vers la porte.
il marche vers la porte.
nous marchons vers la porte.
vous marchez vers la porte.
ils marchent vers la porte
2CX) GEAMMAE.
3. Ich schreite auf die Thlir zu.
du schreitest auf die Thiir zu.
er schreitet auf die Tliiir zu.
wir schreiten auf die Thiir zu.
ihr schreitet auf die Thiir zu.
sie schreiten auf die Thiir zu.
4. Ad portam pergo.
ad portam pergis.
ad portam pergit.
ad portam pergimus.
ad portam pergitis.
ad poitam pergunt.
This second exercise still presents something abstract and
factitious. We have already pointed out how pernicious in
the study of languages is abstraction. It is, therefore, most
important to hasten as quickly as possible to the concrete,
the reaL
3. Third Exercise.
The sentences will no longer be conjugated separately and
isolated from each other, but the whole exercise will be put,
for example, into the second person.
1. Thou walkest towards the door,
thou drawest near to the door,
thou arrivest at the door,
thou, &c.
2. Tu marches vers la porte.
tu t'approches de la porte.
tu arrives a la porte.
tu, &c.
3. Du schreitest auf die Thtir zu.
du naherest dich der Thiir
du kommst bei der ThUr an.
du, &c.
4. Ad portam pergis.
ad portam accedis.
ad portam advenis.
ad portam, &c.
PEESENT ACTS. 201
Here all abstraction will have disappeared if the pupil
imagines the action described to be performed by one of his
school-fellows, in whom he can see, at will, either a second or
a third person. Needless to say, this exercise can be equally
well spoken in the plural as in the singular.
1. We walk towards the door,
we draw near to the door,
we come to the door.
we, &c.
2. Nous marchons vers la porte.
nous nous approchons de la porte.
jious arrivon^ a la porte.
nous, &c.
3. Wir schreiten auf die Thiir zu.
wir nahern uns der Thiir.
wir kommen bei der Thiir an.
wir, &c.
4. Ad portam pergimus.
ad portam accedimus.
ad portam advenimus.
ad portam, &c.
As we have dealt with the exercise of the door, so we should
deal with each exercise of the series developed in the course of
the week. This will comprise the grammatical work for the
first few days. Simple and elementary as this first operation
is or seems to be, it deserves an attentive examination. We
will discuss it before proceeding to the second week's exercise.
IV.
CRITICAL EXAMINATION OP THE PROCESS.
I. Properties of our exercise in verbs.
We begin at once the study of the conjugations from the
first series and with the very first lesson ; and it is the method
itself which calls for and requires this evolution, while the
linguistic theme serves us admirably as grammatical theme
202 GRAMMAR
also. Furthermore, owing to the nature and the organisation
of our exercises, we conjugate one after the other some fifteen
or twenty verbs, without allowing any one of them to appear
under the form of an abstraction. Few books, assuredly, can
offer this advantage : "to force the pupil to think of an actual
thing, to represent real facts while conjugating verbs."
Does this grammatical diversion, it may be asked, trouble
or fatigue the pupils ? All that we can say is, that it always
has the advantage of amusing ours. But the irregular verbs !
some one will exclaim. The irregular verbs, by our process,
far from frightening the child, interest him even more than
the other verbs. And this ought to be so ; for in itself the
regular verb is monotonous ; now the genius of childhood is
the enemy of monotony.
The result would evidently be quite other if, instead of giving
him at any one time two or three irregular verbs to digest, we
were to force him, as in most schools, to gorge himself with a
parcel of fifty to eighty irregular verbs, and thus in the abstract,
completely in the abstract, that is to say, stupidly. In our
exercises the irregular verb stands out from the mass of regular
verbs as black stands out from white, and for this reason im-
presses itself on the memory in characters almost ineffaceable.
For us there are no longer irregular verbs in the language, or
rather the irregular verbs, reappearing over and over again,
continually seem to be the true regular verbs.
The grammar, at the beginning at any rate, becomes there-
fore like the study of the relative phrase, a mere "game." I
hasten to add " a fertile game." It creates or awakens in the
mind of the pupil, in a few days, a new sense, " the gramma-
tical sense." Yes, a grammatical sense; this sense which you
and I possess, which everybody possesses, and by reason of
which, in the mother- tongue, we recognise intuitively and
without recourse to any grammar whether a thing is properly
spoken or not ; by which we distinguish one mood from another,
the form of one tense from the form of another tense, either
when employed by ourselves or coming from the lips of others.
To be what it should be, the grammar ought thus to pass
from the state of being in a book to that of becoming an organ
of the mind. The method which can carry out this metamor-
phosis will have deserved much from the human mind.
But is not the grammatical work mentioned premature ?
THE THIKD PERSON SINGULAR. 203
Does it respond to a real and actual need of the scholar ? In
other terms, does he learn the rules of a thing of which he
knows nothing, or, to repeat the words of Condillac, does it load
the memory of a pupil with an entirely unknown tongue 1
Does the abstract precede the concrete? Does the general
come before the particular and the individual 1
The reply to this question has already in part been made.
Was not our first consideration to avoid everything that had
the appearance of abstraction ? Have we not applied ourselves
precisely to transform the abstract into the concrete, to deal
with the general by the particular 1 Moreover, the thing which
we attempt to submit to rules is already known to the pupil ;
it is this column of verbs which we have just used to express a
series of real, actual, personal perceptions.
Lastly, the exercise put into the second or third person is
not more premature than it is at the time of the first giving of
the lesson in the first person. Language is not formed to be
employed in a solitary monologue, but, on the contrary, to bring
us into relation with the minds of others. The need of speak-
ing in the second, and above all in the third person, is perhaps
more imperious than in the first person. The child (like Julius
Caesar) speaks at first only in the third person, even when
speaking of himself : —
Bertie fell down.
Bertie hurt himself.
2. Upon the unity of the conjugation.
"We have detached from the general conjugation one of its
elements : we have isolated it and studied it separately. Are
we right in so doing ? Will not the unity of the conjugation
suffer therefrom ^ Is it not important to respect this unity 1
And does the " present indicative " form a whole in itself — a
definite, real, concrete whole ? The following is our answer : —
Consider the little child. In what mood does he, when fol-
lowing Nature's process, speak his thoughts ? Most assuredly
it is not in the venerable supine, nor in the gerundive, nor
even in the redoubtable but insecure subjunctive. He speaks
in the indicative. And would you know why ? It is because
all that he speaks about is real. Now the indicative, as its
name implies (that which '* points with the index-finger "), the
204 GKAMMAR.
indicative is the mood of the real. And in what tense does
this same child talk ? Listen to him yourself, and you will soon
notice that he hardly uses any other than the present. We
have followed the course mapped out by Nature ; therefore, if
this road leads the child to success, we need not fear to miss it
ourselves.
As to the unity of the conjugation, such as is commonly
taught, such as is found in all the grammars without excep-
tion, it is not a "unity " at all ; it is at most a table of con-
tents, and still further, a very incomplete and badly arranged
table, in spite of the plethora of bars and cross-bars amongst
which, right or wrong, the grammarians strove to quarter the
various movements of thought. It is a scaffolding which is
based upon analogies too often quite untrue. Occasionally it
is an enigma absolutely undecipherable. What, indeed, is
more difficult to understand than that which has no reason for
its existence 'i
The unity of the conjugation, such as we have all studied
at school, only exists upon paper. That which is a unity is
the container, but not the contained ; it is the page on which
the conjugation is written, but not this conjugation itself.
The unity of the latter is purely a question of size of page or
of typographic artifice. This is so true that he who studies in
one grammar often cannot understand another.
If the classical conjugation formed a veritable unity, it ought
everywhere and always to affect the same form, present the
same organism and the same organisation. The artist cannot
change according to his fancy the number or the order of the
limbs upon the creature he wishes to reproduce. But can you
quote two grammarians who completely agree upon this ques-
tion, in our opinion the most elementary ?
Such or such a form or " tense," as it is called, which one
admits as necessary, is neglected by another as useless. What
one calls ** absolute " the other treats as " relative." One
adjudges subjunctive what the other attributes to the con-
ditional, and what still another places under the heading
"optative." And, in point of fact, why is it that new gram-
mars are published continually, if there is .nothing to be
changed in the old ones? Meantime, amongst this logomachy,
what becomes, I would ask, of your unity of the conjugation ?
But suppose that a book were to appear in which the con-
THE UNITY OF THE CONJUGATION. 205
3 ligation presented an irreproachable unity. Would this table
be profitable for the study of any given language?^ Our ex-
perience authorises us to say that it would be prejudicial to
this study, and this paradox we explain in the following way.
Every intermediary between the idea and its expression hinders
the quick development of the latter. Just so long, for instance,
as in order to employ a subjunctive form, it is necessary to
remember the rule which commands it, and then to represent to
oneself the small square in the table where dwells the form of
which you are in need, you may be quite certain that you are
not in a state either to speak or to understand any other per-
son speaking in the language studied. Is not this exactly what
happens to us with Latin or Greek after ten or even twenty
years' study ? Has Latin ever been better spoken than at that
epoch in which the grammar was reduced to a few pages, or
rather to a purely oral teaching ? May we not say that the
"practical" knowledge of this tongue has varied in inverse
proportion to the thickness of the grammars ?
It is the same with speaking as it is with reading. We
only know how to read upon the day when we no longer have
need to name the letters or to preoccupy ourselves about them.
In the same way, we only know how to speak a language when
we have no further need to consult the rule, that is to say,
when, as we have said, the grammar has become an added
sense, an organ of our intelligence.
What would be the effect produced by this ideal table of
conjugations *? Evidently this table will play the part of inter-
mediary between the idea and its expression : it will hinder
the grammatical sense from being born, and will hold the
mind captive under its empire. Do not forget, moreover, that
this ideal conjugation is an acknowledged abstraction. The
mind having to struggle against two enemies at once, will
inevitably succumb.
"But," it will be objected, "you are pleading against the
conjugation ; but the verb being the principal object of gram-
mar, it is therefore grammar itself that you are attempting to
batter down." Not at all, begging your pardon, but merely
the manner in which it is taught. It is the process that
we are attacking — that process that pretends to lead to the
concrete by way of the abstract.
In the present systems, we are shown the conjugation on
2o6 GEAMMAR.
paper : the eye is taught by means of lines and bars ; we
have to strive to form therefrom a " perception," a stereotyped
view. No one seems to think of writing, not upon paper, but
upon the thought, of forming of the conjugation a " con-
ception." " But how can this be done 1 " you will ask. We
will endeavour to show.
The unity of the conjugation may be assimilated to the
unity of each of our series. The moods thereof represent
the natural chapters or divisions. The diverse forms of these
moods, so improperly called " tenses," are the themes thereof.
Each mood forms a veritable and indivisible whole — a perfect
unity; for it corresponds to a mode of existence of the mind.
But, like the theme of the series, the " tense " forms in its
turn an indivisible whole — a " unity " as perfect, but more
true and more concrete, than that of the mood itself.
The conjugation may therefore be taught as a series : theme
by theme, that is, tense by tense ; that is, form by form ; and
if the distribution of a linguistic series in various themes, far
from distraining the unity of the series, strengthens it by recall-
ing it continually to the mind, neither will the partial and suc-
cessive study of the " tenses," or time forms, prove prejudicial to
the unity of the moods ; and, for the same reasons, the unity
of the conjugation will remain intact, provided only that the
teaching proceeds rationally. The sun does not shine the less
brightly because it shines over a wider extent.
Furthermore, this unity will gain considerably both in
force and in precision : in force, as does everything which is
developed in its constituent elements ; in precision, as does
everything which passes from the general and the abstract to
the concrete.
Therefore, by studying the conjugation piece by piece and
as a series, the unity of this conjugation will not be affected.
Our proceeding is therefore justified ; we are right in teaching
each mood separately and each form separately. From this
follow three practical consequences of the very greatest im-
portance : —
I. The memory of the pupil will be relieved of the over-
whelming burden of the conjugation learnt in its totality. To
express each of his ideas, he will not need to unfold before
his imagination the extremely complex pigeon-hole arrange-
ment of this conjugation, with its forms, regular and irregular.
THE GRAMMATICAL SENSE. 207
He will have only one wheel to set in motion ; he will have
only one form to regard at any one time.
2. This form, separated from the essentially abstract system
of the conjugation, may be assimilated to the idea which it
expresses, may be made to form one body with it, and so
become stripped of all feeling of abstraction.
Thenceforward there is no intermediary between the idea
and the form — a result absolutely impossible of achievement
if a special form were forced, as in the classical process, to
remain adherent to the whole of the conjugation, and if, in
order to apply this single form, it were necessary to embrace
and set in motion the whole body of the conjugation — that
is to say, to imagine it in its totality. Riveted to an
abstract whole, this form would inevitably* remain abstract
itself.
3. Lastly, and most important, this operation will prepare
the awakening of the new sense of which we have spoken —
" the grammatical sense." The form being identified every-
where and always with the idea, it will not be long before
the pupil will apply the foreign grammar " by instinct."
3. Our process and that of nature — Awakening of the
grammatical sense — The indicative mood, the forvi of
the present tense, and the third person — The series of the
vei^h.
Let us now compare our process with that of Nature, and
see if they agree the one with the other. In the first place,
the two results thereof are identical : the child also applies
the conjugations "by instinct." Long before he has heard
of conjugations, long even before he has learned to read, the
child distinguishes perfectly well the moods and the time
forms of the verbs. Whence comes this marvellous intuition ?
We have already fully stated that, in learning the mother-
tongue, the language forms one with the perception : what the
child sees, that he speaks about directly and without inter-
mediary, and his perception in early childhood being always
that of an actual fact, he gives it the form which we know
under the name of " the present." As with our method, there-
fore, the child commences with the present. Subsequently
this form, owing to its frequency, becomes iile-ntilied naturally
with all that appears as present, and the child "instinctively"
borrows this form whenever it wishes to express anything that
2o8 GBAMMAR
it perceives as present — that is to say, this operation becomes
after a time the effect of a true " feeling " or " sense." Does
not our process equally lead to the same point ?
The child plays about a very long time upon the present ;
he expresses therewith, so to speak, the whole of his indi-
viduality before passing to another tense. Hence the excep-
tional importance of this first form. It is to the entire
conjugation what the verb is to the sentence — the soul or the
substance. In all languages, the third person of the present
tense contains in itself the complete germ of the whole verb.
And this should be so, the third person being the first form
that the child distinguishes and in which he babbles his
infantile language. As we have said already, the child at first
employs this third person even when speaking of himself —
Teddy is hungry.
The third person includes within itself the entire conjuga-
tion, which develops therefrom piece by piece accoiding to the
needs of the age or of the thought. It is in the third person
that, at the commencement, the unity of the conjugations
resides. It is not yet the unity of the oak, but it is the unity
of the acorn ; and as fast as a new form issues from it, the
mind will easily recognise this form by its appearance as be-
longing to the same whole. In this manner the conjugation
becomes a kind of " progressive " unity, which at no time
hinders or burdens the development of the various parts.
Guided by this observation, we have adopted for the ordi-
nary and constant form of our series the third person singular
of the indicative mood, present tense. Like Nature, we make
this third person the basis of our operations. We have had
the idea of sometimes taking as point of departure, instead of
the form of the present tense, that of the future or of the past
tenses, hoping by this means to advance the knowledge of
the verbs while saving time ; but we soon perceived that the
exercise lost in clearness and simplicity by so doing ; that the
assimilation took place with far greater trouble ; and lastly,
that with these forms it was not easy to ascend or re-descend
to any other. We. were forced to re-establish the verb upon
its natural basis, " the present."
The present, or rather the form of the present tense, is a
known quantity, and a constant one ; the other forms are
unknown quantities which are deduced from the one given.
THE REFORM OF GRAMMAR TEACHING. 209
Consequently, before conjugating, it is necessary to know and
possess the form of the present. Our first step is therefore
both in accordance with the prescriptions of reason and with
the lessons of Nature, properly interpreted.
4. Summary and conclusion — Grammatical teaching must he
reformed, not abolished.
To sum up the preceding considerations : the true grammar
should begin, not by the study of the substantive and of the
declensions, but by the study of the verb. The form of the
present tense will be the object of our first attempts. This
form will be conjugated not for itself — that is to say, abstractly —
but with all the complements of the verb in the senteijce given.
This grammatical diversion is a relaxation for the scholar, a
fruitful game which endows him with a new sense — the " gram-
matical sense." This exercise is not premature ; it responds
to a real and actual need. The study of the verb should be
progressive; each form should be separated from the whole
and treated in its turn. The child begins by the indicative
mood, and by the present tense of this mood ; we do likewise.
This process changes in nothing the true unity of the conju-
gation, but, on the contrary, strengthens it.
No grammarian has been able as yet to draw up the table
of the conjugation under a perfect and definite form. But
even if this ideal table could be made, it would only prove
pernicious to the study of languages, at any rate in cases
where it was applied as are the conjugations of the present
grammars. It would stand inevitably as an intermediary
between the idea and its expression, paralysing the latter,
exiling the mind into the void of abstraction, burdening the
memory with the whole weight of its general organism, stifling
the grammatical sense as a tyrant stifles liberty.
In itself everything included in the term conjugation belongs
to the abstract. Now all good teaching should strive to bring
the abstract to the concrete, the general to the particular.
Words are but signs, that is to say, in reality a pure abstrac-
tion, which abstraction is intended to lead to the perception
or the representation of a real and concrete fact. It is there-
fore wrong, radically wrong, in dealing with language, to
act upon the principle so often advocated with reference to
all and everything — " To proceed from the concrete to the
o
2IO GRAMMAR.
abstract," which renders simple things difllicult, and trans-
forms what is easily represented in the mind into tliat which
is nebulous and indefinite. It is this principle turned the
other way round which we should follow in teaching languages.
We should take the abstract and render it as concrete as pos-
sible. Our formula will thus be to proceed at once from the
abstract to the concrete, that is, to transform whatever is
abstract and render it concrete.
To attain this aim in the study of the verb we propose to
assimilate the conjugation to a series, of which the various
links, that is, the separate themes, would be what are termed
" the tenses." Each form or tense would be elaborated sepa-
rately, not in the vague form of the abstract, but upon the
actual material of our series, and until the pupil applied it
instinctively, spontaneously, intuitively. This process appears
to us to offer great advantages : —
1. The mind deals with but one form at a time, and runs
no danger of succumbing under the burden of the complete
conjugation.
2. Each form being separated from its abstract whole, be-
comes rapidly identified with the idea, the perception — becomes
embodied in it, and passes to the concrete.
3. Lastly, grammatical speech under these conditions may,
and does, promptly become an instinct; in other words, is
developed by intuition.
Compared with the process of Nature, our system will be
found to have attained the same aims by the same means.
Like the child, we begin by the indicative and the form of
the present. Like him also, we make this form the basis of
all our operations by dwelling, like him, upon the third person.
Soon, like him again, from- this third person we shall make all
the other parts of the verb which it contains in germ spring
successively forth.
Finally, the grammar of childhood is indeed a grammar of
intuition ; but this intuition — let no one be deceived upon this
point — is the result of a prodigious labour. It is no more a
gift than the ability of Henri Mondeux was a gift ; and our
method does not in reality propose any less aim than to dis-
cover, or rather to reveal, the mysterious process which creates
this intuition, and endows the human mind with its power.
Therefore, if we wish to speak a language with the surety and
INTUITION AND GRAMMAR 211
the quickness of the child, we must pass through the appren-
ticeship that he passes through. There is therefore a process
to be followed; there is something to learn, something to be
studied. We are, therefore, in accord, at least so far as regards
the basis, with those who maintain that a language cannot be
learnt without learning rules.
On the other hand, we have clearly demonstrated that there
is only one road that leads to intuition, that which goes from
the abstract to the concrete, from the general to the particular,
from the imaginary to the real. Now, whether we realise it
or not, all grammars and methods at present known lead, on
the contrary, from the concrete to the abstract, from the real
to the imaginary ; and, consistent with themselves, profess a
profound disdain for intuition, denying its efficacy, denouncing
it, and chasing it away like an evil spirit. But is not this
like seeking to make a river flow by damming up its source ?
Is not this trying to produce light by eliminating the sun ?
We find ourselves, therefore, equally in accord with those who
reprove the ordinary teaching of grammar as useless, if not
actually harmful, to the " practical " study of languages.
In itself the grammatical teaching is necessary ; but such
as is given in the schools of to-day has proved useless, nay,
even harmful, for the acquisition and the practice of languages.
Conclusion : we must not abolish the teaching of grammar ;
we must reform it.
STUDY OF THE VERB.
INDICATIVE MOOD — ACTS PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.
T. Six times or six ^periods — Definite times and indefinite times —
Moments of 'precision.
We have conjugated the verbs of our exercise, or rather
the exercise itself, in the present tense. AYe could have
212 GRAM^rAR
conjugated it, and we can conjugate it, in the same manner,
and with the same facility, in the past, in the future, and in
other tenses, if they exist. This will be the task of. the
second week. Before doing so it will be necessary to give to
the pupil a precise notion of the grammatical tenses.
Our explanation will be short and simple. We shall say to
him : —
The human mind is capable of distinguishing or perceiving,
within time in general, various " periods " or durations of
time, sharply determined as regards their length, and taken as
units, to wit, the period of a day, the period of a week, the
period of a month, the period of a year, the period of the life
of a man ; lastly, a period which comprises all the others. Time
properly so called, or Eternity. These constitute the six periods
of time, which we shall take as the basis of our grammar.
We will repeat them : — •
The period or duration of a day, this is the first period.
The period or duration of a week is a second period.
The period or duration of a month is a third period.
The period or duration of a year is a fourth period.
Time in general, or eternity, is a fifth period.
There is also the period or duration of time, not so definitely
fixed, measured by the life of a man — Charlemagne, Napoleon,
Shakespeare, yourself, myself, or any other person : this is the
sixth period.
We must be careful not to omit this last ; it is the key to
some of the greatest difficulties of the conjugations. Without
it a rational explanation of the forms of the verbs is impossible.
It is the omission of due consideration of this period or dura-
tion which is the cause of the embarrassments and mistransla-
tions of the grammarians. Why, indeed, should the duration
of the life of the person who is speaking not take its place
amongst the epochs in which he mentally places the facts
about which he is thinking 1 We must not forget that every
living individual involuntarily and inevitably considers him-
self as the centre of the world, as the substance of the universe,
and connects everything with himself.
Tliere will be, therefore, at least six periods or durations of
time. With reference to the three forms hitherto regarded as
the substance itself or the incarnation of time — the past, the
present, and the future — we shall presently state their propei
signification in grammar.
THE PERIODS OF TIME. 213
For the moment the three legendary tenses are dethroned.
What will pedantry say to this ? And how shall we be able
ourselves to justify the number six ? To the child all justifica-
tion is needless. He will understand us perfectly and at once ;
for the six periods which we have just enumerated are to him
real periods of time and not " abstractions " of time. He knows
them as well as we do ourselves ; he uses them constantly.
They form a set of pigeon-holes, always present, always open
before him, into which he is continually distributing his
remembrances, his perceptions, his thoughts. The pedagogue
will possibly be less docile ; but we will pass on ; we will try
conclusions with him later.
A " day " may be past and gone ; it is then called yesterday,
the day before yesterday, last Monday, last Tuesday, the other
day.
A day may be present ; it is then called to-day.
A day may be future, that is, still to come; it is called
to-morrow, the day after to-morrow, next Monday, next Tues-
day, &c.
Past, present, future —these words do not represent " periods
of time ; " they represent " states " of the periods of time.
What we have said of the period of a day we can also say
of the period of a week. A week may be past; it is then
called last week, the other week, two weeks ago, &c. A week
may be present, that is, still going on ; it is then called this
week. A week may be future or to come ; it is then called
next week, the coming week.
We have in the same way, last month (the month that is
past), this month or the current month, next month or the
coming month.
We have also, last year or the past year, this year or the
current year, next year or the coming year.
Time, properly so called, has only one state; it is always
present.
Here we have a nomenclature which assuredly is within the
reach of everybody's comprehension. All that is required to
understand it, is to be able to distinguish a week or a month
from a day, and to-day from to-morrow.
A day " past "—yesterday, for example — is a period of time
begun and finished, that is to say, in relation to the present
moment, limited behind and before. It is therefore *' definite "
214 GRAMMAR
(or finished), and grammar has rightly consecrated this term
thereto.
A day *' present" (to-day) is a period of time begun but not
finished. It is not, in relation to the present moment, limited
at its latter point ; consequently it is " indefinite " (unfinished).
Grammar has also consecrated this term.
What we have just said about the day applies to the week,
the month, the year. But eternity being by its nature always
present, can only be an " indefinite" (or unfinished) period of
time. In the same way, the life of any person still living
(you, me, this or that man) equally represents an "indefinite "
(or unfinished) period of time.
What difference is there between a past time and a definite
time ? In ordinary language, very often none at all. Indeed,
all time that is past may be considered as finished, and conse-
quently as *' definite." The two terms " past " and " definite "
seem therefore perfectly identical. Are they so in reality, and
ought they to be so ? No.
" Definite " is a qualificative of the period of time. " Past "
is a qualificative of the action that has taken place in Time
in general. It is the confusion of these tw^o terms which has
given rise to so many grammatical enormities, and so many
mistranslations.
Each of the before-mentioned periods of time becomes im-
posed upon us as an indivisible whole. Nevertheless, each of
them has various moments which might be called " moments
of precision." The year has its months, the month its weeks,
the week its days, the day its hours.
Last year I killed a snake.
And if I wish to be precise :
Last year, in the month of January,
I killed a snake.
Observe that this addition does not here bring with it any
change in the form of the verb. The definite (or finished)
periods of time, such as yesterday, last month, do not admit
of other divisions.
The indefinite (or unfinished) periods, such as to-day, this
week, this year, also contain the natural moments, and these
it may be important to indicate precisely, because with these
THE NATURAL GRAMMAR.
215
the form of the verb does vary. Thus, the period " to-day "
comprises five " moments," which we generally designate by
the followinsf terms : —
'Up to now (this morn-
ing, or rather that
part of to-day already
gone)
Just now
Now
Presently
This evening, to-night
ce matin
il y a un instant
(tout-a-l'heure)
k present
dans un instant
(tout-a-l'heure)
ce soir
heute Morgen.
so eben.
jetzt. ■
sogleich.
heute Abend.
*'This week" divides naturally into two parts: that which
is already fled, and that which has not yet passed. The same
division applies to this month, this year, to the individual life,
and to Time properly so called.
2. Natural association of the forms of the verbs with the
times — Tlie tense intuition.
Our pupil now possesses a clear and precise notion — and let
us hope an exact and complete one — of the grammatical times,
and of their kinds, their different states, and their various
appellations. What use will he make of this notion ? Or
rather, what use shall we make of it ourselves in order to
teach him the conjugations, and especially those of the indi-
cative mood ? Nature has solved the question ever since man
existed, or at least ever since the time he began to talk ; the
most ordinary common-sense should therefore lead us before
all else to study her processes.
And first of all, let us lay it down as a principle that if
there is a natural grammar, it must be simple — extremely
simple — from the fact that all the world over it is understood
and applied without ever having been studied. If, therefore,
we encounter in it what may be termed "simplicities," we
must not be either astonished or regretful thereat. One fact
is certain, that the most unlettered of men — let us say the
most ignorant — never makes a mistake in the time significa-
tion of his verb, — saying "went" for "has gone," — however
2i6 GRAMMAK.
quickly he may speak. This proves tliat we have here one of
the most simple of operations, one which has not the slightest
practical connection with the abstract and metaphysical views
and rules of our grammarians. If it were necessary, in order
to employ what is commonly termed the "fast indefinite," to
have present in the mind the rule laid down by such or such
grammarian who happens still to be enthroned in our schools,
we should most certainly be in danger, not only of putting a
past definite where a past indefinite should be given and vice-
vei'sd, but often of not being able to speak at all : the rule
being far from applying to all cases.
The employment of tenses, I repeat, should be, and as a
matter of fact is, an extremely simple operation. It is
this : — Every time we wish to state, not an abstract idea,
but an actual fact which takes or took place within a certain
time, ice always begin by mentioning or hy indicating this
time : —
Yesterday . . Arthur visited a friend.
Last week . . Arthur visited a friend.
Last month . . Arthur visited a friend.
Last year . . Arthur visited a friend.
Socrates . . died in prison.
When pronouncing the word " yesterday " I infallibly re-
present to myself the definite (or finished) period of time
which this word recalls, and I choose naturally the verbal
form destined and consecrated to all definite periods of time : —
I visit ed
thou visit edst
he visit ed.
I repeat, and the attention of the reader is particularly
directed to this point, never do we express a fact without
previously designating by one of the preceding terms or by
some analogous term, in which of the six "periods" of time
the fact took place. Every one can convince himself of this
by observing what himself he says. Suppress all indication
of time in the phrase above given, and it will run : —
Arthur visited a friend.
Something essential is lacking to this sentence : it is not
complete under this form; involuntarily you wonder, "When ?"
NECESSITY OF SPECIFYING THE TIME. 217
Add to it any one of the six periods, and it leaves nothing to
be desired : —
Last week Arthur visited a friend.
These six periods form, as we have said, a kind of set of
pigeon-holes (everybody has the same set) into which we dis-
tribute, not letters, but the various acts which we wish to
express, which thus find themselves categorically labelled,
that is, determined as to time.
Now transport the fact into an " indefinite" (or unfinished)
period of time ; for example, into the period "to-day." To-day
presents, as we have just said, several " moments " : —
Up to now — this morning (or rather ] r*. , •
that part of to-day which is passed), j
Just now, II y a un instant.
Now, A present.
Presently, Dans un instant.
This evening, Ce soir.
If you will notice, you will find that you never express a fact
as taking place in the time to-day without mentioning, or at
any rate tacitly indicating, which of the moments the fact
took place in.
To-day (some time up to ) j j,^^^ ^ ,^^^ ^^ ^^.^^^
now, not specined),^ J r ^
Just now, I have jnst spoken to my friend.
Now, I am speaking.
_, ., f I am firoing to speak.
Presently, 1 I shall speak.
Tl.isevening(to.day),{I-ftlak°^^^^'^°^'
These words — this morning, just now, now, presently, this
evening — express parts inseparable from the period termed
" to-day." When pronouncing each of these terms, I represent
to myself, therefore, by a well-known association of ideas, both
the indefinite (or unfinished) period of time, "to-day," in its
entirety, and a particular "moment" of this general time.
It is, therefore, exactly the same operation as for the definite
(or finished) periods of times.
^ When the exact moment is specified, the form in English is dilfertut,
(See next page) — (Trans.).
2i8 GRAMMAR.
Let us replace to-day by to-morrow When pronouncing
*' to-morrow" I represent to myself the future period of time
evoked by this word (and of which " yesterday " is the image),
and I employ naturally and spontaneously the verbal form
habitually employed for this species of period : —
I shall speak.
Thou wilt speak.
He will speak.
We ask, is there any operation of the mind more elemen-
tary, more easy to follow, than this ?
In what exactly does the intellectual operation carried out
by the man who speaks in these different tenses really consist ?
There is nothing, I fancy, more simple. He speaks not accord-
ing to an abstract rule, but according to his own conception.
He imagines to himself the time ; he sees the time, that is, the
day, or the week, or the year, &c., in which the act he wishes
to express has taken place, takes place, or will take place ; and
according as this time is a definite (or finished) time, an indefi-
nite (or unfinished) time, or a future time, he makes his choice
of the first, of the second, or of the third form above given.
The person speaking is, therefore, his own arbitrator ; his
forms relate only to his fancy. He is guided and ruled by
himself alone in defining by a word such as "yesterday" or "to-
morrow " the time in which the act happened or will happen.
Is not this the intuitive process par excellence ? If one wished
to explain what intuitive perception was, could a much better
example be chosen ?
This little word "yesterday," which the grammar disdains
or hardly perceives — this worthless word is found to be the
luminous beacon which guides in his speech the most ignorant
as well as the most learned, and the most learned as much as
the most ignorant, without ever allowing them to be led astray.
We may here open a parenthesis. The difference between
the definite periods of time and the indefinite periods of time
being thus clearly laid down, we can explain in passing various
grammatical facts upon which light has never been clearly
thrown until now. For instance, in English, when speaking
of a past act within the period of time " to-day," we may say,
and say with equal correctness —
To-day I have opened the door.
To day, at eleven o'clock, I opened the door.
DEFINITE AND INDEFINITE PERIODS. 219
Why is this ? In these two phrases has not the act taken
place in an indefinite period of time, the period of time to-day ?
and is not *' I opened the door" a form exclusively consecrated
to the definite periods of time ? Ought the verbal form to be
thus in disaccord with the time 1 Is there here what is termed
an exception to the rule? No, a true rule is susceptible of
explanations ; it cannot permit exceptions.
In the second case of the example here chosen, the moment is
more exactly defined by the words " at eleven o'clock." There
is no reason why, if we wish so to do, we should not conceive
our period of time to be shorter than a day — to be a forenoon,
an hour, even a minute. Whenever the exact moment is de-
fined, it will be found that the act is represented as taking
place in a short period of time separated from the present,
which is, therefore, a definite (or finished) period of time, and
the definite form, " I opened," is used whenever it is important
to indicate the exact moment. Whereas if the act occurs simply
in the period of to-day — some time up to now — its exact point
being of no great importance, the form " I have opened " clearly
expresses the larger unit of time "to-day." This phenomenon
(which does not occur in French) might be said to result from
the value accorded to time in England — whether the period of
an hour or of a minute — the English proverb, " Time is money,"
thus appearing even in the conjugation.^
We will quote another example, which will serve to confirm
our explanation. Some one asks you : —
" Have you read Moli^re ? " (Avez-vous lu Moliere ?)
In this phrase the indication of time seems to be lacking.
It is there nevertheless. Amongst our periods of time is that
of the life of the individual who is, or may be, the author of
the act expressed. In the foresaid example the author of the
act therein referred to is "you." The word "you" gives the
indication of the period of time. Does not " you " imply the
idea of your life or your duration of existence'? But your
life is an indefinite or unfinished period of time. The act
takes place, therefore, in an indefinite period of time, and
hence the form, " Have you read 1 " (Avez-vous lu ?), and not,
" Did you read 1 " (Mtes-vous ?).
The expression, "Did you read the Pens^es of Pascal?"
1 This paragraph, and the other English examples, pp. 225, 233-4, are
inserted by the Translators.
220 CxRAMMAR
(LMes-vous les Pens^es de Pascal?), would be incorrect stand-
ing alone, or would inadequately render your idea.
For the same reason we can say with equal correctness,
"Horace wrote an ode on this subject," and "Horace has written
an ode on this subject." The first phrase places the fact in
the life of Horace, which represents a definite period of time.
The second phrase places the fact in time properly so called,
which represents an indefinite or unfinished period of time.
In French a similar phenomenon, but in the opposite
direction to the English, takes place. In French is said, and
can be said, with the same accuracy : —
Hier, je fermai la porte.
Hier, j'ai ferme la porte.
" Hier " (yesterday) is a definite period of time, and yet " j'ai
ferm^ " is a form consecrated to the widefinite periods of time.
Here, again, who is the author of the act expressed 1 It
is the "I" or Ego. This "I" represents an indefinite or
unfinished period of time (for " I " am still living), of which
yesterday is merely a moment of precision.
The act takes place, therefore, at the same time both within
a definite period, yesterday, and in an indefinite period repre-
sented by the " I," that is to say, the duration of my life.
This, then, simply is the reason why these two expressions
are sometimes equally correct. It should be added that the
second, the most irregular in appearance, is in France and
Germany more employed than the first, which perhaps
results from the predominance in man of the perception of
the Ego. Evidently these facts and these rules may be con-
sidered as so many witnesses in favour of our system of the
"periods of time."
3. The ordinary period of time {yesterday, to-day, to-morroio,
Sfc.) — The false p)C'fiod of time of the grammars {the past,
the present, the future).
Compare the words yesterday, to-day, to-morrow, this morn-
ing, &c., with the three terms by which the grammarians have
thought fit to replace them— the past, the present, the future.
Yesterday, to-day, to-morrow, certainly represent something
to us. By them and in them time takes unto itself a body ;
of the abstract it makes itself concrete, — as concrete as is
THE PAST, THE PRESENT, THE FUTURE. 221
possible for "Time" to be : it becomes almost perceptible ; it
becomes quasi-tangible. "To-day" is not a pure idea; it is a
reality. "Yesterday" is not a chimera; it was a reality.
" To-morrow " is not a vain conception comparable to a
thought, a longing ; it is a reality — a reality which is not yet,
but which is to be.
By resting upon these realities of time, Nature remains
faithful to her constant process of " going from the abstract
to the concrete " (that is, transforming what is abstract and
rendering it concrete). Now let us weigh these three other
words — the past, the present, the future.
Every one of us, at school or at college, has read, written,
copied, and recopied, during seven or eight years, the words
"past" and "perfect." We have continually, so to speak,
articulated these words with our lips and received them with
our ears. Going to a grammar-school, is it much else, even
in our own day, than declining and conjugating ? Well, let
the cleverest of those who have conjugated so long with us
declare with sincerity whether they have seen in these words
"past" or "perfect" much else than a vain termination: —
«, isti, it, imus, istis, erunt or ere, amav-i, isti, H, imus, &c.
Who is he who has ever thought of seeing in these forms
the "time reality" which they carry: yesterday, last week,
last month, last year, the lifetime of Socrates or of Caesar 1
How is this 1 Nature conducts a thing essentially abstract
— " Time " — to concrete realities ; and the school can find
nothing better to do than to push aside these realities and
to cast the child into the void of abstraction — The Past ! The
Present ! The Future !
But do you recognise that these three words represent
abstractions to the second power? " Virtuous " is assuredly
less abstract than " virtue." The substantive always surpasses,
as regards abstractions, the corresponding adjective. To raise
the adjectives " past, present, future," to the rank of substan-
tives, and make of them "the past, the present, the future,"
is certainly to raise the abstraction to its second degree. Can
you be astonished, after this, that the most profound philo-
logist cannot, as we have so often said, accomplish in ten years
what the humblest nurse-maid does in six months ? Can you
be astonished that the child feels and retains for the study of
grammar that taste and tender affection which we all know.
222 GRAMMAR
By proceeding on the systems at present taught, by taking
that which is concrete and transforming it into abstraction
in order to teach the child, answer me, have you been walking
with Nature or against her 1 Are you going towards progress,
or are you not rather rushing into nothingness 1
4. Erroneous notions of the tenses in the grammars — Various
causes of these errors: disdain of ohservatioii, traditional
logomachy, confusion of the tense and the act, vain symmetry,
Nature carries on her work continually beneath our eyes
and in full daylight, and with a success that no one can
contest. How is it, then, we may ask, that her work and
her processes have struck no one's attention, and have re-
mained so little understood by linguists ? There are, we think,
several causes of this.
We must denounce, as the first cause, a certain contrariety
of the human mind. Man regards with disdain all that is
simple and all that is within his reach : in everything at the
beginning he prefers the longest way round. To discover the
laws of language, it does not occur to him to study the child
or the ordinary man who speaks under his very eyes, as it
did not occur to the University to study Henri Mondeux in
order to learn the art of mental calculation. The being who
speaks before us produces the effect upon us of a common and
well-known machine. To observe him, to study the secrets
of such an ordinary operation, would appear derogatory to our
dignity as a teacher. Lord preserve the scientist from seeking
the laws of language in so lowly a place ! Will not absolute
truth be found rather in the metaphysical regions of the
brain 1 It is here we must place ourselves, they think, to see
truly and see far. Tt is here we must post ourselves to have
the right of dictating rules for the languages, and of regu-
lating them with authority. So much the worse for those
languages that will not fit into these rules. It is for them to
lend themselves to reason, and not for reason to bow before them.
It is, indeed, unfortunately from these heights that the
greater part of our grammars have descended to us. We
know not a single one that is based upon the direct observa-
tion of the human mind, and of the child day by day creating
his language.
ACTS, NOT TENSES. 223
A second cause is a deplorable confusion of words conse-
crated by usage and sanctified by time — a confusion which
grammarian bequeaths to grammarian as a tradition. This
is the confusion of the time with the act that takes place in
this time.
In itself, the time has nothing in common, and can have
nothing in common with the expression of a fact, in the same
way that the expression of a fact has nothing in common
with the time. One is the container, and the other the
contents — nothing more. The act is no more the time than
the milk is the jug which it fills. The time can determine
the form of the expression as the jug fixes the form of the
liquid ; but beware of identifying these Uyo ; if you do, you
expose yourself to the error of attributing to the act that
which belongs only to the time, and to the time that which
belongs only to the act.
All the present grammars consider the tenses of indicative
mood as times ; they name them as such, and they deal with
them as such. In ordinary grammar the past definite is a
time, the past indefinite is another time; the imperfect is
also a time, and the pluperfect is yet another time. The past
future (a future which is passed !), the subjunctives — present,
past, imperfect, pluperfect; the conditionals, and so to the
gerund, the supine, all the forms indistinctly bearing the
names of tenses, i.e. times. From this confusion grievous
errors have arisen.
No! "I love," or "we love," or "thou lovest," or "you
love," or "he loves," or "they love," is not a tense, i.e. a time;
it is the expression of an "act," an act taking place in a
present time as now or " ordinarily."
No ! " I have loved," or " we have loved," or " thou hast
loved," or "you have loved," or "he has loved," or "they
have loved," is not a tense, i.e. a time ; it is the expression
OF AN ACT, a past act which has taken place in an indefinite
period, as to day, this week, my life, &c.
For goodness' sake, let us not couple together the two adjec-
tives past and indefinite. What is past is finished and can-
not be indefinite or unfinished. Above all, let us not make
this monstrous abstraction — " the past indefinite ! "
Of what use can it be to set your pupils, and from the very
commencement, this enigmatical contraction 'i Why discourage
224 GRAMMAE.
their patience by giving them this Gordian knot to unravel,
whose ends you yourselves seem not able to find 1 Seriously,
what is the real meaning of this expression — " past inde-
finite " (past which is not finished) 1 Is it worthy of science, is
it worthy of a grammarian ? Are you really in earnest when
you pronounce these two words, which mutually contradict
each others— " past indefinite " 1 And have you the right to
be astonished that children cannot comprehend you, and espe-
cially cannot apply what causes you so much trouble to explain
to them ?
No! "I loved," or "we loved," or "thou lovedst," or "you
loved," or "he loved," or "they loved," is not a tense, i.e. a
time at all ; it is the expression of an act, a past act, which
took place in a definite period of time, such as yesterday,
last week, last month, last year, &c. For the sake of science,
for the sake of the children, let us not wed together these
two adjectives "past and definite." It is clear that what
is past is finished. Above all, do not make of these two
synonymous adjectives a substantive — " the past definite ! " —
as if it were wished to maintain that two adjectives are worth
one abstract substantive. Seriously, once more, do you think
this play upon words (past which is fi.nished) is worthy of a
teacher 1 Cannot our language avoid this tautology ? Is it
really necessary that each classical book should reproduce and
propagate indefinitely this strange term, simply because it has
always appeared in our grammars 1
And the imperfect tense, and the pluperfect tense, and the
future anterior tense ! What nonsense is not hidden by these
words or these combinations of words 1 Can you be astonished
that the child has great trouble to understand you, and that
he confuses together, day after day and for ten years together,
your imperfect with your past definite, your pluperfect with
your past future, your subjunctive with your indicative or
your conditional? Is there any wonder that he can do no
better than yourselves with these enigmatical contractions ?
If he is right occasionally, think not the honour is due to your
definitions ; he does it by intuition or by chance. Confusion
of the time in which the act takes place with the act itself,
confusion of the act with its form and its verbal expression,
here we have a second source of the grammatical errors pre-
sented by our school books. And it is not the last.
DIFFERENT USES OF THE SAME FORM. 225
For reasons which we cannot go fully into here, the same
form of the verb often serves in some languages to translate
an act in different periods of time ; in other words, the same
form serves for several periods of time. For instance, in
English —
When he was at the seaside, he loould rise at six.
Yesterday he would not come with us.
I ivould go now, if I were you.
I am sure he loould never cheat.
If you were to work hard you would succeed.
In French —
Autrefois j'aimaz's a dessiner.
Aujourd'hui je d^jeunais quand il est arrive.
Demain, s'il faisa^Y beau, j'irais h. la campagne.
A present, s'il faisazY beau, je sortirais.
Si tu t'appliquaes, tu r^ussirais.
These five phrases are expressed in five different periods of
time : —
Autrefois
— hitherto
(definite period).
Aujourd'hui
— to-day
(indefinite ,, ).
Demain
— to-morrow
(future ,, ).
Maintenant
— now
(present „ ).
Toi
— thee
(life of an individual).
And for these five periods of time we have one ending, the
form " Ais, AIT," that of the ordinary imperfect.
Here is a fact to which our grammarians do not seem to
have given sufiicient attention. Wherever there is a single
form, they seem to say, there could not be several essentially
different things. Hence superhuman efforts to reduce " two
into one; " hence recourse to all kinds of subtleties to justify
this new kind of contraction, and to silence at last this impor-
tunate sphinx, that so long has set the grammatical genius at
defiance.
They have not seen, furthermore, that each mood answering
to a general faculty of the mind admits, or may admit, as
with the faculty itself, of divisions and subdivisions. Who
amongst them, for example, has ever dreamt that the indicative
may be a complex mood ? Who has supposed that the sub-
junctive can be decomposed into three or four distinct moods,
and that the conditional itself might be something entirely
p
226 GRAMMAR.
different from a simple mood? Hence, again, these forced
assemblages of forms and ideas in themselves radically hetero-
geneous.
The ordinary grammar, as we have said, being preoccupied
solely with the forms of words, remains perfectly content with
counting the various case-endings or verbal changes, grouping
them as best it may, sorting them according to accidental
analogies, without regard for the intellectual faculties from
whence moods and forms are derived, thus becoming the im-
possible guide or handbook that we know it to be.
One may turn its pages over and over, may worry it for
twenty years without finally being able to thoroughly compre-
hend what the subjunctive really is, without acquiring a really
clear idea of the conditional, without being able to distinguish
rigorously the past definite from the past indefinite or from
the imperfect tense. As we have already said, nothing is
more difiicult to conceive than relationships that do not exist.
It is much like the effect of looking into an unlighted peep-
show. The spectator may imagine he sees something, but it
is perfectly certain he does not see very clearly.
Another fruitful cause of grammatical errors is the love and
search for symmetry. Symmetry ! It is here indeed that
grammatical pedantry is triumphant. What is called an
" imperfect " tense has been placed in the indicative mood ;
symmetry requires that we also stick in an " imperfect " in
the subjunctive. A pluperfect figures in this same indicative ;
in the name of symmetry a pluperfect is planted in the sub-
junctive. The particles will be dressed up, always for sym-
metry, in surnames such as past, present, future, and this a
priori, and without questioning if a participle — that is, an
adjective — can ever be past, present, or future, and without
perceiving, for instance, that the pretended " present parti-
ciple" is employed just as well for past and future tenses as
for present tenses. Can one imagine how a mechanism so
perfect, arrangements so well thought out, combinations so
ingenious, and, above all, so natural, have so little sovereignty
over the mind of the pupil, and seem to repel him rather than
attract ?
Let us leave sarcasm. We have attempted to lay bare the
proceedings of Nature, we have equally attempted to lay bare
the proceedings of the ordinary grammarians ; knowing hence-
PRACTICE OF THE INDICATIVE MOOD.
227
forth the route that we ought to take, and the breakers that
we have to avoid, we can boldly set sail with confidence.
VI.
OUR PRACTICE IN THE FORMS OF THE INDICATIVE.
I. First Exercise — Simple and momentary ads.
The class is invited to quit the "present," and to transport
themselves in thought into the day of "yesterday." Our
lesson will therefore take a new form.
Yesterday —
1. I went to the door.
I drew near to the door.
I came to the door.
I stopped at the door.
I stretched out my arm.
I took hold of the handle, &c.
2. J'allai h. la porte.^
je m'approchai de la porte.
j 'arrival h, la porte.
je m'arretai h, la porte.
j'allongeai le bras,
je pris- la poign^e, &c.
3. Ich ging zu der Thiir.
ich naherte mich der Thiir.
ich kam bei der Thiir an.
ich blieb bei der Thiir stehen.
ich streckte den Arm aus.
ich fasste den Griff an, &c.
\. Ad portam perrexi.
ad portam accessi.
ad portam perveni.
ad portam substiti.
brachium porrexi.
portse ansam apprehendi, &c.
Allai, with the short closed sound (^) as aJU (Trans.).
228 GEAMMAK.
Instead of practising the theme in the first person, we may
practise it in the second or the third, as already explained
Yesterday —
1. Thou wentest towards the door,
thou drewest near the door,
thou, &c.
2. Tu alias k la porte.
tu t'approchas h la porte.
tu, &c.
3. Du gingest zu der Thiir.
du naherest dich der ThUr.
du, &c.
4. Ad portam perreidsti
ad portam accessisti.
ad portam, &c.
The following remarks are suggested by this new exercise : —
1. The act is entirely distinct from the time, and the exercise
may be entitled, " A past act in a definite period of time."
2. The time (yesterday) is perceived as a concrete reality.
3. There is, not identification, but simply alHance, aggrega-
tion, association between the act and the period of time, in
that the act is placed by the mind — that is, thought or per-
ceived — in the period of time of yesterday, and not worked or
welded artificially to abstract terms, such as past, perfect,
definite, &c. In a word, the translation of the act in the
time takes place directly, without any intermediary — that is
to say, by " intuition."
When we consider the pupil to be sufficiently familiarised
with this form, we shall substitute the period of time " to-day "
instead of " yesterday," and what we have then to express will
be, " A past act in an indefinite period of time."
To-Day (some time up to now not specified) ^ —
I. I have gone towards the door.
I have drawn near to the door.
I have come to the door.
I have stopped at the door.
I have stretched out my arm, &c.
1 The unit of the " day " is taken here ; it may, of course, equally well be
the unit of the week or year — that is, this week, this year, my life (Trane.).
THE PAST PARTICIPLE. 229
AUJOURD HUI (CE matin).
2. J'ai marche vers la porte.
je me suis approch^ de la porte.
je suis arrive k la porte.
je me suis arrets a la porte.
j'ai allong6 le bras, &c.
H E U T E.
Ich bin zu der Thiir gegangen.
ich babe micb der Tbiir genahrt.
ich bin bei der Thiir an-gekommen.
ich bin bei der Thiir stehen geblieben.
ich habe den Arm aus-gestreckt, &c.
HODIE.
4. Ad portam perrexi.
ad portam accessi
ad portam perveni, &c.
The lesson, as presented in French, will give rise to the ex-
planation of the rule of the participle. In a very few moments
the pupil will have seized the idea, and will apply it to the
lesson of the verb without the possibility of being deceived.
The German and English lessons will give rise to the rule of
the formation of the participles, and of the displacement of
the prefixes and auxiliaries. This lesson will, moreover, give
rise to an observation which applies to most of the modern
languages, and justifies our manner of presenting the con-
jugation, as follows : —
When the act took place in an indefinite period of time,
a period not yet finished, it is expressed by two terms, an
auxiliary and a participle — " I have opened." The auxiliary
in this combiDation has the form of the present : —
I have, thou hast, he has. ) t i, u i. j ^ 1. i .
J'ai, tu as, il a. / ^^^ ^^^^' ^^ ^^'*' ^^ ^^*-
I am, thou art, he is. ) t t. u- j u • ^
Je suis, tu es, il est. ] ^"^ l""' <*" '"«*' «'^ '«*•
The participle is that which expresses a fact already accom-
plished (the past participle of the ordinary grammars).
230 GRAMMAR.
This composite form presents a perfect harmony with the
conception. Indeed, in the phrase, " to-day " (or this week, this
year), " I have opened the door," the mind distinguishes at once
two facts, to wit —
1. The act of opening the door.
2. The time in which this act took place.
The act is past, but the time, ^o-day, this week, this year,
belongs to the present time, and the words " to-day " (or this
week, or this year), indicate that this period of time is still
before the mind's eye.
The auxiliary corresponds to the time, the participle corre-
sponds to the act. The time is present, the auxiliary, therefore,
has the form of the present. The act is past ; the participle
therefore bears the form of the past.
The verbal exercise of the ancient language will be the
occasion of a remark in the contrary direction. The Latin
tongue has only one form for the two periods of time : —
(Yesterday), .... Portam aperui.
(To-day, some time up to now), Portam aperui.
The ancients represented to themselves the grammatical
time in a manner rather different from ours. It is for the
teacher to explain the why and the wherefore.
The grammatical work of our two first weeks, as above set
forth, represents a well-determined whole. It will be useful
to write out the synthesis of what has now been done, and to
present it to the pupil as a memento.
We have put forward the idea that the indicative is not, as
hitherto imagined, a simple mood. What, then, should be the
character of the part or the chapter that we have been dealing
with ? The verb varies its forms according to the nature of the
periods of time in which the act takes place. It may well be
that these forms vary also according to the conditions or the
ways of taking place of this said act. An act may, in point
of fact, occur separately, or in combination with some other
act ; it may be momentary, or it may be continuous ; it may
be casual, or it may be habitual.
If the indicative really does comprise divisions and sub-
divisions, no doubt they owe their origin to differences of this
nature. It is upon these differences that grammar must
attempt to base the subdivisions. The acts to which expres-
sion is given in our linguistic lesson are successive acts. They
MOMENTARY ACTS.
231
occur separately, one by one, and momentarily — that is to say,
they do not continue. It is easy to draw from this a char-
acteristic distinction for our first grammatical chapter. Here
is the synthesis which we shall present to our pupils : —
Yesterday .
To-Day—
Sometime up
specified
Just now
Now
Presently
This evening
To- Morrow
HiER .
Aujourd'hui —
Ce matin
Tout-k-l'heure
A present
Tout-k-l'heure
Ce soir .
Demain
Gestern
Heute —
Heute morgen
So eben .
Jetzt
Sogleich .
Heute Abend
Morgen
INDICATIVE.
Simple and Momentary Acts,
. I opened the door.
to now not
> I have opened the door.
I have just bpened the door.
. I open the door.
. I am going to open the door.
j I am going to open the door.
* I I shall open the door.
. I shall open the door.
J'ouvris la porte.
J'ai ouvert la porte.
Je viens d'ouvrir la porte.
J'ouvre la porte.
Je vais ouvrir la porte.
Je vais o.uvrir la porte.
J'ouvrirai la porte.
Ich offnete die Thur.
Ich habe die Thiir geoffnet.
Ich habe die Thiir geoffnet.
Ich offne die ThUr.
Ich will die Thiir offnen.
Ich werde die Thiir offnen.
Ich will die Thiir offnen.
Ich werde die Thiir offnen.
Ich werde die Thiir offnen.
N.B. — We regard here the list of times as a simple gram-
matical indication ; for this reason we construe " ich offnete,
ich habe," &c., instead of " offnete ich, habe ich," &c.
^32
GRAMMAR.
Heri ...
. Ostium aperui.
Hodie —
Hodie manie .
Modo
Nunc
Jam jam .
Hodie vesperi .
. Ostium aperui.
. Ostium aperui.
. Ostium aperio.
. Ostium aperturus
. Ostium aperiam.
Cras .
. Ostium aperiam.
This synthesis will not possess the disadvantage for which
we have reproached the tables of the ordinary grammars. As
a matter of fact, we do not begin by this synthesis — we end
with it. We do not bring forth from this table the knowledge
of the verb and of the conjugation ; it is the table, on the con-
trary, which is the fruit of this knowledge. Abstract in
itself, this synthesis is concrete by reason of its object, and
can only carry us back to this object, which is the harmony
between the forms of the verbs and our conception of the
periods of time. If the echo is not the voice, neither is it
an abstraction of the voice. In the portrait of a well-known
friend, we do not behold an abstraction of this friend, but the
image of this friend himself.
2. Second Exercise — Continuous and habitual acts.
Instead of happening in a fugitive manner and casually,
the simple act may have a certain duration, and may be per-
ceived by the mind, sometimes as continuous, sometimes as
habitual, sometimes as " frequentative." In these various
cases the act presents a constant character, namely, it persists,
"it keeps on."
Every language has a special form to translate this char-
acter. One expresses it by lengthening the final syllable,
another by doubling the initial syllable ; one by an " aug-
ment," the other by an added syllable, another by a special
form or auxiliary.
In English this character is expressed by the syllable ing,
or by the locutions '* I used to " and " I would," or by the tense
which in most grammars is termed the " present indefinite ; "
CONTINUOUS ACTS. 233
or in many cases (for the past especially), where the act is
itself necessarily a durative one, by the form of the simple
past, thus : — " I dwelt, I studied " : —
Now-a-days I am studying Latin.
Formerly I used to bathe before breakfast.
When at the seaside we would often bathe at six.
Now-a-days I bathe before breakfast.
In French, for past actions, the verb takes the final long
Ais, AIT, &c. (that of the ordinary " imperfect ") : —
II y QiYait une fois un homme et une femme.
lis habitazeT?^ pres d'un foret. ...
Dans ma jeunesse j'allais a la chasse.
Au college de S^ez on se \&vait a cinq heures.
In Latin, the syllable " bam " is added to the root form of
the present : " amo " becomes " amabam." The Greek pre-
fixes an augment. In German, for past actions, the syllable
TE is annexed (to the regular verbs), " strecke " becomes
" streckte."
I. The act whose character is to continue may be taking
place at the present time, or it may be perceived in the three
periods of time — in a finished or definite period of time, in an
unfinished or indefinite period of time, and in a future period
of time. The following are the forms which correspond, when
the act is simple and alone, to these times : —
Last year I studied Greek,
this year I have studied German,
now-a-days I am studying Latin,
next year I shall study Russian.
For French we have the following forms : —
I'ann^e derni^re j'etudiais le Grec.
cette ann^e j'ai ^tudi^ I'Allemand.
maintenant j'etudie le Latin.
I'annee prochaine j'etudierai le Kusse.
These examples in the two languages show that whereas in
English there is a particular form to express the actually con-
tinuing act with the termination ing : *' I am studying Latin ; "
234 GRAMMAR
in French (as in most of the Continental languages) the form
for the present continuous act is the same as that for the pre-
sent momentary act : " J'^tudie le Latin."
2. The act maybe frequentative — that is, a single short act,
but happening often — in which case in English a different form
is employed for the past act or acts, i.e., in the finished or defi-
nite period : —
Formerly I used to bathe (or I would bathe)
before breakfast.
Hitherto (up to now) I have bathed before breakfast.
Now-a-days I bathe before breakfast.
Henceforth I shall bathe before breakfast.
In French the forms for habitual acts are the same as for
the continuous acts.
Autrefois je dtnais h. six heures.
Jusqu'ici j'ai din6 a six heures.
Maintenant je dtne k huit heures.
D^sormais je dinerai a sept heures.
This section of the indicative presents in French, in German,
and in Latin only one original form. The question arises,
How are we to apply this form to our lessons ? How can we
exercise ourselves in its use ? To what artifice must we have
recourse to give rational opportunity for its practice? We
shall call it forth by putting a simple question, the follow-
ing, for instance : — " Every day you have opened the door ;
now what did you habitually do to open it? Habitually
what would you always do to open the door, or what were
you in the habit of doing to open the door ? " To which, in
English, the pupil will reply (according to the form of the
question)—
Habitually :
I walked (or I used to, T would walk) towards the door.
I drew near (or I used to, I would draw near) to the
door.
I came (or I used to, I would come) to the door.
I stopped (or I used to, I would stop) at the door.
Then I stretched out (or I used to, I would stretch out)
my hand, &c.
HABITUAL ACTS.
235
In French he would answer to either of these —
2. J'allais 1 vers la porte.
je m'approchais de la porte.
j 'arrivals a la porte.
je m'arretais k la porte.
j'allongeais le bras, &c.
In German —
3. Ich schritt auf die Thtlr zu.
ich naherte mich der Thiir.
ich kam bei der Thiir an.
ich blieb bei der Thiir stehen.
ich streckte den Arm aus, &c.
In Latin it will be —
4. Ad portam pergebam.
ad portam accedebam.
ad portam subsistebam.
brachium porrigebam, &c.
We will now crown this short exercise as in the previous
one, with a synthetical table.
INDICATIVE.
Continuous and Habitual Acts.
Formerly
Hitherto
Nowadays
Henceforth
Autrefois
Jusqu'ici
Maintenant
D^sormais
( I dined I
< I used to dine V
( I would dine )
I dined
I used to dine
I would dine
I have dined
I dine
I shall dine
Je dtnais
j'ai din4
je dine
je dinerai
at six o'clock.
at six o'clock,
at eight o'clock,
at seven o'clock.
h six heures.
b. six heures.
k huit heures.
h sept heures.
3. Third Exercise. — Two acts occurring within the same period
of time — Simultaneous acts — Imperfect, anterior, and pos-
terior acts — Pluperfect acts.
The phrase, "Yesterday my friend came in while I was eat-
ing my breakfast," is the expression of two acts, viz. , to come in
and to eat. These two acts are combined or connected by the
^ With the long open d souud (Trans.).
236 GRAMMAR.
conjunction "while." Tlie word ''yesterday" indicates the
grammatical time in which these two actions took place, and
" while " establishes their order of succession in this time.
What name are we to give to the system represented by these
two acts ? We might name them conjoint acts, conjunctive
acts, acts co-ordinated within the same period of time. We
propose to use, as being most exact, the latter expression —
"Two acts co-ordinated within the same period of time."^
When two actions occur within the same period of time,
they may occupy therein, in relation to each other, four
different positions. Two actions may, first of all, occur
together, that is, they may be " simultaneous," and under
this condition three distinct cases may present themselves.
1. The two acts may be both continuous, and therefore
develop parallel to each other —
Yesterday, while I was dining, he was working.
Hier, tandis que je dinais, il travaillait.
This relation may be graphically represented by two parallel
lines, thus —
^— — while I was dining,
— ^^^— ■ he was working.
These two acts may be termed " Parallel Acts."
2. The two acts may be both momentary, and therefore
occur at the same moment —
Yesterday, as I closed the door, he arrived.
Hier, en m^me temps que je fermais la porte, il arriva.
This relation may be represented by two points placed
opposite each other, thus —
• as I closed the door,
• he arrived,
and the two acts may then be termed " Coinciding Acts."
^ The passage following, as far as page 240, is developed somewhat
differently in the original. Upon careful comparison of the two languages,
however, the development given above seems to be the true one, the
greater difference in form between verbs expressing long and short acts in
English having served to show more clearly the psychological distinctions
latent in the tense forms. The terms "Parallel, Simultaneous, Con-
secutive, Posterior, Imperfect, Anterior, and Coinciding Acts " have been
proposed as indicating with exactitude the time relations expressed. The
translation of the author's exact text is given for comparison in the Ap-
pendix. — (The Translators.)
CO-ORDINATED ACTS. 237
3. The two acts may be one continuous and the other
momentary, still being contemporaneous —
Yesterday, while I was dining, he arrived.
Hier pendant que je dinais, il arriva.
In this case the continuous action had commenced before
the other, and was still going on; the first action was not
ended, was not completed, when the second began. Grammar
seems to have discovered the true name of this first act,
" Imperfect Act ; " it receives the form of the continuous
acts, — in English ing, in French the final Ais. We may
represent this relation of the two acts by two lines, one of
which begins before and ends after the other, thus —
— — — — ^— while I was dining,
•— he arrived.
4, Lastly, if two actions do not occur together, one of them
may, in relation to the other, occupy two different positions
in time; it may follow it, or it may precede it. We may
represent in each case these relations by two straight lines
following each other, thus —
Yesterday,
after I had been dining, he arrived.^
To-morrow,
he will arrive before I have been dining.
The terms Anterior and Posterior (expressing acts anterior
or posterior the one to the other) therefore will apply to these
acts. The term anterior is one already employed by the
grammars.
If we now transport all these relations into definite (finished),
indefinite (unfinished), and future periods of time, the follow-
ing are the forms that we shall obtain, first in English and
afterwards in French.
^ lu ordinary usage the distance of the time, either in the past or in the
future, of the acts imagined and expressed, usually causes what may be
termed a fore-shortening of the act ; so that unless the length or duration
of the act were important, we should use the forms: "Yesterday, he
arrived after I had dined," and " He will arrive before I have dined."
In cases where the duration of the act is important the above construc-
tion is used ; as, ** The doctor will test your lungs after you have been
running " (Trans. ).
238
GRAMMAK.
ACTS CO-ORDINATED IN THE SAME PERIOD OF TIME.
A. — Parallel Acts {both continuous).
(To work and to dine.)
Yesterday . . while I was dining .... he was working.
while I have been dining . . he has been working.^
while I am dining . . . . he will be working.
B. —Consecutive and Simultaneous Acts.
A Momentary act : to arrive, in relation to another act :
I. To a Continuous act : to dine. | 2. To a Momentary: to close the door.
To-Day . .
to-morbow
hefore
while
after
before
while
after
Yesterday (Definite, or finished, period of time).
He arrived
Posterior act.
I had been dining. before
Imperfect act.
I was dining.
Anterior act.
I had been dining, after
Posterior act.
I had closed the door.
Coinciding act.
I closed the door. ^
Anterior act.
I had closed the door.
To-Day (Indefinite, or unfinished, period of time),
He arrived •
Posterior act.
I had been dining.
Imperfect act.
I was dining.
Anterior act.
I had been dining.
To-Mobrow (Future period of time).
He will arrive
befor(
after
Posterior act.
I had closed the door.
Coinciding act.
I closed the door.
Anterior act.
I had closed the door.
before
Posterior act.
I have been dining.
before
Posterior act.
I have closed tlie door.
while
Imperfect act.
I am dining.
as
Coinciding act.
I close the door.
after
Anterior act.
I have been dining.
after
Anterior act.
I have closed the door.
1 For the time NOW, the two acts being both in this time, it is natural that
they both take the form of the "present ;" they have no special form result-
ing from the co-ordination — NOW, while lam dining, he is working. Further,
the time NOW only enduring for a moment, two consecutive acts cannot take
place within it. Tlie time NOW, therefore, does not appear in the table.
2 On certain occasions the same act, as already pointed out, may be con-
sidered either as continuous or as momentary, according to the circumstances.
We shall thus have forms such as : " He arrived before I had dined," and
vice-versa : " He arrived while I was closing the door." But it is not neces-
sary to repeat these forms in the two columns.
2 In English, these forms are the same as for Yesterday— the statement :
before, while, or after, at once carries the two acts into a definite past period
of time, in specifying the exact moment of to-day.
TABLE OF THE COMPOUND INDICATIVE.
239
ACTES CO-ORDONN]feS DANS UNE K&ME PERIODS
DE TEMPS.
A. — AcTES Parall^les (tons deux continus).
(Travailler et diner, )
HiEB
Aujourd'hui .
Demain .
tandis que je dinais
tandis que je dinais
tandis que je dinerai
il travaillait.
11 travaillait.
il travaillera.
B. — ACTES C0NS]6CDTIFS ET SlMULTAN^S.
Une acte momentan^ : arriver, en relation av£c un autre acte :
I. Avec un acte continu : diner. | 2. Avec un acte momentane : fermer
I la porte.^
HiER (Temps d^fini)
n arriva
Acte postirieur.
avant que je dinasse.2
Acte imparfait.
pendant que je dinais.
Acte anterieur.
aprfes que j'eus din 6.
Acte postirieur.
avant que je fermasse la porte.
Acte colncidant.
enmeme temps que je fermais la porte.
Acte anth'ieur.
apres que j'eus ferme la porte.
Aujourd'hui (ce matin) (Temps ind^fini).
II est arriv^
Acte postirieur.
avant que je dinasse.^
Acte imparfait.
pendant que je dinais.
Acte anterieur.
aprfes que j'ai eu dine.
Acte posth-ieur.
avant que je fermasse la porte.
Acte coincidant.
en meme temps que je fermais la porte.
Acte anterieur.
aprds que j'ai euferm^ la porte.
Demain (Temps ^ venir),
II arrivera
Acte post^rkur.
avant que je dlue.2
Acte imparfait.
pendant que je dinerai.
Acte anterieur.
apres que j'aurai dine.
Acte postirieur.
avant que je fenne la porte.
Acte coincidant.
en m^me temps que je fermerai la porte.
Acte anth'ieur.
apr^s que j'aurai ferme laporte.
1 It should be noticed that in this table tlie forms of the French verbs
are everywhere the same for the momentary as for the continuous acts.
2 As is seen, this table includes certain forms of the conjugation which
the grammars usually place in the subjunctive mood.
240 GRAMMAR.
The employment of the tense termed the pluperfect (French
Phis-que-Parfait) appears to us to be governed by the follow-
ing conception : —
In the same way that the day now present, which we term
"To-day," has been preceded by another day termed " Yester-
day," and will be followed by another day termed "To-
morrow," so also any day which has fled, designated either
specially, as " December 3rd," or in a general manner by the
expression " a certain day," has been preceded by a day
termed "the day before," and followed by a day termed
" the next day, the day after." Hence we have the following
table : —
On a certain day (3rd December 1891, for instance) a sportsman
killed two hares.
Previously (the day before, two days before that . . .) he
HAD KILLED six hares.
The next day, or the day after that (two days after that . . .)
he killed two more hares.
Tel jour (le 3 decembre 1891, par exemple) un chasseur tua
deux lievres.
AuPARAVANT, (La veille, I'avant-veille . . .) il avait tu^ six
lievres,
le lendemain (le surlendemain . . .) il tua deux autres lievres.
So, in considering the act of dining upon any particular day
as having already been accomplished, we say : — " On a certain
day, at eight o'clock."
already, I had dined,
d^jk, j'avais dine.
These tables afford us the following new forms :—
In English —
I was dining.
I had been dining.
I had dined.
I have been dining.
In French we have six new forms : —
J'eus din6.
j'ai eu dine.
j'aurai dtn^.
(que) je dinasse.
(que) je dine.
j'avais din6.
PRACTICE OF THE TENSE-FORMS. 241
The question now arises, How are we to adapt these forms
to our language- lessons ? We do it in a very simple manner.
1. The teacher will provoke the first by a question similar
to the following : " Yesterday you opened this door; how did
you do it ? "
The pupil will reply, " First of all, I walked towards the
door."
T. Well, and when you had walked towards the door, what
did you do next ?
P. After I had walked towards the door, I arrived at the
door,
after I had arrived at the door, I stretched out my
arm.
and when I had stretched out my arm, &c.
T. Hier vous ouvrites cette porte : comment vous y prites
vous?
p. D'abord je marchai vers la porte.
apr^s que j'eus march^ vers la porte, j 'arrival a la
porte.
apres que je fus arriv6 k la porte, j'allongeai le bras,
apr^s que j'eus allong^ le bras . . .
Or, in French the form might be used —
Hier je marchai vers la porte, avant que j'allongeasse le
bras;
j'allongeai le bras, avant que je prisse le bouton ;
je pris le bouton, avant que je tournasse le bouton ;
je tournai le bouton, avant que je tirasse la porte. . . .
2. In English for the time to-day the forms are the same
as for yesterday (see table previously given) ; but in the
French, to the question, "Aujourd'hui (ce matin) comment
avez-vous ouvert la porte ? " the pupil will reply —
Aujourd'hui j'ai marche vers la porte ;
quand j'ai eu marche vers la porte, je suis arriv^ h. la
porte ;
quand j'ai ete arrive a la porte, je me suis arrets
k la porte;
quand j'ai 6t6 arrets k la porte, j'ai allonge le bras,
&c
24^ GRAMMAR.
3. To the question, "To-morrow how will you open this
door 1 " the pupil will reply —
To-morrow I shall walk towards the door ;
after I have walked (i.e., shall have walked) towards
the door, I shall stop at the door;
after I have stopped at the door, I shall stretch out
my arm, &c.
In French, to the question, " Demain comment ouvrirez-vous
cette porte ? " he will reply —
Demain je marcherai vers la porte ;
apr^s que j'aurai march^ vers la porte, je m'arreterai
a la porte ;
apr^s que je me serai arr^td a la porte, j'allongerai
le bras ;
apres que j'aurai allong^ le bras, je prendrai, &c.
4. To the question, " Yesterday you opened the door, but
previously what had you done to open it ? " the pupil will reply,
employing the form of the verb called the pluperfect : —
Previously I had walked towards the door.
I had stopped at the door.
I had stretched out my arm.
I had taken hold of the handle, &c.
" Hier vous ouvrites cette porte : mais auparavant qu'aviez-
vous fait pour I'ouvrir ? "
Auparavant j 'avals march^ vers la porte.
j'^tais arriv^ h la porte.
j 'avals allong^ le bras,
j 'avals pris la poignee, &c.
When the pupil has thoroughly assimilated these new forms
by practising them, he will be presented with the foregoing
synthetical table. It is not necessary to repeat these examples
in the other languages. It must be perfectly evident that the
exercises can be practised in any and every language spoken.
The foregoing sections do not even yet exhaust all the forms
of the indicative, but all may be equally presented according
to the manner in which the facts or the elements of the
facts are conceived by the mind. And it will be seen that
this mood has not a single form which might not be exercised
PERMANENT CONJUGATION. 243
or conjugated naturally, and without abstraction, upon the
lessons of the series.
Nevertheless, however effective these exercises may appear,
our method does not remain content with this first elaboration
of the forms of the verbs. It possesses, indeed, the secret or
the means of rendering the conjugations permanent. This
method consists in the continuous employment of the relative
phrases or interlocutory sentences. By the use of these sen-
tences both master and pupil will conjugate constantly without
appearing to do so. Transposing, as occasion may require,
their own thoughts in all the various grammatical times or
tenses, they will be able to vary indefinitely, both regularly and
irregularly, all the verbal forms of the expressions they employ.
Thirty thousand relative phrases represent thirty thousand
opportunities of practising the forms of the verbs. It is not
too much to beheve that whoever has accomplished this work
will know how to conjugate.
244 GRAMMAR.
STUDY OF THE VERB.
Exercises in Conjugation (Third Week). '^VY'^
YII.
THE CONDITIONAL AND THE SUBJUNCTIVES.
I. First Exercise — Tim conditional.
To any first fact, real or supposed, the human mind has the
faculty of associating a second. If the expression of the first
represent a " condition," the expression of a second represents
a " conditional fact." The two together form the object or
material of what is termed in grammar *' the conditional mood."
For the reason that every man has the faculty of conjecturing
and of associating one fact with any other fact, every language
possesses a " conditional mood." The error would consequently
be very great if any grammarian were to venture to deny the
existence of this mood to any language whatever.
This mood may lend its form to another mood, or it may
borrow them of this latter ; but in itself this mood exists for
the reason that it responds to an energy inherent in the
human mind. Moreover, this mood is necessarily complex ;
it has to translate —
1. The supposed fact or condition.
2. The fact which rests upon this or is made conditional.
Without pretending here to exhaust the question, the above
statement is seen to be true from the following forms of the
conditional in English : —
Yesterday (Finished period).
Tf > h d h fi [^ should have played (or been
^ ^ ^^'^ ""^ • •] playing).
To-day (Unfinished period).
If it had been fine . . I ^ '^^ '"^ ^T^ ^^^^"'^ ^°' ^''''
1 playmg).
Now (Present time).
If it were fine . . .1 should play (or be playing).
To-MoRROW (Future period).
If it were to be fine . . I should play (or be playing).
THE CONDITIONAL MOOD. 245
In French we have forms such as the following : —
HiER (Temps d^fini).
S'il avait fait beau . . J'aurais pech^.
Aujourd'hui (ce matin) (Temps indefini).
S'il avait fait beau . . J'aurais pech6.
Maintenant (Temps present).
S'il faisait beau . . . Je pecherais.
Demain (Temps a venir).
S'il faisait beau . . . Je pecherais.
This table, therefore, presents us with the following new-
forms in English : —
I should have played, &c.
I should have been playing.
I should play.
I should be playing.
In French we have two only —
J'aurais p^ch^, &c.
Je pecherais.
These forms will adapt themselves to our lessons of the
series as easily and as naturally as those of the indicative
have been found to do. You have simply to ask the pupil
the following question : " If you wished to open this door,
what would you do 1 "
And he will be obliged to answer you in what is termed the
conditional mood, present tense —
I should go towards the door.
I should draw near to the door.
I should get to the door, &c.
"Si vous vouliez ouvrir cette porte, que feriez-vous?"
J'irais vers la porte.
Je m'approcherais de la porte.
J'arriverais a la porte, &c.
Put the same question to him again, simply replacing the
idea of "now" by that of "yesterday" or "this morning,"
and you will be answered in what is termed the "conditional
past." "To-day — some time up to now — if you had wished
to open this door, what would you have done 1"
246 GRAMMAR.
Answer : —
I should have walked towards the door,
I should have drawn near to the door.
I should have got to the door, &c.
" Ce matin, si vous aviez voulu ouvrir la porte, qu auriez-
vous fait 1 "
J'aurais march^ vers la porte.
Je me serais approche de la porte.
Je serais arrive a la porte, &c.
2. Second Exercise — The subjunctives.
What is usually termed " subjunctive " is a mood essentially
complex. All the grammarians, on the contrary, seem to have
determined up to the present to consider and treat the sub-
junctive as if it were a simple mood. Hence the inability of
the grammar to formulate the law of the forms attributed to
this mood, and to determine their usage. This expression :
" I wish it may be fine " ( je desire --t^ qu'il fasse beau temps), is
composed of two entirely distinct portions : —
T. To be fine weather.
2. To wish.
" To be fine weather " represents an objective fact ; '* to
wish," represents a subjective fact. It is the alliance of these
two facts which, properly speaking, constitutes a " subjunc-
tive." This word "subjunctive" (joined beneath), therefore,
expresses only half of what it really means. Hence the error
of the grammarians, who see the " subjunctive " exclusively
in the second part — " (that) it may be fine " (qu'il fasse beau
temps) — of the whole expression.
The reader will not have forgotten our attempt to clear up
the question of the subjective language, and, in particular, of
the sentence termed by us the " enclitic." Well, what the
grammarians designate by the word " subjunctive " is nothing
more nor less than the object or material of our enclitic phrase.
Now, of these two — objective and subjective — elements, which,
think you, is it that commands and governs the other in the
complete phrase ? Evidently the subjective element.
But this element is as diverse as the faculties of the mind
are diverse. Therefore that subjunctive which requires one
enclitic may easily be quite different from that subjunctive
which commands some other enclitic We come, therefore, to
THE SUBJUNCTIVES. 247
this conclusion, that grammar contains not one subjunctive,
but several subjunctives.
The first thing to be done is to distinguish and to count
them. We have previously said that the enclitic expressions
could be and ought to be classified and distributed in cate-
gories. As many categories as may be found for the enclitics,
so many different kinds of subjunctives will there be. We
shall have, for instance, the Subjunctive of the Possible, the
Subjunctive of Doubt, the Subjunctive of Desire, and so forth.
This work of classification does not enter into the scope of
the present work. The reader will probably dispense with any
deeper research into the theory of the conjugation. Let it
suflSce, firstly, to count the various forms which the grammars
generally connect with the subjunctive mood ; and, secondly,
to show how they can be adapted to the lessons of our series.
The grammars accord the four following forms to the sub-
junctive in English : —
That I open (or may open).
That I should open (or might open).
That I shall have opened (or may have opened).
That I should have opened (or might have opened).
In French —
Que j'ouvre.
Que j'ouvrisse.
Que j'aie ouvert.
Que j'eusse ouvert.
I. If you put to the pupil the following question: "To
open this door, what will it be necessary that you do ? " he
mil answer by the subjunctive present : —
It will be necessary —
that I walk towards the door.
that I draw near.
that I arrive.
that I stop.
" Pour ouvrir cette porte, que vous faudrait-il faire ? "
II faudrait —
que je marche vers la porte.
que je m'approche de la porte.
que j 'arrive a la porte.
que je m'arrete k la porte, &c.
248 GRAMMAK.
2. If you put the following question : " Yesterday, to open
this door, what would it have been necessary for you to do ? "
he will answer in what is termed the imperfect of the sub-
junctive : —
It would have been necessary —
that I should walk towards the door.
that I should draw near,
that I should stop.
" Hier, pour ouvrir cette porte, que vous aurait-il fallu
faire?"
II aurait fallu —
que je marchasse vers la porte.
que je m'approchasse.
que j'arrivasse, &c.
3. Put this third question : " Before opening the door, what
will it be necessaiy to have done ? " and he will reply in the
perfect of the subjunctive : —
It will be necessary —
that I shall have walked,
that I shall have drawn near,
that I shall have arrived, &c.
" Avant d'ouvrir la porte, que vous faudrait-il avoir fait ? "
II faudrait —
que j'aie march6 vers la porte.
que je me sois approch6 de la porte.
que je sois arriv6 a la porte, &c.
4. To the question,' " What would it be necessary to have
done ? " he would reply by the pluperfect of the subjunctive : —
It would be necessary —
that I should have walked,
that I should have drawn near.
II faudrait —
que j'eusse niarch^ vers la porte.
que je me fusse approch^, &c.
Still less, perhaps, than with the indicative does our method
remain content with these elementary exercises for the sub-
PRACTICE OF THE SUBJUNCTIVES. 249
junctive. It has at its disposal some three or four thousand
enclitic expressions. Care will be taken that these are not
brought into play until both the enclitics themselves and the
verbal forms they command are completely assimilated.
There need be no fear. By the use of the enclitic relative
phrases the forms of the subjunctive will become as familiar
to the pupil as those even of the " indicative mood, present
tense," itself. There is no necessity to speak here of the im-
perative, nor of the infinitive, nor of the participle, the exercise
of these three moods being permanent in the practice of the
relative phrase.
We here end this too long chapter by the enunciation of
two truths which manifest themselves from one end of it to
the other : —
1. The grammar, so far as concerns the conjugation, may
really become one, as the human mind is one.
2. No method, classical or non-classical, exercises or works
the conjugation of the verb to anything like the same extent
as does our own.
250 GRAMMAR.
STUDY OF THE SENTENCE./^- ^^0-^/
Elements of the Sentence, their Fu/^ctions.
vni.
SPOKEN ANALYSIS OP THE SENTENCE.
I. Various functions of the terms of a sentence — The pupiVs
initiation into this knowledge.
Syntax, as now understood, has for its object the study of
the laws or rules of the sentence. In any sentence there are
two things to be considered and determined : —
1. The functions of the constituent elements of this sentence.
2. The arrangement of these elements — ordinarily termed
the construction of the sentence.
"Syntax" is, therefore, hardly a correct term, as it only
expresses the half of what it really means. How ought we to
study the first part, and how do we study it 1
Let us return once more to our theme of "Opening the
Door," — for what good purpose will it serve to change the
example if the method of teaching remains, from the first
exercise to the last, always identical 1
Je marche vers la porte.
When the teacher gives the lesson, this sentence is detached,
as we have seen, from the rest of the theme ; then it is con-
centrated for one moment in the verb " marche ; " then it
blossoms out finally, by unfolding or evolving from itself, first
the subject and then the complement of the verb. But is
this manner of presenting the phrase really anything else
than an analysis — an analysis at the same time both gram-
matical and logical ? Will it be necessary, think you, to
unmake and remake many such sentences before the student
learns to distinguish the subject from the verb, the verb from
its complements 1 Where is the child who, at the first hour,
at the first lesson, at the first phrase, will not comprehend
this " spoken " analysis ?
SPOKEN ANALYSIS OF THE SENTENCE. 251
The second sentence will then be decomposed, and afterwards
recomposed like the first, and so with others. I repeat, the
development of our theme, by reason of this mode of giving
the lesson, is nothing else than a practical model of logical
and grammatical analysis. The functions of each element of
the sentences will themselves be studied as to their real signi-
fication, as soon as the time for it arrives, which will be when-
ever the pupil manifests the need of knowing them and of
investigating the obstacles which he will not fail to encounter.
To explain this more fully : —
In the first phrase, for instance, he will tear —
Je marche vers la porte.
In the second he will hear —
Je m'approche de la porte.
In one case he will hear " vers la porte," and in another " de
la porte." In German he will hear " die Thtir," and another
time " der Thiir ; " in Latin he will hear in the same way
sometimes "ad portam," and sometimes simply "portse" or
" porta." You may be quite sure that the child will be mis-
taken at first in the use of these terms, which will immedi-
ately lead him to ask the teacher the reason of their diversity.
And if, by reason of an indolence happily uncommon, the
pupil neglects to put this question, it will be the province of
the teacher to provoke it.
An important problem is, therefore, put forward by the
pupil, and the teacher will be led to explain to him that
amongst the verbs some are complete in themselves and
others are incomplete. '^ I sleep," for example, is a complete
verb, because this expression is explained by itself and with-
out recourse to another word ; it translates in itself alone a
complete situation, a complete state of being. " I go," " I
draw near," on the other hand, are incomplete verbs, owing to
the fact that their expression has not a finished sense, and
requires to be completed by another word indicating " where "
I go to and "to what" I draw near.
The class are thus prepared to receive the notion of comple-
ments, direct and indirect. The three fundamental comple-
ments are then brought forward, corresponding to the questions
252 GRAMMAR.
" what," " to what," " by what," put after the verb, and to
each of these a numerical order is assigned.
What ? First complement.
To what ? Second complement.
By what ? Third complement.
Then adding to this list the complements of place, the com-
plements of time, the complements of aim, the complements of
means or of manner, and the others, if there are any, we
obtain a general framework which enables us to reduce to one
page only, and to embrace in one glance, the fifteen or twenty
chapters of the ordinary syntax. More than this, these cate-
gories being psychologically established, our framework will be
capable of being adapted to any and every language, so that
here again we shall have constructed a chapter of general or
rather of universal grammar. The cause or the origin of
"cases" and of inflections in those languages which have
varied terminations is thus found to be quite naturally ex-
plained. There remains the question of teaching them.
2. A starting-point and a direction.
We shall ask the reader's permission to open this new
chapter by a series of exceedingly elementary questions : —
Did the nurse of Horace learn off and repeat over to her
little charge all the declensions of the Latin grammarians?
Apparently not. Did Horace nevertheless manage to learn
Latin 1 It certainly appears so. Did he speak it better and
more fluently at four to seven years of age, and before having
read the grammars and books of his time, than the cleverest
of our classicists of thirty to forty years of age, who may have
read the whole collection of Latin authors ? Many will dare
to maintain the affirmative.
Another example : —
Do the mothers of modem Greece begin teaching their
babies with the Greek declensions ? They would be extremely
embarrassed if they had to do this. Do they always make a
correct use of the cases ? Probably not al ^vays. In spite of
this, do the little Greeks learn to speak Greek as well and as
quickly as the little English children learn to speak English ?
We have proof that they do. Do these Greek children speak
better and more fluently at four to seven years of age, and
CASES OR INFLECTIONS. 253
before knowing how to read, than the most erudite of our
philologists, who may know by heart the masterpieces of
Greek literature'? It is indisputable and not disputed.
Might it be possible to do better than Nature in this
question of the study of languages ? Perhaps. With the aid
of the grammarians have we ever done as well as Nature?
Never. Why not ? And what process would it be necessary
to adopt to do at least as well as Nature 1 That is the problem
or the riddle which we have to solve.
The following is the order of procedure, that the dialectic
which has guided us in the solution of the anterior problems
has shown to be best : —
T. To determine well the process of Nature.
2. To place the classical process and our own side by side.
3. To decide which of these processes most nearly approaches
that of Nature.
IX.
THE COMPLEMENTS — CASES OR INFLECTIONS DECLENSIONS.
I. The art of declining out of school.
How is it that the child before he has been to school
manages to learn the cases, the inflections, the terminations —
in a word, the declensions 1 Up to what point in this respect
does what we have called the natural grammar carry us ? Or
is it quite by chance that this knowledge is acquired, and,
consequently, is this labour susceptible of no explanation?
Let us remark, first of all, that reason admits of no effect
without a cause ; therefore, in our judgment, the acquisition
of the declensions and their practice in the every-day inter-
course of life is certainly not the work of chance.
The "cases" serve to express a certain small number of
relations of things one to another, which recur always and
everywhere the same. The human mind grasps these relations
very much in the same manner as it grasps the numbers ; and
in the same way that a person may be able to calculate without
knowing figures, so he can apply, and does apply, the declen-
sions without being acquainted with the written and abstract
representation of the cases.
Man grasps these interrelations directly upon the facts
554 GRAMMAR.
themselves, without any intermediary, that is, intuitively,
and he expresses them as he conceives them, intuitively.
That is how the child assimilates the cases, and how he
familiarises himself with the various inflections of nouns and
adjectives. Here occurs a phenomenon exactly similar to
that which we have described with reference to the periods
of time and the forms of the verbs in the conjugations, only
instead of half-a-dozen periods of time, the mind can grasp a
score or so of these interrelations. The child does this in
playing without being aware of it and without apparent effort.
We have in this, therefore, as for the application of the forms
of the verbs, an operation essentially simple, and having
in it nothing which puts us in mind, for instance, of those
painful efforts necessary to overcome the difficulties of the
first lessons in Latin at the grammar-school.
The written declension is the product of a subtle operation.
To constitute this declension, it is necessary first to abstract
the sign of each relation — that is, to detach it from the term
to which it is welded ; secondly, to consider and study this
sign in itself; then to compare it with the signs of all the
other relations ; and lastly, to set in order and organise this
general review.
Nature knows absolutely nothing of this operation — that
is, of the art of declining. With the child and the uncultured
man, the mind goes directly from the perception of the rela-
tion to the sign of this relation, and from the sign directly to
the relation. He soon becomes very quick at this work, and
very shortly sign and relation appear to him inseparable — as
inseparable, in fact, as two halves of one and the same whole.
In the one he sees the other.
By reason of this direct interchange between these relations
and these signs, the mind actually acquires a new sense — the
sense of interrelationships. We might even say, the intellec-
tual substance comes forth from its native limits, spreads itself
towards the external objects, reaches them, penetrates them,
takes up a position between them, and connects them logically
together. Hence the child's prodigious rapidity in finding,
without apparent effort, the exact expression of each relation ;
hence this surety and this volubility of speech which we know
not how to admire too much, and which it is absolutely neces-
sary should be explained ; hence, lastly, this spontaneity, at
INTERRELATIONSHIPS AND THEIR SIGNS. 255
which the linguist who declines — that is, who never goes
directly from the relation to the sign, that is, never attains
the sign except in passing by the intermediary of the abstract
table of a written declension — never does and never can
arrive.
We have now revealed the process of Nature in its essen-
tials; it remains to determine the degree of perfection
with which Nature carries out her work. Let us, first and
rapidly, sketch out the history of the interrelations and their
signs.
In itself a relation between objects is a pure abstraction,
and has no existence outside the terms which it unites. At
first, therefore, the sign of the relationship was not separated
from the terms of this relationship, but was fastened, welded
to one of these terms, usually the first. It thus becomes
placed between the two, a natural enough position for an
expression acting as a connecting link. " Port-se cardo ; "
oe is here the sign of relationship connecting porta to
cardo, and this sign is seen attached to the first term —
port-oe.
It might be said that the mind, conceiving with difficulty a
relation apart from objective realities, could not resolve to
grant it the right of being represented by a separate and
independent sign, and consequently retained it captive and
enchained to one of the two terms which it has a mission to
unite. At this period the language would be under the
dominion of the case or the inflection pure and simple —
Italiam venit.
Lavinia venit littora.
As it develops, the human mind experiences the need of a
more severe exactitude and precision. The case-endings as
signs gradually become too vague, too imperfect, too incon-
venient; in a word, the ''cases" are found to be insufficient.
The relation between objects commences to play an important
part in the sentence ; it claims the right of being represented
by a special sign, and Nature at last abandons to it those
fragments of words and syllables that we are acquainted
with : — de, a, ah, e, ex, ad, sub, Szc.
The relationship then found itself enfranchised, and the pre-
position in some measure dethroned the case-ending. The
ancient inflection was, however, maintained alongside this new
2S6 GRAMMAR.
sign, as if for witness of the first condition of the relationship
and to recall its true character, " abstraction."
ad port-am pergo.
ad port-am subsist©.
in pute-um se immisit hircus.
The relationship between objects then became possessed of
two signs instead of one. It is to this era of language that
the Latin language, amongst others, belongs.
Still later, one of the two signs was deemed superfluous,
and, as such, condemned to be suppressed. The languages
cast their useless baggage to the winds ; the case-ending dis-
appeared, and the preposition received the exclusive privilege
of representing the relationship.
I go towards the door.
I draw near to the door.
I arrive at the door.
Je vais
Je m'approche
J'arrive
vers
de
a
la porta
la porte.
la porte.
Ich gehe
Ich komme
nach
bei
der Thur.
der Thiir an.
The languages of the first age have ceased to exist, at least
upon the continent of Europe, and those of the third age re-
fuse to recognise declensions. It is, therefore, to the languages
representing the second age that what we have already said
and what remains for us to say upon the subject of declensions
applies.
If our historic idea is well founded, the case is a thing essen-
tially decayed and variable — one, therefore, paying little respect
to rules. This logical presumption finds itself amply confirmed
by experience.
When speaking of the conjugation, we have put forward as
an incontrovertible fact, as a matter of common observation,
that neither the child nor the ignorant man makes mistakes
in their mother-tongue as regards periods of time — that is to
say, never confounds them one with another. We have equally
demonstrated that the confusion of the forms of the verbs
which are attached to these periods of time is also impossible.
Is it the same when we come to the cases ?
THE DECLENSIONS IN NATURE'S METHOD. 257
Go through those countries where almost every one knows
how to read and to write — Germany, for instance ; listen to
the talk of the ordinary villagers from the school, and see if
they are always quite sure of the use of the cases. Try to get
hold of some of the letters written by the peasants in this
language, of which the spelling is perhaps easier than that o^
any save Latin, and examine if the article, to say nothing o\
the other declinable words, is always treated according to the
strict rules of grammar.
If you are at all observant, you will soon come to the con-
clusion that Nature is often at fault from fhe point of view of
declensions ; that she takes but httle notice of the school teach-
ing in this respect, and violates without sciTiple the most solemn
dictates of the official grammar. In the rare regions, such as
districts of Roumania, where Latin is yet spoken by the people,
the most diverse terminations are either rendered through the
nose with an obscure sound, or else crammed down the throat,
and, as we say, " swallowed." In either case, their differencetJ
of sound are strangled or become confounded together in the
vain sound of the fall of the voice.
This, then, is the avowal of Nature. She confesses herself
fallible in the region of declensions ; she avows herself clumsy
in practising the "cases." But everything in Nature justifies
its existence, and this appearance of clumsiness and of negli-
gence possibly hides within itself for the pedagogue a most
precious lesson. Let us consider for a few moments the pro-
ceeding which we have just pointed out. Let us attempt to
extract therefrom the principles or the various teachings it
may contain.
I. In Nature the mind passes from the relationship to the
sign, and from the sign to the relationship, directly and without
lecourse to any intermediary. In itself, all relation between
things is an abstraction; nevertheless, at the moment the
mind gi-asps it, this relation becomes a reality. It borrows, so
to speak, its existence from the two things it unites. It lives
in them and by them. Consequently its expression represents
something other than a mere void and empty abstraction.
What is truly abstract is this detached termination separated
from its whole, and destined to stand for relationships which
may be, but which are not yet. What is abstract is this a
priori concept, this assemblage, this factitious scaffolding of
258 GRAMMAR
terminations, termed the "declension." Here, again, Nature
remains faithful to her eternal process ; she works only on the
concrete and real, and bears witness once again that she has
as great a horror of abstraction as she was supposed to have
of a vacuum.
2. Nature '* practises " the cases ; she does not decline ; she
takes no notice of any grouping made from the point of view
of a declension. I repeat, she "practises" the cases, and this
practice is constant and permanent. This exercise is not
abandoned at the end of a month or at the end of twc
months to make place for another. It is continuous; it
endures as long as the use of the language itself endures.
And this exercise gives birth to a sense, the sense which we
might call " the sense of interrelationships."
3. Nature never commences by the raw expression of a
relation between objects ; she attaches it first to the concrete
part of the word, to its positive element. She never amuses
herself, as does the school, by determining the expression of a
relationship before being put into possession of the two terms
of this relationship. In portoe, for example, oe is the sigr
of a relationship. Porta is one of the terms of this rela-
tionship, but where is the other term ? This juggling with
case- endings pure and simple is utterly foreign to Nature.
4. In itself the form of the inflection is transitory. Nature
feels this, and treats this infl.ection as a thing merely accessoi;v,
Hence her negligence, and consequently her clumsiness in tlie
use of the cases. Hence her indifference with reference to the
solecism, and, I would say, her disdain for the grammatical
thunderbolts it evokes. Hence this mobility, this instabilit}:
of the case-ending, which becomes modified from one dialect tc
another dialect, from one river-bank to another river-bank, from
one hamlet to another hamlet — which becomes changed from
one generation to another generation.
It may be said that Nature roughs out the cases, and leaves
to the school the trouble of perfecting the system and ol
regulating their usage. And if, indeed, the case has become
anything at all, it is to the school rather than to Nature that
this is due. The latter, on the one hand, points out to \xi
the defect in her breastplate, and thereby, possibly, the meanf
of vanquishing her ; on the other hand, she teaches us to dis-
tinguish the essential from the accessory, to see in the plaj
THE DECLENSIONS IN THE CLASSICAL PROCESS. 259
of the case-endings not an end but a means, and thus puts
us on the alert against the attractions and the perfidious
advances of abstraction.
Let us now develop, side by side, in parallel, and, so to
speak, contradictorily, the two rival artificial processes — that
of the classical school and our own.
2. The art of declining at school.
I do not think there can possibly be anything in itself more
abstract than an inflection, a case- ending : a, oe, am, ce, arum,
aSj is, ij um, 0, u, ibns, &c. ; —
Ros a. Ros se.
Ptos se. Kos arum.
Ros am. Ros as.
Ros se. Ros is.
Ros a. Ros is.
For myself, I cannot forget that I spent more than three
months in trying to guess what it was that was wanted of me
when I was told to study these figures under the form of
letters. My teacher long despaired of his pupil. I confess
my stupidity to a great extent gave him this right,, in spite of
the ardour of my zeal, and a desire to do well which nothing
could discourage. Without having any comparison whatever
in view, we might recall that the celebrated Alexander von
Humboldt used to amuse himself by recounting how, up to his
fifteenth year, his grammatical "fooleries" earned him the
qualification of " dunce."
In reality, I fancy this is the history of all children con-
demned to pass through the wearisome phase of the classical
declensions and conjugations. At college no pupil is despaired
of, but he is usually riveted, in the name of experience to be
acquired, fifteen or twenty months together (in the earlier
forms) upon the interesting table of regular and irregular
declensions of nouns and adjectives. Coming from this, the
pupil finds himself sometimes capable of making a substantive
and an adjective agree in gender, number, and case, and this
brilliant result usually calls forth alike the joy of the teacher
and his praise.
Let us speak the truth. However captivating for a man the
right study of languages may become, let us frankly confess
that the study of the declensions never had, and never can
26o GRAMMAR.
have, the slightest attraction for any one. Let us say furth(
than this, that however the length and complexity of the
table may be reduced, this work never becomes anything bi
a "torture." It is therefore by a torture — for this laboi
extends over two years at least — by an absolute torture thi
the classical school commences the study of languages — Ma^
dulcis avi domum I
Of a surety, it needs all the suppleness of the fibre of chih
hood to withstand such strains. Try yourself — you, a grow
man or woman — to take your seat on the child's form and \
study there, by his side, whichever language you please, 1:
subjecting yourself once more to the method which is impost
upon him in order to learn Latin or German. Try, I sa;
and let us see how far your perseverance will take you.
To obtain this astonishing resignation from the child, thei
is but one way : to render him unconsciously an accomplice i
the outrage thus directed against himself. This is the pai
that the school has learnt to play.
The declension, in point of fact, forms, as it were, a porti
to the classical grammatical edifice. Now pupil, professo
and grammarian all alike work too long at this portal for tl
idea ever to come into their minds to put for one sing
moment a question as to its high value or its absolute nece
sity. If sometimes the shadow of a doubt comes to disquie
their faith in this respect, it is dismissed immediately as
suggestion of the spirit of error, or rather it is responded \
by this proud and disdainful saying — We have learnt thuE
Our fathers have always so learnt ! Our children shall lear
in the same way ! Which is as much as to say, " No one ca
learn otherwise."
You are right, if your children are only required to kno
languages as you know them yourselves ; then your resolutic
is wise, and the way is excellent ; you may be assured thj
they will not outstrip you. And if it be determined, mor<
over, that it is absolutely necessary for them to learn tl
declensions by the process gone through by yourselves, w
should be the first to counsel you in no wise to change tl
established order. For if you do not devote the whole of the:
childhood and the whole of their early zeal to this study, yo
may be assured that in later life they will seldom have tl
courage to undertake it.
According to our personal conviction, it requires more tha
THE DECLENSIONS IN THE SERIES SYSTEM. 261
courage to devour this sweet morsel so cruelly spiced with
abstractions ; it requires the faith and the innocent inexperi-
ence of childhood. If at ten years of age you do not know
the classic declensions, you stand a very great chance of never
knowing them. Whether this may be said to the glory or to
the shame of the art which prepares or the art which teaches
the declensions, is a question which we need not, at this
present moment, discuss; we content ourselves with stating
a fact which the partisans of the ancient system themselves
oppose to us as a principle.
We find, then, in the classical school all the efforts, both
of teacher and of pupil, are concentrated upon the declensions.
Any one would suppose that the whole language was contained
therein. Ten years and more of his life are given to this
work, and the pupil takes the shadow for the reality, and no
one even thinks of forewarning him, or dares to undeceive
him. If the declension is all, a solecism will be considered
even worse than the use of a barbarism; and, in fact, the
second is usually far from having the virtue of the first in
exciting the thunders of the master.
The abstract — this is both the starting-point and the goal
of the classical school. Nature, on the contrary, knows but
the concrete, rests only upon the concrete, sees but the con-
crete. The school and Nature work, therefore, in exactly
opposite ways. The first is always striving to make the river
flow towards its source.
Let us now compare our process with the preceding one.
3. Practice of the declensions in our system.
From the very first lesson on our system the question of
declensions is raised by the pupil himself, and the teacher
profits by the occasion to determine the theory of the comple-
ments and to explain the origin of cases and of declensions.
But he will put aside for a future lesson the task of organising
the general table of the declensions, and designedly leaves to
grow yet greater this desire of the child to know their usage
in a more precise and definite manner.
Ordinarily, after the twelfth lesson aU the possible case-
endings have appeared. The hour has then arrived when the
promised table may be drawn up. But who will construct this
table, and where will it be taken from ? Will it be copied out
of the grammars ? Will the teacher dictate it %
262 GRAMMAR.
The pupil knows all the case-endings by having heard and
practised them. Therefore the Case for him is not an unknown
thing, nor an abstraction. Instead of borrowing the declen-
sion from such or such a book, it will be created piece by
piece; and as all that the teacher does is simply to aid or
direct, it will be the class themselves who carry out this work.
Each pupil will henceforward comprehend and know to its
very roots a table which is of his own construction. This table
will be in no way an abstraction ; it will respond, in fact, to
a reality, it will represent knowledge previously acquired.
The table, once arranged, must next be used. The teacher
will be the firsfc to make use of it : he will refer to it when
elaborating before his class each of the sentences, each of the
exercises in the series which he is giving. Afterwards the
pupil will himself take up these themes, and reproduce them
by making use of the same table, rectifying his phrases by
means of it in the same way as did the teacher.
An entire series is thus elaborated, two series, twenty series,
the whole ordinary objective language. This is not all. Be-
yond the ordinary series, there are the Scientific Series and
the Literary Series. We have stated, and shall shortly demon-
strate, that the conceptions of the classical authors may be
arranged in series and transcribed sentence by sentence on
the model of our linguistic lessons. Now, over this creation
at second-hand which we undertake with each work, this same
table should preside. Not a sentence, not a phrase, which is
not rectified according to this table, not an expression which
is not subject to its control.
Is not this enough ? Shall we have worked upon the de-
clensions as long and as thoroughly as the ordinary school
teaching ? Do you think that our pupils will know them and
be able to handle them as well as theirs 1
Let us now say a few words upon the manner in which a
table of declensions may be conceived and constructed, and
we will apply our ideas to Latin. It must be borne well in
mind that this question of the cases has been raised by the
class themselves, and that the teacher is bound to join with
his pupils in the search for the best possible solution. TJiis
process presents two advantages : in the first place, the pupil
will take more interest in the subject; and in the second
place, the solution arrived at will be graven upon his mind
with all the characteristics of a personal discovery.
CONSTRUCTION OF TABLE OF DECLENSIONS. 263
The pupil has been led to distinguish two sorts of inflections
— those of the terms which complete the verbs, and those of
the terms which complete the nouns. He certainly will have
the idea of separating these two kinds of complements. This
distinction might be made by means of a bar, and we shall
then obtain the first table in the following form : —
port — a
am
Below the bar are placed the three endings that porta may
take when it acts as complement to a verb or to a preposi-
tion ; above the bar, the form which porta may take when it
acts as complement to a noun, portoe — cardo ; and on the
first line the form which poHa presents when acting the part
of subject in a sentence.
We shall next indicate the function of each case-ending,
and our table will become —
port-a subject.
se complement of noun.
am ist complement of verb.
86 2nd complement of verb,
a 3rd complement of verb.
The complement of a noun answers to the question "Of
what (or whose) ? " asked after the noun.
The complement (i) of a verb answers to the question
*' What?" asked after the verb.
The complement (2) answers to the question " To what ? "
The complement (3) answers to the question *' By what ? "
We can again make these four questions figure in our table,
which then takes the definite form —
What ? port-a subject.
Of what, whose ? a3 complement of noun.
What? am ist complement of verb.
To what ? 88 2nd complement of verb.
By what 1 a 3rd complement of verb.
264 GRAMMAR.
The plural will be constructed in the same way, and the
whole of the first declension will be contained in the following
synthetical table : —
Table of the First Declension.
a se
se arum
86 IS
a is
This form is the one that would be adopted after two or
three days of practice. The four other declensions will be
collected into analogous tables, so that the five together might
be held, as the saying is, " in the hollow of one's hand."
What advantages has this table over those of the ordi-
nary grammar 1 In the first place, that of simplicity and of
brevity. The pupil can and does embrace it in one glance.
A second advantage is its precision and its clearness. The
bar that divides it in two reminds the pupil constantly that
there are two kinds of complements, and therefore two kinds
of case-endings. The grammarians seem never to have in-
vented any method to enable the child to distinguish the
flexion belonging to a complement of the noun from the
flexions belonging to the complements of the verb. Whole
weeks of explanation are therefore necessary to enable him
to grasp the rule of the genitive case, " liber Petri " (Peter's
book).
A third advantage is the natural order of the cases. I
have often wondered, and I still wonder, why it is that in the
ordinary grammars the ending destined for the first comple-
ment comes after that used for the second complement.
ros a
ros se
ros ae, 2nd complement of verb,
ros am, ist complement of verb,
ros a, 3rd complement of verb.
I confess I see no reason whatever for this inversion. Pos-
sibly, indeed, there is none. An insignificant detail, it will
be said, a slight imperfection such as will happen anywhere.
USE OV THE TABLE OF DECLENSIONS. 265
Slight for you, perchance, but not for the child, who has thus
to work amongst disorder, believing himself to be working
amongst order. To put in the second rank that which should
be in the first, to put in the first that which should be put in
the second, what more likely than this to lead the learner
astray '? Could you do much more even if you wished to set a
trap for his inexperience 1
We have thus re-established the natural order, which is at the
same time the logical order. In our table, the first comple-
ment comes first and before the second, and the second comes
second and before the third. Here, certainly, is an innova-
tion which has not needed any very great intellectual effort to
make, and yet there is no one, so far as we are aware, who has
said a word against the illogical arrangement here pointed out.
Our table commends itself, we think, also by the clearness
of its terminology. We have replaced those surnames ending
in ative and itive which usually no pupil really understands,
nor can be made to understand, by expressions which we
believe to be as exact as they are simple.
A final property of our table, and the most important, is
that of reducing, as we have said, the whole syntax into a few
lines. Syntax, in fact, has for its object the determination of
the functions which devolve upon the terms of any sentence.
Now these functions naturally find themselves determined by
the very denominations which we have proposed.
"I give the poor man a coat." I give what^ A coat
(compl. i), vestem. I give to whom? To the poor man
(compl. 2), pauperi. And without any difiiculty, and without
hesitation, the pupii gives the phrase, " Vestem pauperi do."
"The shepherd strokes the dog's back with his hand."
He strokes what ? — the back (compl. i), dorsum.
He strokes to whom ? — the dog (compl. 2), cani.
He strokes by what ? — by his hand (compl. 3), manu.
And the pupil with the same surety (after a remark upon
the Latin use of the third complement) produces the following
phrase, "Dorsum cani manu remulcet pastor."
In what does the work of the teacher here consist ? He
aids the pupil in fixing the order of the complements, that is,
in determining the true function of each term. Given the
system of our series, together with our mode of teaching, and
266 GRAMMAE.
ifc can be seen that this work of syntax is perpetual in our
language-lessons. It commences with the first sentence of
the first lesson, and it ends only with the last sentence of the
last series. Who, then, can accuse us of not teaching gram-
mar 'i Can the school be named which at any time worked
and practised the syntax to the extent that does our own ?
4. Parallel of the two 2'>'i'ocesses.
There are, therefore, two manners of teaching the declen-
sions. Which is the best 1 To judge, we must compare them.
The classical school puts the child to the study of the declen-
sions before he knows what may be the object of this study
and for what it may afterwards be of service to him. It is
imposed upon him six months before he has need of it, two
years before he puts it seriously into practice. With us, it is
the pupil who solicits the explanation of the cases. The study,
of the declensions is, therefore, always premature in the classic
school. It is not so with us, because with us the practice
begins from the very first day.
Ad portam pergo. ich gehe nach der Thiir.
portse appropinquo. ich nahere mich der Thtir.
ad portam pervenio, &c. ich komme bei der Thiir an, &c.
The pupil should know why it is that we find in one place
portam, in another portce, farther along porta.
At the classical school the pupil declines for the sake of
declining. He learns, or thinks he learns, the declension for
itself ; he studies it, therefore, in a state of abstraction. With
us it is in order to apply it immediately that he asks for it ; it
is in order to join it to something concrete, to realise it in the
expression of an actual fact. There the declension is an end ;
here it is a means. There it is the form that exclusively pre-
occupies both teacher and pupil ; here the essential goes be-
fore the accessory ; the foundation goes before the form, as it
does in Nature.
There, for term after term, the students dwell upon empty
declensions. The child will decline and conjugate without
truce or pity substantives, adjectives, pronouns ; verbs — active,
passive, neuter — and the rest, occupied solely with the termi-
nation, that is to say, with the accessory. With us, the
PARALLEL OF THE TWO PROCESSES. 267
explanation of the declension barely requires one hour. There,
abstract tables, confused, badly arranged, are taken from the
official grammars and imposed upon the pupil like so many
dogmas. With us, it is the pupil himself who organises them,
and the table represents in his eyes a synthesis — never an
abstraction.
At the classical school, the declension is an intermediary
which continually interposes between the perception and the
expression of a relation between objects. The pupil never
goes directly to this expression ; he never reaches it save
through the table of declensions. With us, he goes directly
to the expression of the relation, applies it intuitively to the
relationship which gives rise to it, then verifies it or rectifies
it, if need be, by means of the table. The latter method
finishes exactly where the former commences. With one, the
student first speaks his thought and then corrects the form of
its expression ; with the other, he first of all manufactures a
termination, then adapts it to his thought. The first operates
intuitively, the second mechanically.
Which of the two processes approaches most closely to that
of Nature, who, absolutely ignorant of the art of declining, goes
directly, as we have said, from the relationship to the sign, and
from the sign to the relationship — always practising, always
working, upon the real and the concrete *?
There is one objection which a good many persons formulate
against our system ; this is the proper moment to answer it.
" You do away," they say to us, " with all the difficulties, and
you leave nothing to the child's individual efforts. Afterwards
let but the smallest obstacle occur, and he will dash against
it and bruise himself. The mind must be hardened as well
as the body."
We think so too ; but we lay one condition thereto, that
the mind in the end should overcome the difficulties and not
succumb to them, for otherwise the best teacher would be he
who was most incapable. Can we believe that defeat is the
best school for victory ?
We make the study of Latin too easy ! What an objection !
Our method makes the study of languages too easy ! This
is the old complaint of the stage-coach against the railway.
Steam also has done away with many obstacles, has smoothed
many rough roads, has even eliminated mountains. Is there
268 GRAMMAR.
lack of obstacles to-day 1 Has human energy become weakened
from that day forth ?
We make study too easy ! Too fruitful, you mean. Is this
a defect to cast in the teeth of a method ? Do you qualify as
bad a machine that will thresh a hundred sheaves of wheat an
hour more than the ordinary threshing-machines ? By the aid
of the railway you can now accomplish in an hour what hitherto
you could not do in a day. If with our methods you find you
can learn in an hour what at present you cannot learn in a
day, you would begin to think your faculties injured ! You
would think your means diminished, your forces decreased !
You would regret the obstacles against which you used to
exhaust yourselves in vain !
If, during the time you are wearily mumbling over one book
of- Virgil, we can assimilate this author entire, would you
declare your work greater than our own, and more fruitful ?
For ten obstacles which your pupils have encountered on the
way, and which have been for them the occasion of nine
defeats, ours have encountered a hundred, which have been
for them the occasion of ninety victories. Can you not decide
which have taken the better way? We make the study of
languages too easy ! Does the lever destroy the power of man
because it doubles the effect of each of his efforts ?
Hitherto youth has exhausted itself in the study of one
language; henceforth it may exhaust itself in the study of
ten languages. Progress does not destroy the obstacle ; it
transforms it or shifts its position. However swift a scientific
method may be, life will always be too short to discover all
that is true, to see all that is beautiful, to learn all that is
good.
Our duty is to gain knowledge by the shortest and easiest
routes, and not to wander about after the fashion of the pil-
grim, who imagines he is increasing his merits by wearing
thorns in his shoes.
X.
THE PREPOSITION.
We have hitherto considered and dealt with the cases in
themselves, apart from the prepositions, which are continually
found joined thereto, and which, in appearance at least, govern
THE PREPOSITION. 269
them. Let us devote a few lines to the study of this element of
the sentence, and explain how we practise them in our system.
The preposition is intimately connected with the verb,
often even forming a part of it. It might be termed a
detached morsel of the substance of the verb. It fulfils, with
regard to the verb, the office of first body-servant. Its func-
tion consists principally in indicating the direction in which
the action takes place, in defining exactly the point upon
which it bears, in marking the end to which it tends.
Considered from this point of view, the preposition plays a
very important part in the sentence, and in connection there-
with we may put three principal questions to every linguistic
method, and more particularly to our own : —
1. Does the preposition occupy a place in the method rela-
tive to its importance ?
2. How does its assimilation take place ?
3. How is its play upon the other terms of the sentence
revealed and studied 1
The exercises of our series reproduce, or may reproduce, all
the acts and all the situations possible ; it is therefore certain
that the complete play of the preposition will be reproduced
therein. So much in the first place. Moreover, the number
of the prepositions is very restricted — as restricted, in fact, as
the number of relationships they serve to express. These
terms are therefore extremely general terms, an essentially cur-
rent coinage, which, consequently, should be found everywhere.
Therefore, in the twenty-five phrases which ordinarily com-
pose each theme of our series, there is plenty of room for
their appearance; I will add, there is the chance for the
greatest number to be effectively called up, and to be called
up several times over : —
I go
towards
the door.
I draw near
to
the door.
I arrive
at
the door.
I stop
at
the door.
The door turns
on
its hinges.
Je vais
vers
la porte.
Je m'approche
de
la porte.
J'arrive
k
la porte.
La porte tourne
sur
(fee. &c.
ses gonds.
270 GRAMMAR.
If the verb occupies the first rank in our series, we may say
that the preposition occupies the second rank. It has a right
to this rank by the very considerable function it fills in the
language as a determinative. Our method therefore accords
it a place fully adequate to its importance.
How does the assimilation of the preposition take place?
This problem is the immediate corollary of that which we
have just solved in relation to the cases or the inflections of
nouns. We shall not draw up, as do the ordinary grammars,
an abstract list of these prepositions and of the cases they
govern. No ; this is an abstract work, a barren task.
We shall take them, we shall grasp these prepositions
living ; as living as the idea of which they are the embodi-
ment ; as living as the action of which they translate a phase ;
as living as the object upon which they rest ; as living, in fine,
as the organism of the phrases of which they form part. The
preposition will be learnt in the phrase and by the phrase.
Will this assimilation be swift and will it be easy ? Will it
be swift ? At the end of the tenth lesson the pupil will know
them all. At the end of the twentieth he will make use of
them with the same ease and the same surety as a pro-
fessional philologist. He will know them, not in their defini-
tion — this is impossible — but in their sense or inner value,
almost as one knows one's own personality without being able
to define it.
Will this assimilation be easy ? It will be as easy — I will
say as instantaneous — as the conception itself of the relation-
ships they express ; and if these relationships are stamped on
the mind, this assimilation will be equally stamped upon the
mind, and will operate automatically.
This will be found difficult, you think ? Possibly, for those
who treat the preposition as a pure sign, an abstract sign, a
sign deprived of its idea. In this condition I believe it to be
not only difficult, but impossible. Count, indeed, the move-
ments of the lips and tongue required from your pupil to
learn these fifteen or twenty unfortunate syllables; and by
the caricatures which usually grin at you from this wretched
page of the school-gramnjar you may judge both of the
weariness of the pupil and of the uselessness of the labours —
always to be recommenced because always fruitless — with
which he must periodically toil in this ungrateful field.
INTUITIVE USE OF THE PREPOSITION. 271
Will it be easy ? you ask. We answer : — After the first
week the preposition will be part of the very thought of our
pupil, and it will be at the tip of his tongue as certainly as
it is in his mind. It needs the heavy bandages of prejudice
to prevent the reading of this conclusion in the mere state-
ment of the premisses.
In those languages which have no declension, the preposi-
tion exercises no influence on the form of its complement.
On the other hand, in the languages which have preserved
the inflection, it compels its complemenl; to take a particular
and determinate case-ending. We have previously given tlie
explanation of this double representation of the relationships.
Whether this fact be due to the cause indicated, or whether
it be the consequence of a real relationship of subordination,
the result in practice is the same ; we may say that the pre-
position ''governs" the case in a similar manner to the verb.
We have spoken of the relationships that the verb sustains
with its complements ; we have mentioned how the mind goes
from the one to the other, conceives the one in and by the
other. The same theory entirely applies to the case before
us. It applies to it even more directly than to the first case.
In point of fact, the relationship contained within the ordinary
verb is found therein in a latent state ; it is enveloped therein,
and is divined rather than seen — Portce aj^propinquo.
On the other hand, this relationship becomes, so to speak,
visible and tangible in the body of the preposition which is its
special sign, its own particular expression — Ad portam per-
venio. The play or the action of the preposition on its com-
plement is learnt, therefore, like the rest, by force of practice ;
a practice direct and constant, from which in good time springs
forth " Intuition."
The rule is the eggshell, destined to disappear as soon as
the life shall have emerged.
XI.
THE PREFIX.
There yet remains for us to speak of one term which, by
its form and its nature, must be considered as closely related
to the preposition ; perhaps it is even nothing else than this
272 GRAMMAR.
preposition momentarily disguised. We refer to the " prefix."
In the greater number of the European languages the prefix
plays but a very minor part. German alone puts it particu-
larly forward, and accords it a special and independent position
in the sentence. It is, therefore, in this language that it is
best studied.
The prefix is the sign of a sign ; it is the instigator, or, if
you will, the prelude to another sign. It calls for, it provokes
either a forte of the voice or a gesture of the hand, com-
monly both, which begin the signification of the verb or which
finish it —
Ich will die Thur auf-machen.
Ich mache die Thiir auf.
In these two sentences the hand and the voice aid, one may
say, the word auf, the one by the spontaneous movement, the
other by a special accent, the two dictated by instinct, or
rather commanded by the idea. This prefix is, therefore,
really the sign of a sign. As such, it is, in the true sense of
the word, "indefinable." It is a something that a book will
always be powerless to explain. The more the subject is
expounded, the less you are likely to comprehend. An, auf,
ver, zer, are signs so essentially abstract, so general, that they
no longer have any appreciable limits. There exist no other
terms more general that are capable of circumscribing them,
that is, of defining them. They are verily " indefinable."
There is nothing but a gesture or a modulation of the voice
that can render them. They do not represent a word, but
the fragment of a word, and of that the most intimate, the
most subjective, the most personal part of the word, namely,
the " accent," and in the accent the " intonation." There are,
therefore, only two means of manifesting the inner significa-
tion of the prefix — the tone of the voice and the gesture of
the hand.
Which is the method that has recourse to these two means
and which recommends them ? Is it that which is based upon
the principle that a language can be learnt without a master,
or which condemns you to pick out this language piecemeal
from a dictionary, where it is not, cannot be, and never will
be 1 Try it and see.
The German language possesses about a dozen of these
terms. Well, these twelve syllables alone constitute an
THE GERMAN PREFIX. 273
obstacle which I take to be insurmountable by the usual
methods — I repeat, "insurmountable/'
Do you know in what — for the nations of the Latin race in
particular — lies the difficulty in learning Grerman ? I can tell
you ; for I have waged over this ground a battle of more than
three hundred days. I might possibly have been able to
triumph over all other obstacles, but I succumbed, and I was
bound to succumb, before that of the prefix. Combine these
twelve 'or fifteen determinatives with the five hundred root
words of the German language, and see what a formidable
array the product of the composed terms will become. I
struggled, therefore, practically against infinity ; and he will
equally have to struggle against infinity who does not attack
the prefix upon the side which we shall now indicate.
The prefix is the most redoubtable rampart of the Grerman
language ; but if you can once manage to conquer this, you
will practically dominate all. The same may be said of Greek
with its prepositions, which we regard as veritable prefixes.
These two languages are two impregnable fortresses with the
ordinary means. German is equal to Greek, and Greek equal
to German, as languages which cannot be assimilated by means
of the dictionary and the grammar. And yet these two
languages, Greek and German, so rebellious to all the efforts
of the classic school, should be, and in reality are, two of the
easiest languages for European nations to learn.
If, indeed, their words may be composed and decomposed at
will, this simply proves that the elements of these words are
still distinct, while in other languages the most diverse ele-
ments are mixed and confounded together, and often absolutely
unrecognisable. In such languages, each separate term has to
be conquered as an original term, sui generis, and there are
some thirty thousand or more of them. Whereas, in the
former, it is sufficient to know a small number of elementary
words, with the secret of their combinations, to know them
almost all.
Let us base these generalities on facts and figures. We
have said elsewhere that the expression of the objective
language experienced by a human individuality — ^yours or
mine — might be written out in a book of some four thousand
pages. Now if a person had studied in French the first three
thousand pages, we would not, therefore, guarantee that he
274 QRAMMAB.
could correctly express and understand the last thousand.
But, on the other hand, experience has abundantly shown us
that he who has gone through the first two thousand of our
themes in Greek or German is then perfectly able to express
and understand the other two thousand.
It is a remarkable fact that the pupils who have studied
with us in Greek even the first eighty themes of our Series of
the Shepherd find themselves all at once able to understand
the Greek authors at first sight, while a person who has gone
through the same themes in French is yet unable to decipher
thoroughly even the easiest of the French writers. To what
is this due ? Evidently to the difference in the constitution of
the two languages.
The constitution of a language depends in ^eat measure
upon the part to be played therein by the prefix. Our eighty
themes represent a total of two thousand phrases. Now these
two thousand phrases, inasmuch as they express the most
elementary situations, movements, and acts of life, must con-
tain, or very nearly so, all the roots of the language. They
contain, besides, and necessarily, all the prefixes — the prefixes
wedded to the roots, and forming ^\ ith them the greater part
of the alliances and combinations of which they are capable.
Let the art of teaching make of this raw^ material the same
use that Nature knows how to make, and the phenomenon
which we have just stated will explain itself.
In fact, in the course of these eighty themes the pupil cer-
tainly has the opportunity of familiarising himself with the
two essential and constituent elements of the language; he
very soon finds himself able to work upon this material by
himself, and from it form new combinations capable of express-
ing the rest of his own individuality. So much said, how
are we best to teach the use of the prefix ?
The prefix, let us remember, is a sign which provokes either
a raising of the tone of voice or a gesture of the hand, both of
them for the purpose of either commencing the signification
of the verb or of completing it.
Ich drehe den Griff um,
Ich will die Q'htir a«(/'-machen,
as in English —
I turn the handle roundy
I will pull the door to.
CONQUEST OF THE PKEFIX. 275
Considered thus, the prefix, like the preposition, is part and
parcel of the verb. As such, it will partake with the verb
in the ruling position accorded by us to the verb in the sen-
tence. But it is not only in our written system that the verb
occupies a privileged place ; it is above all in the oral expres-
sion of the lesson and of its sentences. The prefix marching
always side by side with the verb, will share the same advan-
tages ; it will be given forth, proclaimed separately, along
with the verb or as part of the verb, and we shall take pains
to define it separately with a gesture. of the hand or an
emphasis of the voice. That is our manner of teaching or of
translating the prefix.
Our elementary Series of the Shepherd, as we have said,
contains two thousand sentences ; this alone, therefore, offers
us two thousand opportunities of producing this translation
of the prefix by accent or gesture. Worked upon in this
manner, does the prefix require many weeks to be assimilated
by the mind ? Will its virtue and its inner sense long escape
the intuitive perception of the scholar ?
Have you never wondered how it is that the Grerman child
manages to solve the twelve formidable enigmas set to him,
continually and in rivalry with each other, by the twelve
sphinxes which reign as autocrats over his mother- ton gue ?
Observe him attentively, and you will see that accent and
gesture are the only interpreters to which he has recourse —
gesture, which " points " or figures the action ; and accent,
which imprints upon it a definite character.
The constitution of our series, the form of our lessons, our
mode of teaching, all permit us not only to practise the prefix
as Nature practises it, but to practise it even better than
Nature can do.
276 GRAMMAR.
STUDY OF THE SENTENCE.
Construction. fP f
XII.
TWO SORTS OF CONSTRUCTION — NATURAL ORDER AND LOGICAL
ORDER.
The materials are now all before us, properly trimmed into
shape ; we have nothing further to do but construct. Two
styles offer themselves to us, the antique style and the modern
style. Will our method adapt itself better to one than to the
other of them, or will it accommodate itself equally well to both %
Let us see, first, in what each of these two constructions
consists.
In the very ancient languages every term employed to com-
plete another term was placed before this other. Instead of
saying, for instance, '' upon the table," they said '' the table
upon." The modern languages still present certain vestiges
of this archaic construction. In English we have " thereon,
thereby, therein," &c., and in French the words " la-dessus,
la-bas, Ik-dedans," &c., are composed according to this rule.
It is this ideal which, to a considerable extent, governs the
Latin sentence. The Roman said —
Ad portam pergo. To the door I go,
and not
Pergo ad portam, I go to the door.
Here, then, we have the antique order : I call it the
" natural order." It is, in fact, more natural than the other.
It begins by the determinate to finish by the indeterminate.
Consequently, the expression remains concrete from the be-
ginning to the end. Greek, according to this rule, is not as
ancient in its method of construction as Latin. Its construc-
tion is almost that of modern languages.
If the verb is loaded with several complements, the order to
be followed in the distribution of these complements is that
presented by our general table of declensions. Write down
ANCIENT AND MODERN CONSTRUCTION. 277
first of all the first complement, continue by the second, and
finish with the third : —
" Dorsum cani manu remulcet opilio."
To the rule we have just enounced it is necessary to add a
second commanded by cadence and harmony, and with which
the first is often obliged to enter into combination. The ad-
jective will be separated from its substantive by one or several
terms : —
" Tityre, tu patulse recubans sub tegmine fagi,
Silvestrem tenui musam meditaris avena."
By this arrangement the phrase presents itself in harmoni-
ously balanced periods, and it avoids the continuity of mono-
tonous consonances.
Such are the rules which preside over the construction of
the antique phrase. Their application is as easy as their expo-
sition is simple.
Modern construction obeys a principle diametrically opposed
to that of the ancients. Every term which completes another
is placed after this other. This rule, it must be noted, is no
more absolute than the first, but it is the ideal towards which
the modern sentence visibly tends : —
I go towards the door,
and not
Towards the door I go.
This inversion is only permissible in poetry, precisely for the
reason that poetry especially seeks for archaic forms of ex-
pression. Cadence and harmony are here again admitted to
their full rights, and the dominant rule is not always rigidly
applied.
The term " logical " seems to us to characterise the order
which presides over the construction of the modern phrase.
Here the word which is most indeterminate is the starting-
point, and the phrase as it develops proceeds by determining it
more and more precisely. In the phrase, " I go towards the
door," " I " is completed or determined by " go," and " go " is
completed or determined by " towards the door " — " I go
towards the door." So in French — " Je vais vers la porte."
When the verb has several complements, it is usually the
cadence or the harmony which decides their place.
The languages in which the prefix plays an important part,
278 GRAMMAR
as German (and, to a minor extent, English), should possess,
and in fact do possess, a construction of their own. German
presents four species of expression : —
1. Those in which the verb has either no prefix at all, or in
which it is welded thereto as an inseparable prefix : —
Ich bffne die Thiir.
Er zerbricht Holz.
In this case the sentence is constructed according to the
"logical" order.
2. The phrases in which the verb carries a separable
prefix : —
Ich mache die Thiir auf.
In this case the two parts are separated, and enclose between
them, as in a frame, all the complements of the verb. Regarded
closely, it is the logical order which presides over this con-
struction. In reality, "auf" is nothing else than a deter-
minative of *' mache;" as in English, " I pull the drawer
out," " I lift the jug up."
3. The phrases which are commanded by an enclitic verb : —
Ich will -^ die Thiir auf-machen.
Versuchen Sie -t^ die Thiir auf-zu-machen.
There are in this case two verbs in the phrase, and all the
complements are enclosed or enframed between them. This
form is a compromise between the antique construction and
the modern construction. The enclitic is in the place which
it should occupy in a modern sentence, but the second verb,
" auf-machen," is preceded by its complement, " die Thiir."
4. The phrases which occur introduced by a conjunction : —
Wenn ich die Thiir auf-mache.
Wenn ich die Thiir auf-machen will.
These constructions partake more of the antique than of
the modern form. In the above phrase " will " is preceded
by its complement ** auf-machen," and "auf-machen" is pre-
ceded by its complement " die Thiir." The entire phrase is
enframed between the conjunction " wenn " and that of the
two verbs which has a personal form, " Ich will."
These are the four types of construction which a German
sentence can present. If we add to these four that in which
some complement usurps the place of the subject, or in which
CONSTRUCTION BY THE CLASSICAL PROCESS. 279
this subject leaps by way of the verb to re-establish the
balance, as —
Die Thiir will ich auf-machen,
we shall have exhausted all that we have here to say upon the
construction of German.
XIIL
PRACTICAL STUDY OF THE CONSTRUCTION IN AN ANCIENT OR
MODERN FOREIGN LANGUAGE.
We have just seen that the Latin phrase is constructed in
a different form to the French or English phrase, and the
German phrase differently to either of these two types. The
man, therefore, who has never spoken any other language
than, say, English or French, is incapable of constructing pro-
perly a single phrase in either Latin or German, even if he is
in possession of all the elements of those languages. Con-
sequently, if he wishes to learn one of those languages, what is
required of him is that he should study the construction of the
phrase in this language itself. So far as regards our mother-
tongue, each of us has learnt the construction directly while
learning to think, and we apply it intuitively. Our own lan-
guage is not, therefore, the place to study it, at least with the
view of its practical application. Hence the problem in question
may be formulated as follows : — A pupil is accustomed to think
and to speak according to the " logical" order ; to what exer-
cise must he submit himself in order to learn to think and to
speak with the same facility in a foreign language in which
the phrase is constructed according to the "natural" order?
The classical school possesses, or believes it possesses, a solu-
tion to this problem ; our method proposes a new solution.
Let us compare them.
I . Construction by the ordinary process.
We will suppose that the lesson to be given in class is one
of the Eclogues of Virgil : —
" Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi,
Silvestrem tenui musam meditaris avena.
Nos patriae fines et dulcia linquimus arva,
Nos patriam fugimus : tu Tityre, lentus in umbrsi,
Formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas. ..."
28o GRAMMAR.
The classical school brutally uproots the sentence from its
surroundings to submit it to a species of anatomical dissection.
It breaks it up without pity, or at least pulls it to pieces like
a child its toy ; then, replacing its elements in the logical
order, makes therefrom a modern phrase. This is what is
called construction : —
" Tityre, tu recubans sub tegmine fagi patulae,
Meditaris musam silvestrem avena tenui,
Nos linquimus fines patriae et arva dulcia ;
Nos f ugimus patriam ; tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra,
Doces silves resonare Amaryllida formosam. ..."
To teach the antique construction the school destroys it,
makes it disappear, and substitutes in its place the modern
construction. I ask if this is really the means to familiarise
the mind with the Latin construction ? I ask, how many
years are needed to be able, by this strange proceeding, to
follow intuitively the natural order— to apply intuitively the
antique form of construction ? Instead of bringing the logical
order back into the natural order, you force the natural order
into the form of the logical order. Were ever means and end
more contradictory? As well might one, as some one some-
where has said, practise balancing a chair on the tip of one's
nose in order to strengthen the arms.
In thus reading Latin the wrong way round, in speaking it,
in writing it the wrong way round, I do nothing but weave
the web of Penelope. It is quite evident that by so doing I
shall never be able to thoroughly learn this language, which
is, nevertheless, one of the easiest of all languages ever spoken
on the face of the earth. Nay, further, the more I read it,
the more I speak it, the more I write it in this way, the less
shall I know of it.
For observe, between my thought and the antique form
of this thought you again place an intermediary. I am
obliged to reach the antique construction by way of the
modern construction. You condemn me to construct the
natural order out of the logical order, which is as much as
to say to manufacture light out of darkness. Instead of clear-
ing away all obstacles which might hinder my thought from
going straight to its expression, you vastly increase them.
No ! never — however much I work, I should never know
Latin; this language would never become for me a natural
CONSTRUCTION BY THE SERIES SYSTEM. 281
organ of my thought ; never would one of its books bring up
before me the true soul of the author ; never will the beating
of his heart quicken mine. Virgil, Cicero, thus dessicated,
can never be other than dry bones — corpses !
This is whither the methods of the classical school lead us.
Let us see where our own will lead.
2. Construction by our method.
From the very first lesson, from the very first sentence, we
put before the pupil the antique construction ; we force him
to think according to the natural order, and to accommodate
his phrases to this new manner of imagining things. Let us
try this first of all upon one of our series, and let us take
yet once more our old exercise, " Ostium aperio."
The teacher gives the first word, pergo. Then attacking
the phrase by the complement, and making it start into life
by the gesture of his hand and the accent of his voice, he
says —
Pergo. Ad ostium pergo.
Have we not here both analysis and synthesis 1 Analysis
when the master, dividing the sentence into two parts, sets
the verb by itself ; synthesis when he builds up around this
verb the complete phrase and allows it to blossom forth as
upon its natural stem.
appropinquo Ad ostium appropinquo.
pervenio ad ostium pervenio.
suhsisto ad ostium subsisto.
apprehendo ostii ansam apprehendo.
torcLueo ostii ansam torqueo.
recludo ostium recludo.
vertitur cardinibus vertitur ostium.
stridet cardinibus stridet ostium, &c.
Here, then, is no intermediary between the idea and the
antique form destined to translate and to manifest it ; no con-
struction after the fashion of modern speech. Here it is
directly, and without recourse to any mediator, that the idea
goes to the form, and that the form comes to the idea and
adapts itself to the idea. Of anatomical dissection there is
none. As soon as the phrase issues from the mouth, it is
living. It lives already in the verb, which is the abbreviation
282 GKAMMAR
of it j and it is thence, as from a focus, that the Promethean
spark springs forth to animate its various members and com-
plements. With us the phrase never appears in the state of a
corpse, and a corpse, moreover, cut up into pieces as in the word-
for-word or interhnear translations of the classical school.
And nevertheless all is distinct in our sentence. It is a
team in which the various guiding reins never get mixed.
We owe this advantage to the elevated and firm seat in which
we have been able to place our charioteer, " the verb."
The first part, we think all will confess, is gained : the
master has made his class think in Latin; he has initiated
them into the secret of the antique construction; he has
familiarised them with what we have termed the natural order
of the words. More than this, the scholar has, without know-
ing it, deserted the logical order — the form to which his
thoughts are habituated — to follow the natural order, a form
contrary to his habits of thought. A few more exercises and
the pupil will no more be able to construct his sentences
otherwise than could the ancients themselves. He will not
seek for the antique construction; he will apply it by instinct.
From the first series you will lead him to the second, from
the second you will conduct him to the third, and when all
the complements possible have found opportunity to manifest
themselves and to play their part around the verb, when the
pupil possesses that basis of the language of which we have
so often spoken — then open Virgil, and, going from sentence
to sentence, sow the verbs (or their substitutes) first. From
this seed will ripen the brilliant harvest so highly prized.
Your scholars shall gather it sheaf by sheaf, and this book
shall be for them no more a barren field. Yirgil will no
longer be for them what he was for us, " a dead body."
recuhans Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi,
meditaris silvestrem tenui musam meditaris avena.
lincLuimus Nos patriae fines et dulcia linquimus arva,
fugimus nos fugimus patriam.
(lentus) Tu, Tityre, lentus in umbr^,
resonare formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas.
The classic issues absolutely intact from this operation. It
is neither mutilated nor violated by the book in a horrible
word-for-word translation, nor is it disorganised nor massacred
by a wordiness without shame and a knowledge without taste.
THE EEADING OF THE CLASSICS. 283
The smallest blemish, the slightest scratch of the sacred text
is spared. The length of the typographical line is the sole
thing we do not consider ourselves bound to respect. It
cannot be here a question of verse. ^Haen the pupil has
heard the text, he will be able to open the ordinary edition
and therein scan the syllables at will. We would, however,
point out that even the versification is only deranged typo-
graphically.
It must, of course, be thoroughly understood that the read-
ing of the classics only comes after the study of the series
proper. One is the necessary condition of .the other ; it pre-
pares for it as the expression of the facts of ordinary life
prepares the child for the immediate and fluent reading of
the books of his mother-tongue. He who passes from the
grammar direct to the literary masterpiece is forced to have
recourse to the anatomical dissection commonly known as
" construing " or " word for word " translation.
The solution of the problem which we have presented is the
natural product of the general mechanism of our system — a
product, indeed, so natural that one would hardly even suspect
that there is here a formidable difficulty vanquished. This
solution is, as it were, the resultant of all the principles which
lie at the root of the system. It follows from the central idea
of the series, from their inner construction, from their written
and spoken form. It is the immediate corollary of the axiom
which has raised the verb to the first rank in the phrase.
This verb, which allows the sentence to fold itself up, to
gather itself together, to contract itself, to force itself into
one single term, afterwards to expand itself to make all the
various complements that it encloses spring forth — the verb
plays in the sentence a part that is not without analogy with
that of the heart in the human body.
It is this double movement of contraction and expansion
which our method of teaching can enable the sentence to
make that explains the easy triumphs of our method, as it
explains elsewhere the miracles of life. No matter what
language we take, or under what form a phrase occurs, if
there is a verb in this phrase and if there are complements,
these complements must come either before or after the verb.
We have shown that our process accommodates itself as well
to the one as to the other. It is therefore applicable to all
languages.
284 GRAMMAR.
THE MODAL PHRASES.
XIV.
CLASSIFICATION AND PRACTICE.
I. Definition of the modal phrase — Its constituent elements —
Their relations.
When, in our school-days, we dealt with phrases such as the
following : —
I think you are crying. Credo te fiere,
I think that he is reading, Credo ilium legere,
I think that he has read, Credo ilium legisse,
Je crois que vous pleurez,
je crois qu'il lit,
je crois qu'il a lu,
we dealt with " modal phrases." When we recited the
rules of
Suadeo tibi ut —^ legas,
Timeo ne -^ proeceptor veniat,
Cave ne -5^ cadas,
Dignus est -;^ qui imperet,
&c., &c.
we were still elaborating " modal phrases."
Various writers have special names for these syntactical
forms. The modern grammars usually content themselves by
attempting a rule or a definition of what is understood by the
word " subjunctive," and refer for particular cases to the dic-
tionaries. A treatise therefore remains to be written which
should comprise the complete series of the locutions analogous
to those just given, and which would classify them according
to a rational principle.
The modal phrase is always composed of two distinct parts,
each part with its own verb, but one of them subordinate
to the other. The part which governs the other usually
THE MODAL PHRASES. 285
expresses a mental fact, an attitude of the mind either active
or passive.
I think that -^ you are crying.
I advise you -^ to read.
I am afraid that -;=' the teacher will come.
Take care -^ not to fall.
He is worthy -?- to command.
That will make you -^ reflect.
The first part is nothing else than an enclitic relative phrase.
The second part expresses some fact appertaining either to the
exterior objective world or to the interior subjective world.
To which of these two parts should the name of " modal " be
applied ?
The first is " modal " in so far as it decides the " mood,"
that is, the form of the second, and the second is '' modal " in
the sense that it clothes this form. But that one of the two
which is the determining cause of the mood, that is, the first
or enclitic phrase, is the true modal phrase, and to it this de-
nomination is here applied. The two elements of the complete
modal phrase are welded the one to the x)ther either by a
preposition or by a conjunction. The conjunction, therefore,
forms part of the modal phrases, and cannot, consequently, be
the object of any special theory.
2. Establishment of the moods — Vicious circle of the classical
school — Our process.
In the chapter upon relative phrases we first of all deter-
mined the intriusic value of the enclitic and the part which it
plays in the language ; then we sought a practical means of
teaching it. But that which constitutes precisely its character
of " modal," that is, its particular relations with the subordi-
nated sentence, yet remains for us to study. In other words,
the enclitic has been dealt with as "enclitic," and not yet as
" modal." What will be the best manner of procedure in this
new study 1 Let us examine first of all how the ordinary
grammars proceed ; and we must here ask the reader to permit
us the necessary recapitulation.
The distinct terminations special to the moods known as
"subordinate" have first been counted ; then the attempt has
been made to put them in order. As the basis of the order
desired, the grammarians have adopted, not a real principle.
286 GRAMMAR.
but a vain symmetry. We have already stated what coniPusion
may be engendered by a conception so narrow, a starting-point
so badly chosen as this.
The ordinary grammar draws up at once and a priori
the system of conjugations of "subordinate" moods; then a
hundred pages or so later it will treat of "modal" or sub-
junctive phrases. These phrases are divided into some ten
groups, and each group is based upon one of the forms of the
pre-established conjugation. The modal phrase is thus subor-
dinated to a form of conjugation ; the cause is subordinated
to the effect, resulting in a wandering round and round with
the fullest confidence in the most perfect of vicious circles.
Hence these perpetual contraventions of rules and these inter-
minable lists of exceptions.
Our process will be the exact reverse of that adopted by
the classic school. Where, indeed, does the first cause of the
subordinate moods reside? Is it not in the idea expressed
by the modal phrase? Is it not the modal phrase which
"governs" in one place the subjunctive, in another place the
conditional, elsewhere the imperative or the supine ?
We shall commence, then, not by arranging the inflections
in paragraphs, but by classifying the modal phrases. We
shall then determine the mood to which each of our established
classes corresponds. It may very well be that a single form
serves two different moods. If so, we shall state the fact, we
shall explain it if we can, but we shall guard ourselves from
distorting it by any attempt to reduce " two into one." It may
equally happen that our moods thus deduced do not agree,
either as to their number or as to their form, with those of
the usual grammars. We shall not attempt to reconcile the
two systems; the starting-point being changed, the destina-
tion will also be changed.
3. Ordinary practice of the modal phrases and the
moods — Our process.
The moods once established and organised, it remains for
us to exercise them, to practise them. How does the classical
school acquit itself of this task ? It places before the pupil
eight or nine types of modal expressions ; then, dictating to
him a set of detached phrases, says to him, " You are to make
each of these phrases into one of the types consecrated in
ERRORS OF THE ORDINARY PRACTICE. 287
your grammar, and you will do this in such a way that your
phrase shall agree exactly with its model."
Always tlie same process, and always the same faults.
1. This work is written instead of being oral.
2. An intermediary is placed between the idea and its
expression.
3. The intellectual operation is mechanical instead of being
intuitive.
The multifold criticisms of which this process has been the
object in previous chapters will absolve us from insisting here
upon the fundamental vice which condemns it to utter barren-
ness. As to our own process, we have set it forth at length in
the chapter upon enclitic phrases. To this chapter we refer
the reader.
288 ANNEXES AND COROLLARIES.
ANNEXES AND COROLLARIES OF THE SYSTEM.
THE ORTHOGRAPHY — SPELLING.
Orthography has for its object the written lepresentation of
the terms of a language. The greater portion of these terms
are formed of two distinct parts, namely, an invariable ele-
ment named the "radicle," and a variable element termed the
" inflection " or termination. The radicle can only be learnt
by the eye. To read and read, to wiite and write, over and
over again, that is, to look at or retrace by the eye the repre-
sentation of speech, these are the sole means of learning the
spelling of this first part of the words. The termination is a
more or less conventional thing. As such, it is susceptible of
rules, and comes under the scope of the grammar.
Can the knowledge of orthography in its two elements be
acquired directly by the practice of our method ? This pro-
perty of the system is too evident to all for there to be any
need for us to stop to again demonstrate it.
The method embracing each language in the totality of its
terms and its expressions, both the eye and the hand will have
the opportunity of becoming familiarised with the radicle of
all the terms which form part of it ; and this taking posses-
sion of the roots will be as swift as it is easy. For example,
when the theme "open the door" has been fully elaborated
in the manner we have explained, it is absolutely impossible
that the spelling of the word " door " should not thereafter be
engraved for ever on the pupil's memory, or that the fancy
should 'take him to write this radicle otherwise than as so
often encountered in the course of the lesson. All the advan-
tages which the method can offer for the study of languages
it also offers for the learning of the spelling either of a foreign
language or of the mother- tongue.
SPELLING AND READING. 289
IL
READING.
From the spelling to tho reading is but one step. Every
method for the teaching of languages should contain withiii
itself a method for the teaching of reading. Indeed, if a book
is a good one for teaching how to speak and write a language,
it must be equally so for teaching to read.
Recall the properties of our series ; examine once more from
this point of view the arrangement of our lessons and the
order of the sentences; remember the mode of giving the
lesson by the teacher and the process followed by the scholar,
and you will be able, perhaps, to judge whether or not our
method may become the most practical of all the methods of
teaching children to read yet brought forward.
What book is the best to give into the hands of the child
immediately after teaching him the alphabet? In the first
place, it must be a book devoid of all metaphor, and of all
metaphysical conceptions — a book expurgated of all those
abstruse religious sentiments with which too often the books
for earliest childhood are crammed. Let us reserve these
matters for a riper age. The little child, however much you
may try, cannot at first be made to understand metaphor.
Now, no one can read well what he understands ill.
Reading is the first serious effort demanded of the intelli-
gence of the child. Here we have one of the most arduous
steps to be undertaken, and we should direct our energies to
clearing the road instead of encumbering it with obstacles.
The first reading-book must, therefore, be simple — as simple
as childhood itself — as simple as the life the child leads around
its mother's knee.
And what should this book be about ? It should deal with
the knowledge that the child itself already possesses. The child
should find out, with an ever- increasing interest in the reading-
book, the expression, the translation of its every-day life, and
not endless reflections upon wickedness it knows nothing of,
and upon virtues which as yet it does not possess.
The child gets up in the morning, dresses himself, eats,
drinks, and plays ; let him read the story of his getting up, of
his dressing, of his breakfast, the description of his little games.
T
290 ANNEXES AND COROLLARIES.
All these things written clown will have for him the attraction
of a revelation. Is it not, indeed, the progressive revelation
of his individuality ? He sees his mother or his nurse light
the fire, draw water from the spring, sweep up, wash, dust the
room : let him read the story of the pump or the well, and
that of the washing-tub. He sees, or should see, his father or
some of the men on the farm chopping wood, haymaking,
reaping, gardening, driving; let him read the story of the
woodman, the haymaker, the reaper, the gardener, the dray-
man, &c. He sees, or should see, living around him a cat, a
flock of sheep, some horses, fowls in the farmyard, birds, bees,
flying beetles, butterflies, flowers, trees, all sorts of things;
open before him the history of the rodents, the quadrupeds,
the birds, the insects, the plants, and there will be no lack of
interest. So much for the material of the book. But what
form shall we adopt ?
First of all, each reading lesson must have a determined
length, a length calculated upon the effort that can be sus-
tained by a frail intelligence without fatigue. Experience
has demonstrated to us that a lesson of twenty to thirty sen-
tences is the ordinary measure of the effort of the little child.
Next, what typographic form are we to give to this lesson 1
We could write the sentences one after the other, just as they
come, without troubling ourselves either about their beginning
or their end, so that if the size of page were large enough the
whole might be given on a single line. Or we may write down
these sentences one beneath the other upon separate lines, so
that the eye not only distinguishes them without effort, but
can embrace them in one look, and grasp them at a glance.
We have to choose between these two types. To which of
the two will pedagogy give the preference ? I imagine to that
which promises to smooth, and thereby to shorten, the path of
the scholar. For this reason it is the second of these we shall
take. The book sought is therefore found to be identical with
that of our elementary series, identical both as regards mate-
rial and form. Our method, therefore, really carries hidden
M'ithin it a method of teaching reading — a method as simple
and easy as is its method of teaching foreign languages, and
practised in exactly the same way.
And if instead of the usual ABC books — books as abstract
as they are arbitrary — and the mechanical alphabets of to-day
THE SERIES READING LESSONS. 291
were suljstituted a truly rational alphabet, an alphabet in which
each letter speaks and itself tells its origin, name, and virtue
(and this alphabet is possible, because we ourselves use it i),
then the great task of teaching reading will be the work of a
few weeks, or rather (with a phonetic spelling) a game of a
few days. Better even than this, the child will not learn to
read ; he will read as he speaks, by instinct, spontaneously,
intuitively. And this is as it should be.
Doubtless the eye will not be able to dispense with a certain
apprenticeship. "When the child first walks alone, he gropes
prudently to feel the ground under his feet. When he reads
for the first time, the eye will attack each word slowly, with
circumspection ; but he will not spell the words — he will read ;
he will not syllabify — he will read direct ; he will not gather
part of an idea by gathering part of a word — he will gather
the entire idea by grasping the entire word.
Do we ever see our scholars when learning Greek amusing
themselves by spelling or "a-b-abbing" the words? When
shall we rid school-work entirely of this absurd, this idiotic
habit of putting the child everywhere and gratuitously to
puzzle his little brain over abstractions ? For regarded care-
fully, spelling and dividing words into syllables are operations
really as abstract as the calculation of the binomial theorem
or the discussion of an analytic formula.
Yes, with our Series reading becomes, like the rest, a mere
game ; so much so indeed, that the children know how to read
without ever having learnt. The child's first lesson of reading
is then always a language-lesson. He reads that which he has
just heard, that which he perceives directly, that which he has
just spoken himself ; he reads the speech he has just assimi-
lated, the words which are still vibrating in his ear. He does
not guess, he does not decipher upon each line one or several
logogriphs, puzzles in words ; he recognises quite naturally the
expression of his thought.
This was the method of the Greeks, who all knew how to
read, even the slaves. It is, in certain parts of Germany (and
of England), the present method. The scholar in Germany
does not spell, does not syllabify — he reads. To-morrow, if we
would, all our school-children could do the same. Simply let
the school do away with its alphabetical abstractions.
^ The question of the alphabet will be more fully explained in other
works (Trans.).
292 ANNEXES AND COROLLARIES.
IIL
DRAWING — ITS RELATION TO LANGUAGE — THE ILLUSTRATED
SERIES.
Let US shake for the last time the tree of our linguistic
system ; perhaps there may fall from it yet another forgotten
fruit. Each of our themes forms a thoroughly determinate
whole ; its totality presents what is termed a picture, and may,
if desired, be reproduced otherwise than by writing. If we
think of it, it is a subject ready prepared for drawing. No
object is forgotten in our series, and the general situations of
animals or of things are found therein faithfully retraced.
Why could we not attempt, in a series of sketches, to reveal
to the child the fundamental, generating, substantial lines of
all beings or objects mentioned therein, as they arise upon
the scene in the lessons of the series 1
The art of teaching drawing appears to us to be at exactly
the same point as the art of teaching language. There exists
as yet no method of teaching drawing which does not repro-
duce the same errors as those of the present grammars.
Every one of them begins by abstraction. To commence by
lines, squares, geometrical figures, is to commence by abstrac-
tion ; it is to " spell " the form ; it is to exclude intuition, to
prevent inspiration.
To commence by the nose, the eyes, the ears, is again to
begin by abstraction. If it is not '' spelling " the form of the
object, it is ''syllabifying" it. Beginning by the head is a
superior process to the two preceding. The pupil no longer
works altogether upon the abstract; and the teacher, if he
is clever, can provoke intuition, can awaken inspiration. But,
whatever he may do, this head is part only of a whole — it is
not a true whole.
To read isolated words is not really '' to read," and to
draw parts of objects or isolated objects is not really " to
draw." That a thing may be rightly drawn, it must bear tho
shade of the objects that surround it ; it must be limited,
defined, by these objects. We only really read when we
enounce a complete phrase ; we can only really draw when
we reproduce that which corresponds to the phrase, namely,
" a group."
THE SERIES DRAWING LESSONS. 293
We will venture the statement that the true point of
departure of drawing is the group, and not the line ; it is
synthesis, and not analysis ; it is the phrase, and not the
word, exactly as for language. This principle, dictated to
us by logic, is confirmed by experience. Observe the early
attempts of any child having the promise of an artist in him,
and you will be struck with one fact that allows of no excep-
tion. It is not geometric lines, not noses, nor mouths, nor
even heads, that first solicit the pencil of the future artist,
but always groups, and nothing but groups. It is iJie relations
heticecn the tilings which first captivate him ; and it is the
intuition of these relations which attaches him to the things
themselves. That he shall feel emotion, it is distinctly neces-
sary that Nature should say something to him, express some-
thing to him. It is this expression that the little artist essays
to translate; it is that which we term "the ideal."
Each of our themes is the expression of a group of facts,
and of facts simple, elementary, well known to the child,
and already "lived" by him. These facts are set in order,
harmonised, as they are in Nature. The child perceives or
conceives the true relations that these facts have with each
other. Our Series appear to us, therefore, to be able to serve
as the basis of a decidedly rational system of teaching drawing.
Our system will lose nothing by being interpreted by another
art, while this other art would gain in clearness by being
guided by language, and following the language in all its
evolutions.
Language and drawing are two revelations of Nature which
cannot do otherwise than complete each other without ever
contradicting each other.
To those who would reproach us with wishing to perform
too much with a linguistic method, we will answer that in
Nature everything is strictly knitted together, that the whole
being of man rests upon language, that language is the mar-
vellous placenta to which is attached, and by which is fed,
every product of the intelligence and of the activity of
mankind.
294 ANNEXES AND COROLLARIES.
IV.
THE TIME NECESSARY TO LEARN A LANGUAGE.
The arena is prepared, its limits defined ; the obstacles are
all numbered, the difficulties estimated. What time will be
required by a runner of average force to reach or pass the
goal? In other words, how many months are necessary to
learn a language by means of our method 1
To learn a language is, as we have said, to translate one's
own individuality into this language. Our complete series
represents the expression of a strong human individuality of
about fifteen years of age. Every calculation taken, we have
found that our own may be written within a book of 4000
pages, divided into fifty or sixty chapters, each presenting the
development of a general series consisting of from fifty to
eighty separate themes or exercises. Each of these themes
contains, on an average, twenty-five sentences. The complete
expression of our individuality will therefore be represented by
25 times 4000, or 100,000 sentences. On an average, our pupils
assimilate five themes in an hour ; 4000 divided by 5 gives
the quotient 800. It is therefore 800 hours that is required
for the complete study of a language. Let us say 900 to have
something in hand and to allow for the unforeseen.
Nine hundred hours spread over the entire year or 360 days,
reduces itself to two hours and a half a day, or an hour and
a quarter in the morning and an hour and a quarter in the
afternoon. The complete study of a language within the
year is therefore an easy task. Nine hundred hours spread
over six months, that is, over 180 days, is equal to five hours
a day, say 2| hours in the morning and the same in the after-
noon. Whoever, therefore, can and will give up five hours
a day to the study of a language will with certainty have
assimilated the language at the end of six months.
An objection will here be made to us : let us at once deal
with it. Five times 5 are 25. Is it possible to assimilate
twenty-five pages of a foreign language per day 1 Is it even
possible for them to be given as lessons 'i
In the chapter upon " The Construction of the System " we
endeavoured to bring into light a property of our series which
is a direct and emphatic reply to the objection quoted. We
THE TIME NECESSARY. 295
will recapitulate it. A single series — that of the quadruped,
for example — gives us possession of the first basis of a language,
that which may be termed its '* substance." The second series
rests upon the first, and borrows therefrom two-thirds of its
expressions. The third is fed in the same proportion at the
expense of the two first ; and so on for the others. The same
terms are repeated again and again indefinitely from one
sentence to another sentence, from one aim to another aim,
from one theme to another theme, from one series to another
series.
At the end of the first series the pupil, therefore, finds him-
self in possession of a crowd of expressions which he has only
to apply in the second ; the study of the second will facilitate
yet more that of the third and of the following ones. At the
end of the first month our pupils are generally able to receive
and assimilate up to twelve exercises in the hour. From the
second month forward the pupil, therefore, can finish his daily
task in two hours.
As regards the teacher, it is quite evident that he requires
no more time to give than the pupil needs to learn the lessons.
We must not forget, moreover, that the successive acquisition
of the lessons day by day facilitates the teacher's task and
abridges it. But the writing? Where will the pupil find
time to write out the twenty-five pages a day ?
The speech of man, we have said, is continuous. Our entire
life has therefore been spoken by us. Bat who of us has
written it out in all its details 1 To know our native language,
the foreigner is no more bound than we are ourselves to write
out the hundred thousand sentences which express our indivi-
duality. He will write as many of them as he can — the more
the better. The essential part, however, is that he should
speak them all.
Here we may parenthetically remark that of our 4000 themes
2000 or more will appertain to science properly so called.
Have we not defined our system as " the sciences by the lan-
guages and the languages by the sciences " ? Consequently,
with our system, and by reason of it, and it alone, the time
given to languages is not stolen from the sciences. It is as
much given to them, indeed, as to the languages themselves.
By our system pupils learn the sciences and obtain the lan-
guages into the bargain.
296 ANNEXES AND COROLLAKIES.
Nine hundred hours ! This is the time necessary to assi-
milate the entire series, that is to say, the objective language.
But this language does not constitute the whole of language.
Alongside or above the series there is the subjective lan-
guage ; there also is the figurative language, and there is the
grammar. Will it be necessary to devote special and supple-
mentary hours to the study of these three parts.
We will refer the reader to the chapters in which they have
been treated in full. Vie have shown how far the figurative
language is attached to and hangs, so to speak, upon the themes
of the series; how the relative phrase, enclitic or other, is
taught with and by the same themes ; lastly, how the grammar
is exercised upon them, and is applied to them without oppos-
ing or hindering their development.
The figurative language slips into the interval between the
series; the relative phrase fills up the interval between the
sentences; the grammar commands and guides the whole.
The objective language, under the form of the series, repre-
sents a penetrable bod)', having the property of aggregating
others to itself without increasing its volume.
Nine hundred hours ! I repeat, the study of a language
requires 900 hours. Whether a person have or not what is
called the " gift for languages " (and each of us receives it on
being born), there is the total amount of time which it is
necessary to devote to it. There we have the price, the exact
price of a language. He will appear and will be reputed to
be the most clever and the most gifted who is able the soonest
to invest the capital required.
From the defensive we will pass to the offensive. In the
first place, what must we think of those teachers of languages
who engage to include an entire language in ninety pages, to
teach it to you by opening their mouths ninety times, to make
you assimilate it by honouring you with forty-five visits, or to
deliver it to you complete on receipt of the fiftieth ticket?
Our judgment will be brief. Justice condemns for cheating
persons less qualified for it than these. He who sells a piece
of goods that he knows he cannot deliver is not an honest
man. A language is a whole world to conquer. Now, no one
can conquer a world by executing haphazard a dozen marches
and a couple of dozen countermarches.
Next, let us judge the official scholastic programmes from
THE TIME NOW GIVEN. 297
the point of view of the study of languages. Two hours of
French or of German a week make a total of eight hours
a month, say eighty hours for the whole scholastic year.
Eighty divided by 10 gives a quotient 8. It is, therefore,
eight full days that the school accords to the children for
learning a modern language.
Eight days a year — a little over a week ! This figure eight
is in itself at once a criticism and a judgment — a judgment so
severe that we can hardly allow ourselves to translate it into
the vulgar tongue. Eight full days to conquer a language ! !
The course, it is true, is spread over ten months, but these
ten months are quite evidently nothing but a delusion ; and
whatever any one may say, a course of ten months at two hours
a week will never represent more than eight full days. Further,
eight days spread over fifty weeks have not even this value.
A rower who, in order to progi'ess up a river, should struggle
against the stream t^vo hours a week, and all the rest of the
time should allow himself to drift down with the ordinary
current, would be more likely to get to the sea than to the
river's source. The scholar who is learning a foreign language
floats alternately upon two currents opposed to each other, and
of unequal force. If he will not be carried away by the stronger,
that of his mother- tongue, it is absolutely necessary for him to
have recourse to extraordinary means.
Then you count for nothing, we shall be told, the tasks,
home-lessons, writing exercises — the personal work, in point
of fact — from one class to another, as a means of keeping the
pupil to his work. Alas ! experience has proved to us, and
thoroughly proved, that this work is not only unfruitful, but
disastrous. Remember our own attempt on the German
authors and dictionaries. Our work was assuredly at least
worth that of the collegian, as much for the quantity as for
the quality of it. And to what result did our efforts, so
severely classic, lead us ?
Either the pupil does over again an exercise already done,
which is much the same as beating a sheaf already well
threshed, or he makes up a new one himself, which is as
much as if one delivered into the hands of a workman who
knows not his trade an ingot of gold from which to manufac-
ture a watch. The raw material may be squandered, but
converted into a watch— never !
295 ANNEXES AND COROLLARIES.
There can only happen to your scholar what happened to
ourselves. He will falsify his pronunciation, pervert his
accent, fabricate vicious expressions, and confiding to the eye
what should be confided to the ear, he will perceive syllables,
but will always forget the thought in the language he is
studying ; and therefore, try as long as he may, he will never
properly assimilate it. We know, besides, that the virtue of
iirst impressions is that they are never eradicated. This is
the point to which, as regards languages, personal work, such
as is inculcated by the ordinary school, at present leads.
We shall be told, again : But we give up nine or ten years
to continue, complete, and perfect our linguistic teaching.
Ten times 80 are exactly 800 hours. Is not this your
amount ? No j it is not our amount. In point of fact, who-
ever does not, within the space of the four seasons of one
year, manage to learn practically all there is to be learnt of
the basis of a language, will never learn it.
We have many of us studied Latin and Greek for ten years.
Who among us is there who can be said to thoroughly know
Latin and Greek? No; it is not the amount we require. In
ten years the public school should give us ten languages. In
this same time a child's nurse, who should change her situa-
tion each year, would teach the bulk of her language ten
separate times.
The evolution of the language may be made to, and ought
to, follow that of the seasons. While the year performs one
revolution, the child expresses all the phenomena which it
unfolds successively before him. And if from one day to the
next he applies, that is, repeats while modifying and extending
it ceaselessly, the language which expresses his individuality
of one day, so also, from one year to the next, he will recapi-
tulate the language that expresses his individuality of a year.
That which the young child performs so easily cannot be
impossible to the adult ; and if, as we ourselves did at Berlin
at first, he finds himself after a year's effort less advanced
than the little child, there can be little doubt it is because he
is on the wrong road ; and what is not less certain is, that if
ho does not see fit to change his route, he will not attain his
aim any more the second year than he did the first. In the
second year the learner can recapitulate after the manner of
the child, and can enter into possession of his acquisitions.
It is impossible for him to recommence his campaign.
WOMEN TEACHERS. 299
Last and supreme objection : Man has not to learn lan-
guages only, and the time given up to the study of languages
is lost for that of the sciences.
In the ordinary system this is true, but not with ours. On
the contrary, by the languages we teach the sciences, and by
the sciences Ave teach the languages. Who does not see in
this system an immense simplification of methods of teaching 1
In itself the thing is logical We shall try to show shortly
that it is realisable.
THE TEACHING OP LANGUAGES BROUGHT WITHIN THE REACH OP
ALL — LINGUISTIC APTITUDES OF WOMEN.
In the hands of a clever workman even a bad tool some-
times accomplishes wonders. It has been remarked that the
authors of methods otherwise defective employ them always
themselves with success. It is right, therefore, to inquire
whether our system, which may be fruitful when practised by
its author, acts equally well when some other person attempts
to apply it.
We have exposed in its entirety the secret of our process of
teaching. It is for the reader to judge whether our directions
are or are not easy to carry out.
And if we are fui-ther pressed to give our own opinion in
this respect, and to base it upon certain facts, this is what our
reply would be : In the first place, it is, of course, fully un-
derstood that the composition, the writing, the arrangement
of the book itself remains entirely as given by the author.
If, in order to apply our system, each teacher had to construct
it for him or herself, its application might as well be renounced
at once. We have spoken of the inherent difficulties of this
kind of work ; no one knows them better than he who has
spent a large part of his life in overcoming them.
To impose a similar task upon every teacher would be to
declare the scheme impracticable at the very outset. We start,
therefore, with the assumption that this system is definitely
constructed, and that the instructor has only to apply it.
We believe that we have demonstrated that the pupil who
has thoroughly assimilated one of our themes is in a state to
3oa ANNEXES AND COROLLARIES.
be able to teach it in his turn almost as well as ourselves.
Remember once more that they were little children who aided
US to translate our individuality in German, as afterwards in
English and in other tongues, and that we owe the develop-
ment of our series to the simple workmen who figure as actors
therein. It was a ploughman who told us the Series of Tilling
the Ground ; it was a shepherd who gave us the Series of the
Shepherd, and a woodman who gave us that of the Woodman.
Our reply, therefore, to the question put is : " Whosoever
knows how to speak a language is capable of teaching in this
language our Elementary Series, those which reproduce the
If this be so, our method is likely to open up a new career
for the activity of women. It gives, in fact, into the hands of
women the whole elementary teaching of foreign languages.
AYomen have, indeed, a far greater aptitude than men for this
kind of teaching. A woman's tongue is more subtle and more
supple than that of man ; her ear more delicate, her accent
more pleasing and more penetrating; and for children her
devotion is only equalled by her patience.
In cur own public and private classes we have always found
that the girls assimilate a language (ancient or modern) much
more quickly and much more correctly than the boys. In the
countries where languages are most cultivated it is alwayvS
the woman who speaks them best and who knows them most
thoroughly. If she has not already outstripped man in the
teaching of languages, this is because of the imperfection of
the methods which are imposed upon her. The abstract is
the bugbear of childhood. Our method, by combating and
suppressing it everywhere, places (or so, at least, it seems to
us) the teaching of foreign languages well within the reach of
woman.
If our system when practised by man is worth anything, we
are convinced that it will double its value on the day that the
application of it is undertaken by women teachers, and the
language of our new generation cannot but gain in purity,
in nobleness, in elegance, and, I might add, in decency. If it
were permitted to us to chose for our method an interpreter
and an apostle, we should certainly chose a woman. The
practice of our system is therefore well within the reach of
every one.
IS A TEACHER NECESSARY? 301
VI.
CAN A LANGUAGE BE LEARNT WITHOUT A TEACHER*?
Can a student learn a foreign language without a teacher ?
The greater part of the authors of modern methods maintain
that he can, and this declaration may be considered as the
most efficacious cause of their success. Ollendorf owes to this
in great part the 200 editions of his works. A volume, in
fact, costs less than a teacher. What answer does the classical
school make to this question 1 It commences by a negative
and ends by an affirmative.
From the lowest form to the highest the classical method
gives to the scholar a whole legion of masters in order to teach
him Latin. What means this long array of pedagogic forces,
unless it be that the individual must be considered as incapable
of arriving by his own unaided efforts at knowing a given
language. Looking at it from another point of view, however,
and taking into consideration the means to which recourse is
had, we might conclude that the study of language is a purely
personal work.
The classical master, when placing in the hands of his pupils
a grammar and a dictionary, says to them, in effect : " The
whole language is contained within these two books, and the
smaller one will teach the use of the larger. W^hen you are
hungry, you do not ask other people to eat for you ; in the
same way, it would be of not the slightest use to you if your
teacher learned the grammar for you, searched in the dictionary
for you, construed the phrases for you, wrote out exercises for
you. What you must set yourself to do is to carry out all this
work for yourself." I ask if it is possible to affirm more
categorically that the study of a language, is an individual,
a personal labour ?
How does the classical school reconcile its teaching with its
practice ? In a manner as ingenious as it is original. " It
does not propose," its professors say, " to teach languages, but
only how to learn to learn them ! " Begging the question in
this manner, the classicists hesitate to draw the conclusion.
We are therefore obliged to do so for them.
" Here is a hammer, a square, and a chisel, and there lies
a block of marble," the classical school says to its disciples.
302 ANNEXES AND COROLLARIES.
" You have here everything that is needed for carving any
statue you please. You will now set to work and carve
from this block the statue of the Emperor of China, whom you
do not know, and it must be a good likeness."
There you have exactly the task imposed upon the Latinist-
who begins in the studio of the classical school ; the grammar
is the hammer, chisel, and square; the dictionary is the block
of marble, and the statue of the unknown Emperor of the
Celestial Empire represents the language to be constructed.
One need not feel astonished if the apprentice toils ten years,
fifteen years, twenty years, all his life, without ever being able
to bring about the desired resemblance. The pupil is con-
demned to " recognise " a thing which he has never seen, to
discover a language he has never heard. What is required of
him is to draw the language forth from his brain, where it is
not and never has been ; or from a book, the dictionary, where
it may be found in much the same state as the Madonna of
Raphael in the artist's colour-box. Will your disciple, after
such a training, however long it may be, have even learnt how
to learn ?
To conclude. Work which is solitary and purely personal
will never produce an efficient knowledge of a language. We
base this thesis upon axioms or principles already thoroughly
established. The receptive organ of language is not the eye — it
is the ear. But in order that the ear may receive, speech must
be produced ; therefore to study a language it is necessary to
have a master — that is, a person who speaks before the pupil.
Each language has a pronunciation proper to itself ; each
sentence has its note, each word its accent ; these three things
have their effect, not upon the eye, but upon the ear ; there-
fore to study a language a master is needed, a person who pro-
nounces and accentuates before the pupil.
The forms of things are presented to the intelligence by the
eye, but it is the ear to which is confided the duty of trans-
mitting to the intelligence the sounds, the words, together
with the ideas of which they form the body; therefore to
study a language we require a master — that is, a person whose
mouth articulates the syllables and utters the sounds.
The written language, that which is transmitted to the
memory by the organ of sight, is graven thereon with diffi-
culty, and the impression of it is ephemeral ; the spoken lan-
guage, that communicated to the mind by the ear, is graven
A TEACHER IS NECESSARY. 303
thereon instantaneously, and the impression of it is almost
ineffaceable. Therefore, once more, to study a language wo
require a master — that is to say, living speech, whose vibration
shall set in motion the organ of thought itself.
He who boasts of having assimilated a language without
recourse to the speech of others, either does not know this
language or deceives himself. Language is the connection of
mind to mind. In order that it shall be something more than
a mere abstraction lacking consistence, it must be the direct
and real product of the intercourse of two or more minds.
304 AUXILIARY SERIES.
PART FOURTH.
THE AUXILIARY SERIES.
The creations of literature, the sciences, the trades, the arts
may become the material for fresh series. We designate these
by the general name of " Auxiliary Series."
They are useful but not indispensable for the knowledge of
a language. They do not give the first basis of a language — ■
they presuppose it. They nourish it, maintain it, amplify it,
complete it — they do not create it. They are to the ordinary
series what the heat of the sun is to the field of corn ; they
do not supply it, but they ripen it.
STUDY OF THE CLASSICAL AUTHOES. -,05
STUDY OF THE CLASSICS
(LITERARY SERIES).
Outline of a New Process for Translating, Reading, and
Assimilating the Classical Authors.
I.
PUTTING A LITERARY WORK INTO SERIES.
I. Principle and point of departure.
The study of a language is incomplete and mentally sterile
if it does not include the literary masterpieces of this language.
Every such masterpiece therefore requires not only that the
student should read and comprehend it, but should assimilate
it. We know too well what the ordinary processes of teaching
the classics can do in this respect; we know how much we
ourselves retained of them on leaving the sixth form at
school.
A practical and rational method for reading, translating,
and assimilating the great classical works yet remains to be
found and organised. This method should be, it seems to us,
the direct product and the natural corollary of a linguistic
method worthy of the name ; it should bear witness in favour
of this result, and should end, so to speak, by consecrating it.
If our system is what we believe it to be, it bears within it
this second method, or rather it is itself this method. Let us
attempt to demonstrate this.
Every literary work represents a series of conceptions linked
together by the logic personal to the author. Each conception
therein is developed in its turn by a series of distinct sentences;
and it has been already demonstrated that this development-
has its natural limits, and that its measure is a constant one
in all the works which deserve the name of masterpieces.
U
3o6 STUDY OF THE CLASSICS.
Therefore every literary work is capable of being decom-
posed into themes of a determined length, each one representing
the development of a particular conception. From this it
follows that every literary work can be transcribed under the
form of one of our Linguistic Series. Therefore, finally, it may
be treated exactly as one of our series themselves is treated.
The scholar will assimilate a book of Virgil, a book of Homer,
a chapter of Herodotus, a chapter of Tacitus, exactly as he
assimilates the Series of the Ploughman, the Series of the
Plant, the Series of the Insect.
But may it not be said that to assimilate a literary work
thus, conception by conception, sentence by sentence, is to do
over again the work of the author himself ? If our method
renders this w^ork possible, it is really what we have claimed
for it — a veritable method for reading, translating, and
thoroughly assimilating the classical masterpieces. And if,
along with this, it delivers into the hands of the master the
secret of rendering this assimilation as rapid as the exposition
of the lesson itself, as instantaneous as speech, I maintain
that this method comes very near to realising the ideal to
which the teaching world aspires.
Its success will depend upon two things : —
1. The mode of transcription of the classical work ;
2. The elaboration of the exercises furnished by this tran-
scription.
We will describe or repeat how this double work should be
carried out.
2. Transcription of a classical worJc into literature lessons.
Given a classical work to be studied : —
1. We draw up, first of all, a list of the diverse and suc-
cessive conceptions of the author ; then, dissecting, detaching
these conceptions one from another, we form therefrom a
series of scenes or pictures, that is, of distinct lessons.
2. Each of these themes is divided in its turn into its
separate sentences, and each sentence is placed on a line by
itself.
3. Each sentence has a centre around which gravitate its
various elements, which is, as it were, its soul. The soul is
the " verb," or the term which takes the place of the verb.
We detach this verb from the sentence, and place it in full
ORGANISATION OF LITERATURE LESSONS. 307
view in a column arranged to the right-hand side of the
page.
4. Each conception is capable of being still further sub-
divided ; it presents, usually, two or tliree distinct groups of
sentences, which form the various "moments" of this con-
ception. We term these divisions " steps " (paragraphs), and
we mark these stopping-places by the sign ( — ). Between two
consecutive steps of our text we also leave a rather larger
space than between two lines of the same group.
As is seen, the arrangement of our litei:ary themes or lessons
is in every way similar to that of the ordinary series. We
have transcribed and lithographed under this form the greater
part of the classical authors. A book of Yirgil, for instance,
gives us an average of a series of seventy themes, each having
twenty-two to thirty sentences. A book of Homer furnishes
thirty-five to forty lessons. The "Ars Poetica" of Horace
yields thirty-six. ^ We may point out that the Greek and
Latin prose writers are already divided in the current editions
into small chapters, which usually correspond to our own
divisions.
5. In the same way that there is, for the development of
the various conceptions of the mind, an average length, so also
there is an average length for the separate sentences, and it is
this that decides the size of page of our transcription. If
this size be well chosen, the greater number of the sentences
will go upon one line. It is well to avoid double lines, for two
reasons. In the first place, irregularity is always painful to
the eye: in the next, the unily of the thought seems to call
for the unity of the line. The intelligence takes it in more
easily in this state.
6. Whenever a phrase is composed of two portions, an
enclitic and a subordinate sentence, w^e usually write these
parts upon two separate lines, connecting them together by
the conventional sign (-^). Placed at the end of an enclitic
expression, this sign serves both to bring this expression into
relief, and to draw the pupil's attention more forcibly to it.
The organisation of our literature lessons is dominated by a
fact which we have already pointed out, and of which it is
^ Printed privately by the author for the use of his French students.
They will form part of the practical course (Trans.).
3o8 STUDY OF THE CLASSICS.
important here once more to remind our readers. This is,
that our transcriptions reproduce the exact text of the author,
without ever either altering the terms or the construction.
The length of the typographic line alone is not respected.
Need we hesitate to sacrifice the arbitrary to the logical ?
When questions of methods of teaching are before us, there is
one interest which should guide the orders of the publisher
or the printing foreman, and this is the pedagogic interest.
3. Specimens of transcriptions.
To make still more clear the process which we have just
described, it appears to us that it would be w^ell to offer sundry
short examples of the transcriptions of authors. We will
take one of the fables of La Fontaine, a fable of Phsedrus,
one of Grimm's fairy-tales, and a scene from " Romeo and
Juliet." A longer work, such as a book of Yirgil,' would doubt-
less be a more striking example, but the length, already con-
siderable, of the present work will not allow us to occupy so
much additional space. Moreover, the lessons which follow
will amply suffice for a first trial. He who thinks well of the
system will be able to avail himself of the collection of our
transcriptions of the classical authors.
SPECIMEN LITERARY SERIES.
3^9
THE LION AND THE GNAT (La Fontaine).
I
The Outrage and the Duel.
— ''Be off, thou paltry insect, thou excrement be off
of the earth.'"
It was in these words that the Hon spoke one spoke
day to the gnat.
The gnat declared war against him ; declared
" Thinkest thou," said he, -^ thinkest thou
*' that thy title of king affrights me, affrights
or even disquiets me ? disquiets
An ox is more powerful than art thou, is powerful
and I can lead it whither my fancy pleases." can lead
— Hardly had he finished these words had finished
than he himself sounded the charge, sounded
and became both herald and challenger. became
At first he keeps a safe distance, keeps
then, taking his time, taking
dashes at the lion's neck, dashes
and drives him nearly mad. , drives
The quadruped foams at the mouth, foams
and his eye glitters ; glitters
he roars. roars
All hide, hide
all quake in the neighbourhood, quake
and this universal alarm is the work of a gnat, is the work
— The miserable wretch of a fly harasses him harasses
in a hundred places,
stings him sometimes on the spine, sometimes stings
on the nose,
sometimes creeps up his nostrils. creeps
His rage then rises to the utmost. rises
310 STUDY OF THE CLASSICS.
THE LION AND THE GNAT.
II.
Triumph and Ruin.
— The invisible foe triumphs, triumphs
and laughs to see -^ laughs
that there is not a tooth nor a claw of the is tooth
irritated beast
but does duty in bringing blood. does duty
The unhappy beast tears his own flesh, tears
lashes his tail against his flanks, lashes
vainly beats the air, beats
and his extreme fury wearies him, wearies
overthrows him. overthrows
He is utterly defeated. is defeated
— The insect retires from the combat with retires
as he sounded the charge, [gloi"y ; sounded
so he sounds the victory, sounds
goes here and there to announce it, announce
and meets on his way the ambush of a meets
he there likewise meets his death, [spider ; meets
— What things may we be taught from may be taught
I can see two, [this ? can see
of which the first is, that -^ is
Amongst our enemies the smallest are are to be feared
often the most to be feared ;
the other, that -^ is
Through perils great one may have passed, may have passed
To perish from the slightest thing at last, perish
SPECIMEN LITERARY SERIES.
31
CANIS ET LUPUS (Ph^drus).
I.
Pereo fame.
— Quam dulcis sit libertas
dulcis sit
breviter proloquar.
proloQLiiar
— Cani perpasto macie confectus lupus
forte occurrit.
occurrit
Salutantes dein invicem
salutantes
ut restiterunt :
restiterunt
L.
Unde sic, quseso, nites ?
nites
Aut quo cibo fecisti tan turn corporis ?
fecisti
Ego, qui sum longe fortior,
sum fortior
(ego) pereo fame.
pereo
— Canis simpliciter :
dixit
a
Eadem est conditio tibi.
est eadem
prsestare domino si par officium potes.
prsestare
L.
Quod (officium) ? inquit ille.
quod est
a
Gustos ut sis liminis,
custos ut sis
furibus tuearis et noctu domum.
ut tuearis
L.
— Ego vero sum paratus ;
sum paratus
nunc patior nives imbresque
patior
in silvas asperam vitam trahens ;
trahens
quanto est facilius mihi -^
est facilius
sub tecto vivere
vivere
et otiosum largo satiari cibo !
satiari
C,
Yeni ergo mecura.
veni
3f^
STUDY OF THE CLASSICS.
CANIS ET LUPUS.
IL
Regnare nolo liber ut non sim mihi.
— Dum procedunt procedunt
adspicit lupus a catena collum detritum
cani :
adspicit
Unde hoc, amice ?
unde est
Nihil est.
nihil est
Die, quseso, tamen.
die
— Quia videor acer.
videor
alligant me interdiu,
alligant
luce ut quiescam.
ut CLuiescam
et vigilem
vigilem
nox quum venerit.
venerit
Crepusculo solutus,
solutus
qua visum est vagor.
vagor
Affertur ultro panis ;
affertur
de mensa sua dat ossa dominus.
dat
frusta jactat familia,
jactat
et quod fastidit quisque pulmentarium.
fastidit
Sic sine labore venter impletur meus.
impletur
-Age!
age
si quo abire est animus.
abire
est licentia 1
est licentia
Non plane est, inquit.
non est
Fruere quse laudes, canis ;
fruere
regnare nolo,
regnare
liber ut non sim mihi.
non sim liber
SPECIMEN LITEEARY SERIES.
3'i3
pic bvei §pinnevinx%en (©ritnnt).
I.
3)a5 faiitc SKab^en.
— Qs tear etn 5Wab(^cn faul,
uiib ivofltc ni^t fpiunen ;
bie 3Kuttev wtcci^te fageii \t>a6 jic h?of(te,
@ie fonnte eg ni^t baju Bringcn.
(Enbli^ iiBevnaTjm bie 5Kutter einmal 3ovn imb Ungebutb,
bap fie if)m ^^Idije gaB,
ivcvubev eig faut ju ivcinen anfieiuj.
— 0lun fuf)r gevabe bie ^onigiii vcvBei,
nub aU fie bag SScinen (;cvte,
liep fie aut)alten,
tvat in bag ^aug,
nub fvagte bie SWuticv, -r^
iMVum fie i^ve S!ocf)ter fc^d'ige,
bap man braupen auf bcr <£trapc \)a6 ©d^rcien Ijorte.
— 2)a fc^dmte ftd^ bie ^Jraii -^
bap fie bie g^auU^eit i^rer %od)kx offenBaren fcf(te,
unb f^vac^ :
„ ^d) fann fie ni(^t ijcm <Si)innen aBBringen,
fie luill immer nnb eiv»ig fpinnen,
nnb ic^ Bin arm
unb fann ben %in^6 nid^t ^erBcifci^affen."
— '^a antnjovtete bie ^cnigin :
„ 3d| f^m nic^tg lieBer alg fpinnen,
nnb Bin ni(f)t wergnfigter
a(g iuenn bie Oidbeu f^nnrren :
geBt mir enve S^o^ter mit in'g <Srf)(cp,
id| ^aBe %{a^6 genng,
bu fo(( fie fpinnen fc yiel fie gnfl T>"it."
eg i»ar
fpinnen
fagen
Bvingen
iiBernaT;m
gaB
iceinen
fntjr vorBei
I|orte
anf;aiten
trat
fvagte
f^Iitge
fc^dmte fic^
cjfenBaven
fprac^
aBBringen
fpinnen
Bin arm
IjerBei fc^ajfen
antiocvtetc
I)crc
Bin »ergnngter
fc^nnrren
l^aBe
fpinnctt
314
STUDY OF THE CLASSICS.
pie bvci ^pimxcxinncn.
II.
— 3)ie ^ixttex mx'6 ttoii ^erjcn genie jufviebcn. twar jufricbeu
S)ie ^onigin nalim bag a^abc^eu mit, natjtn wit
unb fii^r nac^ bem (Sd^top guvitcf ; fu^r juruc!
aU fie in'g @c^(op gefommeu waxm, gefommen
fi'i^rte fie e^ (;inaiif gu brei ^ammevn, f ut)rte
bie lagen von unteu big oben »ol( »om feinflen ^in^S. lageii »ott
— „ @vinn' ttiir biefeii ^fac^g," fpiiin'
f^jrad^ bie ^oiitgin, fproc^
„ unb iuenn bu eg fertig bringfl, fertig bvingfl
fo foflfi bu -^ foriil
ttiei^en dttefien (Sot^n jum ©ema^l l^aBen ; ()a6en
bifi bu glei^ arm, bifl arm
fo ad)V id) nic^t barauf, a^k barauf
bein unvevbtopeuer gleip ifi 5lugflattung gemig." ifl ^lugfiattung
— S)ag aWdbd^en erfd^ra! innevUd^ : cifc^vaf
benn eg fonnt t-T^ fonnte
ben ijtad^g nic^t fpinnen, fpinnen
tDiir'g brei^unbert Sa'^r alt geirorben, icdre geivovben
unb ^tk ieben Xag von SWorgen big Olbenb babei gefeffcn. t)dtte gefefjen
SPECIMEN LITERARY SERIES.
315
pie bxei §pinncxxnnen.
III.
S)ic aSerjtofijIung.
— Sirs nun fca6 SWafcc^en affein irar,
gu iueinen, fieng c^ an -^
nnb fa^ fo brei Xa^t
oXjnt bie Jganb gu ruf^ren.
— 9lm tritten Xao,t fam bie .^cnicjin ;
unb aU fie fa'^, ba^ -^
noc^ nic^t^ gefponnen icar,
yeviDunberte jie fic^.
Slber ba^ aJJdbd^en entfc^utbigtc fi(^ bamit, bap
eg, ttor groper SSetrubnip
fiber bie (Jntfernung awe feiner SWutter J^aufe,
no(^ ni(^t 'fidtte anfvingen fonnen.
— !Dag liep fid^ bie ^onigin gefaffen,
fagte aber beim SBegge'^en,
„morgen ntupt bu ntir anfangen -^
gu avbeiten.
911^ bag SWdbci^en irieber aKein loar,
toupte eS -T-
ji(^ ni(^t tnel^r ju ratteen
unb JU Tjetfen.
affein U^ar
fieng an ujeinen
fap
riit^ren
fam
fa^
gefponncn 'max
»er)runbevte fic^
entfd^ulbigte Tid)
vcv
fiber
anfangen
gefatten
fagte
anfangen
arbeiten
affein ivar
ratr;en
I)ctfen
rsi^
STUDY OF THE CLASSICS.
pic bvei §p\nncv\nncn.
lY.
5)vei fcttfame 2Bei6er.
— 3n feiiiev ?Betvfi6ui^
in
hwt tag 3Kafcc^cn i^cr bag ^enj^cr.
tvat
5)a faf; eg brci SSeifcer t)ciffonittten :
Ijevfommen
bavcn fjattc bie evfte einen Bveiten ^fatfcfcfiip;
r>itte
bie jweite l^attc einc fo grope llnterlip^ie,-
t)atte
bap fie iibev bag ^inn Jjerunter I;{ng,
t)ernntev I;ing
iinb bie bvitte \)^tk einen Breiten JDaumen.
r;attc
— 3)ie btieBen ijov bem ^enj^er jlel^en,
blieben jlef^cn
fc^auten I^inanf,
fc^auten tjinanf
luib fragten bag 3Kdbd^en ivag ii)m fetj^te.
fragten
(fg ffagte il^nen feine Stctf; ;
riagte
ba tnigen fte ir;m if^ve ^ulfe an,
trugen an
nnb fprad^en :
fprad^en
„ ®i((jl bn ung ^nx ^od^jeit eintaben,
einlaben
bid^ unfer nic^t f^amen,
fc^amen
imb ung beine S5afen Tjeipen,
r;eipen
and^ an beinen %\\^ fc^en,
fetjcn
fo ivotfen ivir bir ben ^yfac^g ir»egfpinnen,
iregfpinnen
nnb bag in fnvjcr 3cit."
(tr^nn)
— „ 35on ^n^tn gem," antioortete eg :
antlrortete
„ fomntt nur l^crcin,
fommt ein
nnb fangt gtei(^ bie ?lvBeit an."
fangt an
SPECIMEN LITERARY SERIES.
31/
pic bxei §}pinncv\nixcn,
V.
2)ad raf(^c i^tac^gfvinnctt.
— Xa tiep f^ bic brci fcltfameu 2Beibcr l^erciu,
licp herein
unb utac^tc in bcr evfien hammer eine Siicfe
tttac^te
iro jxe fid^ l^infe^tcn
I)infe|ten
uiib i^r ^viititf" aut^uben.
an^uBen
— JDie eine jcg ben S^abcn
m
unb trat bag (Rab ;
txat
bic anbere ne|tc ben ^dbcn,
ne^te
bie britte brc^tc i^n
breljte
unb fd^tug mit bem ?yingcr auf ben Xif^ ;
feeing
unb fo oft jie fci^Iug,
Wn
fid cine Sa'^I ®arn jur @rbc
M
unb bag njar aufg feinfic gefponnen.
9cf))otincn
— 33or bcr ^onicjin tiev6ai\3 jie bie brci (Spinnerinucn,
ycrBarg
unb jcigte i:^r.
gcigte
fo oft fie fam,
fam
(jeigte i^i*) bie SWcnge beg gefponncncn ©arng,
gcigtc
bap bicfe beg goBcg !cin ©nbc fanb.
fanb
9irg bie crjie hammer leer njar,
leer war
gincjg an bie jn?cite,
9i«iJ
cnblid^ an bic britte
9i"9
unb bie ioar auc^ Balb auf^erdumt.
hjar aufgeraumt
3ia
STUDY OF THE CLASSICS.
'^ie bxci ^pinnctinncn,
VI.
Xxtnt uub S)aiif6arfcit,
— SJlutt nal^mctt bic brci SBeiber Slbfd^ieb,
uub fasten ^um SWabd^eii :
„ SSergif nid^t, iva^ bu uiig verfprcc^eu I;ait :
e0 itiirb bein ®lucf fein/'
nai^mcn
fagteii
loirb fcin
— Sltg bag SWdbc^en ber ^ouigiu bic lecren ^ammeni uiib jeigtc
ben grof en ^aufen ®arn gcigte,
tic^tete |ic bie ^oc^geit ane.
rid^tete ou8
2)er 93rautigam fveute fic^, bap -^
f rente jici^
cr eine fo gefci^idte unb ffeipige %xclh Mamt,
befdmc
unb tcbte jie geivattig.
Icbte
~„ 3(^ ^abe brei a3afen/'
^aBe
fpva^ ba5 3Wdbc^en,
fprad^
„ unb ba jie mix »ie( @uteg enoiefeu l^aben,
crtoiefen I;aBett
fo WoUk id^ jte nic^t gevn -^
hJoHte
in nieiuem ®luc! ttergeffen.
ijergejTen
(BxlawU bod^, bap -^
eriaubt
i£^ lie ju bcr ^cc^jcit einlabe,
cintabc
unb bap fie mit an bent Zi\d) fi^en/'
fi^fii
JDie ^oiiigin unb bee S3idutigam gaben if;i:e @inivif(igung. gabcn
SPECIMEN LITERARY SERIES.
19
pic bxci §pnxxxcxinncn.
VII.
— 9U^ nun bag g^ejl antjuB,
tiaten bie brei Sungfrauern in tounbcvUci^cr Xxad)t l^cteiii,
iinb bie a3raut fpraci^ :
„ <Seib h)if(fommen, tiebe S3afen/'
„ 91^ ! " \a%k ber SSrautigam,
„ wit fommji bu ju ber garjiigen Srcunbfc^aft ? "
— IDavauf gieiig er gu ber einen,
ber ntit bem breitcn ^(atfd^fup,
uiib fragte :
„So»on l^abt Sfjr einen fold^en breiten iJu^?"
„ 93cm XxtUtt/' antirortete jie,
„ »om J^reten."
2)a gieug ber SSrdutigam gur jiveiten,
unb fprac^ :
„ SSoijon l^abt 3l)r nuv bie {jevuutcv^dngcubc Siv).^eV "
„ 93cm Secfen/' auticcrtete jie,
„»cm Secifen."
5)a fragte er bie britte :
„ 9Bo»on I)aBt 3^r ben breiteu SDaumeu V
*^^cm ijabeu brel;en/' antiucrtete jie,
„ vcm gabeu bret)cn."
— !Da crfd^raf ber Jl6iug6fct)n,
unb \px<id) ;
„ <Bo fofl mir nun unb nimmermel;r meine f(f)cuc 93raut -^
ein ©pinnrab anru'^rcn.
2)amit tear jie bag bcfe glad^gfpinnen (eg."
an'^uB
traten Ijerein
fprad^
feib loilif.
fagtc
fcmmft
gieng
mit
fragte
I)aBt
l^aBc
l^aBc
gieng
fpra^
I?aBt
ijiibt
I;abc
fragte
Ijabt
ijalt
I)alje
crfc^raf
fprac^
fcf(
anru^ren
ivar log
320
STUDY OF THE CLASSICS.
SHAKESPEARE.
Romeo and Juliet.
Act III., Scene 5.
I.
— Jul. Wilt thou -^ be gone ? be gone
It is not yet near day : is not day
it was the nightingale, and not the lark, was nightingale
that pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear ; pierc'd
nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree, sings
Believe me, love, believe
it was the nightingale. was nightingale
— Rom. It was the lark, the herald of the was the lark
morn, no nightingale.
Look, love, -^ look
what envious streaks do lace the severing do lace
clouds in yonder east.
Night's candles are burnt out, burnt out
and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty stands tiptoe
mountain tops.
I must -^ must
be gone and live, be gone
or stay and die. stay
— Jul. Yon light is not daylight : is not daylight
I know it, I ; know
it is some meteor is meteor
that the sun exhales, exhales
to be to thee this night a torch-bearer, be torch-bearer
and light thee on the way to Mantua : light
therefore, stay yet ; stay
thou need'st not ^^ need'st
to be gone. be gone
SPECIMEN LITERARY SERIES.
321
SHAKESPEARE.
Romeo and Juliet.
Act III., Scene 5.
II.
— Rom. Let me — be ta*en, be taken
let me — be put to death. be put to death
I am content, —p- am content
so thou wilt have it so, have so
I'll say, will say
yon grey is not the morning's eye, is morning's eye
'tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow ; is reflex
nor that is not the lark, is the lark
whose notes do beat the vaulty heaven so do beat
high above our heads ;
— I have more care -^ to stay,
than will -:^ to go ;
come, death,
and welcome !
Juliet wills it so. —
How i8*t, my soul 1
Let's talk ;
it is not day.
go
come
be welcome
wills
how is
talk
is not day
322
STUDY OF THE CLASSICS.
SHAKESPEARE.
Romeo and Juliet.
Act III., Scene 5.
III.
— Jul. It is, it is ;
is day
hie hence.
hie thee
be gone,
be gone
away I
away!
It is the lark,
is the lark
that sings so out of tune.
sings
straining harsh discords and unpleasing
straining
sharps.
— Some say -^
say
the lark makes sweet division ;
makes division
this doth not so.
doth not
for she divideth us.
divideth
— Some say -=-
say
the lark and loathed toad change eyes ;
change
0, now I would -^
would (that)
they had chang'd voices too !
had changed
since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
doth affray
hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the
hunting
day.
— 0, now be gone ;
be gone
more light and light it grows.
grows light
Rom. More light and light ;
grows light
more dark and dark our woes. . . .
grows dark
SPECIMEN LITERAKY SERIES.
323
SHAKESPEARE.
Romeo and Juliet
Act III., Scene 5.
IV.
— Nurse. Madam ! madam I
Jul. Nurse ? ' nurse !
Nurse. Your lady mother's coming to your is coming
the day is broke ; [chamber : is broke
be wary, look about. be wary
Jul. Then, window, let day in, let day in
and let life out. let life out
Rom. Farewell, farewell 1 farewell
one kiss, (give) one kiss
and I'll -?- descend. Will descend
— Jul. Art thou gone so 1
Love, lord ! ay, husband, friend !
I must hear from thee every day in the hour,
for in a minute there are many days :
0, by this count I shall be much in years
ere I again behold my Romeo.
Rom. Farewell !
I will omit no opportunity -^
that may convey my greetings, love, to thee.
art gone
my love !
must hear
are many days
shall be in years
behold
farewell
will omit
may convey
324
STUDY OF THE CLASSICS.
SHAKESPEARE.
Romeo and Juliet.
Act III., Scene 5.
V.
— Jul. 0, think'st thou -^
we shall ever meet again ?
Rom. I doubt it not ;
and all these woes shall serve for sweet dis-
courses in our time to come.
think'st
shall meet
doubt not
shall serve
— Jul. God !
I have an ill-divining soul ;
methinks -^
I see thee,
now thou art below, as one dead in the
bottom of a tomb :
either my eyesight fails,
or thou look'st pale.
Rom. And trust me, love,
in my eye so do you :
dry sorrow drinks our blood.
Adieu 1 adieu I
aod!
have ill- divining
methinks
see (thee as dead)
art below
fails
look'st pale
trust
so do you (look)
drinks
adieu!
— Jul. fortune, fortune I
all men call thee fickle :
if thou art fickle,
what dost thou with him
that is renown'd for faith ?
Be fickle, fortune ;
for then, I hope -^i-
thou wilt not keep him long,
but send him back.
fortune I
call fickle
art fickle
what dost thou
is renown'd
be fickle
I hope
wilt not keep
send back.
METHOD OF TEACHING THE CLASSICS. 325
II.
ELABORATION OF A LITERARY SERIES — OUR METHOD OF
TEACHING.
I. One of La FontaMs Fables.
In our transcription, the fable of " Tlie Lion and the Gnat "
is divided into two portions, the first nuncibering twenty-two,
and the second twenty-five sentences. Each theme is divided
quite naturally into three paragraphs, and therefore comprises
tliree distinct steps. The teacher will recount first of all the
subject of the fable, not with the details and in the terms used
by the author, but freely, bringing up the whole situation in
his own words.
He will then begin the first step of the first lesson by the
phrase which has as its verb ** Be off." He throws, as it were,
this verb (be off) down in front, then upon it builds up the
phrase. " Be off, thou paltry insect," &c., giving to each term
its proper value, and justifying its use in this place or object-
ing to it. During this time each pupil writes down in a
column to the right of his exercise-book the verb : "Be
off."i
The second sentence develops from the verb " spoke." The
master will first enounce this verb ; the class will inscribe it
beneath " be off," and then will listen to the teacher as he
finds out and reconstructs piece by piece the phrase used by
La Fontaine. The third sentence will be " created " in the
same manner, then the next and the next, to the end of the
first step.
The most backward boy in the class will then be asked to
go through the entire " step," and to reconstruct each phrase
with the aid of the verb, the whole class carrying out the
same work silently to themselves.
A second scholar is now asked to discover the logical
sequence of the verbs, and with them to reconstruct from the
beginning the entu-e step, by conceiving it as the author must
have conceived it.
^ For greater clearness the exercise is here expressed in English ; the
French text and the corresponding relative phrases are given in the
Appendix (Trans.).
326 STUDY OF THE CLASSICS.
At this moment the disciple has become equal to the master ;
he is ready to pass to the second conception. The second step
is then taught and assimilated as wa8 the first, and the third
as the two others.
After the conquest, the entering into possession. Silence
will be called for, and while the teacher goes away to teach a
similar lesson in an adjacent class, each pupil will write out,
either from memory alone or by the aid of the verbs pre-
viously set down the first part of La Fontaine's little master-
piece.
On the teacher's return, the least advanced pupil will be
asked to read out his second-hand creation. He will give* it
sentence by sentence, the others calling attention, by correct-
ing them, to the slight imperfections that may have escaped
him. After this, the second part of the fable will be elaborated
in the same way, and the aim proposed will be attained, viz.,
" The pupil will have done over again the work of the author
he is studying."
As regards the manner in which the teacher constructs
each phrase before his class, this will vary with the teacher,
and will depend on his capacity and his aptitude. It seems
to us impossible to represent one of our lessons by writing, or
to give our own personal process for an example. We may,
however, formulate a precept which will stand as a definition
of this process : —
" The teacher should strive, not merely to read the phrase of
the author, but to create it, to cause it to be born, laboriously
and with pains, as the author himself must have done; substi-
tuting successively one term for another, in the manner of
an algebraist who transforms indefinitely the formula before
him into another and simpler one." This pedagogic precept
evidently implies the thorough and exhaustive discussion of
each term of the classic studied.
In every literary lesson of this kind there are two sorts of
expressions particularly important and particularly difiicult to
appropriate : these are the " metaphors " on the one hand, and
on the other what we have termed the " relative phrases."
The pupil will be required to glean these two species of ex-
pressions, and to write them out in a list apart at the end of
the text. By means of the collection of the first species of
CLASSICAL METAPHORS. 327
expressions he will appropriate to himself the imaginative
ideas of each writer, and this work will very quickly form his
literary taste and judgment. The collection of the relative
phrases will deliver into his hands the secret of expressing the
most delicate and finest relationships of ideas and of things ;
and this exercise, by sharpening his mind day after day, will
endow it finally, and in a short time, with that precious quality
which is termed " tact or refinement."
Here, for example, are the metaphors that may be gathered
from the fable '* The Lion and the Gnat ".: —
to finish a word. declare war.
to take time. sound the charge,
rage rises. sound the victory,
fury wearies. announce the victory,
fury overthrows. meet his end.
fury defeats. pass through peril.
After an author, or at least a work, has been entirely gone
through, all the metaphors will be brought together and
grouped into order according to some system that shall enable
them to be embraced at one glance, and consequently to be
looked through often. We have already explained in the
chapter upon the figurative language how a metaphorical
theme is constructed. Evidently it is to this process that we
should have recourse to set in order the metaphors of the
authors we are studying.
The pupil will therefore glean, as we have expressed it, all
the metaphors of the authors read by him ; he will attempt
to deduce therefrom the various *' symbols " which they re-
veal, and upon these symbols he will construct his meta-
phorical themes. Thus will gradually be elaborated for him,
and by him, a sort of systematic dictionary of the figurative
language of each writer, — a precious spring, always pure and
always wholesome, from which he may draw boldly and exten-
sively. If, indeed, there is one species of riches which is.
common, and should remain common to all the members of the
same race of mankind, it is the symbolism of their language,
that which characterises, expresses, and defines their race.
After the metaphors we should attack the relative phrases.
The following are those which will be noted by the pupil in
328 STUDY OF THE CLASSICS.
the above fable, or which the teacher will aid him to dis-
cover : —
to think that -^^ to triumph,
to be affrighted. to rise to the utmost,
to be disquieted. to laugh to see that -^
to be powerful. to do one's duty in —^
to lead anything whither one's to be defeated.
fancy pleases. to retire with glory,
to keep one's distance. to sound the victory,
to take one's time. &c. &c.
it is the work of -^
The following proverbs are also found : —
1. Amongst our enemies the smallest are often the most
to be feared.
2. Through perils great one may have passed, to perish from
the smallest thing at last.
The expressions followed by the sign (-7-) are enclitics.
It is not sufficient, however, merely to copy out these
abstract formulae ; it is not enough merely to draw up a list
of these fragments of thoughts. To become fruitful of result
they will have to be grafted upon something solid. Trans-
ferred, amalgamated, wedded to what we have termed "the
motives " of the relative phrases, these formulae will give
place to concrete expressions, to interlocutory sentences such
as the following : —
Gonty I think that -r^- you know what follows.
P. att. Do not think that -s' thou canst learn without
taking pains.
Take p. Thinkest thou that -t- a language can be learnt
without pains ?
Gont. And let nothing affright you.
Gont. The construction of such a simple phrase need
not affright you.
F. gd. I can see you are not affrighted.
Gont. If you make a mistake, let not that disquiet you.
V. gd. Your memory is becoming more powerful day by
day.
^ Cont. Continue, go on. &p. b. Speak boldly.
P. att. Pay attention. W. dn. Well done.
F. gd. Very good. Att. Attention.
B. g. ch. Be of good cheer. Take p. Take pains.
INTERLOCUTORY SENTENCES. 329
V. gd. In constructing a phrase no one is more powerful
than art thou.
V. gd. You lead the language whither your fancy pleases.
Slowly. Take your ease : keep, as they say, a safe dis-
tance at first.
Slowly. Take your time.
Cont. And first, picture the fact clearly in your mind.
Cont. And first, give the verb.
W. dn. That is the work of a clever scholar.
B. g. ch. You will triumph.
B. g. ch. We shall triumph.
V. gd. I am triumphant -7^ to see you doing so well.
F. gd. I laugh to see -^ that there is no further difficulty
for you.
Att. Do your duty by -^ clearly imagining the fact you
have to express.
Att. Do your duty by -^ speaking distinctly.
Sp. b. Your duty is -tp- to know it well.
V. gd. You are not yet overcome.
Cont. Show me that -^^ you are not yet defeated.
V. gd. From the combat you will retire with glory.
V. gd. You can now, I think, sound the victory.
Att. Mind the little words : amongst our enemies the
smallest are often the most to be feared.
Att. Through perils great one may have passed.
To perish from the slightest thing at last.
We have already explained in the chapter on the relative
phrases how the exercise of these phrases is combined with
the study of the series. The literary themes can be, and are,
treated in the same manner. As one pupil reconstructs the
phrase of the author, the master or a fellow-pupil answers
him with one of the preceding formulae. He gives it once,
twice, until it is graven upon the memory of all, and becomes
for the whole class, as it were, a species of current coin.
What we have thus done for a fable of La Fontaine we
have done, or we will or might do, for all the classical mas-
terpieces — in Latin, Greek, German, French, Italian, Russian,
Arabic, Sanscrit, &c. Prose or poetry, sciences or literature,
all kinds (save only that of the empty vocabulary, essentially
antipathetic to a system basing itself on life and desiring life
everywhere), all kinds may be dealt with by this process.
330 STUDY OF THE CLASSICS.
This we affirm from experience we have already obtained.
Now let us enumerate the advantages presented by this mode
of teaching.
The pupil produces not a composition open to criticism, but
a masterpiece. This creation is not the privilege of those only
who are clever, it is the work of the less gifted of the class as
well as the more gifted. The progress of those that are weak
imposes no hindrance upon those that are strong. Art thus
re-establishes the equality of intellects by re-establishing the
equality of wills — that is, of attentive forces.
The art of reading well has for its first condition the need
of a good accentuation. But to accentuate a phrase well the
reader requires to know upon what word or upon what syllable
the stress of the voice is to fall, and in order to know this
word or syllable it is necessary to have first definitely deter-
mined the various parts that the terms which compose the
phrase have to play, and to know exactly what each of these
terms is intended to reveal. The work of exegesis which we
have just described thus represents as useful a lesson of speak-
ing or reading as it does of literature. The pupil who has
composed over again with us the fable of La Fontaine will
assuredly be able to speak it and to read it.
The whole class knows the fable to its very roots. I defy
time itself to efface it from the memory of any one of our
pupils. Yet he has not learnt it " by heart " — he has created
it with his judgment. He has not confided its terms merely
to his lips, as we so often force little children to do — he has
kneaded it into his own substance ; he has moulded it with his
thought ; in other words, he has made it his own by " con-
ceiving " it in his mind. The work before him is really his
own work ; he would almost have the right to sign it with his
name. And because it is his own work he has not the power
to forget it.
How much time have we spent upon the creation of this
masterpiece? On an average we need a quarter of an hour
to elaborate a theme of about twenty-five sentences. When
a problem was read out to Henri Mondeux, the last word had
hardly been pronounced when the shepherd-boy gave back
the answer. After a certain number of exercises carried out
under conditions such as we have described, the memory of
VALUE OF THE METHOD. 331
the child absorbs it almost as quickly as it can be spoken.
Make a trial of the process yourselves, and you will soon see
what is the capability of the memory, or rather the genius of
the child, when he is placed under the dominion of logic and
of mental representation.
The scholar gathers from success in the earliest days a
knowledge of his personal power, and this confidence in him-
self has immediately the effect of redoubling his energies.
Instead of requiring a spur, he will nee4 a brake. A school
conducted upon methods having this effect may well produce
men of genius. Every man yet created loves his work — above
all, when this work is constantly successful ; and the love of
the work done applies also to the labour which produces it.
Our process is therefore a preventive to idleness, which is far
better than its punishment. It creates the taste for work ; it
even gives rise to a passion for labour and study. From the
very first day it lights the sacred fire.
Each scholar feeling himself a creator, every one is atten-
tive — every one is entirely occupied with his own effort, his
own creation. Therefore the words " imposition and discipline "
will sound like barbarisms in the ears of our children. But
for the words to remain always barbarisms, we must not forget
that the human strength has certain very precise limits, and
that if a sermon or a lecture three-quarters of an hour long
exhausts a grown man, it will certainly a fortiori exhaust the
child. Many of our pedagogues have not yet understood this
axiom. It is for this reason that, in the eyes of children, the
master is not a master, but an enemy. He is this indeed,
because in the person of the child he does violence to, and
cruelly wounds, human nature itself. He is more than an
enemy — he is a tyrant.
The correction of exercise-books is no longer needed ; all the
exercise-books are perfect. In and by our process composition
and correction are synonymous, and represent one and the
same operation. The recitation of lessons also is no longer
called for. Every one knows his lesson thoroughly. At the
College of Caen, as I dare say elsewhere, this recitation of the
lessons used to take an hour. It was always our despair,
and it ought to become so for every conscientious professor.
The children were enervated, or rather exhausted, before the
real work of the class had even commenced.
No more dictation lessons. This deplorable exercise is
332 STUDY OF THE CLASSICS.
severely interdicted in many of the German schools. The
German pedagogues stigmatise it by the name of " the abuse
of confidence," and they are right. It would be better simply
to copy ; the pupil at least would not make mistakes, and to
copy he does not need a master. During the time that he
scribbles and blots one page under dictation, he might assimi-
late it and read it over twenty times. Therefore we have no
more corrections, no more recitation of lessons, no more
dictation.
How much time have we thus gained ! What weariness
have we spared our pupils ! How many impositions have we
avoided ! How much good feeling drawn to the master ! The
child will no longer see in the man set to form his mind and
morals an enemy and a tyrant. He will love him, he will be
drawn to him as the most worthy and the most estimable of
his friends. We shall see the child running to school with
the same ardour as to the village fair.
By substituting everywhere lectures for silent study, our
process suppresses in those schools which adopt it the ungrate-
ful duty of monitor. It raises this personage to the position
of assistant- master or of preceptor to beginners, with all the
title and authority of an educator. It is upon him that falls
the duty of teaching the elementary part of the languages.
We have demonstrated that our method puts this teaching
within the reach of every one. The teaching of the sciences
will be for the learned professor.
An honest and devoted nurse sometimes occupies a larger
place in the child's heart than even its own mother. The
despised elementary language teacher will have, under the
method that we propose, the first fruits of the scholar's affec-
tion. More than this, the prestige which the knowledge of
languages gives will perhaps make of him a personage more
regarded than the learned science master himself.
To all these advantages let us not forget to add that trans-
lated by the formula often evoked in this book : — *' For three
classes one master." While the scholar is writing out his
lesson, that is, is giving a tangible form to his conception, the
master could be training a second class, then a third, deliver-
ing to each of these the germ or the raw material of a creation
similar to that already given — " One harvest is ripening while
two others are being sown ! "
A LATIN LESSON. 333
2. A Page of Virgil,
^NEiD, Book II. V. 544.
Instead of the lesson which we have just elaborated, we
may substitute a theme in a classic tongue. Let us take,
for example, from our transcription of the -^neid, the 45 th
theme of the Second Book.
334
STUDY OF THE CLASSICS.
THE DEATH OF PRIAM.
Nunc morere !
— Sic fatus seiiior, fatus est
telumque imbelle sine ictu conjecit ; conjecit
rauco quod protinus sere repulsum, repulsum
et summo clypei nequicquam umbone pependit. pependit
Cui Pyrrhus : dixit
" referes ergo hsec referes
et nuntius ibis Pelidae genitori : ibis
illi mea tristia facta narrare
degeneremque ISTeoptolemum narrare me- narrare
Nunc morere ! " [men to, morere
— Hoc dicens, dicens
altaria ad ipsa trementem traxit traxit
et in multo lapsantem sanguine nati, lapsantem
implicuitque comam Iseva, implicuit
dextraque coruscum extulit (ensem) extulit
ac lateri capulo tenus abdidit ensem. abdidit
— Hsec finis Priami fatorum : finis fuit
hie exitus ilium sorte tulit, [gama, tulit
Trojam incensam et prolapsa videntem Per- videntem tuL
tot quondam populis terrisque superbum reg- regnatorem
natorem Asise :
Jacet ingens littore tr uncus jacet
avulsumque humeris caput avulsum
et sine nomine corpus. sine nomine.
TRANSCRIPTIONS OF THE CLASSICS. 335
One remark with reference to the transcription of this exer-
cise. How is it that amongst the number of professors who
have undertaken the literal line-for-line translations, no one
has had the idea, in the first place, of numbering the various
distinct conceptions of the classic authors, and of constituting
with each of them a separate exercise analogous to our own ;
and in the next place, of separating the sentences instead of
dealing with single words ; and, lastly, of arranging these sen-
tences for the student in the order in which they are present-ed
by our transcriptions ?
The explanation of this fact is very simple. The Literary
Series is the immediate corollary of our Linguistic Series. To
conceive the one it is necessary to have first conceived the
other. The high value of the verb in the language, its pre-
ponderance in the sentence, the amplitude of the intellectual
effort of mankind, the measure of each one of our conceptions,
the average length of the sentence, the part to be assigned to
the ear, with the principles or precepts which devolve there-
from, and which constitute, in very truth, the art of teaching
languages — these are the data which it was necessary to have
possessed to be able even to formulate the problem. It will
be remembered by what mere chance it was that we ourselves
were enabled to unite them.
If, besides this, we keep in mind the blindness in which
the spirit of routine, under the form of a word-for-word
translation, has kept our humanists until the present time,
one need not be astonished that they have stood so long close
alongside our idea without ever even having caught a glimpse
of it. So much having been said, let us show how the lesson
of Virgil is given.
The end to be attained is : "To enable the work of the
author to be reproduced by the pupil." The master first gives
a free translation in his own words of the conception or the
scene of Virgil ; then beginning the first sentence of the first
step he gives it in English —
" Thus spake the old man."
He strikes once more the term " spake " alone, and from
this throws forth the Latin verb " fatus est," which he says
again and again (fatus est — fatus est) ; and on this verb he
builds up the phrase —
" Sic fatus est senior."
336 STUDY OF THE CLASSICS.
The pupil writes down on the margin of his exercise-book
the verb " fatus est ; " and then the master enounces the next
sentence —
" And, without force, he cast an impotent javelin."
He repeats " cast," and then substitutes " conjecit ; " estab-
lishes this verb solidly, and upon it as foundation raises the
sentence —
" Telumque imbelle sine ictu conjecit,"
evoking the subject, evoking the complements, evoking the
grammar and the genius proper to Latin, constructing always
according to this genius, i.e., placing that which completes
before that which is completed. Meanwhile, each pupil in-
scribes "conjecit " beneath the " fatus est." After the second
phrase the third is expounded ; after the third the fourth, and
so on until the whole of the first step is finished, at which
point a halt is made.
Now the teacher and pupil exchange parts. The teacher
has just given what we term the theme of the first step ;
the pupil, by listening and interpreting mentally each Latin
phrase, has made the translation of it. Next in his turn the
pupil gives the Latin of this mental translation. The master
gives him the verb, " fatus est," and, if need be, the English
phrase corresponding thereto, and the pupil should be able to
find the sentence —
"Sic fatus est senior."
The master then challenges him afresh with the verb " con-
jecit." The pupil takes up the gauntlet and responds by the
phrase —
" Telumque imbelle sine ictu conjecit."
The master gives him the third verb, and the pupil returns
the third sentence, and so on to the end of the paragraph.
The second step is attacked and carried like the first, and the
third like the two others. A second pupil will wish to go
through the whole of the theme with the sole aid of the verbs
written on the margin of his exercise- book ; another may
solicit the favour of being allowed to reproduce the whole from
memory.
The class have thought with Virgil, have spoken his words,
have penetrated to the height of his genius, have assimilated
a fragment of his art. Without reading Virgil directly, with-
THE STUDY OF VIRGIL. 337
out translating him, without copying him, the pupils have
actually conceived and rewritten the scene from the great
master, and this work has required for pupils at this stage at
most ten or fifteen minutes of time. The conception of Virgil
has passed entire into the conception of the scholar. This is
much — but it is not yet enough.
Every student now opens his book of transcriptions, and each
separately looks rapidly through the work hitherto done in
common. Then the books are closed, and in the exercise- book,
which bears the verbs on its margin, the pupil recomposes,
opposite these verbs, the corresponding sentences. Lastly, the
correction is carried out in the manner we have mentioned, by
the reading aloud of a single copy. At this moment, the con-
ception of Virgil will have passed by all the senses of the
scholar — first the ear, then the tongue, then the eye, and lastly
the hand. Henceforth it will form part of his individuality ;
" he can never forget it."
We may point out further, that the exercise of the grammar
has been constant though no grammar has figured in the class,
and that the pupil has learnt the whole crowd of expressions
without having once turned to his dictionary.
The metaphors and the relative phrases will next be noted
or gathered together, and at a second reading — that of the
whole book — they will be made the object of a special exer-
cise. The relative phrases will furnish the elements of what
we have called " An ordered conversation."
Under what conditions will this second reading take place ?
By the ordinary processes it is little less laborious than the
first. The same difficulties are encountered ; the same faults
are committed j the same time is spent or wasted ; and the
utter weariness engendered ends by making odious to the
student both the classical work and the name of its author. ^
But an entire book of the ^neid, for example, read through
by means of our transcriptions, requires about two hours.
Done from memory and aloud in class, together with the con-
versation by means of the relative phrases, it takes some
three or four hours.
Seventy to ninety Latin lessons worked through in a morn-
ing ! At this rate we have been able boldly to undertake
to thoroughly learn, not only a few scraps of certain clas-
^ "Horace, whom I hated so." — Byron.
338 STUDY OF THE CLASSICS.
sical masterpieces, but these masterpieces themselves in their
entirety.
The study of authors by means of our transcriptions is
therefore as rapid as it is easy, and it is not the less fruitful.
Might not the language, we shall be asked, be learnt by the
reading of the authors alone ? Might we not do without the
ordinary series 1 The present work is a continual demonstra-
tion of the negative. No ; the reading of the classics, however
long, persevering, and obstinate it may be, will never lead you
to the true and thorough knowledge of the language.
If I were to desire to maintain the contrary hypothesis,
should I not be opposed with the contradiction of the sorrow-
ful experience achieved after so many years by all the schools
and colleges of the world ? All of these make their students
read the Latin authors. Which of them, I ask, has discovered
the true secret of teaching Latin ? To learn a language, let us
recollect for the hundredth time, is not to translate a book ; it
is to translate our own individuality into this language. We
have pointed out how this human individuality is constituted.
Now there is no classical work which contains this indi-
viduality ; or rather it can only be found therein as Homer in
the dictionary.
You have gathered together, we will suppose, all the mate-
rials for a house. The totality of these materials cannot be
called a house, and will not really be a house, until the day on
which these materials are grouped together and set into a
certain definite order. In the same way, let us admit that all
the elements that form part of your individuality can be found
in the literature of a language. For these elements to repre-
sent your individuality, they must be first united, then grouped,
then set into order in a certain manner — that is to say,
brought together into what we have called the Ordinary
Series.
Moreover, these are the only means to assure Latin being
spoken and used in ordinary life. And if Greek is usually
less well known than Latin, it is simply because it is less
spoken. I used to read, re-read, and have read to me, during
more than twenty years, the Greek and Latin classical works,
and this exercise did not give me possession of either Greek or
Latin. A desperate and continued reading of the German
classics did not prove of greater benefit to me. I finally applied
to these languages the system of the series — that is to say, I
CLASSIFICATION OF THE CLASSICS 339
translated my individuality into these languages. Since then,
but only since then, have I felt that these languages have
become my own. Language is an edifice which has its summit,
its crowning point, in its literature. This summit is always
something quite other than the foundation. It presupposes
this foundation, but it never can take its place.
The process of which we have just given, a description may
be brought to bear upon a literature lesson in German, in
French, or in Arabic, as well as Latin. We have chosen the
latter in order to put to rout once more the absurd prejudice
which proclaims the necessity for two methods of teaching
languages — the one for ancient languages and the other for
modern.
Whoever the man who thinks and who writes may be, he
does it by linking conception to conception, sentence to sen-
tence. The work will be read well by that man who knows
how to discover these links, and to accommodate his march
and his length of step to the march and the step of the
author.
Two more observations, and the exposition of our " method
of translating, reading, and assimilating the classics " will be
complete. The class have reproduced each of the foregoing
themes in two manners : first orally, and then by writing. It
is, perhaps, hardly necessary to state that this second exer-
cise is not continual. One may undertake to read the principal
masterpieces of the literature of a language, but not of writing
out the whole of them by hand. The written theme has spe-
cially in view the art of composition. This art may be quite
well taught to the student in making him reproduce, not all
the models, but a certain number of them only.
The student must not be made to read for the mere sake of
reading, but in order to understand and to learn. The book
must therefore be one adapted to the age and the knowledge
of the reader — that is to say, the reading must be graduated.
Our system itself supplies us with a rule or a principle for
establishing this graduation. The works will be classified
according to their relation to the objective language such as
we have defined it. The tale, for instance, being the reproduc-
tion of the facts of every-day life, is the kind that approaches
most nearly to our elementary series. The first exercise of
reading in a foreign language will be given, therefore, by
340 STUDY OF THE CLASSICS.
means of a collection of tales written in this language. Is not
this also the first book understood, sought for, and assimilated
by the child in his own language ? After the tale will succeed
the epic poem ; to the epic will succeed the history ; to the
history the other kinds of literature, — all called forward in
an order corresponding to the degree of their afiinity with the
Elementary Series or the objective language.
REDUCE THE SUBJECTS. ' 341
THE LANGUAGES BY THE SCIENCES AND
THE SCIENCES BY THE LANGUAGES.
THE SOLIDARITY OF THE SCIENCES AND THE LANGUAGES.
** Reduce the number of subjects taught ! " This is the cry
we hear continually ; and from year to year this cry will grow
louder — " Reduce the subjects ! " The burden imposed on
childhood surpasses the measure of its forces; the day's length
of study exceeds the day's length of life. Instead of building
up, edifying, this task overwhelms and crushes; instead of
developing, this labour simply exhausts ; therefore, " Reduce
the subjects ! " A cry so universal cannot but be the symptom
of a real disease : — " Yox populi, vox Dei ! "
Count, indeed, the sciences that the human mind has
created or organised during the last fifty years; reckon up
and measure the chapters which are added to each of them
from one day to another, and you may well be astounded at
the task laid upon the modern teacher and the modern scholar.
Therefore, " Reduce your subjects," repeat the crowd.
But to do this we should have to omit some of the sciences.
Now the suppression of science now-a-days is almost equi-
valent to the amputation of a limb. Let the ablest man be
so good as to point out which are the superfluous sciences,
and which parts are to be cut out. The schoolmaster who
should announce his intention of striking out of his curri-
culum physics, for example, or chemistry, or some branch of
natural science, would be to-morrow the object of universal
reprobation, and would very soon lose all his pupils. And he
would deserve it. Is not school the place to teach the sciences'?
Where else can our children learn them ?
Thus the same voice that cries " Reduce the subjects," cries
at the same time, " Do not alter the list of subjects." How
are we to reconcile injunctions so contradictory? Is it not
the predicament of the sick man who calls for the doctor, but
pushes away the remedy prescribed ?
342 * STUDY OF THE SCIENCES.
This is because, as a matter of fact, the duty of the school
is to add to, and never to take away from, human knowledge.
The school is at one and the same time the first representative
and the first instrument of progress. Its mission is to give
light and still more light, and never to hide the candle under
the bushel. " Reduce your subjects " does not mean " Suppress
science ; " it means, " Reform your methods."
It is not science, it is routine that must be suppressed ; it
is not knowledge which must be decreased out the time which
must be lengthened ; it is not the load \\ t ich must be dimi-
nished, but the power that must be douMed ; it is not the
comparatively feeble horse, but the stean? » -ngine which must
be called upon to draw the train which carries the modern
fortune.
Every human science borrows its expression from language.
To teach a science is to speak this science ; to learn a science
is again to speak this science. The knowledge of it is usually
nothing else than speech — speech "set in order." Why
is it that this speech par excellence, could not be utilised for
the study of language properly so called ? Why cannot the
material of this science be used as a linguistic theme ?
There is in school one ogre who devours not the flesh, but
the time of children, who consumes their force and their life.
This ogre is the study of language. For one hour given to
the study of sciences the scholar spends four upon that of
language under the form of grammar, spelling, dictation, of
Greek, of Latin, of French or Grerman. Whence is this dis-
proportion ? Why would not the lesson on zoology or botany
serve as the theme for the lesson of spelling ? Why should
not the lesson on physics or on history be employed as the
theme of a lesson in German or French 1
Yes ! between science properly so called and that of language
there exists a profound solidarity, of which linguistic science
should have been able long ago to make wonderful use. While
studying languages we might study the sciences, and in study-
ing the sciences we can study the languages. This is the
point, the true point, upon which the attempts of reformers of
the curriculum should be brought to bear.
Let the pedagogic science find the secret of making a science-
lesson out of a language-lesson, and a language-lesson out of a
science-lesson, and it will have trebled or quadrupled the time
REFORM OF HISTORY TEACHING. 343
and the force of both master and pupil. Then the studies will
be harmonious and the work properly balanced. Then the
list of subjects will be found light. More ; they may even be
trebled and yet be found light.
How is it that this reform yet remains to be carried out ?
It is because it can only be accomplished upon the basis of a
method which equally suits either the revelation of scientific
truths and the translation of the forms of. language. Where
is this method ? Until the present moment has the problem
even been formulated ?
Perhaps we may be permitted to apply in passing, and
briefly, the principles of our linguistic method to the study,
for instance, of the natural sciences, to that of the exact sciences
and to that of history, in order to see if our humble essay
might not prove to be the preface of that system for which
pedagogic science has been waiting so long. We will com-
mence by the end — that is to say, by history.
II.
THE LANGUAGES BY HISTORY AND HISTORY BY THE LANGUAGES.
I. Necessity of a reform in the teaching of history.
The teaching profession should renounce resolutely all those
manuals or abridgments which present history to the minds
of childhood in an altered, chopped up, mutilated form. It
should seek to replace all these bad books by complete treatises,
in which the life of the people and the instructive play of
causes and effects develop with all the richness of truth.
History is the grand school in which the future should gain
its instruction — a school of politics and morals. Until now
what have figured almost exclusively on the walls of this
school are certain names and dates, in which are enshrined a
few more or less important facts. Pedagogic science ought to
pass the sponge over these insipid abstractions and replace
them by living pictures.
It should resuscitate the past with its splendours and its
miseries, with its heroisms and its deficiencies, with its pas-
sions, noble or criminal ; it should reproduce, with all its inci-
dents, the great drama of liberty struggling against despotism.
344 STUDY OF THE SCIENCES.
This is the kind of history I should wish to teach to my chil-
dren ; but where is the book that realises this ideal, and that
I can put into their hands ?
All the histories are composed and written for minds which
meditate, analyse, and synthetise — for men of forty years old
and upwards. But where is the history that is composed and
written to be assimilated by children and youths ? It is in
vain that we ask them of pedagogic science.
Do not be deceived. All the so-called historical works " pre-
pared for the use of children" are perfectly inaccessible to
the child, and even to many grown-up persons. Between these
books and all the others I see absolutely no difference other
than the title — " For the use of children," and this title is
a misnomer. Examine them yourselves. Are the chapters
in these books thought out, shaped, or distributed differently
to those in other books ? Are the occurrences more detailed
and placed in better sequence ? Is the synthesis more logi-
cally connected? Has the style less of metaphor, less of
rounded periods, less of pomposity? All these histories, I
repeat, have nothing special in them ; the most celebrated, so
far as I have yet seen, have nothing truly pedagogic either in
their basic idea or in their form.
And in this there is nothing very astonishing. The pro-
blem of a reform in the teaching of history has hardly as
yet been put. If languages are badly taught in the great
schools, what must we say to their teaching of history ?
History, real history, is too often not taught at all. Open
the books and see if history is to be found therein, you who
know what history is. See if the child can draw therefrom
lessons and principles which may serve him and direct him
when he becomes a citizen and has to exercise his rights.
Why are there throughout the country so many divisions
and so many political parties ? It is in great part because we
do not know our country's history, or because each man has a
history of his own, and not the impersonal history of a healthy
pedagogic science ; because the little that we do know of it has
not been learnt at school where it is practically prohibited —
but from newspapers ; because we have oft-times the passion
of it, but not the reason — the error of it, but not the truth.
History, real history, practically taught, practically written,
here is the sacred book, the bible of the future. But this
HISTORY PUT INTO SERIES. 345
book is not yet written. The profession of teachers must set
themselves courageously to this task, and create for their own
use a method for teaching history such as that which M'e have
attempted to create for the teaching of languages. And the
creation of this book is of the first necessity. History and
the reading of history, and meditation therein, must be for
the future citizen a sacred daily duty. History must become
an essential part of our moral personality. It is important,
therefore, that this history should be true ; and it is equally
important, seeing the richness and the extent of the material,
that it should be in the highest degree easy of assimilation.
In fact, it will not be in a volume of 300 pages that you
will recount — I will not say the history of the world, nor even
the history of the nation, but one single epoch of this history.
It is therefore necessary to find a system so simple, so practical,
that the pupil has but to read in order to know, has but to
look in order to retain, has but to turn over the pages to
refresh his memory. Is such a system possible ? And would
it be possible to-day to establish the basis and trace the chief
outlines of it ? We will attempt it. We may be able to prove
that our project deserves to be considered as something more
than a mere chimera.
2. History put into Series.
History is the story of the passions, the aspirations, the
tendencies, that is, the various and successive ends which have
been pursued by a people, and the means by which they have
attempted to attain them. History represents, therefore, a
tissue of ends and of means. But wherever there are " ends
and means" there is opportunity and place for Series. There-
fore the series, the basis of our linguistic system, may become
the basis of a historic method. We should proceed to
establish, to weave, this new kind of series in the following
manner : —
Given a certain historical fact — the Seven Years' War, for
instance, or the reigns of Louis Quatorze of France or of
King Charles I. of England, or a special moment in any one
of the reigns, such as the Wars of the Roses — we shall study
with care the men who have played a part in this political act,
and the passions which have moved them ; we shall count
minutely the various ends into which their movements may
346 STUDY OF THE SCIENCES.
be resolved ; we shall draw up a catalogue of these ends or
aims, not according to an alphabetical list, but according to
their chronological succession. Then seeking the means by
which these various ends have been attained as time passed
on, and expressing them in the same order in which they
succeeded, or should have succeeded, each other, we shall
arrange them upon the model of our Linguistic Series. Put-
ting the Life of the People into series — this is at one and
the same time both the foundation and the plan of an historical
method ; we will indicate here, briefly, the work of detail, and
the form of the edifice.
The general history of events will be found divided into a
considerable number of particular stories, which form so many
pictures or scenes. Each scene will contain one simple and
unique fact, strongly brought into relief by the style and the
movement of the phrase. This scene will occupy a special
page, and will bear a title as simple as itself, of which the
text of the page is the development. On this page the order
of succession in time will be rigorously followed — an order of
which far too little account is taken even in the most elemen-
tary text-books of history, and which, nevertheless, is certainly
the secret of precision and of clearness, as it is the condition
of prompt and easy assimilation. For, indeed, what is memory
if it is not the logical classification of facts in the mind ?
If, therefore, the facts are already classified, the mind will
grasp them and will retain them so much the more rapidly,
and the less able pupils will be able to remember them as
well as the most gifted.
We shall have none of these reflections and prognostications
such as fill up our present text-books and dishearten the
child, for the reason that he is not able to understand them,
and is still less able to distinguish them from the real history
of facts. The facts, nothing but the facts — the facts with
the dramatic movement of causes and of effects — the facts
which speak for themselves and cause the reader to think —
the facts interpreted solely by the accent of the professor —
these are what we require. And in the expression of them we
must have none of those gross and empty metaphors that the
child understands not, which mislead rather than guide him,
and which cause him to take vain shadows for living realities.
Conceived on these lines, history may be written in quite a
THE HISTORICAL SERIES. 347
different fashion to that we now know. We shall write it
in simple and short phrases, which course after one another,
having all the rapidity of the movement with which the life
of the people is unfolded.
1. Each phrase will only express one idea or one simple
fact.
2. Each phrase will be distinct from that which precedes
and from that which follows it, both on the paper as well as
in the mind, i.e., each sentence will be placed line by line as
in our Linguistic Method.
We have shown the justification for the use of this form of
the printed page when speaking of the themes of our series :
the same reasons justify the use of it for our historical themes.
The method is sketched out : let us suppose that it is con-
structed ; how are we to apply it ? This question is one that
is not less grave than that of the method of teaching our
Linguistic Series. In order to fix ideas and to facilitate our
explanation, we reproduce on the following page an historical
theme taken almost at hazard from one of our lithographed
transcriptions. This scene has no other pretension than that
of showing the typographic form of our Historical Series.^ An
isolated theme can with difficulty be made to give any exact
idea of our historical treatises : it would be necessary at least
to devote an entire chapter to the subject.
^ This specimen history-lesson has been also given in the French, as it
then equally illustrates the property of the system of forming advanced
language-lessons from the history of the country whose language is being
studied (Trans.).
348
STUDY OF THE SCIENCES.
BATTLE OF ROSSBACH.
JSTOVEMBER 5, 1757.
— On the morning of the 5th, Soubise com-
manded the attack.
The army deployed in a long line,
with the idea of turning the Prussians,
and enclosing them in a circle of fire, [tent,
Frederick remained perfectly still within his
tranquilly following the movements of the
enemy.
At noon he sat down to table as usual.
The French continued to advance ;
drums were beating,
bands were sounding triumphal marches ;
nothing stirred in the ^Prussian camp.
The French attributed this calm to fear,
and could not comprehend such apathy.
— It was two o'clock in the afternoon ;
Frederick came quickly out of his tent,
and gave the order, " To arms ! March ! "
In the twinkling of an eye the tents are
struck, folded,
orders cross in the air,
and the battalions hasten to the place assigned.
** Forward," cried Frederick a second time,
and the army threw themselves on the foe.
— A rain of fire and bullets fell upon the
French.
Prince Henry took their infantry in flank.
Seidlitz attacked them in the rear with his
cavalry.
This violent and unforeseen movement of the
Prussians acted as a surprise ;
the amazed Imperialists took to flight.
The French maintained their position until
disputing the ground foot by foot. [dusk,
commanded
deployed
turning
enclosing
remained
following
sat down
advance
were heating
were sounding
stirred
attributed
comprehend
was
came out
gave order
struck
cross
hasten
cried
threw them-
selves
fell
took
attacked
acted
took
maintained
disputing
SPECIMEN HISTORICAL SCIENCE.
349
BATAILLE DE ROSSBACH.
5 NOVEMBRE 1757.
— Le 5 au matin, Soubise fit sonner la charge ;
Tarm^e se deploya sur une longue ligne :
il s'agissait de tourner les Prussiens,
et de les prendre dans un cercle de feu. '
Fr^d^ric resta immobile dans sa tente,
suivant tranquillement les mouvements de
I'ennemi.
A midi il se mit k table comme a I'ordinaire.
Les Fran9ais continuaient d'avancer,
les tambours battaient,
la musique jouait des marches triomphales ;
rien ne bougeait dans le camp prussien.
Les Frangais attribuaient ce calme a la peur
et ne pouvaient s'expliquer tant d'apathie.
fit sonner
se deploya
tourner
prendre
resta
suivant
se mit
avancer
battaient
jouait
bougeait
attribuaient
s'expliquer
— II 4tait deux heures de relevee : ^tait
Frederic sort pr^cipitamment de sa tente, sort
et crie : " Aux armes ! k I'ennemi ! " crie
En un clin d'ceil les tentes sont arrach^es, pli^es ; arrachdes
les commandements se croisent dans I'air, se croisent
et les bataillons courent k la place assignee. courent
" En avant ! " cria une seconde fois Frederic, cria
et Tarmee se rua sur I'ennemi. se rua
— Une pluie de feu et de balles s'abattit sur les s'abattit
Franfais.
Le prince Henri prit en flanc leur infanterie, prit
Seidlitz la prit en queue avec sa cavalrie. prit
Ce mouvement violent et imprevu des Prussiens agit
agit comme une surprise ;
les Imperiaux ^pouvant^s prirent la fuite. prirent
Les Frangais tinrent bon jusqu'au soir, tinrent bon
et disputerent le terrain pied k pied. disput^rent
350 STUDY OF THE SCIENCES.
3. The teaching of the history lessons.
A iiistory lesson is a play in two acts ; we have the work
of exposition by the master, and then the work of assimilation
by the pupil. Let us deal first with that of the master. In
beginning the lesson, the master does not read ; he improvises.
Nothing cools the ardour of a class of children more than
reading; the book acts as a screen, and both paralyses the
feelings of the teacher himself and hinders his thoughts from
radiating to the minds of his hearers. A picture, a chart, such
as would be illustrative of the facts he wishes to enforce, should
be the only auxiliaries of a good teacher of history. To the
eyes of the pupil, the professor should be a living history.
He needs not only to know history, but to appear permeated
therewith.
He must not, therefore, have his historical lessons written
out exactly as he is to give them ; their titles at most may
act the part of programme, as memoranda or notes. He will
abandon himself to the inspiration of the moment, to his own
conception, and will expose the facts as if he saw them or
knew them, with order, with clearness, with precision, and
with warmth, giving emphasis to those that deserve emphasis,
and this in language half-conversational, half- academic, and
with an occasional humorous turn which will serve to place
the fact in relief in the memory.
The block of marble is drawn from the quarry, trimmed,
roughed out ; the inspiration is communicated. We next endea-
vour to perfect the statue. After having made the facts speak
for themselves, the teacher will make the book speak. Now
he reads ; but this exercise is not an ordinary reading ; it is a
translation, the translation of a scene already well known to
all, and in which, shortly before, the whole class were vividly
interested. This exercise presents itself as the solution of a
fresh problem of which the following is the statement : —
"To find the best expression possible of the historical drama
to which the class have just been giving their attention."
From this point of view the reading has a great interest.
Rest assured that here we have discovered a method for keep-
ing each pupil attentive. The teacher reads, comments upon,
criticises each phrase, — carries out, in fact, a work analogous
to that which we have described when speaking of the reading
THE TEACHING OF THE HISTORY LESSONS. 351
of the classical authors. So much for the teacher's part : now
let us investigate that of the pupil.
In the first place, he knows to its roots the history he has
before him. What he lacks is the expression of it. How can
he conquer this ? Nothing is more simple. We may point out
at once that our historical lessons are all as exactly and defi-
nitely organised as our linguistic lessons. The theory that we
have developed when dealing with these equally applies in its
entirety to the history lessons.
This stipulat-ed, the pupil will proceed as follows : — Covering
up the text, he will read aloud the verbs one after the other,
and on each verb he will build up the corresponding phrase.
He will elaborate in this way, piece by piece, the first para-
graph or step, and going through it a second time, he will
thoroughly assimilate it. He will do the same with the second
and with the third step. It will require, we have found, five
to seven minutes for a pupil to learn, in this manner, a history
lesson such as that given. This result is rich in consequences :
we will refer to them farther on.
The teacher now asks the dullest in the class to repeat the
lesson. He ascertains that this child knows the page, and will
conclude from this that all know it. To what exercise will he
now pass 1 This will depend upon the age and the ability of
the children before him. If he is dealing with beginners who
do not yet know how to write correctly, he will simply give
them the lesson to copy out, or perhaps he will dictate it care-
fully, pronouncing each word separately, or possibly will have
it dictated by one of the scholars.
This exercise will advantageously replace that of the usual
dictation exercise and the writing lesson, and will, moreover,
be a diversion and an opportunity for the pupils to digest the
lesson. If the class are already well drilled in spelling, if
serious mistakes need be no longer feared, the history lesson
will become the material for a literature lesson in composition.
In such a case, these are the conditions under which the work
would be carried out : —
Each pupil will copy into his exercise-book the series of
verbs from the history lesson, then closing the printed book,
he will reproduce in writing the phrases corresponding to
the verbs. The correction of these exercises will be as short
as they are easy. It will be sufficient for the teacher to have
352 STUDY OF THE SCIENCES.
one copy read out aloud. Each pupil will correct his phrase
according to that which is judged perfect. If the class is
still further advanced, the history lesson will be reproduced
as a true narrative after a single reading or a single hearing,
and without other help than the logic of the facts.
There remains yet one other category of pupil — those who,
trained by these various exercises, have learnt to think for
themselves, that is, to seize the true relations of things, and
who along with solid principles have acquired the forms where-
with to express all their conceptions. These will treat the
history lesson from a higher point of view ; they will trace the
portraits and sound the praises of the great men whose actions
are before them ; they will paint the battles ; they will judge
the revolutions, will give their appreciations of the legislation,
will give over again the speeches of the great politicians,
attempting to revive in these compositions the ideas and the
passions which have agitated bygone times, seeking by these
means to epitomise each epoch, to characterise each historic
moment.
Studied in this way, history will inevitably enter at each
lesson deep into the mind and the heart of the child, and will
early make a man of him. Our aim can now be seen ; history
is considered by us first of all as a science, and is treated as
such ; afterwards it is used as a literature lesson, marvellously
suitable for forming the language and the style of the pupil.
Prepared as we have just indicated, history is a collection
of narratives, in which we set down successively the forms and
turns of expression most habitual and most important in lite-
rary composition. By means of these narratives the literary
education of a class will be carried on day by day. The prin-
cipal advantages of this method of proceeding are these : —
1. Each history lesson forms one complete narrative, of a
length suitable to beginners.
2. The facts are analysed and developed in this lesson
methodically.
3. Order and movement are given to them.
4. The pupil will quickly learn to control his thought by
means of these short and rapid phrases, which are used to
translate the facts of the narrative.
5. Each phrase being a whole in itself, the pupil is forced
to give equal care to every phrase.
HISTORY AND LITERATURE COMBINED. 353
In ordinary compositions one phrase compensates for
another — the best for those less well turned. But in our
scenes each part is well in view. Each sentence requires to
be considered separately, to be balanced, put into cadence.
Teachers well know that this is the last thing to be obtained
(when it is obtained), even with the most promising of their
scholars.
The film material of history is far better for beginners,
is infinitely easier to deal with than are the subjects usually
proposed, by which the idle imagination alone is excited,
Avhile the pupil generally knows not from which side to
commence the attack. The brevity and facility of the history
compositions will enable either one or several to be given every
day. These exercises being all polished to the point of per-
fection, or nearly so — every effort being fruitful, every hour
producing its result — little time will be needed to form a
taste and a genius for narrative in the pupil's mind.
The history lesson is, therefore, really a literature lesson as
well, and in our opinion one of the most practicable that a
teacher can propose to give in class. For this reason the his-
torical series is the first auxiliary we propose to the purely
linguistic series.
When the basis of the language has been conquered,
reading lessons and recitations are needed, in which all the
terms, both real and figurative, recur, so to speak, in their
free state, and as called forth by the incidents. What more
convenient could be imagined, either for the teacher who
recounts or for the pupil who listens, than these historical
series ?
What reading-lessons easier, and at the same time more
profitable, than these could the student undertake ? What
subject more advantageous to his mental progress could he
study ? His eye has never to take in more than one line at
a time, his mind has only one sentence to grasp. He descends
from thought to thought with surety, without possibility of
mistaking the sense. By reason of the natural order which
links incident to incident, he can divine, so to speak, each
phrase even before reading it. The " Steps " mark the precise
points at which he should stop, or at which the recital
should be broken off, so that he may read over what he has
already understood, in order to take thorough possession of
z
354 STUDY OF THE SCIENCES.
ifc. We need not again refer to the verb, which announces the
idea as the dawn announces the day.
Up to the present time, no really practical book, it seems
to us, has ever been written for the use of those who wish to
perfect themselves in the study of a language, or to keep up
their knowledge of it, while at the same time giving useful and
interesting information. History treated in the manner we
have here indicated appears to us to be able fully to satisfy
this need.
Amongst the advantages of this method, there is one which
we certainly ought to indicate in concluding, as it answers
at the same time an objection which cannot fail to be levelled
at us. Would it be believed ^ this process, which enables
us^nay, which forces us to descend into the very smallest
details, in order to really make the actions and the men live
over again, actually has the advantage of brevity over all the
others.
We have put into seiies on this system the French
historian certainly farthest beyond rival in this respect —
Voltaire ; we have narrated and written out the reign of
Louis XI Y. in 250 themes or lessons, without omitting a
single one of the facts contained in the work of this great
writer. And the book by Voltaire, in the edition of a similar
size of page, has 600 pages ! over 300 of which must there-
fore be explanations, remarks, or other matter not absolutely
necessary to the progress of the story.
There remains the difficulty of execution. We who are
engaged upon the work know better than any one else can
possibly do how much labour may be spent in arranging a
treatise of history in this way ; but when one feels oneself to
be at last on the right track the work becomes easy. Two
things suffice to succeed : faith and courage.
We are now in a position to calculate the length of time
that a history course carried out under these conditions will
require. Each whole lesson given by the teacher will usually
embrace one well-determined episode, decomposed into at least
five or six different movements, which give rise to as many
separate page exercises. These exercises are to the whole
lesson what the paragraphs of a book are to the chapters.
At the end of our treatise " Project for County High
Schools " (Projet d'Ecoles Cantonales), an episode of the
GEOGRAPHICAL SEEIES. 355
Frondist war is given, forming the material of one ordinary
losson. To this treatise the reader who desires to know more
of our history lessons is referred. Basing our calculations
upon this lesson, we are able to estimate the amount of history
work accomplished every day. An episode properly prepared is
given easily within half-an-hour, and five themes can be learnt
in thirty-five minutes. On an average, one hour, therefore, will
be sufiicient for the elaboration of five historical themes, com-
prised in one episode.
It is always better that a complete episode should be given
at each lesson. Experience has demonstrated to us that the
longest of these episodes seldom exceeds ten pages — that is, ten
exercises. When such a case presents itself, the whole hour is
devoted to the study of this episode, and the next day the
whole hour is given to the literary work of the lesson. The
i-esult is exactly the same— ten exercises in two hours. At
the end of the 300 days of the scholastic year the pupil will
thus have been able to assimilate a volume of 1500 pages.
Compared to what is now obtained even in the best schools,
this result must appear prodigious, and represents at least
the work of three years. Added to this, these 1500 exercises
have been conscientiously elaborated and conquered by all the
pupils. I repeat, by all.
With regard to the written work, this must be put to the
credit of the literary tasks. What we have already said upon
this point should be remembered ; each theme should be ela-
borated orally, but not all of them need be written out on
paper.
One such series may be given in English, another in French,
this one will be given in German, and that in Italian ; by
history the languages will be studied, and by the languages
the history will be studied.
4. Georjrajpldcal Series.
The teaching of history is involuntarily associated in the
mind with that of geography.
If the teaching of geography is capable of reform, this reform
must be based upon a reform in the maps. It is in this direc-
tion that we have attempted to solve the problem. In our
" Projet d'Ecoles Cantonales " — Reforme des Methodes, p. 37 —
we have set forth our process at length. We there state how
356 STUDY OF THE SCIENCES.
we have been able to reproduce by drawing the true configura-
tion of a given region ; how the apparent relief of the surface in-
creases, becomes more precise, as our maps are withdrawn further
from the eye ; how the map by this means, by rendering pos-
sible the collective teaching of geography, becomes a thoroughly
pedagogic instrument ; how each continent is subdivided into
regions, natural or climatic ; how each region is itself put
into series — that is, decomposed into its various countries and
subdivisions ; how each theme of this new series is taught and
elaborated ; and, lastly, how the geographical theme may be
converted into a linguistic theme.
TIT.
THE LANGUAGES BY THE NATURAL SCIENCES AND VICE VERSA.
To determine first the diverse ends of each being or of each
force, then to reveal the means, still more diverse, by which
these ends become realities, is not this, in point of fact,
the true object of the teaching of all science, physical or
natural ? If this definition is correct, the principles of our
method should adapt themselves admirably to the material of
physical or natural science, both for defining the conquests
of scientists, as well as for popularising them. We repeat,
wherever there are means and ends, there is the possibility
of series. Now, the series, the properly organised series,
is incontestably the most practical, the most clear, one
may say the only logical, form under which truth may be
manifested.
In reality, scientific men, whether they know it or not,
pass their lives in reading, deciphering, then in constructing
such series, or in preparing the material for these series.
The oral teaching of every good professor is nothing more
than the development of a series. Given from his lips, the
series is almost always perfect, the end being presented as
an end and the means as means. But the book which repro-
duces his teaching is seldom irreproachable. Too often it
flings ends and means together into a confused heap. Here
we have the true reason why a course of lectures is always
found more helpful than a printed book.
We have here once more, therefore, a reform to be attempted,
THE TEACHING OF BOTANY. 357
nrmely, a reform in scientific text- books, one which cannot
but be of considerable service to the scientific man himself,
to the science which he cultivates as well as to the teaching
of it. An example will more fully explain our idea.
There exists no good treatise on botany which contains
less than 400 ordinary pages. To assimilate the contents, the
student is obliged to meditate upon them for days and weeks
together, and finally himself re-edit — that is to say, " set in
order " — the material which they comprise. Now, the series of
a tree — that of the oak, for example, following this member
of the vegetable kingdom from the moment the acorn drops
to the ground and takes root, right through to the moment
when it becomes in its turn a fruitful tree — will encounter
on its path all the phenomena of vegetation imaginable, from
the birth of the cells, the development of the roots, the
circulation of the sap, to the formation of the wood, to the
blossoming of the flower, to the mysteries of reproduction.
The linguist who should construct this series would, there-
fore, on the one hand, have to recognise, to count, to deter-
mine one by one the various and successive ends proposed by
Nature in the plant ; and on the other, to observe and express
the ways and means by which each one of these ends is
variously attained.
Now, each problem solved or posed by science corresponds,
or ought to correspond, to an end or aim of Nature. How
many different problems could the greatest botanist in the
world enounce upon the complete development of an oak ?
We may boldly advance the statement that he would be
greatly embarrassed, in spite of the richness of the material
before him, if he were asked to formulate two hundred.
Therefore the contents of all the botanical treatises in the
world (speaking of the principles and the theory of botany)
might well be comprised within a series of 200 themes.
The science of botany would therefore gain considerably in
precision, if its expression were elaborated according to the
principles of our method. It would gain still more in clear-
ness if the problems set by it were to succeed each other in
the rigorous order of a series, where each theme presented the
logical development of a particular problem, that is to say,
the means by which Nature successively accomplishes each of
her aims.
358 STUDY OF THE SCIENCES.
The written science would thus become the rival and tlie
perfect image of the reality. Problems as yet unsolved, being
brought fully into view, would more directly attract the atten-
tion of scientific men to them, and the conquests of science
w^ould become, at the same time, both more certain and more
rapid.
What we have said with respect to the Fcience of botany
applies equally to all other sciences. As a method of exposi-
tion, our system seems to us, therefore, capable of rendering
the greatest services to true science. VVhat use can the study
of language make of this property of the system? It can
make an immense use — one so great, indeed, that our method
would be impossible if the sciences could not be taught by
the series.
In fact, the material of which our series is constructed, as
w^e have stated in the chapter on the construction of the
system, is natural history itself — it is the translation of the
life of the plant, the translation of the life of the insect, the
life of the bird, the life of the quadruped, the play of the
elements ; it is the expression of the general life of mankind,
and its development by and in the trades, the arts, the in-
dustrial occupations ; all this is organised — as living as that
reality itself which the method attempts to interpret.
Everything is fixed, defined, immutable in Nature; ends
and means, all are contained therein, all are linked together.
Where could linguistic science possibly find material more
fruitful, or one easier to put to its use ? Is not the principle
of causality, which rules over the order and the harmony of
the world, the sole basis that should be adopted by a method
aspiring to be truly rational?
The work carried out for science and by science will serve
also, therefore, for the study of language. In return for this,
linguistic science should set in order, define, popularise the
revelations of physical science, and consequently should ofi'er
a system of which the true definition will still be —
" The languages by the sciences,
The sciences by the languages."
It has needed some courage on our part to resist here tho
temptation to put into series either a chapter of physics, or
the history of a plant, or an entomological study by Reaumur.
But we have explained at the commencement of the book
MATHEMATICS. 359
how the series of a quadruped, the series of a plant, or the
series of an insect should be constructed. We must content
ourselves with this general indication, and must reserve the
elaboration of the scientific series for definite scientific works.
IV.
THE LAXGUAGE3 AND THE EXACT" SCIENCES.
It should be stated, in the first place, that the exact sciences
are just those which are taught with the greatest success in
the ordinary schools. .What is the reason of this 1 Open a
book of mathematics, and you will find a series of lessons,
termed theorems, developed separately and methodically.
Their enunciation exactly corresponds to the expression of
the " ends " or aims of our linguistic lessons, and the demon-
stration by deduction answers to the development of the
successive "means" by which our ends are attained. The
books, therefore, which treat the exact sciences do really
present these sciences under the form of series.
It is, in fact, to this disposition of their lessons that the
teaching of the exact sciences in our present schools owes its
successes, or rather its triumphs. The mathematical books
therefore bear telling witness in favour of our system.
The fact now stands revealed — our system is not new ; it is
as old as the sciences, which have applied it instinctively for
centuries.
But that which is even better than the mathematical
books, and which still more resembles our series, is the verbal
lesson or exposition of the teacher. The book often presents
two deductions, or two fragments of deductions, upon the same
line. The teacher gives forth only one sentence at a time.
He stays and rests, as we do, upon this sentence ; his accent
isolates it, so to speak, and sets it alone upon its own line.
The book often omits a connection or a deduction ; the teacher,
who speaks in order to be understood, never commits this
fault, or, if such an omission occurs, he at once corrects it. It
is for this reason that the student usually prefers his own
notes and exercises to the most learned of printed books.
What, then, we may ask, is lacking to the geometric or
algebraic theorem for it to be a perfect linguistic theme?
36o STUDY OF THE SCIENCES.
Nothing, or next to nothing, so far as regards its basis. The
nature of the exact sciences specially lends itself to the prin-
ciples of our system. In fact, there is nothing more rigid
than mathematical deduction. It is no longer, it is true, tho
relationship of succession in time which links idea to idea,
phrase to phrase, but the logical relationship of principle to
consequence, which is not less inflexible than the former ^ {vide
"Ecoles Cantonales," p. 36). Let but a teacher be ruled to
some extent by pedagogic science, and his book will be as
perfect as his lecture. The arbitrary disposition of the typo-
graphical line spoils the book; it paralyses or lames the
straightforward march of reason ; it embarrasses deduction, it
lessens or obscures the evidence.
If a mathematical theorem were written as it should be
written, any scholar would be able to assimilate a book upon
mathematics just as easily as a book upon history. The exact
sciences are, indeed, nothing but the development of pure
reasoning — reasoning never contradicted, altered, or corrupted
by sentiment.
It is, therefore, the form, and more particularly the written
form, or the printed book, which yet leaves something to be
desired in the teaching of the exact sciences. Let but treatises
be written in which the theorems are grouped and classified in
families, in which deduction is rigidly conducted and thoroughly
developed, in which the sentences, simplified and disentangled
from each other, occupy their natural place, and stand each
on its own separate line as they do in our series ; in which
the paragraphs, after the manner of our steps, are multiplied
as necessitated by the ideas and according to the varied play
of the data, and the mathematical theorem will present all the
properties of a linguistic theme. It could be given and after-
wards assimilated in the same way, and in any language
desired ; and the study of mathematics, instead of opposing
and hindering the study of languages, would serve it as aii
auxiliary.
However restricted the language of the exact sciences may
be, this language certainly has its value. In default of colour,
it can give to the science of language the precision, the swing,
1 Why should not the exact sciences themselves be reformed, so that
they also might be the .study of facts according to their order of succession
in time? This is perfectly possible (Tran.«.).
REFORM OF SCIENCE TEACHING. 361
the force, the feeling of pride and of independence which spring
from truth. Witness the style of Pascal.
Grant a reform in the method of teaching languages and
sciences, both in written text-books and in the manner of giving
the lessons, and languages and sciences will lend each other
mutual aid and compete in rivalry for the advancement of
each other. Then the more the languages are studied the
better will the sciences be understood ; tjie greater the work
done on the sciences the more the languages will be exercised.
The sciences will be benefited by the time given to the lan-
guages : the languages will be benefited by the time devoted
to the sciences.
In this way we shall have reduced the number of subjects,
while at the same time making the lessons more fruitful, while
making them produce double and treble harvest; in other
words, we shall reduce the labour while multiplying the work
done.
One good result always draws others in its train. This
reform delivers into our hands the secret of forming complete
minds. The teacher will cease to be a mere huckster of vain
declensions and pure abstractions, and the student will cease
to be the fraction of a man. His knowledge will become the
harmonious compound of science and of literature, of science
and of morality, of science and of art.
362 GREEK AND LATIN.
PART FIFTH.
GREEK AND LATIN.
I.
THE VALUE OF GREEK AND LATIN.
I. 27^6 interest of the race.
My name is a compound of five letters. Taken separately,
these letters are to me nothing more than they are to all the
world besides. Grouped in a certain fashion, they form a word
which has the virtue of exerting a very peculiar effect upon my
miiid : it is the name of my father, the name of my mother ; it
is my own name ; it is a part of myself — it stands for myself.
This word includes for me a whole world of ideas, of senti-
ments, of remembrances. It contains and sums up the exist-
ence of beings who are or have been the most closely connected
with my own existence. For me this name cannot perish ; it
is for me dearer and more sacred than even the portraits of
those whom it recalls. The portrait can show but one moment
of an existence, the name translates its totality.
To renounce this name, to barter it for another, seems to
me to be almost impossible. I should feel myself committing
the blackest of impieties, the meanest of apostasies. I should
feel as if I were denying the name of my father and mother,
blushing for their life of self-sacrifice, despising their love.
Such is the virtue of a family name.
I am bound by ineffaceable ties to the cottage in which I
was born, to the orchard which was the scene of my childish
games, to the village where dwelt my mother, to the village
church and the village chimes. When I hear the words " my
country," it is to these scenes that my soul takes wings.
I cling to the persons, old and young, whom then I knew,
THE INTEREST OF THE RACE. 363
or rather all these things belong intimately to my being ; they
ai-e as if welded to me ; they form part of my very self. Hence
this sorrowful emotion when one of them passes away from
earth ; hence this rending of my very substance which trans-
lates itself to the external world by a sigh or by tears. It is
a part of this substance which is torn violently from me ; it is
a part of my being which dies, a living image which goes out
upon the hearthstone of my life.
Such is the virtue of our earliest remembrances ; and it is
within the depths of this double sentiment that the domestic
and religious traditions have their roots.
As with' individuals, so the races have also their name — a
name which expresses them and defines them — a name which
includes the facts of their life, the archives of their existence ;
and this name is — their language ! It is bequeathed from
generation to generation as an entailed patrimony. The lan-
guage has all the virtues of the family name ; the race by whom
it is spoken clings to it as to a part of itself, and deems it
imperishable.
Is it possible to imagine a nation decreeing the abolition of
the language of its forefathers ?
As with individuals, the races have their reminiscences,
their childhood's earliest remembrances; they are termed
"traditions." And these traditions constitute the basis of
the racial characteristics ; they are their substance. If these
were to perish, the races would perish. It is the living source
from whence the three great arteries of the Good, the True,
and the Beautiful draw their sustenance.
For the Latin races, Latin is the language of their fore-
fathers ; it is the true name of the race, and its literature
contains a part of the substantial traditions of this race, more
especially that of the Law.
Greek is not the language of their forefathers, but it is that
which brings in a golden sunbeam the traditions of the True
and the Beautiful, which, joined to the traditions of the Roman
law, rendered the Renascence possible. The Greek language
is so encrusted within the languages of our own day, that,
to get rid of the one, we should have to destroy the other.
For the Latin races the Roman tongue furnished the raw
material, but Greek fashioned it: the material is Latin, but
the construction is Greek. If Latin is the original nnme, we
364 GREEK AND LATIN.
might say that Greek is the surname. One represents the
essence, the other the manner of existence.
The surname often says more to us than the original name,
and even becomes a title. And if Greek has become a dis-
tinctive title of a race, have they any right to renounce it ?
The life of nations is as a balance; one of the scale-pans
carries their past, the other carries their future. The State is
the pivot upon which the whole is supported. It is formed
for both of them, and, as its name (status) seems to imply, it
is by means of the State that the equilibrium — that is, the
conciliation of opposed and apparently antagonistic forces —
takes place.
Although the attributes of the State are as yet but ill-
defined, there are certain functions which belong to it by
nature. The State is before all else the representative of the
race ; to it are confided the interests of the nation. It has
the charge, like the Vestal virgins of Rome, of maintaining
upon the altar of the country that which may be termed
the sacred fire of the race, and to watch not only that this
shall never go out, but that it shall never diminish or languish
in the least degree. To it, therefore, is confided the sacred
keeping of the ancient mother-tongues of the race. The
interests of the race imperatively demand the maintenance of
the Greek and Latin tonsfues : " Caveant consules 1 "
2. TJie interest of the individual.
The study of ancient languages has received a name so
true, so just, so profound, that we might almost say it had
fallen from heaven : this name is — " the humanities ! "
To study these languages is to make a man of one's self !
Every harmonious being has two poles. To be complete, the
man of to day should be grafted upon the man of ancient
times. There is something lacking to him who has not
studied ''the humanities." His personality is ill-balanced:
he himself dimly feels this. He may be thrice as gifted as
the humanist who stands before him, yet by instinct he will
everywhere yield the highest places to the humanist. This
may be noticed more particularly in the writer and the
thinker. The exclusively modern man is timid. He has no
confidence in himself — he lacks assurance. Whence comes
this ? It is because he can feel no solid base whatever beneath
THE HUMANITIES. 365
his feet. He rests, indeed, only upon himself. But a man's
self is not a b£\se : it is a gradual " growth."
That which gives the humanist his strength is the basis
upon which he rests. He feels within himself two persona-
lities — the ancient man, in whom no further change will
occur, and in whom the race is personified, and the new man
or individual, engrafted upon the first, nourished by it, and
destined to change — that is, to live and to produce. It is like
the tree with its unchangeable trunk, and the graft which
borrows therefrom its juices, to transform these successively
and periodically into leaves and flowers and fruit.
The harmonious alliance between these two beings, the
racial man and the individual man, this it is that makes the
great man, the man of genius, the useful man, the good
citizen, the man jiar excellence, who unites within his own
personality a House of Commons and a House of Lords, a
Senate and a Chamber; the two moving in accord, the one
sustaining the other — the one vivifying the other. The truly
great man will disappear from off the earth on that day when
the individual — that is, egotism or the rule of the "ego " — be-
comes exclusive.
I have just spoken of the great writer. It has been stated
above that there are two manners of constructing a sentence — ■
that is, two manners of conceiving the form of a thought :
the one antique, the other modern — the one natural, the other
logical.
These two constructions are the two wings of an author.
He who has but one of them will never wing an harmonious
flight in the world of ideas. In this respect the study of
Latin, even if imperfect, has a considerable value.
As regards its form, it is the most antique of the languages
spoken on the European continent — a quasi -primitive lan-
guage. It is in the Latin school, therefore, that we can best
study the antique manner of thinking and of speaking. The
great writer, like the great man, is he who can amalgamate in
their right proportions the antique step to the modern gait,
the natural movement to the logical movement, in the same
way that a truly classical work is an harmonious composition
of these two spirits and the two processes.
It is owing to this hidden virtue that Latin has not suc-
cumbed under the criticisms (otherwise well founded) of its
366 GREEK AND LATIN.
detractors ; it is this incontestable merit that has made it
deserve the privilege of being adopted as the first basis of
literary education of all the nations who have schools at all,
both of the Latin or the non-Latin races. Let us add, that
if this language has its adversaries, it is not in reality the
language itself that is attacked, but the absurd and irrational
method by which it is applied, which cause it alone to absorb
a good third of the student's life.
In our opinion, there is no tongue which presents so perfect
and tempered a mingling of antique and modern as the French
language. Hence, perhaps, that secret charm which captivates
all nations ; hence that singular prestige which has caused the
French language to be considered the human language par
excellence. For all these reasons, the "humanities" should
remain dear to us and to our children. Let the State protect
and foster them, for they are the source not only of beautiful
forms of expression, but still more of precious traditions which
aid in forming good citizens.
The interests of the race, however, are not always in accord
with those of the individual. It may be that what is obliga-
tory for the race should remain optional for the individual.
The race has an unlimited time before it, while the days of
the individual are numbered. For the individual the first
duty is to live. If it be necessary, he will alienate even his
family title-deeds, and no one has the. right to make of this a
crime. Therefore the State cannot absolutely impose upon
a free man the obligation to partake of '' the humanities,"
whatever other social interests may be invoked to do so.
The true source of riches is the good use of time — " time is
money," as the proverb has it. Is it making good use of
time to give twelve years of one's life to the study of a lan-
guage which we are assured can never be thoroughly learnt ?
My time belongs to me. I beseech you, leave me to dispose
of my own goods as I think fit, otherwise do not call me free.
I have said that the duty of the State is to protect, to foster
— I did not say to impose — the humanities. - Now, it will pro-
tect them, will foster them, will even propagate them, if it
can reduce the length of time necessary to be given to them ;
if, instead of selling them to its subjects at the ruinous price
of ten years of their lives, it were to grant them at the price
of a few months, and more particularly, if, besides it could
STUDY OF ANCIENT LANGUAGES. 367
^larantee them to be delivered complete — that is, fruitful.
Now this the State can do if it will.
II.
CONDEMNATIOX OF THE PROCESSES APPLIED TO THE STUDY
OF ANCIENT LANGUAGES/
I. Ten years and ten masters.
Are ten years of one's life under ten teachers absolutely
necessary to learn Latin ? Why is the very same child who
can learn English, or French, or German, without going to
school at all, obliged, when he goes to school, to give ten
years to the learning of Latin? The question seems to us
to be very well put : we demand a frank and precise answer.
Let no one here attempt to make the triflingly subtle
distinctions or antitheses between the spoken language and
the written language, the every-day language and the literary
language, the living language and the dead language, the prac-
tical language and the philological language. Whether it be
acknowledged or not, there is for each language a definite foun-
dation, a first footing, upon which is based all its ulterior deve-
lopments, literary or otherwise. This foundation is no more
dead in Latin than in German. To teach it, it is necessary
to speak Latin as one would speak German.
Now, a person either possesses this foundation or he does
not possess it. When he has learned it, he knows, or at
least he understands, all the various ''languages" which con-
stitute this language ; and when he does not possess it, he
understands none. This foundation of the Latin tongue
was taught by every Roman mother to her child within the
circle of one year. ■ Who can doubt this ? Does the present
school teaching deliver it to our children at the end of forty
or of fifty seasons 1 Who will dare affirm that it does ?
Does it even know this foundation of the Latin tongue itself ?
We should not care to guarantee this.
Let us here lay down a principle : — -The perfection of a
linguistic method is, or should be, in inverse ratio to the
number and the cleverness of the teachers required by its use.
I am aware that the classical school will acknowledge with
368 GREEK AND LATIN.
difficulty any such principle, for it goes against its very consti-
tution ; and, as we have said, the privileged classes were always
enemies to reform. But, nevertheless, a principle is a principle,
and the above statement is evidently one. In fact, the more
defective a system, the greater are the efforts required on the
part of those who apply it ; the worse the method, the harder
one has to work. What heavy labours are not spared to the
workmen of to-day by new types of machinery that a child
can direct with one hand ! What services have not been
rendered — first by the sail, and then by the propeller blade,
instead of the galley oar — to our modern sailors !
Compare the post of ancient days with the telegraph of
to-day I Where once it required coachmen, and horses, and
carriages, and legions of servants, all that is now necessary
is the attentive eye of a slim girl, calmly watching a dial-face
which thinks and speaks for the whole universe. I repeat,
the perfection of a method is in inverse ratio to the efforts
which its use necessitates.
If this principle is true, was ever a system more imperfect
than that of the classical school ? The plethora of teachers
which, it declares absolutely necessary for its working is
either a formidable abuse, or else the indication of a vice
more formidable still.
What do we find? It requires the combined efforts of
eight or ten graduates — that is to say, the knowledge which
lepresents more than two hundred years of study — to produce
in ten yegirs — what ? A result which the humblest of mothers
can realise infinitely better than ourselves in two or three
terms ! We shall be reminded of the number of the pupils.
But why do not our colleges have also twelve professors for
German, twelve for Italian, twelve for arithmetic ? Are these
languages and these sciences less difficult than Latin ?
Be it not forgotten, it is not against the teachers them-,
selves that we are here instituting proceedings, but against
the methods, against routine. The time has come when the
truth may be spoken without need of tenderness of feeling
for that egotism of cliques or of castes which everywhere
hinders the march of progress. The upholders of national
education should dare to cast to the winds those calamitous
traditions which it has received from the enemies of progress.
No, it is not necessary to spend ten years of one's life in
THE DICTIONARY. 369
learning Latin. It no longer needs the combined efforts of
ten Masters of Arts.
Ad portam pergo,
ad portam appropinquo,
ad portam pervenio,
ad portam subsisto,
brachium porrigo,
ansam apprehendo,
ansam torqueo, &g.
Is it necessary to hear this lesson twice to know it ? Is
there any need of making a word-for-word translation, or to
construe it — that is, to pick it to pieces ? Is it necessary to
turn up the dictionary or to worry over the grammar ? Of
all the languages spoken in Europe, is there one in which this
exercise is easier than it is in Latin ?
When a child strikes itself against an obstacle, it often
avenges itself with its foot or its fist. Do not let us act like
children. If we find ourselves incapable of teaching Latin,
do not let us lay this incapability to the nature of this lan-
guage itself, but rather to our own want of skill in teaching it.
2. The dictionary, or the discijnijie of the vicious circle.
We shall not here undertake the enumeration of all the
vicious errors adopted and followed by the classical school in
teaching the ancient languages ; as well might we repeat our
entire book. AVe shall content ourselves with examining the
lever or the general tool which is placed in the hands of the
student to enable him to carry out his various linguistic
labours : we refer to the dictionary. The dictionaiy being
used in every lesson, every translation, and every reading of
the classic authors, we shall, when treating of it, reach all
three of these fundamental operations of the ordinary grammar
school teaching.
Let us first of all give the definition of this grave and austere
volume. It is the complete collection of all the terms of a lan-
guage considered separately. It is this language dissected.
The language is not to be found in a dictionary in a living,
but in a dead state — the state of a corpse, and, moreover, of
a corpse cut up into pieces, one in which tho elements are
subjected to a semblance of classification. This classification
rests upon no principle, but merely upon a convention. Thp
2 A
370 GREEK AND LATIN.
classification has therefore no linguistic virtue ; it has no use-
fulness for the determination of the value of the terms. These
terms are classified by the simple chance of their initial letters ;
they are arranged in what is termed alphabetical order.
The making of a dictionary has its difiiculties, but this work
does not affect either the teacher or the pupil. The tool is
given into their hands ready made ; they have only to use it.
The dictionary, we have said, is a collection of isolated
w^ords ; therefore it contains nothing but generalities — that is,
abstractions. The problem to be solved is therefore this : w^ith
the abstract to form the concrete ; with the dead to make the
living; " out of darkness to bring forth light."
Let us take an example. A pupil proposes to translate into
Latin this every-day fact, " I raise my hand to my head." He
turns up his dictionary, and at the word " raise " he finds the
following expressions : tollo, attollo, erigo, effero, augeo, &c.
He has several expressions before him, of which he has to
choose one. Which shall he decide upon ? If the dictionary
formed a true system, it would be sufiicient to have the key to
make the choice. But the dictionary is a dead body, and as
such is dumb. Once more, what will make the way clear to
the student, and guide him rightly in his choice 1
I have known scholars who thought to construct good Latin
by taking from amongst the words served up to them by the
dictionary those which appeared the most strange to them. An
expression was considered to be so much the better Latin the
less it resembled the corresponding expression in their own
tongue.
A child is taken with its eyes blindfolded into an unknown
land; he is placed at four crossways, then given his sight and
told, *' You must open your eyes ; here are four roads, choose
you that which leads the most directly to Rome, and take care
you choose aright." We know that all roads lead to Eome,
but we also know that from any one point to another there is
only one straight line. There is, therefore, only one road that
is truly direct.
The embarrassment of the child in such a predicament would
be great, or rather it might bo great ; for what he is mo.st
likely to do is to laugh at you, and he would be right to laugli.
What you propose to him cannot be seriously meant. To
make a choice he must at least know in which direction Rome
lies.
DISCIPLINE OF THE VICIOUS CIRCLE. 371
This is exactly the case of our young Latinist. To clioose
between four significations of the word ''raise," he should
know the connection of each, not only with the abstract word
"raise," but the idea expressed by the sentence in his own
language. In other words, he requires to know the precise
meaning of the four Latin words. And if by chance — a chance
which presents itself, as we know, just as often as not — neither
of the four words served up by the dictionary is the correct
word — what then ?.
It stands confessed, to be able to construct rightly a Latin
theme by the aid of the dictionary, it is necessary already to
know Latin ! We defined, and we had the right to define, the
study of languages by the dictionary as "The discipline of the
vicious circle."
But we shall be told : " Raise " is not the whole of the phrase.
If the student comes to grief over the verb, possibly he will be
more lucky with the other words. I will suppose that this
does happen, although there are good reasons to suppose the
contrary. To what result would this lead? Remember that
we are requiring not the translation of isolated and abstract
words, but of organised phrases. Now, the word that rules
the whole sentence, that imprints upon it its character, and
that makes it what it is, is the verb. If you confess yourself
incapable of translating the verb in the exact sense indicated
by the sentence, you may throw down your pen, close the
dictionary and trouble yourself no further with the construc-
tion of Latin sentences.
Yes, it certainly is the verb that causes almost the whole of
the difiiculty with foreign languages. It is for this reason
that our method concentrates upon the verb all the energies of
the mind of the pupil, and all the efforts, all the attention, all
the art of the teacher.
The classical school will reply : There are dictionaries and
dictionaries. A practical dictionary should give abundance
of examples, and should reproduce, as occasion required, a
pai-t of the literature of the language. Then the pupil reads,
compares, and, after this excellent exercise, chooses his word.
Do you believe a child will do this 1 " Sic notus Ulysses 1 "
A child who compares expressions in a language he does not
know ! And how clever he is at this operation !
Every comparison presupposes an ideal. Whence, think you,
372 GREEK AND LATIN
is the scholar to obtain his ideal of Latin 1 If he already
possesses this ideal, he has no need to search; in other words,
he would not require to study Latin. Your " practical '*
dictionary puts the difficulty a little further away, but it in
no way solves it. The pupil strays abroad in rather a wider
circle, but the circle is always a vicious one. To learn liatin,
you use a dictionary ; but to use a dictionary you must first
know Latin.
AVe professors, when we are obliged to have recourse to a
dictionary, even for a French expression in the dictionary of
the Academj^, nay, even in the monumental work of Littro
itself, sometimes hesitate for a considerable time over the
choice of a single expression ; and yet we condemn a child
of twelve years old to find out in their school dictionaries the
exact expression of any of the hundred thousand sentences
required to translate the human individuality into Latin.
The classical pedagogy, in default of other virtue, seems at
least to have that of being very childish and very simple !
Just consider : in order to translate into Latin the ordinary
expression, " I stop at the door," I myself had to read, not
the school dictionary ^ — which does not contain it and does not
know it — but two or three classics. After I had learnt the
German dictionary by heart, I translated with some confidence,
" Je mets mon chapeau " (I put on my hat), by " Ich lerje meinen
Hut zti " (instead of " Ich seize meinen Hut au/").^ I should
certainly have composed a Latin phrase in the same excellent
taste, if I had taken counsel of the Latin dictionary to say in
Latin, "I stop at the door."
You are sure you have chosen correctly when you have the
good fortune to come across the complete phrase in the dic-
tionary. But consider what this means. . . .
Why should I be made to turn up words in the dictionary
at all ? Would it not be simpler to give me by word of mouth
the correct expression at once? If the dictionary is fairly
complete, you have the pupil condemned to go through two,
three, five, ten columns ! AH this to find one unhappy word —
a word which he cannot always find, which he even finds but
seldom, unless the dictionary were an encyclopaidia, containing
^ Quicherat.
2 As if in English " Je mets mon chapeau " were translated, •' I put my
hat" (Trans.).
GRADUATED DICTIONAEIES. 373
all that has been said or that might be said, in which case the
whole of one's youth would have to be given to the study of
the dictionary. What an amount of time and effort lost !
It is true that the classical school makes cheap of time. It
rsks ten years to bring even its incomplete operation to a
termination !
I hear a new protest on behalf of the necessary book. The
mind, it is said, only preserves long that' which it has had
trouble to assimilate. Now, the time that the pupil gives to
determining an expression is the graver which engraves it
upon his memory.
Very good ! But suppose this expression is false, which
happens at least as often as not ; it is then an error that the
mind of your student broods over, keeps warm, assimilates !
And if the expression happens to be correct, let us see exactly
to what the duration of this incubation is reduced. The egg
is only being hatched while actually under the hen. The word
is only subject to its incubation while actually under the eye
of the student. Now, how long does it remain under his eye 1
Just the duration of one glance. For you can hardly put to
the credit of the incubation the time lost by the student in
turning over the leaves of his dictionary. If the incubation
of anything whatever goes on during this time, it is the
expression in the pupil's own language, and not the ti'ansla-
tion of it, which he does not yet know.
Then, again, no sooner has the student caught sight of it
than it is written down : he does not willingly expose himself
to the chance of losing a treasure that has cost so much
trouble to discover. And this is to what the duration of the
pretended incubation is reduced ! Could an expression given
directly and orally by the master, or that given by an inter-
linear translation, have a more ephemeral effect than this ?
Another objection by the classicists : We do not begin, they
say, as you seem to imply, with a complete dictionary ; but,
graduating the difficulties, we put into the hands of the pupil
a vocabulary made expressly for translating a certain text.
The lesson-books, after giving the course of exercises, contain
also a dictionary in which are to be found all the words given
in the lessons, and in the exact sense that they are employed.
Yery good I Here, then, at last, we have a practical dic-
tionary. The pupil, at any rate, has no longer any need to
374 GREEK AND LATIN.
fear that he may be deceived. But now, perhaps you will
kindly explain to me what pleasure and what profit you can
find in making him turn over and over for two hours at
a time even this lesser heap of paper, in order to enable him
to put into Latin ten lines which you might very well teach
him to express to perfection in a few minutes ? It is, indeed,
very much as if a mother, when her child asked the name of
some object, instead of giving it to him directly herself, were
to refer him to the people down in the village.
There prevails among the teaching bodies of all countries
at the present time a curious disease which we may call by
the name of " vocabulomania." While this disease lasts, the
study of languages cannot make progress.
Dictionaries are made for teachers and not for scholars.
The lesson manufactured by means of the dictionary repre-
sents a labour worse than barren. By this exercise, not only
does the pupil not conquer the language, but the little that
he does learn is mostly false. The acceptable expressions
that come from his pen from time to time are reminiscences.
lie owes them, either to the actual voice of the teacher, or to
the reading of authors undertaken aloud in class. In these
two cases it is his ear, in which these expressions still vibrate,
that dictates them to him ; it is never the dictionary that
inspires him to give them.
A disastrous councillor for translating into Latin, will this
same dictionary prove a better aid for translating from Latin
into the pupil's native tongue ? The degree of perfection of an
instrument can be established by means of two data : —
1. The degree of perfection of the product itself.
2. The time necessary for producing it.
Twenty candidates present themselves for the examinations.
A Latin paragraph of fifteen or twenty sentences is given to
them. They are allowed two hours or so to divine the signi-
fication of these few sentences. The faculty is triumphant
if it so happens that only one half of them are plucked.^
And, nevertheless, it is not practice that these unlucky
ones require. They have been manipulating their instrument
for some nine years at least. They certainly ought, it would
seem, to know it thoroughly to the depths of its resources.
* And ill France a dictionary is often allowed to candidates as well 1
(Trans.).
READING OF THE CLASSICS. 375
And, be it noted, there is no question here of Greek or
of Sanscrit, but of translating Latin, where, for a French
student, every word shows its meaning, and even for an
English student every other word is akin to words in his
native tongue. ^
Nine years of practice ! Two hours to interpret fifteen or
twenty sentences ! Two or three mistranslations in half a
page ! The dictionary is condemned. It .is not less clumsy
an instrument for translating from, than into, a language.
We now come to the third operation, the reading of classics.
We have no need to add to what others have said upon this
subject. The most bitter of criticisms, the most cutting of
ironies have vied with each other in heaping insults upon the
classical processes of teaching. Notwithstanding this, the
classical school perseveres in its errors. This is because, if
the ancient system is condemnable and condemned, nothing
has yet been brought forward which might replace it.
The pupils on our sj'stem assimilate in five minutes that
which they could not manage to interpret correctly on the old
system in two hours by the aid of the dictionary. " Five
minutes against two hours ! " This ratio is sufiiciently elo-
quent in itself for there to be any need of commenting further
upon it, but it requires a little explanation.
In the classical process the phrase is read out once, twice,
often a third time. Then a halt is called and the attempt is
made to divine the meaning. Then the phrase is rearranged
in the modern or "logical construction." The pupil makes a
mistake; the teacher brings him back again. Finally, the
scholar grasps, or fancies he grasps, the author's idea, and
ventures upon an equivalent phrase in his own tongue. It is
generally wrong; the master attempts to correct him, sub-
stitutes another phrase, and often still another.
Place your watch in front of you and see how long this
operation takes. Multiply this time by two thousand, and
calculate how long it will take you to translate a book of
Virgil — how many years will be needed to read the entire
^^^neid. I should add that, if one pupil has construed aright,
you are not by this assured that all the others have heard and
understood thoroughly. If you are a good teacher, you should
now recommence, and have the sentence repeated by those
pupils suspected of inattention. It must not be forgotten also
3/6 GREEK AND LATIX.
that in this estimate, already so heavy, the time devoted to
what is termed preparation is not included.
Against this labour let us place that of our method. We
have already explained how, by our process, each conception
of the author becomes the conception of the whole class ; how
each of his thoughts becomes the thought of each of our pupils ;
how we proceed, not from word to word, but from sentence to
sentence, doing the work of the author over again, not by
translating it, but by composing it in the language itself,
without the possibility of making mistakes or mistranslations,
without the need of recourse to construction and reconstruc-
tion, nor to repetitions and readings always requiring to be
begun over again. Expending one-fifth or one-sixth the time,
we get through five times or ten times the work. This is our
secret, the whole of our secret.
The instrument put into the hands of the child to work
upon the languages is defective from all points of view. Con-
sequent upon the false principle that the study of a language
may be a personal and solitary work, the use of the dictionary
is the occasion of an incalculable waste of time, and seems to
have been designed expressly and solely to kill time and occupy
students during the intervals between classes.
The slowness of the process discourages the child, paralyses
his energy, and, little by little, kills his will, like all the exer-
cises which have come down to us from the Jesuits. If incom-
plete or poor, the dictionary is of no use at all ; if complete, it
is impracticable. It should be banished from all elementary
classes, and a logical and fruitful process of teaching should
be made at last to replace this pitiful delusion — the barren
and pernicious discipline of the vicious circle.
III.
THE FEAR OF IMPROVEMENT SCEPTICAL DISDAIN OF THE OFFICIAL
SCHOOLS AND THEIR SECRET AVERSION TO REFORM.
I. A last contest.
We have stated our opinion upon the importance of Greek
and Latin. But if it were only possible to buy the knowledge
of these languages at the price of the ten best years of our
SERIES METHOD FOR GREEK AND LATIN. 377
lives, we should be the first to advise against the study of
them. To the modern individual they certainly are not worth
the price. We have exposed the vices of the methods of teach-
ing applied to these languages. If it be insisted that these
methods should be maintained, it will be necessary to insist
that the ten years of study shall also be maintained. If this
is done, we may feel perfectly assured that modern require-
ments will not hesitate to cast overboard entirely the study of
Greek and Latin. ^ And the decision would be wise.
German can be learned in six months. Why should the
grammar-schools and colleges demand twenty times as much
for Latin ? Is it incapacity on their part, or is it speculation ?
In any case, we cannot consent now-a-days to be victims to
trickery or to suffer by the incapacity of others. Therefore,
if we wish to save " the Humanities," the methods must either
be reformed or a process must be invented which will enable
an ancient language to be learnt at school as rapidly and as
thoroughly as a modern language can be learnt in the family.
But can anything be discovered that the official teaching
has not 3'et discovered 1 This seems to be the great objection
of the members of the teaching profession and those that
govern it. Even supposing that a method might be discovered
for teaching German in six months or a year, can we hope to
discover one for teaching Latin within the same time.
This insidious and contradictory formula is the last entrench-
ment of routine. If we can cast down this inner fortress,
reason will be forced to acknowledge our victory. Yes, there
is a process for learning Greek or Latin as well as German in
six months or a year, and this process is the Series Method.
One final blow we must strike against this absurd prejudice,
which refuses to admit that the same system may be applied
to several languages.
Your system, we are told, appears to be excellent for the
study of modern languages, but it would be absolutely impos-
sible to apply it to the study of the ancient languages.
Why so, if you please ? Upon what do you found such a
presumption ] One of two things must be true : either we
apply, after having discovered it, the true process of Nature,
or we do not apply it. If we do not apply it, our system will
1 We find already in England strong indications that this prophecy is
very rapidly being fulfilled (Trans. ).
378 GREEK AND LATIN.
not be less impotent for modern languages than for ancient
languages. If we do apply it, why should we not achieve
the result achieved by Nature herself ? Once more we ask,
Did the mothers of ancient days possess and follow other
pedagogic principles than those possessed and followed by
the mothers of the children of to-day *?
If we really have discovered this maternal process, by what
right do you doubt its success with Greek and Latin? Do
you find these two languages to be of such peculiar nature that
it is necessary to invent special methods for them ? From the
official objections one would really think that, in order to have
the gift or the secret of teaching Latin, it would be actually
necessary to have been a Roman matron of the time of Numa
or Vespasian !
But Latin is a dead language, they cry ; a dead language
cannot be treated like a living language. Why not ? Whence
do you take the premisses of this conclusion ? What influence
can the qualification of dead or living exert upon the teaching
of a language ? Is German less a dead language than Latin
itself in the countries where no one speaks it — as with our-
selves, except in the class-room? It is true that not much
greater success is usually achieved with it than with the dead
languages. Its quality of " living " is not of very great use
to it.
Let us repeat a reflection previously uttered. A language
which is spoken is not a dead language. Now, in order to
teach a language, we have said it is necessary to speak it.
Therefore, from the point of view of teaching, there are no
dead languages.
At bottom the prejudice we are combating has no avowable
motive whatever ; and it is a strange thing, but we find this
prejudice chiefly amongst the professors themselves. If we
press them to justify their opinion, they have usually nothing
to say but that '* it is their feeling," and that is all. A pro-
fessor ought to know that a feeling is not a reason. This
sceptical disdain, this aversion of the school for any reform of
the school, this fear of anything better, must have some reason
for its existence. Let us set forth these reasons, and judge
them in the full light of day.
The sentiment in question appears to us to have its origin
in three distinct causes. The first is the imperfection itself of
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 379
the modern linguistic methods. All of them, in fact, have
aimed at solving the problem of the ancient languages. But
the verdict of experience has not been given in their favour.
And in this there is nothing astonishing. Systems radically
incapable of teaching us a living language cannot pretend to
be in possession of the secret of teach iug an ancient language.
This non-success has had the effect of discrediting everything
terming itself a linguistic method. We know how mankind
is too apt to reason, and how at one bound it raises this gene-
ralisation —
" A certain modern method is proved worthless,
Therefore all are worthless."
And this has been to the triumph of the dictionary process of
learning languages.
The second cause is the feeling which is to be found more
or less at the root of every contradiction, namely, personal
egotism. We have stated that the objection of which we are
speaking is generally made by members of the teaching pro-
fession. Unconsciously their judgment is dictated by personal
interest and a feeling of amour propre. By their interest ; for
does not our system institute an indirect attack upon their
position ? What becomes of the present methods if the teaching
of languages can be simplified to the extent we have indicated 1
By their amotir -propre ; for why could not they as well as
others have discovered a better system, if any better system
could exist than that of the present colleges ? These unworthy
feelings, however, would never be allowed weight by those who
saw in a new system a true means of helping forward the
cause of education.
A third cause, and the principal one, is the knowledge of
the difficulty of a really effective reform. This reason is a
legitimate one, and deserves to be taken into consideration.
In the first place, a professor has always present to his
mind the remembrance of his long struggle with the classical
languages, and it is extremely difficult for him to believe that
any one can triumph over them with less effort than he was
obliged to expend upon them himself. He has, besides, his
every-day experience, ceaselessly reminding him of the amount
of pains it costs to obtain even the most moderate linguistic
development in the schoolboy mind. Therefore by training,
if not by nature, the teacher is very sceptical when mention
38o GREEK AND LATIN.
is made of the virtue of certain methods. For him the imbe-
cility of the mind does not come from the defectiveness of
methods, but the powerlessness of the methods finds its
explanation in the imbecility of the mind. In our opinion
this is to take the effect for the cause ; but it must be admitted
that it is extremely difficult for any one who is committed
to the practice of the ordinary methods not to fall into this
To all this is added the difficulty of working upon a dead
language. One can conceive, it may be objected, that you
might be able to construct your series in a living language,
either by actually going to the country where this language
is spoken, or by having recourse to the knowledge of a native
of this country. But how could you manage to construct your
series in a language w^hich nobody now speaks 1
This is a grave question, and one which it is proper to
answer, not by general considerations, but by precise facts.
2. Solution of the conflict.
We will concede, in the first place, to our opponents that
the task is an arduous one ; we will grant that the enterprise
is even more laborious than they themselves suspect. Having
made this reservation, we justify in the following manner our
position and our statements.
Suppose for a moment that our method had been constructed
in the time of Cicero or of Demosthenes. Applied to the two
classical languages then " living," they would have rendered
the teaching of these languages as easy as that of German or
of French or English to-day. In fact, grant that this method
is an excellent one for the living languages, is it not confessed
thereby that it would have been " of old " equally excellent for
Greek and Latin ? But can a method which was a good one
for these languages in the lifetime of Cicero cease to be excel-
lent when applied at the present day ?
There remains, therefore, to be proved that if our system
had been created at the time of Cicero, it would not have
sensibly differed from that which we have constructed or,
believe ourselves able to construct, at the end of the nineteenth
century. Cicero and Demosthenes are dead, and wdth them
every one who spoke their tongue. But there remains to us
CONSTRUCTION OF THE CLASSICAL SERIES. 38 1
the written Latin and Greek literature. Tiie following, then,
is our plan of work.
We shall take — ourselves or the reader of these lines — the
set of pigeon-holes of our Series — Domestic and Rural, Animal
and Vegetable, the Harvest, the Shepherd, the Feast, the Battle,
the Ship, &c., with the subjective and metaphorical categories
— and setting this up before us, we shall open a first author —
Phsedrus, for example. Each of his sentences translates
either a fact of our Series, or one of our relative phrases, or a
detail of one of our metaphorical themes. We shall first of
all mark these sentences by special signs, then we shall throw
each sentence into the pigeon-hole that is waiting for its
reception. Our transcriptions of the classical authors, in
which each sentence is placed separately line by line, will be
of immense service to us in the execution of this work. After
Phsedrus we shall take Quintus Curtius ; after Quintus Curtius,
Virgil or Livy ; after Virgil, Tacitus, or such other as is thought
best. We shall strip in this way one after the other the
small number of Latin authors that is left to us.
They are not, be it observed, abstract, isolated words that
we shall dispose in our pigeon-holes, but sentences — complete
expressions. It is for this reason that the dictionary can be
of no use to us whatever. And, moreover, is not the dictionary
quite incapable of responding to the greater part of the de-
mands of our pigeon-holes ?
As we proceed, we shall indicate by figures the chapter,
paragraph, or verse of the author. This will be our hall-mark.
By thus declaring the origin of each expression, our work will
confound incredulity and defy criticism.
Suppose this work to be accomplished and our pigeon-holes
filled, will it be difiicult, then, for us to construct our Series
in a language that is no longer spoken? And, constructed
under these conditions, will our system be sensibly different
from what it would have been if put together by some person
in the time of Cicero or of Demosthenes'? This system will,
therefore, have resuscitated two of the most illustrious of the
dead, and henceforth Greek and Latin can be taught exactly
as are the living languages.
And notice one fruit of this labour : by studying the Series
the pupil will assimilate the whole of the expressions of the
classical masterpieces. The Series finished, let him open any
382 GREEK AND LATIN.
book whatever, and he will find himself in the presence of a
language he already knows well ; he will never, in fact, meet in
these books any expression which does not figure in the Series.
He will, therefore, read this language, and will understand it
as each of us reads and understands a book written in his
mother- tongue. For that pupil Greek and Latin will be surely
something other than " dead" languages.
" But how will you deal with the terms of entirely modern
creation," some one accustomed to judge of things only from
their smallest side will be sure to object, " terms such as
powder, gun, cannon, steam, electricity, telegraph, &c. ? " Our
method preoccupies itself solely with the sentence and with
the verb. It must not be forgotten that we know a language
thoroughly when we thoroughly know these two elements. As
to this dozen substantives of modern creation, we can, at need,
graft them upon the ancient languages exactly in the same way
as they have been grafted on the modern languages. One may
know a language perfectly, and yet be ignorant of these few
technical terms. If a river receive the water from sundry
gutters or from a few fresh runnels, it is not thereby any
less the same river.
I know of only one further objection to our system. Who
will entjaofe to do this work 1 Who will undertake this dis-
section of two great literatures ? It cannot be expected that
this should be imposed upon the ordinary teacher. To carry
it out, it would be necessary to have complete possession of
the vast system of disposition, and all the secrets of the
*' Series." Our answer is : This work is in part accomplished ;
it is already over twenty years since the labour was com-
menced.
What might be termed *Hhe error in Greek and Latin
teaching " is not an error special to the English school, or the
French school, or to any school ; it is German, Swiss, Eussian ;
it is European, it is universal. Every school in the worhl
cultivates it in rivalry with its neighbour. All, without
exception, treat Greek and Latin practically under the same
process.
At no time in the world's history has the question of reform
been so much agitated as at present. At no time have tlio
errors of the classical systems been criticised with so mucli
vehemence, nor the entrenchments of pedantry assailed with
THE DYING DIALECTS. 383
so much resolution. If a new way can be opened, the time is
certainly ripe for it ; the reform is no longer a mere idea — it
is an urgent need. And with so much in its history that
points to liberty, the nations will not fail to honour France
for being in the vanguard of progress in the scholastic world
as it is in the social world.
IV.
THE DYING DIALECTS — AN ARK OF SAFETY.
A nation is not a homogeneous w^hole, as the politicians
of the present day — in an interest quite other to that of its
happiness — wish to make the world believe. The great races
are not vast families issuing from a single stock, but assem-
blages of tribes, at one time distinct, and often enemies to
each other.
Hence, alongside each general language we have special
languages called dialects, which survive among the tribe by
which they are spoken, as the man is survived by the name
which he has made illustrious.
Europe still abounds with minor languages of this kind.
We have said that the races bear a name which sums up their
life and defines their character ; this name is their language.
The dialects are, therefore, as the residues of civilisations
which have preceded our own. Each of them represents a
chapter in the annals of the human race. For this reason
the dialects deserve to be immortalised. History will have
hard things to say in after years of the levelling despotism of
our time, which has declared war not only against the liberty
of nations, of tribes, and of families, but even against their
languages themselves.
Unity in variety — this is Life ; unity without variety — this
is Death. Therefore the dialects should be allowed to live,
and with them the races and the tribes that speak them.
A state desiring to be something more than a mischievous
abstraction, must rest upon strong and numerous indivi-
dualities. True unity is something quite other than a dull
uniformity.
The dialects have a great value, not only as the repository
of the thoughts and of the life of another age, but still more
as the substratum of the general modern languages.
384 GREEK AND LATIN.
The dialects are, therefore, worthy of attention from the
triple point of view of history, of linguistic literature, and of
their influence upon the national character. Everywhere care
is taken to preserve the stone monuments of earlier ages ;
science cannot permit political vandalism to raze to the ground
and bury out of sight the chief monument of those very agea>
But where is the ark that shall shelter and save the sacred
archives of the civilisations of which ours is the resultant?
The dictionary perhaps, or possibly the libraries ?
Let us try to estimate the chances of safety that a language
could find in these two sanctuaries. The dictionary, as we
have seen, only preserves a language in the state of a dead
body, and of a dead body in pieces. To reconstitute a lan-
guage by means of the dictionary is not less impossible than
to reconstitute the world by the aid of the fourscore prime
elements known to chemistry. Let a German, for instance,
attempt to find out in Littr6 the expression of his whole
individuality in French ! Or let a Frenchman try to express
his own in German by the aid of the dictionary of Grimm !
It could not be done. The dictionary is, therefore, perfectly
powerless in itself to save a language from oblivion.
Do the libraries offer better guarantees of safety? Yes,
assuredly, but upon one condition : this is, tliat the dialect
possesses a rich literature. But where is the dialect that
enjoys this privilege ? Indeed, a dialect is a dialect, only for
the reason that it has not, or has no longer, any literature.
And, moreover, if a literature is an eminently fit sanctuary
for the preservation of a given language, it should be thoroughly
recognised that this language itself cannot be extracted there-
from but with infinite pains and precautions. We will go
further, and maintain even, that, without a system such as
that we have set forth, this operation is practically impossible.
Therefore, literature abandoned to its own resources is found
to be almost equally powerless with the dictionary for per-
petuating either the knowledge or the usage of any dialect
whatever.
That service which the two great means of which we have
just spoken — the dictionary and the literature — are incapable
of rendering to the dying dialects, or those which are con-
demned to die, our method of Series now comes forward to
offer. Have we not demonstrated that this system is a mould
CONCLUSION. 38^
from which may be cast, palpitating with life, the whole
human individuality of no matter what period of time ? And
if this is so, nothing will be easier, once the system is written
in a first language, than to transpose it into Breton, Basque,
Alsatian, Bohemian, Coptic, Welsh, Gaelic, and all the other
idioms at present existing.
Being the direct and spontaneous expression of an indi-
viduality thinking in each dialect, this translation will repre-
sent the complete system of this dialect in its living reality,
one which will spare the philologists of the future that laborious
exegesis now needed, ending only in incomplete resurrections,
always open to dispute and always disputed.
The dialects, therefore, need be henceforth in no fear of
either dying or of being forgotten. They will be transmitted as
a tradition ; they will be within the reach of all, and will be
learnt like an ordinary language, not in ten long years, but
in a few short months ; not at the schools of the universities,
but in those of the village, or rather round the paternal hearth.
We must bring to a close with this last application of it
the exposition of our system. It has shown itself capable of
resuscitating the dead languages ; there but remained for it to
discover the secret of rendering imperishable the tongues
ready to die, thus yielding for its last fruit a fruit of life.
This volume is but the preface to the system. Even now
the work is in hand of putting together the material already
collected. If the work prove good, help will not be lacking ;
and it has long been demonstrated that when human power
is added to human power, it can remove mountains and incline
oceans.
The complete work will have, and should have, two chapters
— the written book, and the school wherein it is practised. To
write the book, Science will lend its treasures, and, if need be,
its legions. The school might be offered by one of the many
scholastic or commercial bodies that would benefit from it.
2 B
386
APPENDIX.
APPENDIX.
I.— THREE FRENCH SERIES LESSONS.
LA POMPE.
I.
La femme se rend a la pompe.
— La femme prend le seau par I'anse, prend
la femme leve le seau, l^ve
la femme traverse la cuisine, traverse
la femme ouvre la porte, ouvre
la femme franchit le seuil, francliit
la femme sort de la cuisine, sort
la femme se retourne, se retourne
la femme ferme la porte. ferine
— La femme quitte la cuisine, quitte
la femme s'c^loigne de la cuisine, s'^loigne
la femme se dirige vers la pompe, se dirige
la femme s'approche de la pompe, s'approclie
la femme parvient a la pompe, parvient
la femme s'arrete pres de la pompe, s'arr^te
la femme leve le seau, l^ve
la femme allonge le bras, allonge
la femme place le seau sous le tuyau de la pompe, place
la femme lache Fanse du seau. l^che
1. Femme (fiUe, fiUette, bonne, servante, gar9on, domestique,
serviteur . . . ).
2. Seau (arrosoir, urne, cruche, broc, seille, jatte, baquet,
vase, vaisseau, ustensile . . . ).
3. Cuisine (maison, logis, demeure, domicile . . . ).
SPECIMEN FRENCH SERIES LESSONS.
Appendix I.]
LA POMPE.
II.
La femme pompe de Feau.
387
— EUe etend le bras,
elle saisit le balancier,
elle hausse le balancier,
elle abaisse le balancier,
elle hausse le balancier,
elle abaisse le balancier,
le balancier grince,
la pompe tremble.
— L'eau monte dans la pompe,
I'eau coule par le tuyau,
l'eau tombe dans le seau,
l'eau frappe le fond du seau,
l'eau bruit au fond du seau,
l'eau tournoie dans le seau,
l'eau ecume dans le seau,
l'eau monte dans le seau,
l'eau monte, monte et monte encore,
elle emplit le seau;
la femme lache le balancier.
dtend
saisit
hausse
abaisse
hausse
abaisse
grince
tremble
monte
coule
tombe
frappe
bruit
tournoie
^cume
monte
monte
emplit
ytche
1. Balancier (le bras, le levier, le manche, la machine, le
machin, I'affaire . . . ).
2. Pompe (le corps de pompe, le cylindre, I'int^rieur, le
dedans . . . ).
\. Tuyau (le conduit, le canal . . . ).
388 APPENDIX.
Appendix L]
LA POMPE.
III.
La femme emporte Feau a la cuisine.
— La femme se penche vers le seau, se penche
prend le seau par I'anse, prend
et le retire de dessous le tuyau ; retire
elle ferme le poing gauche, ferme
elle appuie le poing gauche centre sa hanche, appuie
elle se penche du cote gauche, se penche
et fait ainsi ^quilibre au poids de Feau. fait dc[uilibre
— Elle tourne le dos a la pompe, tourne
elle quitte la pompe, quitte
elle s'^loigne de la pompe, s'^loigne
elle se dirige vers la cuisine, se dirige
elle s'approche de la cuisine, s'approche
elle arrive a la porte, arrive
elle ouvre la porte, ouvre
elle franchit le seuil, franchit
elle entre dans la cuisine. entre
— Elle referme la porte, referme
elle traverse la cuisine, L, traverse
elle porte le seau d'eau a sa place ; porte
elle se penche, se penche
et pose doucement le seau d'eau k terre, pose
elle lache I'anse du seau, l^che
se redresse, se redresse
et reprend haleine. reprend
Puis, elle emploie I'eau aux usages ordinaires du emploie
manage.
— Place (le lieu, I'endroit, le coin . . . ).
CO-ORDINATED ACTS. 389
APPENDIX II.
CO-ORDINATED ACTS— THE AUTHOR'S TEXT.
(See p. 236.)
The following portion of the text has been replaced by the
translators by a slightly expanded development, after careful
analysis and comparison with all the English forms (which
were not given in the original) : —
When two actions occur within the same period of time,
they may occupy therein, in relation to each other, four dif-
ferent positions.
1. They may take place parallel to each other, that is, simul-
taneously :
" WTiile he was enjoying himself, I was working."
" Tandis qiCil s'amusait, je travaillais."
This relation can be expressed by two parallel lines.
2. One of the two actions may have commenced before the
other, and be still going on — it was not ended, it was not
complete when the other began. Grammar has discovered the
true name of the first — " Imperfect Act," and it receives the
form of the Continuous Acts, — [in English ing], in French the
final Ais :
*' Yesterday, he came ivMle I was eating my lunch."
*' Hier, il 2irvi\2i. pendant que je d^jeiinais."
We may represent this relation by two lines, one of which
begins before and ends after the other.
3. The two acts may be contiguous or follow immediately
one after the other :
** Yesterday, y^s^ as I had dined (done dining), he came in."
"Hier, sitot que j'eus d^jelin^, il arriva."
Grammar once more affords us an exact denomination by
which to designate the first of these acts — the word *' Perfect "
(that is to say, a perfected act). The first act, indeed, is
accomplished or perfect when the other begins.
We may represent this third relation by two lines, the
second of which will begin opposite the point at which the
first finishes.
390 APPENDIX.
4. Lastly, the first action may have been finished for a cer-
tain time at the moment the second act commences :
"Yesterday, I had already dined (been dining) when he
arrived."
" Hier, j'avais deja din6 quand il arriva."
Here, the first action is more than perfect when the second
occurs. The term Pluperfect (that is, Act, plus or more than
perfect — Plus-que-Parfait), furnished by the grammars, there-
fore in every way suits the first of these two acts. We may
represent this relation by two straight lines which follow each
other at a certain interval.
If now we transport these four relations into definite
(finished), indefinite (unfinished), and future periods of time,
the following are the forms we shall obtain : —
ACTS CO-ORDINATED IN THE SAME PERIOD OF TIME.
A. — Simultaneous Acts.
Yesterday while I was dining ... he was working.
To-DAY . while I have been dining ... lie has been working.
To-MORROW while I am dinin^j ... he will be working.
B.— Consecutive Acts.
Yesterday (definite or finished period of time).
He arrived
while I was dining. Irrvperfed act.
just as I had dined (been dining). Perfect act.
already I had dined. Pluperfect act.
To-day — this morning (indefinite or unfinished period of time)
He arrived
while
I was dining.
Imperfect act.
just as
I had dined (been dining).
Perfect act.
already
I had dined.
Pluperfect act.
To-MORROW (future period of time).
He will arrive
while I am dining. Imperfect act,
just as I have dined (been dining). Perfect act.
already I shall have dined. Pluperfect act.
CO-ORDINATED ACTS— AUTHOR'S TEXT.
Appendix II.]
391
ACTES CO-ORDONNl&S DANS UN MfiME TEMPS.
A. — ACTES SlMULTAN^S.
HiER .
Ce Matin
Demain
tandis que je dinais
tandis que je dinais
tandis que je dinerai
11 travaillait.
il travaillait.
il travaillera.
pendant que
sitSt que
d^jd
B. — ACTES CONS^CUTIPS.
HiER (temps defini).
II arriva
je dinais.
j'eus dine,
j 'avals din6.
Acte imparfait.
Ade imrfait
Acte plus-que-parfait.
Aujourd'hui, Ce Matin (temps Indefini).
II est arrive
pendant que je dinais. Acte imparfait.
sitot que j'ai eu dine. . Acte parfait.
d^jd j'avais dine. Acte plus-que-parfait.
pendant que
sitot que
dejd
Demain (temps k venir).
II arrlvera
je dinerai.
j 'aural din^.
j'aurai dine.
Acte imparfait.
Acte parfait.
Acte plus-que-parfait.
392
APPENDIX.
APPENDIX III.
LE LION ET LE MOUCHERON (La Fontaine).
I.
L'Outrage et le Duel.
— Va-t-en, ch^tif insecte, excrement de la
terre !
C'est en ces mots que le lion parlait un jour
au moucheron.
L'autre lui d^clara la guerre :
Penses-tu, lui dit-il, --=-
que ton titre de roi me fasse peur,
ni me soucie ?
Un boeuf est plus puissant que toi ;
je le m^ne k ma fantaisie.
— A peine il achevait ces mots,
que lui-meme il sonna la charge,
f ut le trompette et le h^ros.
Dans I'abord il se met au large ;
puis prend son temps,
fond sur le cou du lion,
qu'il rend presque fou.
Le quadrup^de ^cume,
et son ceil 6tincelle ;
il rugit.
On se cache,
on tremble k I'environ,
et cette alarme universelle est I'ouvrage d'un
moucheron.
va-t-en
parlait
ddclara
penses-tu
fasse peur
soucie
est puissant
m^ne
achevait
sonna
fut trompette
se met
prend
fond
rend fou
bourne
^tincelle
rugit
se cache
tremble
est I'ouvrage
— Un avorton de mouche en cent lieux le harcelle
harcelle,
tant6t pique I'^chine et tant6t le museau, plane
tant6t entre au fond du- naseau. entre
Le rage alors se trouve a son faite mont^e. mont^e.
TRENCH LITERATURE LESSONS.
Appendix IIL]
393
LE LION ET LE MOUCHERON.
IL
Triomphe et Ruine.
— L'invisible ennemi triomphe,
et rit de voir -^
qu'il n'est grifFe ni dent en la b^te irrit^e •
qui de la mettre en sang ne fasse son devoir.
Le malheureux lion se dechire lui-meme,
fait r^sonner sa queue a I'entour de ses flancs,
bat I'air qui n'en pent mais ;
et sa fureur extreme le fatigue,
I'abat;
le voila sur les dents.
— L'insecte du combat se retire avec gloire ;
comme il sonna la charge,
il Sonne la victoire ;
va partout I'annoncer,
et rencontre en chemin I'embuscade d'une
il y rencontre aussi sa fin. [araign^e ;
triomphe
rit
n'est griffe
mettre en sang
se dechire
rdsonner
bat
fatigue
abat
voil^
se retire
sonna
sonna
annoncer
rencontre
rencontre
— Quelle chose par 1^ nous pent ^treenseign^e? enseignee
J 'en vols deux : vols
dont I'une est que -t- Tune est
entre nos ennemis les plus k craindre sont k craindre
souvent les plus petits ;
r autre, que -^ I'autre est
aux grands perils tel a pu se soustraire se soustraire
qui p6rit pour la moindre affaire.
p^rit.
394 APPENDIX.
Appetoix III.] Le Lion et le Moucheron.
(Relative Phrases or Interlocutory Sentences.)
Gont.'^ Je pense que -^ vous savez la suite.
F. att. Ne pense pas que-;^tu puisses apprendre quelque
chose sans cela !
D. t. p. Penses-tu que -^ Ton puisse apprendre une langue
sans cela ?
Cont. Et que rien ne vous fasse peur.
Oont. La construction d'une phrase ne doit pas vous f aire peur.
Tr. b. On voit que vous n'avez pas peur.
Cont. Si vous faites une faute, que cela ne vous soucie.
Tr. b. Yotre m^moire devient de jour en jour plus puissante.
Tr. b. Pour batir une phrase nul n'est plus puissant que toi.
Tr. b. Vous menez la langue a votre fantaisie.
Lent. Mettez-vous, comme on dit, au large.
Lent. Prenez votre temps.
Cont. Et dans I'abord repr^sente-toi bien le fait.
Cont. Et dans I'abord produisons le verbe.
j5. dit. C'est 1^ I'ouvrage d'un bon ^colier.
Cour. Vous triompherez.
Cour. On triomphera — nous triompherons.
Tr. b. Je triomphe -^^ de vous voir si bien marcher.
T?'. b. Je ris de voir -5^ qu'il n'est plus de difficult^ pour vous.
Att. Mettez-vous en devoir -^ de vous bien representor le
fait que vous exprimez.
Att. Faites votre devoir -^ de bien pron oncer.
Att. Fais ton devoir -:^ de parler correctement.
P. har. Qui fait une faute souvent n'en pent mais.
Tr. b. Vous n'etes pas encore sur les dents.
Cont. Montrez que -^^ vous n'etes pas encore sur les dents.
Tr. b. On ne pent pas dire : le voila sur les dents.
Tr. b. Du combat vous vous retirerez avec gloire.
Tr. b. Vous pouvez, je crois, sonner la victoire.
Att. Prenez garde aux moindres mots : entre nos ennemis
les plus k craindre sont souvent les plus petits.
Att. Aux grands perils tel a pu se soustraire qui perit
pour la moindi e affaire.
1 Cont. Continuez. D. t. jp. Donne toi de la peine.
F. att. Fais attention. P. ha^. Parlez hardiment.
Tr. b. Tr^s bien. Cour. Courage.
Lent. Lentement. Att. Attention.
£. dit. Bien dit. Ap. v. Appliquez-vous.
CERTIFICATE OF M. LOCKROY. 395
APPENDIX IV.
Certificate op the French Minister op Public Instruc-
tion TO M. Tempi^, who provided Funds for Experi-
mental Courses in German.
[Copy]
Paris, Le gjuin 1888.
A Monsieur Tempie.
Monsieur, — Monsieur le vice-recteur de TAcademie de
Paris m'a transmis un rapport sur les r^sultats obtenus dans
Tenseignement de Tallemand h I'^cole normale d'instituteurs
de Paris par Monsieur Gouin, qui a ^t^ autoris^ k faire Tappli-
cation de sa mdthode dans cet etablissement.
Get essai a permis de constater d'une maniere certaine qu'en
moins de 300 le9ons les Aleves suivaient une conversation
ordinaire, comprenaient un expose fait en allemand, savaient
donner eux-memes une lefon, ddmontrer les regies de la
grammaire et ecrire correctement.
Je crois devoir vous adresser mes felicitations pour les
r^sultats dtis k votre initiative.
• Monsieur le vice-recteur m'informe que vous auriez I'inten-
tion d'etablir k Paris, dans un local que vous demanderiez a
la ville, des cours de langues vivantes oil votre (la) method e
pourrait recevoir une utile application. Ce projet merite
d'etre pris en consideration, et je verrais avec plaisir que la
consecration donn^e par cette lettre aux resultats d6]k obtenus
pAt decider les conseils generaux a vous envoyer des boursiers
pour suivre ces cours. Recevez, Monsieur, I'assurance de ma
consideration tr^s distinguee.
Le Ministre de Vlmtruction Puhlique et des Beaux Arts,
Lockroy.
396 APPENDIX.
[Translation.]
To M. Tempi^.
Paris, June gth, 1888.
Sir, — Monsieur le Vice-Eecteur de TAcad^mie de Paris has
forwarded to me a report upon the results obtained in the
teaching of German at the Normal School of Preceptors, Paris,
by M. Gouin, who has been authorised to carry out the
application of his method in that establishment.
This trial permits the definite statement to be made
that in less than 300 lessons the pupils followed an ordinary
conversation, understood a lecture given in German, knew
themselves how to give a lesson, to demonstrate the rules of
grammar, and to write correctly.
I think it my duty to congratulate you upon the results
due to your initiative.
Monsieur le Yice-Recteur informs me that you have the
intention of establishing in Paris, on premises which you will
ask of the town, classes for the teaching of modern languages
in which the method might receive a useful application. This
project deserves to be taken into consideration, and I should
see with pleasure that the official recognition given by this
letter to the results already obtained might decide the General
Councils to send you exhibition scholars to follow these courses.
Keceive, &c.
The Minister of Public Instruction and-Fine Arts,
(Signed) Lockroy.
INDEX.
-H
PAGE
Abstract ideas, absence of, in the child 55
and metaphors ...... 184, 193
words, futility of studying . . *, . . .155
Abstraction 182, 209, 221, 257, 291
Accent 151, 272, 330
Acts, present 2oi
not tenses 223
simple and momentary . . 227
continuous and habitual ....... 232, 235
co-ordinated 236, 238-9, 389
parallel and coinciding ........ 236
anterior and posterior ........ 237
pluperfect . 240
-^«eid . 94, 333, 337, 375
Alphabet, a rational 291
Analysis and synthesis 7
and early lessons . . . . . . . *. 107
of the sentence 250
Ancient and modern languages, to be studied in the same manner . 141,
166, 2^7, 377
Annexes and corollaries of the system 288
Appendix 388
Arabic referred to 6, 166, 329, 339
Arbitrary, the, in language lessons 45
Article 123
Artificial method 85
Association, logical 42, 90
of word and thought 84
of time and act 228
Atrophy of linguistic powers 139
Attention of pupils .95
Auxiliary Series . 304
" Battle op Rossbach " 348-9
Berlin University 25
family in 56
philosophical bout at -^57
Bird, Series of 51, 62
Book, ABC 290
397
398 INDEX.
PAGE
Book, form of teaching 290
reading 289
of Nature -59
Botany, the teaching of 342,357
Breathing, and the length of phrase 93
Cakn, studies at 8
Cadence 277
" Canis et Lupus " 31 1
Cases 253
knowledge of, by Germans 257
instability of 258
Certificate by M. Lockroy . 395-6
Child, method of 4
a hackneyed riddle 5
learns no grammar . 17
living language of • • 35
logical order of ......... 34
linguistic work of 40, 47
subjective language of 52
curiosity of, cause 124
learning a language easy to 128
distinguishes by accent 152
instinctive grammar of 196, 203
and the present tense 207
and the German prefix 275
enjoyment of school 332
Chinese referred to 6, l6i
Cicero revived 380
Classes, at Berlin 25
Classics, author's antecedents in 9
study of 305
organisation of 381
Classical process, Greek 10, 30
declensions 260
construction 279
subordinate moods 285
time given in 297
and teachers 301
Complements of verba 251, 263
Concentric Series . 107
Conception, mental . . 39, 88
length of 93. 94> 9^
of an author 305
Conditional mood 244
Conjugation, study of 198
unity 203
perfect 209
tables of . . . , . . .231,235,238-9
practice of 227, 241
permanent 243
Conjunction 285
INDEX. 399
PAGE
Construction, ancient or natural 276
modern or logical 277
German 278
by the classical process 279
by the Series method 281
Construing abrogated 283
Continual talk, the 79} 82, 295
Conversation in German 14
Co-ordinated acts 236, 238, 389
Curiosity of child 124
" Death of Priam " 334
Dead languages 166, 378
Declensions, Latin 252
in the classical school 259
study of, a torture ....'... 259
on the Series method . . . . . . .261
construction of table 262
Definite periods of time 213, 219
Dialects, the dying 383
Dictation • 53^5 342
Dictionary, learning off by heart 27, 32
cure of the fear of 58
totality of, contained in the Sei ice ..... 65
use of, in the classical school 30 1
condemnation of, as an instrument for study . . . 369
Discovery of the Series system 38
Discipline, strict and lax 143. 162, 331
Dislike for the study of languages explained 128
Difficulties, in construction of Series 88, 299
of ordinary process 164
of reform . • 379
Diversion necessary to pupils 95, 132, 198
Domestic Series 123, 124
Dominant, the 87, 193
Drawing, art of teaching 292
** Drei Spinnerinnen " 313
Ear, as the organ of language . . .33, 47, 48, 56, 128, 139, 303
as tuning-fork or standard 140
Early reminiscences 362
Elementary Series 96
given by workmen 300
teachers 332
verbs 134
Enclitics 146, 285
uniformity in all languages 146
classification 147
Virgil's 148
method of teaching 163
constitution of . . .176
in German 278
400 INDEX.
PAGE
Enclitics in the classics 307
English, first lesson in . . . . . . . . . 1 74
employment of definite tense 219
Equality of intellects . 131, 330
Errors of the classical school ... 33, 35. 127, 222, 264, 280
Everyday language • 75» 289
Exercise, construction of 67
properties of 70
value of 75
difficulties of construction 84
length of 94
Eye, futility of teaching by 33, 48, 134
Failuke 30
Figurative language 5S> i<^2
based on domestic life 75
organisation of 183
art of teaching 189
Fire, Series of 106, 112
First lesson 133, 165
in eight languages 168
Fowl, Series of 51
French, first lesson in . . . . . . . . • 171
employment of indefinite tense ...... 22Q
a difficult language 273
the human language 366
Game 37, 148
Gifts of Nature 5, 210
Gift for languages . 6,31,296
Generalisation 38, 89, 185
Geography, the teaching of 355
German, attempts of author to learn 9
roots 12
thinking in 56
first lesson in 173
conjugations 231
prefix 271
an easy language 273
Goethe, translating 15, 17, 49
Grammar 196
author's study of German 1 1
a quasi-attractive science 178
practical value of ^ 196
psychologic basis 197
a game 202
unity of 203, 249
reform of 209
natural 215
Grammatical sense 202, 207, 209
Greek, author's knowlege of 10
pronunciation 137
INDEX. 401
PAGE
Greek, teaching of 166
first lesson in 169
declensions 252
grammar 253
an easy language . . . 273
and spelling lessons 291
must be spoken 338
value of, in education 364
compulsory 377
Grimm, " Die drei Spinnerinnen " 313
Hambukg Univbesitt 9
History, teaching of 343
the sacred book , . 344
put into Series . 345
specimen Series . . 348
method of teaching 350
advanced students of 352
and literature combined 353
in foreign languages 355
Homer, length of scenes in 94, 307
Horace 252, 307
Hospites 180
Humanities 364
Humboldt, Alex, von, a dunce at school 259
Imperfect acts 226, 237
Incubation of language 43> 95 > 393
Indefinite periods of time 214, 219, 229
Indicative mood 203,211
simple 231
continuous and habitual 235
co-ordinated 238-9
Individuality, weaving of, by nature 39
formation of, by language 48
translation of 49, 88
formed within one year 50
mystic ladder of 51
expressed in 100,000 sentences 294
Instinct S>207
Intellectual effect, measure of 93j 331
Intelligences equal 81
Interlocutory sentences 1575328,394
Inter-relationships 253
Intuition 210, 218, 224, 228, 271
Italian, first lesson in 1 70
Jaootot, absence of theory 8
system of 22, 90, 92
formula of . .47
Japanese 6
2
402 INDEX.
PAGB
La Fontaine 309
Language, may be learned in six months 6
art of learning 38, 48
subjective 53. 60, 144, 159
objective 53> 60, 61, 127
figurative 55» 60, 182, 189
limit of 65
inarticulate . . . 123
ease of learning 128
psychological differenco 151
time necessary to learn 294
a whole world to conquer 296
the name of a race 363
Languages, two different 52, 149, 177, 181
by the sciences and vice versd ..... 341, 356
study of, an ogre at school 342
Latin, teaching of 166
construction of exercises 166, 276, 279
first lesson in 168
grammar 205, 253
conjugation 232
belongs to second age of language 256
spoken in Roumania 257
cases 263
study of, made too easy 267
no longer a dead language 282
modal phrases 284
ordinary knowledge of 298
now requires ten masters 301
method of teaching 335
must be spoken 338
value of 363
difficulty of translating into 370
Life of the people put in Series 34^
Line by line arrangement 7^5 94
Linguistic method, need of i
an art 86
"Lion and the Gnat" 309.392
method of teaching 325
Literature and history combined 353
Literary Series 3o5» 335
specimen 3^9
method of teaching 3^5
classification of 339
Logic of the child 35> 9°
Logical order of construction 277
Mathematics 359
Means and end 43. 62, 71, 79, 92
of demonstration 7
Memory 33» 82, 91, 134, 346
Mental railway . • 2, 4
INDEX. 403
PAOK
Metaphors 183, 191
of a classical author 327
Metaphorical Series 194
Method, artificial 85
of teaching . . . 129^ 159, 189, 198, 261, 281, 325, 350
one only, of learning languages 146
Mill, visit to 36
child's series of 43
generalisation of 89
Mind, faculties of 148
Mind's eye, seeing in . . 39, 97
Mnemonic properties ' . . . .80
Modal phrases 284
Moments of precision 214
Mondeux, Henri 6, 210, 330
Moods 285
Mother's Series .82, 123, 150
Motive of Relative phrases 155, 176
Mystic ladder of individuality 51
Name, properties of . 362
Native teachers . 179
Natural forces tamed • • 3
Natural method 5, 24, 85, 91, 92
order of construction 277, 365
sciences 356
Nature, process of ... . 6, 35, 38, 44, 128, 178, 253, 293
logic of 40, 43
school of 91, 257
order of 92
secrets of 35? 59
at fault with the cases 257
Necessity of specifying the time 216
Norwegian, first lesson in 175
Nursemaid, her series S3, 123, 150
can teach the bulk of a language in six months . 128, 221
Oak, Series of 49
Object lessons 22
Objective language 53
organisation in Series 61
method of teaching 127
Ollendorf, absence of theory 8
German method 18
appreciation of 19
study of 20
failure of 21
use of the substantive 4S> 67
hideous confusion of 90
without a master 301
Oral exercise, to come first 133
Ordered conversation 163, 337
404 INDEX.
PAQB
Order of Nature 92
and disorder 91
natural and logical 276
Organ of language 33> 47? 127
Orthography 288
Parsing in practice 131
Participle . 226, 229
Pascal, quoted S9> 84
style of 361
Past, present, and future 213, 221
Perception of the mill 37
and conception 39, 41, 48
Periods of time . . 211
Perpetual speech 79, 83, 295
Personal work of the student 135, 267, 297, 301
Phffidrus, " Canis et Lupus " 3 1 1
Phrase, measure of 93
Plant, Series of 63
Ploetz, systematic vocabulary 24
Pluperfect acts 240, 390
Prefix 271
Prendergast's system 92
Preposition 256, 268
Present tense, importance of 208
Project for county high schools 354, 355, 360
Pronunciation, falsification of 57, 302
good 82
reason of false 136, 298
-figured 138
Psychology, language a chapter of 80
Psychological classification 147
Pump, Series of . 96, 99, 386
Punishment, a diversion 95
QuiETisTs, objections of 3
Reading 205, 289, 330
the classics 339
Reading-book, child's first 289
Reading-lessons in history 353
Reduce the subjects 341, 361
Reform of language teaching 127, 142
of grammar 209
of teaching reading 289
of teaching drawing 292
of teaching history 343
of teaching geography 355
of mathematics 3^0
of text-books 3^1
of teaching Greek and Latin 377
Relative phrases 54
INDEX. 405
PAGE
Relative phrases, definition 145
classification 149
motives 155
double function 177
of a classic author 327
Relationships, logical 42, 90
between things 253, 293
Remembrances, virtue of 362
Robertson, absence of theory 8
system of 23, 90, 92
Romeo and Juliet • . . . . 320
Roots, Greek and German 12
true, of tongues 19
Roumania, knowledge of Latin in 257
Routine 91, 139, 260
Rule for construction of a classic pliru:-e . . . . . . 329
Russian, referred to 166, 329
Sacristi! . . .153
Sanscrit, referred to 6, 329
Saying and doing . 37
Sciences by the languages 295, 341, 356
Seasons and the language 298
Sentence, study of 250
Sentences not words 45
Series of verbs 49> 5i
definition of 6i
material of 61
construction of ^2, 65, 86, 97
of the Mill .42
of the Bird . . 51, 62
of the Plant 50, 63
of the Bee 64
of the Wood-chopper 69
the nursemaid's or mother's 83, 123, 150
pedagogic measure of 87
of the Pump 97> 99
of the Well 104, 108
of the Spring 105, iii
concentric ......... I02, 107
of the Baker 105
ofthePire 106,112-119
of the Stove 107, 120
co-ordination of 122
domestic 123
indoor and outdoor 124
rural 125
of the Shepherd . . 125, 273
technical 126
of the Games 126
of Opening the Door . . . . . 129, 160
method of teaching 129
4o6 INDEX.
PAGB
Series, specimen, in eight languages 174
metaphorical 1 94
for reading-lessons ......... 289
for drawing-lessons . . 292
literary .... 309
historical . 345, 348-9
geographical • . . . 355
spoken 356, 359
scientific 356
mathematical -359
classical 381
specimen in French . 386
Series method, applicable to all languages . . 6, 166, 283, 329, 385
Shakespeare ........... 320
Simplification of teaching 142, 361
Spanish, first lesson in 172
Spelling 288, 291
Spring, series of the ill
State, duty of, in preserving languages 364
Steps or divisions in exercises 72, 307
Stove, Series of the 120
Students at Berlin 25
Style 277, 327, 361
Substantive 45
Substantives, general and specific 76
Substitutes 73. 77, 82, 103
Subjective language 52
its organisation 144, 157
method of teaching 159
Subjunctives 246
Succession in time ......... 42, 71, 92
Symbols of metaphors 186, 327
Symmetry, vain search for 226
Syntax 250, 265
Synthesis 7
Systematic vocabulary 24
Teacher, one for three classes . 142, 162, 193
necessity of a 301
Teacher's task simplified 135
spoken series 359
Teaching must assume the character of a game . . . .129
Tenses and acts 204
various use of same 225
Theory ^ 8
Thinking in the foreign language 57, 130, 141
Thought and words . . 122, 139
Third person 203, 208
Time in general * . .212, 228
always mentionpd 216
necessary to learn a language 294, 368
Traditions 363
INDEX. 407
PAQK
Tragen, inner meaning of l6
Transcription of a classical work 306
Translation, Goethe and Schiller 15, 16, 31
judgment of 17, 141,370
Typographic form . . . . . . . . . 290, 307
Value of Greek and Latin 362
Variants 104
Verb, importance of 45, 283, 306
Series of 50
principal part played by . . . . ' . . . .67
concentration of attention upon 82, 13 1
definition by position 102
study of 198
Verbs, of ends and of means 77» 79
irregular 202
complete and incomplete 251
Vicious circle of the dictionary 371
Virgil, translating 49
length of scenes in 94, 307
enclitics in . 148
assimilation of 268, 306, 337
Eclogues, construction 279
no longer a dead language 282
specimen of transcription 335
method of studying 336
Vocabulary 24, 65, 73, 373
Vocabulomania 374
Voltaire's History 354
Web of language 46
Well, Series of the 108
Women teachers 300
Wood-chopper, Series of 69
Words, inner sense of 15
number of, in a Series lesson 73
and thoughts 122, 139
Writing 179. 295, 339
Written Series 84
words 140
Zeitwort 46
Zoology 342
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ED-P UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
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